COUNCILLORS TO VET PUNK ROCK GROUP

THE Sex Pistols punk rock group, whose four-letter word TV shocker created a national furore were this afternoon being vetted by councillors in Derby and on the outcome hung the fate of a public concert in the town to-night.

So far seven concerts on the group's current nationwide tour have been cancelled because of disgust over the infamous "dirty words" interview given by the group on Thames TV on Wednes-day.

The Derby councillors. who in-clude two women, have been assured that the band's audition performance would be identical to the one they plan to give in public tonight.

Worried

Mr. Norman Rushton, Derby's entertainments officer, said the promoter of the group's tour had said that he stood to lose a lot of money because other towns were now worried about their book-ings.

"We shall listen to the Sex Pistols and other local authorities can ring on Monday to find out how it went," he said.

Last night a Pistols perform ance at the University of East Anglia was banned, and concerts in Newcastle, Bournemouth, Lan-caster, Preston. Bristol and Bir-mingham later this month have also been cancelled.

By JEFF SAMUELS

THE Sex Pistols were given the by a bunch of irate city fathers yesterday.

Councillors at Derby banned the Punk Rock group from a concert last night after they failed to turn up for a preview in the afternoon.

In return Johnny Rotten, the group's leader, stuck one finger up his nose and gave the town a V-sign as his coach nulled out.

Then he gave his verdict on the councillors behind the ban. "They're a load of daft old sods." he said. All afternoon the city fathers had waited patiently in the town's King's Hall to hear the group and decide whether to allow them to play in the concert.

And all afternoon the group sat defiantly munching chicken sandwiches i n the Crest Hotel. At 4 p.m.. the fed-up councillors decided they had waited long enough. Councillor Les Shepley, chairman of the leisure committee, told reporters: "It's off all bloody off.' It was the tenth concert' on the group's tour to be cancelled since their foul-mouthed TV performance on Wednesday.

Meanwhile Grundy, the interviewer on the programme, was taking a fortnight's enforced rest from broadcasting He said grimly: "There are two particular four letter words I object to at the moment—punk and rock."

FOOTNOTE: Officials of Manchester City football club have banned all further Sex Pistols' advertisements from their match programmes after complaints about the one used yesterday for the match against Derby.

Sex Pistols show banned in Derby

The Sex Pistols rock group refused to give a private weekend performance for 12 "censor" councillors in Derby and were banned from appearing at their Anarchy in the UK concert on Saturday night.

The councillors, including two women, waited for two hours hoping that the Sex Pistols would appear so they could judge whether they should be allowed to give their performance.

But the rock group did not turn up and sent a message to the coun-cillors saying that they were con sidered too old to appreciate the group's music.

Coun. Les Shepley, chairman of Derby Leisure Committee, an-nounced: "The manager of the Sex Pistols says that they refused

point-blank to appear for a preview. They don't think we are fit and proper persons, being of the wrong age group."

The Sex Pistols issued a state-ment saying: "We feel it is un reasonable to expect our perform-ance to be fudged by people uncon-nected with and unfamiliar with our music We prefer to be judged by those who see our concerts and listen to our records."

A promoter, Mr. Nick Bowbanks, of Birmingham, said he was worried about reaction to the group's refusal to appear for the preview.

Although bookings had been can-celled in Birmingham, Newcastle and Norwich, he was hoping the band would appear in the next fortnight in Birmingham, Leeds. Norwich, Liverpool, London and Middlesbrough or Sunderland.

PISTOLS: the show must come off.

AND AFTER ALL THAT, THE DEAR LADS TUSSLE WITH THE CITY FATHERS

THE MAN ON THE DESK at EMI House on Saturday morning thought The Sex Pistols were "just a bunch of stupid kids".

To the good citizens of tasteful Derby, however, they're more menacing than V.D. For the first time in Derby's history, it was Judgement Day. Derby welcomes dirty movies with open arms. -Emmanuelle ran for weeks but then, the people who make skin flicks ain't kids. And since The Sex Pistols are kids who want to play for kids, the Leisure Committee of Derby decided that young minds needed protection.

This was the first occasion the Committee had ever previewed anything that might pollute the pure Derby air; no films, no plays, no books, no bands had ever run the gamut before. But of course The Sex Pistols are different!

Whatever credibility The Pistols lost when they signed on the dotted line, they gained three times over when they put Bill Grundy in his place on Thursday night. Forget all the slogans of the Sixties and all the pseudo rebellion when Dean Martin told the Rolling Stones their hair was too long at Caesar's Palace. they took it like good boys. For the first time, a rock and roll star has turned out to be Rotten by nature as well as name.

Anyhow, just when it seemed that The Pistols had blown it by agreeing to play for a bunch of concerned councillors at 2.00 in the King's Hall, so that their act could be nicely censored, they did it again. Outside the National Front were threatening to align themselves WITH The Pistols (in which case the gig would have been cancelled for sure), the News of the World had booked into The Pistols hotel and an unidentified Sunday rag was said to be offering Mr. Rotten £1000 for his version of the se v so far. In lobby of the hotel, Bernard the manager of Clash, clarified the left wing leanings of himself and his boys, and told us we'd blown it completely by assuming that 'Punk' equalled Nazi. As the City elders tried to stifle The Pistols, you saw the logic. Outside there were TV cameras and someone was rumoured to 'making a movic of the whole fandango.

In the King's Hall at four, it became clear that Rotten and Co weren't gonna show. Sympathisers breathed freely: The Pistols weren't nobody's patsies, after all. Fleet Street cornered the erstwhile Bernard outside the councillors room from which voices were being raised in unseemly annoyance and he stated that if The Pistols weren't allowed on, Clash, The Damned and The Heartbreakers weren't playing either. For solidarity these boys got the miners beat anytime.

At 5 a statement came. There would be no show. The councillors had held out the bait, and The Pistols hadn't bitten, The councillors spokes-man said The Pistols had been given a fair chance; a snowball in hell had a better chance on Saturday night than Johnny Rotten in Derby. There was no way those watchdogs were going to let The Pistols set foot on that hollowed stage.

Back at the hotel, the News of the World chick whispered breathlessly over the phone; "I got six lines of obscenities out of Rotten before he left! "The Pistols had flown the nest.

The first cut is the deepest, but the second poisons the blood. The kids played at Revolution in the Sixties and failed because they thought they could change the world withou damaging people. Everyone can see now that if no one gets hurt nothing is going to change. The Pistols are coming to your town soon; are you going to make sure they're allowed to partake in the fable of free speech of this democratic country or are you going to sink back into stupor for another decade?

The Fascists are in the council chambers, not on the stage.

JULIE BURCHILL

Sex Pistols – The Cancelled Derby gig 1976

ON 19 JANUARY 2016 BY MARKOSGIGARCHIVEIN UNCATEGORIZED
Ooh the excitement, the Sex Pistols were coming to Derby again (having already played Cleo’s on 30 September). Upon hearing the good news I promptly went down to the local record store R.E.Cords and purchased my ticket for the mighty sum of £1.60. And they had support, the Damned, Johnny Thunders Heartbreakers (an ex New York Doll) and The Clash. This was The Anarchy in the U.K. tour, and in solidarity with them I promptly ripped my ‘Never Mind the Bollocks.. Here’s The Sex Pistols’ LP cover in half (then sellotaped it back together again – well how else was I going to store it with all my other LPs?).

They were due to play the King’s Hall (basically the local swimming baths, they used to cover the pool so bands could play!) in Derby on 4 December 1976.

Unfortunately for me and hundreds more what happened on December 1st, 1976 would put an end to what would have been a great night out. The group appeared on the ‘Today’ TV show, hosted by one Bill Grundy (dick head!) who goaded them into swearing – now that certainly was frowned upon in those days – let alone the stream of F-words. Alas this was being broadcast live in London. The next day the press made them headline news all over the UK. Overnight their entire concert dates for December were pretty much all cancelled!

Poster - Anarchy in the UK tour 1976
Sex Pistols cause outrage on Bill Grundy showAh the boys - 1 Dec 1976 on TVDerby Evening Telegraph pic of sad old git councillor's waiting .
Derby Gig Cancelled
All this publicity was far too much for the good folk of Derby City Council to bear – don’t forget this was ‘up north – the provinces’. They decided that they should preview the gig to make sure it was ‘suitable for human consumption’. So at the aforementioned hour (14:00) local councillors and press gathered at the venue where the Pistols had promised to preview a matinee gig for them. They all waited for 2 hours in front of an empty stage (bar a guitar and amp) but the Pistols didn’t turn up! Angered councillors said that the Pistols would not be allowed to perform, but the other bands could. Malcolm McClaren had decided that none of the bands should play, however the Damned disagreed. After some discord the event was off, nobody played.

Well what’s a poor boy to do? That’s right, take your ticket back and get a refund. After all £1.60 in those days was the equivalent to an excellent night out with a pint being approx. 25 pence!

[extract] "when a number of parents started to organise in order to prevent the show. The Derby Evening Telegraph used its front page to warn that people were prepared to use force. A small group were
averse to even allowing the band to perform privately in front of the leisure committee.

protestors threaten to mount a large picket

A caller to the paper's news desk warned that parents would use stink bombs, smoke bombs, air raid sirens and violence if necessary. They would also mount a large picket.

According to the Derby Evening Telegraph, ‘the irate parents did not want Derby to be labelled a filthy town'.48 The paper passed on these messages to the police and the council. The editor no doubt felt that this would influence the decision on the concert. However, there was a voice of pragmatism amongst the welter of ‘moral outrage'.

Councillor Mick Walker, leader of the council's minority Labour group viewed the whole thing as a farce that was trivialising the work of the local authority. Walker felt that their role as elected representatives did not include being ‘guardians of public morals'. He said that he would not be attending the audition and hoped that all his Labour colleagues would take a similar decision.*?

Lydon's mum

John Lydon's mother provided a similar critique of the way in which councillors were prioritising the wrong issues. The councillors annoy me because they sit back and don't do their job that they're supposed to do. They keep banning kids who want to see them [Sex Pistols] but they won't rehouse people, they leave people homeless on the streets ... they just sit back and say this band can't play ... because of the violence. I think it's more violent people sleeping on the streets and giving them no homes.~*?

Mrs Lydon's comments articulated the working-class alienation experienced by many inhabitants of high-rise housing blocks on council estates, who, like the Lydons, had been left behind by Harold Wilson's particular brand of ‘socialism'.

Her son would often dedicate the song ‘Liar' to the former Prime Minister at a number of Sex Pistols performances. Here again was an example of the link between class and popular music.

For working-class youths such as Lydon, music was one way in which class could be encapsulated in a short song accompanied by a backbeat that tapped into the consciousness of record buyers and those attending live performances by the Sex Pistols.

"It's ludicrous that people who are 102 years old should pass judgement"

On the day of the concert the councillors waited two hours for the group to perform. Contrary to the pleas of Walker, five Labour councillors attended, along with five Conservatives. The road crew had already set-up the instruments and the scene was set.

The Sex Pistols issued a statement that they would only be judged by those who wanted to attend the official concert and not by people ‘unfamiliar with their music'. Bernie Rhodes, manager of the Clash, said ‘that we don't agree to the terms we have to perform under.

It's ludicrous that people who are 102 years old should pass judgement'.°! The event was now turned into a circus with the venue besieged by over 40 journalists who were awaiting a verdict. Councillor Shepley eventually read out a prepared statement in front of the group's equipment claiming that the committee ‘had bent over backwards to accommodate them' but had decided that their non-attendance at the audition meant that they would not be allowed to perform."

The Damned, damned

The Derby debacle had also caused conflict amongst the groups that were accompanying the Sex Pistols on the tour. McLaren had decided that all the performers should refuse to appear in front of the councillors.

One of the supporting acts, the Damned, broke ranks and agreed to play. Glen Matlock, bass player with the Sex Pistols, returned to the subject of the Derby debacle in his autobiography and claimed that the decision was based on ‘narrow-minded, pig ignorant, provincial censorship'.

The reaction of the Derby councillors indicates the way in which local authorities outside of the capital were unwilling to accept metropolitan influences in their districts that they viewed as damaging to the ‘morality' of the local population." (more...)