So this video pops up in my suggested today

[raider bill]

3 things stood out

1. you can hear Sid's playing

2. He isn't horrible, although the music is simplistic and he is just chugging the root note.

3. Paul Cook was a damn solid drummer trying to keep those 3 in time LOL

 

[TheDayMan]

Sounded pretty horrible to me, caught multiple fuck ups in there. Including timing issues that you mentioned.

There’s so much 70s punk that was so great... why there’s this instinct out there to defend or prop up the Sex Pistols is beyond me.

 

[gohusk]

Sounded pretty horrible to me, caught multiple fuck ups in there. Including timing issues that you mentioned.

There’s so much 70s punk that was so great... why there’s this instinct out there to defend or prop up the Sex Pistols is beyond me.

It's a great album but there's nothing revolutionary about what they did. It's basically the same stuff that other standard punk bands were putting out at the time. The one thing that really stood out was Johnny Rotten's voice and he deserves credit for that. Everybody else is painfully average at best as far as what they're doing.

 

[Tai Chi≈Surfing]

The Pistols put out some good stuff in a small amount of time.
A few of their tunes have maintained their cornerstone punk status, and they carved out a nice little niche.
But I always thought their success was due more to Malcolm McLaren's management & promotion than to them talent wise.

FTR: PiL >>>>>>

 

[raider bill]

The mix is bad. People have said Sid couldn't play at all he seems to be hitting all the right notes. Lemmy must have been a good teacher.

 

[TheDayMan]

The mix is bad. People have said Sid couldn't play at all he seems to be hitting all the right notes. Lemmy must have been a good teacher.

Stumbling through with a bunch of fuckups and no sense of time ≠ “he could play”.

Obviously he could do enough to chug through an album and train wreck tour. He did those things... so I’m gonna go out on a crazy limb and say when people say he couldn’t play they mean it in a more figurative, general sense.

 

[raider bill]

He didnt play on the album, Glen Matlock did.

I just thought it was interesting. Guy was brought on for his look and had never played before. It's punk, his playing is passible.

 

[shopson67]

He didnt play on the album, Glen Matlock did.

I just thought it was interesting. Guy was brought on for his look and had never played before. It's punk, his playing is passible.

Do you understand how easy it is to play bass if all you're doing is chugging along on the bass note, especially with the timing issues and sloppiness that you are describing?

 

[raider bill]

I play guitar and bass.. dude was a junkie.. it was always rumored that he couldnt play at all and they just turned him down.


It's been a long accepted truism in rock circles that Sid just flailed away hopelessly and was there purely for the visual element, but at least by the end of the tour he seemed on his way to being a competent, if rather unexceptional, bass player.

 

[TheDayMan]

He didnt play on the album, Glen Matlock did.

I just thought it was interesting. Guy was brought on for his look and had never played before. It's punk, his playing is passible.

well in that case...

It’s not really passible from that clip though... plenty of punk bands knew how to play, or at least learned as they went.

 

[raider bill]

This is a better recording of their soundcheck.

 

[raider bill]

well in that case...

It’s not really passible from that clip though... plenty of punk bands knew how to play, or at least learned as they went.

I was wrong about that apparently Steve Jones played the bass also, Matlock was out of the band by that point.

 

[TheDayMan]

This is a better recording of their soundcheck.

That is a pretty effin awesome recording. Very cool.

Lydon being every bit the prick you’d expect, everyone bitching about Sid being too loud, it all somehow sounding good... classic.

And I’ll concede, sounds like he learned at least one scale from the noodling we hear in there.

 

[beardown07]

sex pistols suck