Sunday Night With Sid

Look, I'm not going to make the claim that John Ritchie aka Sid Vicious was any kind of real musician, but damm it if he didn't really want to be.

One of the founders of both The Flowers of Romance and Siouxsie and the Banshees and then later the "bass" player for the Sex Pistols, there is no doubt that Sid was mostly on stage to provide the perfect Punk "image", and yet there is something, well, there is no other world for it then, brilliant version of the classic crooner, My Way.

I admit it starts off in this horribly irritating manner, but once Sid gets going, the result is pure chaos and an amazing performance.

Oh sure, everybody including Sid's mom ends up in the same state as Nancy Spungen, but the song rocks and convinced me that Billy Idol ended up with Sid's career.

By the way here's a bit from the Great Rock n Roll Swindle with Sid moving around Paris being obnoxious, stoned and threatening, well as threatening as a 100 pound herion addict can get.

This piece I enjoy, not because of Sid walking around making a nodding fool of himself, but instead because of the really cool version of, L'Anarchy Pour Le UK, that the street musicians perform. It's probably one of my two or three very favorite cover songs ever.

Anyway back to Sid performing, in his attempts to replace John Lydon in the Sex Pistols, Malcolm Mclaren recorded tracks with Paul Cook, Steve jones and even Sid on lead vocals to see if one of them could step in.

Now none of the boys really could compare to Lydon's ferocious vocals, but the attempts do make for some enjoyable tracks, with Sid having recorded remakes of a couple of tunes first made popular by Eddie Cochran.

First Sid get's ready for a busy day in this cover of Something Else.

This last video is actually far more conventional with Sid riding around the countryside on a motorcycle singing his cover of C'mon Everybody.

Sid really was just a kid in way over his head, but at the same time I understand why he has become such an iconic image. Despite everything there was something about Ritchie that was charismatic and to young people anyway cool.

It's just a shame that the kid didn't live long enough to get his life together, though I guess after stabbing nacy there really was no turning back.