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In 1974 there was a band called the Swankers, featuring Wally Nightingale on
guitar, Paul Cook on drums, Paul's uncle on bass and Steve Jones on vocals.
They did mostly cover versions of late 60s pop songs and a few originals
such as Scarface & Did You No Wrong, written by Wally. In 75 they replaced
Paul's uncle with Glen Matlock and later got Malcolm McLaren interested in
managing them. He fired Wally, put Steve on guitar and started looking for
a new singer. He actually considered taking the job himself until they
found 'street urchin', Johnny Rotten strutting around the Kings Road. Malcolm
went off to manage the New York Dolls and when he came back, the band had enough
material to start doing gigs, which they did, blagging their way into colleges
and clubs at first, then taking support spots with the likes of The 101ers, The
Stranglers, The Pretty Things and Screaming Lord Sutch.
It was in March 1976 that they first started hiring Dave Goodman's giant blue PA system. Dave being an experienced musician, sound engineer and up and coming record producer, helped them form their sound. A sound that was a lot more futuristic than most of the 'pub rock' bands around at the time. He also recorded and produced a batch of their songs on his recording equipment and introduced them to the concept of overdubbing. They were quick to learn and by July 76, Malcolm was hawking Dave's tape around to the major record companies. It impressed EMI so much that they signed the band and contracted Dave to produce their first single. EMI wanted Pretty Vacant but got Anarchy at Dave's insistence. After ten long days in two studios, Dave had what he felt was the definitive version of the song - just needed mixing.
Unfortunately I was never allowed to finish my version, although my unfinished tape was released by Virgin etc to much acclaim. Pete Townshend thought "it was the heaviest record he'd ever heard". Chris Thomas stepped in and did his own version, while I got the B-side with I Wanna Be Me For some reason EMI credited Thomas with my work on the B side. After EMI fired the band I was re-hired to produce some new tracks.
In all, I produced 14 tracks, all of which became the original SPUNK album. It was my SPUNK LP that NME reviewed as "The Real Sex Pistols album" and it was my productions that made up nearly half of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle LP
LINKS: http://www.sex-pistols.net/ http://www.sex-pistols.co.uk/ DISCOGRAPHY