I am sitting
in a pub beneath the ATV studios in Birmingham, but I am not drunk;
not even remotely jollied - up. I am waiting for Johnny Rotten, wondering
where exactly on God's earth this recalcitrant urchin is at this moment.
So is Mickie
Most, the producer of Revolver and the programme's director, Chris Tookey.
So are the increasingly tired and emotional representatives of Virgin
Records, who have spent most of this drab Tuesday afternoon apologizing
for Mr Rotten's continued and baffling absence.
We are, none
of us, in good humour. We are in truth, profoundly kissed off by the
apparent disappearance of Rotten and his new ensemble: Public Image
Ltd., who have been lost somewhere between London and this concrete
metropolis in the Midlands.
Let me start
from the beginning: Public Image Ltd. had been scheduled to appear last
week in Birmingham to record a performance for Mickie Most's Revolver.
Public Image, in fact, were to be the last featured band in the first
series of this programme, bringing the show to a dramatic conclusion.
An excellent idea. Virgin, of course, were thrilled when they received
Most's invitation. So, we understand, was John Rotten. So were Revolver
when Virgin, on John's behalf, accepted.
Public Image
Ltd., then, were to arrive at ATV last Tuesday afternoon to rehearse
a brief set which would be filmed that evening before a live audience.
Virgin waved goodbye. Mickie and the boys and girls at Revolver clapped
their hands and waited for them to arrive. The band were expected to
make a physical at around 2.00pm.
You're still
with me, I trust.
Shortly before
noon, Rudi Van Egmond, Virgin's Regional Promotion Manager, received
a telephone call from Jah Wobble, Public Image's bass player. Jah informed
Rudi that the group were at Watford Gap and that they were likely to
be delayed because the Transit in which they were traveling had suffered
a puncture in one of the tires. Rudi was not particularly alarmed. The
production staff at Revolver were alerted. They were told to expect
Mr Rotten and his compatriots at about 4.00pm.
Now, this is
where the entire episode begins to assume the aspect of comic farce.
Jah Wobble's telephone call to Virgin virtually coincided with the arrival
at Vernon's Yard of Public Image's guitarist, Keith Levene, who had
dropped by with the tapes of the group's forthcoming single.
Levene's appearance
provoked a definite murmur of surprise in the Virgin office. Why, he
was asked, was he not at Watford Gap with the rest of his group on the
way to ATV? Because, he blandly replied, he had been told by the rest
of his group, they had pulled out of their projected appearance on Revolver.
Mmmm, mused
the Virgin office, suddenly suspicious.
Levene, it was
decided, would travel to Birmingham with the Virgin promotion manager
and Van Egmond: there had merely been some misunderstanding between
Levene and the rest of his group. They arrived at the ATV studios at
about 3.00pm (as did your reporter.) There had been no further communication
from Rotten's party: charitably, it was assumed that they would soon
be with us.
The continued
absence of Rotten and his boys - at 4.00pm there was still no sign of
them - quickly began to bite at the nerves of the ATV executives, the
Virgin reps and, especially, Keith Levene whose paranoia count must
have been escalating at a pace too rapid to accurately measure. Eddie
and the Hot Rods were prancing about the studio recording a new song
called 'Circles', finally cutting it after a series of abortive takes.
Chris Tookey was pleased. Mickie Most was not.
'Oh God', he
declared, bursting into the control room, 'I've just seen one of Johnny
Rotten's group fighting with one of the security men. I suppose we won't
have them on the show tonight.' The remark was premature, but eventually
prophetically exact.
Levene, we would
later discover, had become increasingly irate at Rotten's belated arrival,
and, frustrated by the delays and, we suppose, Rotten's failure to contact
him about the appearance on Revolver (which must have smacked of a successful
attempt to annoy him, and even to edge him out of his group,) had become
involved in a scuffle with one of the security chaps.
'What', asked
Mickie Most of Chris Tookey, 'are we going to do if Rotten doesn't appear?'
'Panic'. replied
Mr Tookey.
The Virgin reps
were beginning to look quite haggard. Mickie Most appeared - with some
justification - to be so angry that he might at any moment have declared
himself in favour of bringing back the birch, National Service, transportation
and even keel-hauling as punishment for such rapscallions as Rotten
and his devious crew of troublemakers.
Mr Most, in
no uncertain terms, told the helplessly apologetic Virgin reps that
if Rotten and his band failed to appear within the next half-hour they
would immediately be dropped from the programme and he, personally,
would ensure that they would be banned from the entire commercial network.
The Virgin reps apologized. Again. They are now as furious as Mr Most.
We all went for a drink and waited. Mr Most hurried off to discuss his
strategy with Mr Tookey and to attempt to secure a replacement for the
missing Public Image.
At 6.30pm there
seemed only the most remote possibility of Rotten turning up. We had
a drink and waited. The Rich Kids, we heard, were on their way: with
Glen Matlock cheerfully appreciating the delicious irony of the situation,
we didn't doubt. The Sex Pistols, too, had been approached, and Mr Most
was optimistic about the possibility of them appearing with the Rich
Kids.
John Rotten
had still not appeared by 7.30pm. He was now banned from the entire
commercial network, presumably.
I suggested
to the Virgin reps - charitably, I thought - that perhaps Rotten and
his cronies had been ambushed somewhere north of Watford by agents of
Malcolm McLaren. They were not overly amused. Perhaps, I continued,
they were en route to Eritrea for a benefit concert. They shook their
heads. We had another drink and waited.
I wondered whether
Rotten might eventually appear and excuse himself by claiming to have
been waylaid and beamed up by extra-terrestrial space travellers while
the transit was negotiating a hazardous stretch of the M1 somewhere
near the Luton Triangle ( a notorious area in which so many groups have
vanished after radio contact has been mysteriously lost - a fantasy
captured by the erudite pen of Mr Hunt Emerson in the accompanying cartoon,
readers.) This thought, similarly, failed to amuse the forlorn Virgin
reps.
So we had another
drink and waited, and eventually traipsed back to the ATV studios where
roving deejay Chris Hill was introducing the Rich Kids: 'These people
were at home two hours ago with their feet up watching Crossroads',
he declared, 'so let's hear it for the Rich Kids...' Mickie Most seemed
to be on the verge of collapse. Peter Cook made rude comments about
the disappearance of Mr Rotten, none of which I would care to repeat
here.
The partner
of the driver hired by Virgin to transport Rotten and his crew of reprobates
to Birmingham was very worried; he imagined the driver being forced
by Jah Wobble at knife point to take the group and assorted 'mates'
for a day at the seaside.
As it happened,
Jah Wobble turned up at Virgin the next morning, strolling in with a
smile so smug it brought with it a personal assistant and a chauffeur.
Rotten and Public Image Ltd., it transpired, had 'persuaded' - euphemism
is clearly ironic - the driver to take them to Camber Sands, where they
had enjoyed a day frolicking upon the sand dunes and paddling in the
breakers along the beach.
The Virgin reps
were still not amused. Neither was Mickie Most, not Chris Tookey.
And neither
was I, Johnny.
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