Sid Vicious was an English bassist and vocalist. He achieved fame as a member of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols, replacing Glen Matlock, who had fallen out of favour with the rest of the group.
Background
Vicious was born Simon John Ritchie on 10 May 1957 in Lewisham, to John and Anne Ritchie. His mother dropped out of school early due to a lack of academic success and went on to join the RAF, where she met her husband-to-be, Ritchie's father, a guardsman at Buckingham Palace and a semi-professional trombone player on the London Jazz scene. Shortly after Ritchie's birth, he and his mother moved to Ibiza, where they expected to be joined by his father who, it was planned, would support them financially in the meantime. However, after the first few cheques failed to arrive, Anne realised he would not be coming. Anne later married Christopher Beverley in 1965, before setting up a family home back in Kent. Ritchie took his father's first name and stepfather's surname and was known as John Beverley.
Education
Simon John Ritchie attended Sandown Court School. Then he entered Hackney Technical College.
By age 17, Ritchie was hanging around London. One favourite spot was Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's then-little-known clothing store, SEX. There he met American expatriate Chrissie Hynde before she formed the Pretenders. Though at least five years older, she tried (but failed) to convince Ritchie to join her in a sham marriage so she could get a work permit. John Lydon nicknamed Ritchie "Sid Vicious" after Lydon's pet hamster Sid (which was named after Syd Barrett), who had bitten Ritchie, eliciting Ritchie's response: "Sid is really vicious!" The animal was described by Lydon as "the softest, furriest, weediest thing on earth." At the time, Ritchie was squatting with Lydon, John Joseph Wardle (Jah Wobble), and John Grey, and the four were familiarly known as "the Four Johns".
Vicious began his musical career in 1976 as a member of the Flowers of Romance along with former co-founding member of the Clash, Keith Levene (who later co-founded John Lydon's post-Pistols project Public Image Limited; their 1981 album was titled after the band) and Palmolive and Viv Albertine, who would later join the Slits. He appeared with Siouxsie and the Banshees, playing drums at their notorious first gig at the 100 Club Punk Festival in London's Oxford Street. According to members of the Damned, Vicious was considered, along with Dave Vanian, for the position of lead singer for the Damned, but Vicious failed to show up for the audition.
McLaren had created the Sex Pistols in 1975. One of the leading forces in punk music, the band played fast-paced short songs, expressing angst and frustration about the social and political conditions of the time. Unlike music acts from previous generations, the group had no interest in producing hit records or pleasing anyone other than themselves. Even before Vicious joined, the Sex Pistols were known for causing quite a stir. During a live television interview in 1976, they spewed so many profanities that they were soon dropped by their record company.
Vicious was on board, however, for some of the group's biggest sensations. On the single "God Save the Queen," singer John Rotten (the stage name of John Lyndon) insulted Queen Elizabeth II, saying that she "ain't no human being" and had a "fascist regime." This upset many Britons, especially since 1977 was Queen's Jubilee, the celebration of her 25 years as the reigning monarch. As a result, the band was physically attacked several times and unable to find places to play in the United Kingdom.
Still The Sex Pistols managed to sell a lot of records, especially considering the single was banned and many retailers refused to sell the resulting album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. There was no denying that they struck a chord with punk music fans.
That same year, Vicious met an American woman named Nancy Spungen. The two became inseparable. She accompanied him on the Sex Pistols' brief tour of the United States in early 1978. The group only played eight concerts together before the band fell apart. The dissolution of the Sex Pistols was fed, in part, by escalating drug use and personal conflicts, including tension between Spungen and Vicious's bandmates. It has been reported that Rotten encouraged Vicious to break off his relationship to Spungen.
After the break-up of the Sex Pistols, Vicious and Spungen spent time in London before moving to New York City. They stayed at the Chelsea Hotel, home to many artists, writers, and musicians over the years. Spungen took over as Vicious's manager and got him a few gigs, but his performances were lackluster as he was strung out on drugs at the time. The two tried to get clean briefly, but they soon spent most of their time feeding their drug habit, which included heroin, barbiturates, and a synthetic form of morphine.
Sometime during the early hours of October 12, 1978, the couple's downward spiral reached a tragic end. Spungen was found dead on the bathroom floor in their room at the Chelsea Hotel. She had been stabbed with a knife she had given Vicious as a present. Vicious was later found in the hallway in a complete drug-induced fog. He alternated between saying that he couldn't remember what happened and confessing that he killed her. Vicious was charged with second-degree murder.
A few days later, Vicious was released on bail, using money put up by his record company. Despondent over Spungen's death, he tried to commit suicide after leaving jail. After a fight in a New York City club, Vicious was locked up again. He spent seven weeks in the prison on Riker's Island. On February 1, Vicious was released. He celebrated his newfound freedom with a party at the home of actress Michelle Robinson. Sometime that evening, Vicious returned to using heroin. The next morning he was found dead of a drug overdose.
Shortly after Sid Vicious' death, his mother Anne Beverley claimed that Vicious and Spungen made a suicide pact and that Vicious' death was not accidental. Beverley claimed that after Vicious was cremated, she found a handwritten note in the pocket of Vicious' leather jacket.
In the pilot episode of documentary series Final 24, NYPD police sergeant Richard Houseman revealed that shortly after overdosing, Vicious wanted another dose of heroin. Anne Beverley went into the bedroom. In 1996, Beverley confessed to journalist Alan G. Parker that she had then purposely administered a fatal dose of heroin to Vicious because she knew that he was afraid of going back to prison and had doubts about how good his lawyers were, even though the lawyers were certain they would clear his name. In an interview some time after this documentary's broadcast, it was revealed that the show's production team lied to Parker to obtain his "confession". Parker later directed his own film, Who Killed Nancy?, to set the record straight.
His sudden death only fueled his legacy as a punk rock icon. His twisted love affair with Spungen was the inspiration for the 1986 film Sid and Nancy, starring actor Gary Oldman as Vicious.
One of the most mythic figures of the 1970s punk explosion, Sid Vicious became famous for his edgy, rebellious persona and his self-destructive tendencies. In 2004, the magazine ranked the Sex Pistols No. 58 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time." In 2006, Vicious, along with the four original members of the Sex Pistols, was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame, although the band refused to attend.
The Sex Pistols were not into any political party. They used Nazi imagery such as Swastikas for shock or comedy value, but did not share their ideology.
Views
Sid Vicious saw the world in dark colors. While attending Kingsway College for difficult and expelled kids, Sid Vicious was singled out by a counselor after mentioning suicide. The counselor asked Vicious to bring a friend to the session and John Wardle went for a laugh. When the counselor told him that Vicious planned to kill himself, Wardle joked back that "Sid might as well end it all." Instead of laughing, Vicious nodded his head very gravely. Wardle came out of the session seriously worried about his friend's darker side.
Quotations:
"I got that job."
"I'm not vicious really. I consider myself kind-hearted. I love my mum."
"I'll probably die by the time I reach 25. But I'll have lived the way I wanted to."
"Well, you know, like, I don't really give a fuck what the general public think."
"American audiences are just the same as anybody else. Except a bit more boring."
"The band broke up because I couldn't bear Rotten anymore because he was an embarrassment with his silly hats and his, like, shabby, dirty, nasty looking appearance."
"You just pick a chord, go twang, and you've got music."
"We had a death pact. I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby in my leather jacket, jeans and motor cycle boots. Goodbye."
"All I did was cash in on the fact that I'm good-looking and I have a good figure and girls like me."
"I'm not chic, I could never be chic. I was in it from its inception."
Membership
Was a member of the "Bromley Contingent," a group of young punk fans who followed the Pistols and other punk bands around England.
Bromley Contingent
Personality
Sid Vicious was a born leader, with extra-ordinary drive and determination. Insisting on his right to make up his own mind, he demands freedom of thought and action, and does not let anything or anyone stand in his way once he is committed to his goal.
McLaren said in person and in a documentary that if he had met Vicious before he had hired Rotten to be the singer, Vicious would have been the Sex Pistols' front man, because he had the most charisma of anyone on that stage.
He was allegedly stunningly musically incompetent, even by punk standards. His bass work was so rudimentary, that it's rumored (and all the members of the band corroborate) that original Sex Pistol bassist Glen Matlock was invited to return to record basslines over Vicious' originals, even though he had left the band under extremely acrimonious circumstances.
Physical Characteristics:
lan Jones described Vicious as "[having] the iconic punk look ... Sid, on image alone, is what all punk rests on." His nails would be painted in a sloppy manner with purple nail polish.
Quotes from others about the person
Pamela Rooke: "Everybody wanted to be with Sid, but unfortunately he came with Nancy. She was unbelievably thick-skinned, one of the most unlikable people I've met. Everybody could see through her, except Sid."
Chrissie Hynde: "As soon as (Sid) realised how much everyone hated Nancy, man, he stuck to her like a stamp to a letter. That´s why he was called "Sid": he hated the name Sid, so everyone called him Sid. That´s what that whole scene was about. But when we got fucked up, he got very violent actually. He was shooting speed before he met Nancy, and when she got him into dope it was a very easy switch to make; then it was all over for him. He`d never been with a woman before, where she had that kind of control over him... Nancy was an opportunist. I'm not even going to say whether I liked her or not, but she had a negative effect on Sid and he didn't need that."
John Lydon: “He didn’t stand a chance. His mother was a heroin addict. I feel bad that I brought him into the band, he couldn’t cope at all. I feel a bit responsible for his death. There you are, I have confessed my demons.”
Interests
Music & Bands
David Bowie
Connections
Sid Vicious wasn't married.
Father:
John Ritchie
Mother:
Anne Beverley
Vicious was the son of Anne Beverley, described by Johnny Rotten as "an oddball hippie". Left to raise the boy alone after splitting with his dad, Beverley moved frequently and drifted from job to job. At one point, she and young Simon lived on the Spanish island of Ibiza, where it is said she made a living by selling marijuana. Upon returning to England with the financial assistance of the British High Commission, Beverley became involved with hard drugs. After a brief marriage to Oxford student Chris Beverley, Simon's mother worked a succession of jobs in several different towns.
girlfriend:
Nancy Spungen
Raised in Philadelphia, Spungen was an emotionally disturbed child who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 15. After being expelled from college, she went to London at the height of the punk rock craze and became involved with Sid Vicious. Their relationship was punctuated by bouts of domestic violence and drug abuse. The press soon labelled Spungen "Nauseating Nancy" for her shocking behavior. After the Sex Pistols disbanded, the couple moved to New York City and checked into the Hotel Chelsea where they spent their time consuming drugs.
In October 1978, Spungen was found dead in the bathroom of the couple's room, of a single stab wound to the abdomen. Sid Vicious was charged with her murder but died of a heroin overdose while on bail in February 1979, before the case went to trial. Various authors and filmmakers have speculated about Vicious's role in Spungen's death and the possibility that Spungen was killed by a drug dealer who frequently visited their room.
colleague:
Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren
Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English impresario, visual artist, performer, musician, clothes designer and boutique owner, notable for combining these activities in an inventive and provocative way. He is best known as a promoter and manager of bands such as the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols.
Friend:
Jerry Only
Jerry Only (born Gerald Caiafa Jr. on April 21, 1959) is an American musician, well known as the bassist for the Misfits and later the vocalist as well. He is the only member to appear in every Misfits lineup.
Jerry Only and his brother were present during the final meal of Sid Vicious.
