“The world won’t get no better if we just let it be”

Hello dear readers and those of you who just like to look at the pictures. This post is a little random and maybe in the spirit of all of my earliest posts. Today is the 14th January 2010 and it marks 32 years since the last proper Sex Pistols gig. Certainly the last one to feature Sid Vicious and not one of those reunion shows. That show was at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco and Johnny Rotten’s last words from the stage were “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? Good Night” I actually have the bootleg of that gig and judging from the bass playing it was clear that, as Rotten later observed, Sid was out of his brains. Here are the Pistols with “Bodies” from that very gig

As for Mr Rotten, or Lydon as he is known nowadays I was disappointed when I saw him advertising British butter (click here to see it). However he was recently quoted as saying that it paid him enough to put up the initial funding for the PiL tour he is currently undertaking, so now I feel very relieved.

Sid dry humps a lamppost and johnny dresses as a Hasidic Jew, just another boring day for the Pistols then!

Today we also received the sad news that Teddy Pendergrass had died. Teddy (or Theodore to his parents) was the voice of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. Ha! I bet plenty of you thought Harold was the singer didn’t you? They had some massive hits in the early 70s with wonderful songs like “Wake Up Everybody” and “If You Don’t Know Me By Now“. The latter was covered in a somewhat mediocre way by Mick Hucknall with Simply Red. Teddy went solo later in the 70s and had another string of hits including “Close The Door” and “Turn Off The Lights” Hey those titles fit together nicely don’t they? Teddy was involved in a road traffic accident in 1983 which left him a paraplegic, but he continued to perform in spite of that. His rich and distinctive voice will be sadly missed by those of us who love such sublime soul music.

In his youth Teddy always like pussy............cats!

Finally and perhaps most importantly I experienced a really bizarre coincidence yesterday. Just as I opened my newspaper to read about the awful earthquake in Haiti, Steely Dan’s “Haitian Divorce” popped up on my iPod. So I thought that I would give you the link to the BBC report of the disaster and also a link where you can donate to the relief effort. Pay whatever you can, because even if your day has been pretty shit it cannot be anywhere near as bad as those affected by the quake. Do it, you know it makes sense 🙂