John Lydon's Herod slaughtered while still innocent

Whoever booked the Jesus Christ Superstar revival with John Lydon as Herod, one of Incubus as Judas and a random N'Syncer as Pilate seems to have sobered up. The tour has been axed.

It turns out their collected draw - even with the addition of that bloke who won the being Jesus on ITV last year - just wasn't enough to interest anybody into shelling out for tickets:

The next morning, Mr. Forster and Mr. Chasez were rehearsing with Mr. Connor when the company’s general manager entered the studio.

Describing what happened next, Mr. Forster said, “He was like, ‘Guys, take a break. We need to chat. It’s not going to happen.' ” At this point in his recollection, Mr. Forster simply gasped.

Mr. Boyd, who has no previous musical theater experience, suspected he was being hazed. “I thought it was like a prank that you pull on the new guy,” he said. “But no.”

Unsurprisingly, John Lydon has reached for his default "knew it all along" setting:

“I had a run-in with the alleged promoter [Michael Cohl] in New York,” Mr. Lydon said. “I didn’t like him and I instinctively didn’t trust him.”

Of course, John. Of course.

Cohl was also involved in the U2/Spiderman thing, so at least this time he's stopped things before anyone got hurt. Physically hurt, anyway.

1993 all over again: 3 - Leftfield/Lydon

3. Leftfield/Lydon - Open Up

The stand out track from the album Now Thats What I Call Music 26, and part of the reason why Lydon can just about get away with playing the pantomime dame.

Leftfield's manager, Lisa Horan, reveals that the track was passed over by a major label:

John was on East West at the time, which meant they had to have first choice on the single. Luckily for us, they turned it down. I've still got a letter from the A&R man which says, "Thanks for coming to us with this project', but...". We were after a £25,000 advance and he didn't think it was worth it. So we ended up being able to put it out on Hard Hands."

The 'burn Hollywood burn' hook was unfortunately timed, as the record coincided with fires in Los Angeles. Paul King - by now well into his second career as MTV presenter - seemed convinced that the band had deliberately written the song to mock those who lost property in the inferno. Paul King always was an idiot.



[Part of 1993 all over again]
[Buy Leftism]

Gordon in the morning: Cor blimeys in the evening

Gordon is quivering with excitement at the prospect of John Lydon being a guest on tonight's Question Time. (He's on with Louise Mensch, so it's presumably a special narcissists edition.)

BBC chiefs are on tenterhooks after including former Sex Pistols singer John Lydon on tonight’s Question Time panel.

Unbelievably, Smart dredges up the Sex Pistols meet Bill Grundy incident as a dread warning from history:

He was [...] part of the Sex Pistols’ foul-mouthed turn on Bill Grundy’s chat show in 1976 — which wrecked the presenter’s career.

Rather a lame part, though: he said 'shit' very quietly, and then had to have it dragged out of him again.

Got any more, Gordon?

[P]roducers are aware the 56-year-old drew complaints over his swearing on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity in 2004.

Oh, yes. And how did that turn out for ITV? Careers ended in flames? Resignations? Shame? Fines? Remind us, Broadcast magazine:

ITV let off over Lydon

ITV has escaped censure from Ofcom over John Lydon's four-letter outburst on I'm a Celebrity ... Get me out of Here! The regulator received 96 complaints after Lydon called viewers "fucking cunts" live on air. Ofcom accepted that ITV "acknowledged it was highly regrettable and took immediate steps to apologise" as well as introducing a seven-second delay for subsequent live shows.

Ah, yes, the terrible incident where ITV muttered a sorry and Ofcom went "ooh, you guys."

Even allowing for that, though, why would BBC chiefs be on "tenterhooks"? As Gordon is - hopefully - well aware, the programme is prerecorded hours before it broadcast. So even if Lydon does swear (and given he's an old ham more than an old punk, and will only swear when he knows he's been invited on as pantomime dame) they'll simply be able to bleep it out.

John Lydon is fond of Newt

I think we're many years past the point where John Lydon saying warm things about Newt Gingrich has any power to raise more than a murmur, but his reasoning is quite interesting:

I've had great pleasure meeting the likes of Newt Gingrich and having a chat with the fellow on a staircase. I found him completely dishonest and totally likeable, because he doesn't care! He knows what a politician is, and he's a perfect embodiment of one.

Saying anything to keep the log rolling? I wonder why Lydon found such a position to be so understandable, eh?

Lydon draws attention to single he doesn't want you to buy

John Lydon is livid - livid - with the re-release of God Save The Queen. Livid, I tells you:

In a statement, Lydon said of the re-release: "It is certainly not my personal plan or aim. I am proud of what The Sex Pistols achieved and always will be but this campaign totally undermines what The Sex Pistols stood for.

"This is not my campaign. I am pleased that the Sex Pistols recordings are being put out there for a new generation, however, I wish for no part in the circus that is being built up around it."

'Yes,' continued Lydon, 'those singles that are available in all good stores, via Amazon.co.uk and to download from iTunes certainly don't have my blessing. I'm certainly doing my best to stop people from noticing what otherwise would have been an insignificant and frankly embarrassing re-release by trumpeting quite loudly how I don't approve of people buying them'. He then got a box of records from the boot of his car, yelling 'roll up, roll up' as he sold them, tutting in the face of everybody as he pocketed their cash.

John Lydon doesn't trust the National Trust

The National Trust must be delighted with John Lydon's loud complaining about not having had his 'permission' sought for inclusion of a Sex Pistols track on their odd punk collection:

"I would like to be able to trust the National Trust but from this point forward I can't. I was very proud to collaborate with The National Trust back in 2003 and voice a radio advert for them.

"No-one however has even spoken to myself or my management or had a conversation with myself or my management about this album. Never Mind The.... Permission."

He added: "Thievery as I have always thought seems to come from very high places. Whatever happened to the art of conversation?

"As of yet, I am still not sure what the game is in all this. I love my England, my honest England. My heart is true, but this particular situation seems deeply sneaky and we are waiting to be supplied with information on this chain of events, and the answer better be good."

Now, I don't know for sure, but I'm prepared to assume that the National Trust has all the permissions it needs in place - and that doesn't extend to having to ask a performer for an OK before putting a track owned by someone else onto a compilation.

Had Lydon actually been a proper punk, rather than the plaything of a major label, he might have cause to be upset. But he's got about as much grounds here as a guy from Bernard Matthews complaining that the turkey he raised has ended up for sale in Sainsbury's.

But oh: Lydon has played his part to perfection - moaning and wailing and making a fuss, for all the world like a punk version of those guys who dress up as soldiers and pretend to fight on other National Trust lawns. The Trust really need to build a kids' theme day round this historical re-enactment.

John Lydon didn't like being called a punk

In a bid to try and come up with something new to say as he pushes the same old stories, John Lydon has decided he doesn't like being called a punk:

Speaking at the launch of his book 'Mr Rotten's Scrapbook', he told BANG Showbiz: "I never liked the moniker punk, it was given to us by Caroline Coon (journalist and artist), who called me the King of Punk, but when I found out what the world meant, like, somebody's bottom boy in an American prison, I was none too thrilled with the concept."

Coon might have called Lydon King Of Punk, but the use of the word "punk" surely derives from Creem magazine from back when Lydon was still in short trousers; by the time McClaren was pushing his boys onto the bandwagon, the connection between prison sex and the word had surely been broken?

Besides, for someone who never liked the word "punk", Lydon is always happy to claim his position in the pantheon. Like in The Times, in 1999:

Lydon's recollections of punk suggests that the Sex Pistols documentary, as yet unscheduled by Channel 4, should make great viewing. "The truth about punk will get out," insists Lydon. "It was not an intellectual movement orchestrated by Malcolm McLaren. We didn't set out to be seen as some great, culturally significant force. If we had an aim, it was to force our own, working-class opinions into the mainstream, which was unheard of in pop music at the time."

If it was all your own, how come you didn't come up with your own name for what you were doing?

Gordon in the morning: Rotten tomatoes

As John Lydon grinds through some pantomime fauxpinions on the X Factor.

By accident, Gordon is quite acute in his response:

SEX PISTOLS legend JOHN LYDON's acid tongue is as lethal as ASHLEY COLE armed with a rifle at the Chelsea training ground.

Given that Ashley Cole merely pinged a pellet off an intern, and wasn't ever going to kill anybody at all with his underpowered weapon, Smart is actually spot-on. Lydon is about as lethal as a kid with an airgun. Here, for example, is his "acid" attack on Cheryl Cole:

"There's not much going on in the head, is there?

"Although she does bring men to the TV screen because they're all thinking we'd like a lot more going on in her head. We're just fellas – we live in hope."

Devastating, right?

And on Simon Cowell?

"He's like a pony with blinkers who is slightly embarrassed about his effeminacy.

"I think he's effeminate – any man that wears tight T-shirts and plays with his nipples on TV has got a social dilemma going on.

Really, John? "Has got a social dilemma going on" doesn't actually mean anything, you might as well say "editors please complete this comment".

More disappointing is the way that Lydon thinks that effeminacy - either suspected or genuine - is somehow a bad thing and that accusing a man of being effeminate is a devastating judgement. Disappointing, but even Lydon's hackneyed belief that calling someone a sissy is acceptable fails to surprise these days.

John Lydon is trying to sell his book.

John Lydon mutters something about Duffy

Hey, kids: this piece is going to discus Duffy and a man called John Lydon. If you're under, say, 30, you might want to ask your parents who these people were.

The world talks still of the 2008 Mojo Awards, and the bit where John Lydon attacked Duffy. Well, actually, the world has moved on and barely recalls Mojo doing awards much less the incident, but Lydon has never allowed nobody caring to stop him honking away.

To our surprise, it turns out that Duffy attacked him, and not the other way round:

"She leapt on my back. I'm not a maypole for her to go swinging off. Until you know who is doing that you are in a compromising position. If you want to say hello to me, then stand in front of me and say hello."

Actually, having seen the butter adverts, it's clear that Lydon would be a maypole for swinging from if the price was right.

Still, it's nice that Lydon has set the record straight. And by 'setting the record straight', we mean 'waited two years before attempting to justify throwing a woman about with a hitherto unmentioned part of the story which nobody who was around seem to have noticed happening and would still be a nasty overreaction anyway'.

Interesting to hear that Lydon's happy for people to walk up and say hello while standing in front of him. Bloc Party might beg to differ.

John Lydon settles assault case

A complaint seeking damages for an alleged assault by John Lydon has been settled.

Roxane Davis has accused Lydon of attacking her because he was unhappy with a hotel room she had booked for him. The courts have been informed that a deal has been reached; nothing, as yet, has been made public. So it's not clear if he's going to have to do another set of butter adverts.

Gordon in the morning: Butter man attacks modern world

The pointlessness of John Lydon's attack on something modern is underlined by his bemusing treating of Coldplay and Radiohead as if they were interchangeable, but let's let himtry some of the clodhopping iconoclasm that he feels we expect of him:

He said: "Coldplay and Radiohead bug the hell out of me because it's so soulless. It just seems pointless. It's nice, but it's tosh. They don't care about you. They care about lining their coffers."

Because there was nothing cynical in the sudden decision to reform Public Image just as the bottom fell out of the Florida property market, of course.

Maybe I'm being unfair. Perhaps this railing against bands shaking down their audience is heartfelt, and it's just a shame that Lydon had to wait until he had an interview to promote the slightly repackaged collection of an old album to sell into the Christmas market before he had a chance to raise the issue.

Lord, even Gordon sees through him:

This from the man who has starred in an advert for butter.

Lydon butters up the sales

So, that Country Life advert certainly managed to destroy whatever was left of John Lydon's credibility. But how did it do for the butter company?

They did alright:

Dairy Crest has hailed an 85 per cent rise in its spreadables business on a leap in its butter sales thanks to John Lydon, also known as Johnny Rotten, the lead singer of the Sex Pistols.

The company said that the jump in sales volumes of its spreadables in the third quarter to December 31, 2008 was helped by its £5 million advertising campaign featuring Mr Lydon's promotion of its Country Life butter.

Brilliant news, huh? And, of course, a company that spends five million quid on an advertising campaign and does so well will be rushing to share its good fortune with farmers, right?

The company also announced cuts in prices paid to farmers on both liquid milk and cheese contracts of 1.75p per litre and 1p per litre respectively.

Money for Lydon; no money for the farmers. Not much spreading going on from the spreadales business, then.

Kele not drawing line, moving on

Kele out of Bloc Party not sounding entirely like he's put the unpleasantness with advertising's comedy character John Lydon behind him, then:

"I have only one thing to say about that man – John Lydon is the devil in my eyes," he told The Sun.

Speaking about the fight, he said: "I really wanted to, like, whip his face off. I was lucky I had lots of people around me who were calming me down.

"I didn't really think about what was happening at the time. I'm not really someone who's very good at backing down from fights. I'm just pleased there are witnesses."

While he's understandably got the hump - and without defending what Lydon's fawners and friends said - Okereke's decision to abandon the moral high ground to detail just how much bad hurting he thinks "the devil" deserved doesn't really do him any favours, either. The response to buffons to Lydon is to that which they fear the most: turn your back and forget him.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it has to do with An-ar-cheeee

Once again, John Lydon takes time to give his side of the claims that his entourage had a pop at Kele Okereke:

“He's talking nonsense, right. Bloc Party! What, you can't sell a record, so you need to try and tarnish my name? You mugs. I've done more for this world than that bunch of fucking losers could ever hope to offer. All right? But for me, bands like that really wouldn't be existing. All right? Respect is Johnny Rotten's motto, but for that lot: none.”

Lydon doesn't actually list exactly what he's done for the world - clearly, helping Dairy Crest sell Country Life butter will be part of it, but this particular gift has yet to be formally unwrapped. Public Image were wonderful, but we suspect that might not constitute a gift to the general populace.

It's also quite revealing that Lydon assumes that the motivation for the telling of the tale is simply to sell records - as ever, he assumes that everything's about the deal.

As the Times buys him lunch, he trots through the same old, same old - but things turn nasty when Andrew Billen tries to get a point clarified:

When I gently check if he is referencing David or Dickie Attenborough, he turns nasty.

“You're playing games. There you are. Caught you! Gotcha!” He had lost me, I promise. “I'm going lose you very quickly. I've been nice enough to come here and talk to you, don't you fucking ever try and mug me off.”

Ah, yes - how sweet of Lydon to make time in busy schedule to promote his DVD and eat Rupert Murdoch's puddings.

There's then an attempt to strong arm Billen:

I ask for the bill. Rambo shoulders his way towards me. “Don't fuck us over. OK? Don't. We don't like it.” Frankly, the bill is scarier.

This at the end of an interview where Lydon attempts to claim he doesn't preach and that his mantra is respect. It's like a little pool of delusion, where only Lydon is trustworthy and everyone else is out to get him. Perhaps everyone else is wrong. Or at least if we tell him we believe that, he might go away.

At least until the next DVD he's flogging.

Lydon spreads himself thinly

The next time John Lydon starts on one of his oh-so-interesting rants about how he's the true spirit of punk and how he never got involved in marketing campaigns and it was all trees round here and so on, he'll be doing so from the perspective of a man who is doing an advert. An advert for Country Life butter.

Once people thought he might topple the Queen herself. Now, he's only capable of unseating these guys:

John Lydon burns the last of his bridges, fills river with petrol, sets it aflame

There are many who find it hard to believe that John Lydon could have been involved in a racist scuffle the other week, and who will be looking to their hero to prove that he's not the sort of tiresome old twit who attempts to defend unpleasant reactionary attitudes by pretending he's just so refreshingly anti-PC.

He's had his chance, in an interview with the Daily Record.

He starts off having a go at Pete Doherty for being a "coward":

"Doherty's got trapped in a publicity campaign that has run out of order.

"Another fool who is given a golden opportunity to do something wonderful in his life and he'd rather be selfish and cowardly. Drugs are the modus operandi of the coward.

"Pete is a fine lad that needs to sort himself out. This is Mister Rotten telling you I waltz on stage sober because no drug in the world is as good as being absolutely 100 percent honest with your audience. Nothing compares to that emotion. People like him and Amy Winehouse are getting it wrong as usual."

Given that the Sex Pistols' fame is built, to a large degree, on Sid Vicious and his heroin habit, while Lydon might have a point, you could perhaps fill a couple of sides of an ethics class exam asking if it's more cowardly to be addicted to drugs, or to allow your band to carry on exploiting someone addicted to drugs until they die.

Still, a bit of low-grade hypocrisy is only to be expected. Lydon seems to blame Sid's death all on the record company and the stress they put the band through - although didn't Johnny brag to the Star the other week about how he'd never danced to a record label's promotional schedule? - and says that he still misses Sid, so that's alright then.

However, having had his thoughts turn to Winehouse, he decides he's got more to say:

"Poor old Amy. Aimless Winehouse would be a better term."

Aimless Winehouse! Oh, how amusing.

"I love all kinds of music but the one thing I have never done is imitate black music in her idiotic way."

Excuse me?

"I don't like pale imitations and shades of things and I am always wary when people go jazzy because jazz is the best cover up for a lack of talent the world has ever known. It don't wash real with me.

"And the cover up for her which is probably the guilt trip is that she requires vast amounts of drugs to hide the fact that she is fake."

There's just so many reasons why he's wrong, but let's just take the implicit suggestion that white people shouldn't play jazz, and the explicit statement that jazz (which Lydon identifies as a solely black form of music) is "a cover for a lack of talent." Ghettoising and damning an entire genre just to stack up a weak pun based on Amy Winehouse's name.

As if there was any point, he then goes to have a pop at gays as well:

I felt the same way playing at the Isle Of Wight. It is orchestrated deck chair seating and gay rainbow flag waving. It's very, very absurd.

Lydon doesn't explain - and the Record doesn't seem bothered to ask - why waving a gay flag is in some way absurd, or, indeed, if the freedom to wave a flag that reflects your sexuality wasn't meant to be one of things that punk was supposed to have been about in the first place. Lydon doesn't explain if he's uncomfortable with having gays in his audience (although we bet he'd respond that he's got several good-ish gay friends), or merely he thinks that gay pride in itself is absurd. To be honest, I don't much care. I can't wait until the US economy stabilises and he can go back to selling flats to the retirement market or whatever his day job is meant to be.

Gruff Rhys: Lydon attack was unprovoked

Gruff Rhys has told MTV news that Kele Okereke's side of the story of being attacked by John Lydon's chums was, from where he was standing, the true one:

“It was horrific. Kele is a very brave man and what he said is exactly what happened.

“The statements Kele has said are absolutely true. It did happen.”

Presumably, though, Gruff would also be characterised as "jealous" by Lydon. Or maybe even as a h8r.

John Lydon attempts to explain

As we expected, why, John Lydon has issued an explanation of his side of the attack on Kele from Bloc Party:

"I feel very sorry for a man who needs to lie about what was a perfect evening. After the show John Rotten and management remained behind to sign autographs, which we did for four solid hours without incident and had a great time talking to other Spanish bands. This seems to have sparked jealousy in certain bands.

"The trouble was brought to us, resulting in those causing the trouble being physically removed by festival security."

"We are in the middle of a wonderful tour, after 30 years we are achieving a true unity in our audience. They are multi-varied, all ages, all races, creeds and colours.

"When you are at a festival with bands who are jealous fools, lies and confusion usually follow. If they need publicity so badly this is the allegation universe they run into."

Oddly, though, it's Kele who has got the cuts and bruises, not Lydon.

In many ways, this is classic Lydon eyewash - even down to responding to the claims in a way that, once again, focuses on what a wonderful chap he is; so wonderful his brilliance leads to lesser bands turning up to rain blows down on his splendid head.

Still, at least he didn't fall back on "some of my best friends are black" line, choosing instead "some of the people who have seen me play aren't white" to demonstrate his impeccable credentials.

Of course, you're down to which of the two sides you believe; but a man who issues a statement about a violent attack and refers to himself not only in the third person, but as "John Rotten" (which isn't even his own stage name) seems more interested in the myth than truth.

There's a final flick of the fingers:

Lydon concluded by telling Okereke to "grow up and learn to be a true man.

"When you have achieved as much as I have, come back and talk to me," he added. "It's a shame that the wonderful world of the media is riddled with nonsense like this.

Now, considering that he's talking to a man who Lydon claims was causing trouble, that sounds surprisingly belligerent. It's not known if Okereke will, indeed, wait until he's done a couple of celebrity reality shows and got a job in his wife's estate agency before taking things further.

Lydon: this charming man

We expect it's only a matter of time before we get the 'plausible explanation' for this, but for now we've only got Kele Okereke's side of what happened at Summercase Festival in Barcelona.

Okereke asked Lydon about the chances of a PIL reunion, which Lydon described as showing a "black attitude" (no, us neither) before standing back to allow his entourage to beat Okereke up. Lydon hurt more than the bruises, says Okereke:

"It's not an issue of the physical assault, even though it was an unprovoked attack. It is the fact that race was brought into the matter so readily. Someone as respected and as intelligent as Lydon should know better than to bring race into the equation, or socialise with and encourage those who hold such narrow-minded attitudes. I am disappointed that someone I held with such high regard turns out to be such a bigot."

Although we've not got a very high opinion of Lydon, we had always assumed that beneath the self-importance and desire to make a myth of himself, his heart was at least in the right place. Even that seems over-hopeful today.

The one amusing aspect of a sordid evening is that the attack took place in front of fifty or so members of indie royalty:

Mystery Jets, Neon Neon and Har Mar Superstar, all of whom saw what unfolded

And Ricky Wilson and Foals' Yannis Philippakis were the heroes of the hour, wading in to try and pull Lydon's thugs off Kele. Ricky Wilson a hero of the hour. Who ever would have thought?

Even Weller thinks Lydon's an embarrassing old grump

When even Paul Weller is telling you that, frankly, you sound like Grampa Simpson, you should probably take a look at yourself.

Weller has stretched and yawned in the face of John Lydon's latest 'I remember when it was all horses" tirades:

"I don't really understand him anymore," Weller explained. "He's become the antithesis of what he once was. Does he need the money?

"Perhaps he misses the adulation, the buzz. Nostalgia has become a whole industry in itself... and I don't like it. You can never recapture what has gone."

That's not a problem for Lydon, of course: he's much more interested in making up a past that never really happened.