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The Sex Pistols Experience on Jonesy's Jukebox, Los Angeles 2006.
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On the
9th February 2006, the Sex Pistols Experience appeared as 'special guests' on
Steve Jones's radio show 'Jonesy's jukebox' on indie 103.1 fm. We'd
been informed a few days before that Steve would like the Sex Pistols
Experience to come on, to do an interview & play a few songs.
Acoustically. That
immediately set us into a panic..."How can you play the Pistols songs
acoustically?? un-plugged??" We'd never tried it
before & certainly didn’t want to try in live on air in front of Steve
Jones..! But we were persuaded all would be o.k, and it'd work fine. |
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It was a
bright hot sunny day in L.A, so we made our way firstly to the pub across the
road from the studio for a few 'looseners' to get us relaxed. Walking
into the plush surroundings of the studio in full Sex Pistols regalia,
complete stage clothes, we were greeted by 'Shovel', Jonesy's sidekick on the
show, who showed us upstairs to the indie 103.1 studio, Steve Jones wandered
over, no introductions we're necessary, "hello lad's, bloody hell, you
lot look a sight!!" Next thing we're setting up minimal
equipment in the tiny studio, bass & guitar plugged into a small amp, one
snare drum, one small cymbal with the guitar case making do for Crooky to
kick as the bass drum, Johnny was to sing into the mic’ next to Jonesy. |
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Steve was chilled and relaxed, happy with his new found 'proper job', relaxed & confidently picking out the songs to play on air & passing the C.D's over to shovel to play. We talked a lot off air, we asked him about the likelihood of the pistols playing again, it seemed unlikely for reasons we can't go into. He asked us all about how we started out?, where we'd been on tour?, how many dates we're doing? |
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Before we knew it, he had us pick up the instruments, & asked Steve Clones "How you going to play the intro to Pretty??" the opening riff came belting out & launched us into Pretty Vacant, Steve playing along on his acoustic guitar, filling in on backing vocals singing along, obviously loving it, finding the whole scenario bizarre, looking over to Kid Vicious & Johnny Forgotten as they jammed away over one of the pistols most famous tracks. CLIP FROM SHOW |
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We'd no idea how the Sex Pistols music would sound played 'un-plugged' having never attempted it before, when the opening riff of Pretty Vacant fired-up it was too late to turn back, we had to go for it on a wing & a prayer, through the headphones it sounded passable enough, it flowed quite well, Steve joining in on the chorus and getting into it, seemingly as pleased as we we're that we could play with minimal equipment & it sound o.k. Showing he's lost none of his humour on the outro, screaming blue murder over Johnny's "And we don’t' care'eerrahhhg..!" |
Pretty Vacant |
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Silly Thing |
Steve has free reign to play whatever he desires on his own show, with no pre-planned play list, & no-one telling what to do, he just throws a load of C.D's into a carrier bag & arrives at the studio ready to go on, spreading the C.D cases out on the desk in front of himself, picks out some he fancy’s, & gets Shovel to play them, one after another. The show had a distinct retro early 70's vibe that day with T-Rex, Sweet, early Bowie, Shawaddywaddy, Chichory Tip, & Benny Hill's 'Ernie, the fastest milkman..! We talked more off air than on, whilst the adverts were on, telling us how he'd shagged Nancy before Sid got his hands on her & would our 'Nancy' like to re-enact that..!!?? Time for another song, we dropped a S.P.Ex set list in
front of Jonesy to pick a song from, but we'd decided day's before that
we we're going to 'have' to play 'Silly Thing' & have Steve Jones do the
singing.! Too good an opportunity to miss, but when that was suggested, he'd
forgotten the words!? We had a quick run through the lyrics as the ad's came
to an end, then we we're off & playing 'Silly Thing' ... CLIP FROM SHOW |
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After
a bit more banter, Steve suggested we should go over to New York
& collect their Rock'n'Roll hall of fame award on behalf of the Sex
Pistols, " I
think you guys should be the one's to go down there & take it for
us, it'd be great, I think you guys should do it"
...stunned silence.
"We'll just have to check our diary first??" said Kid Vicious, A few plugs of that evenings gig in Silverlake, Hollywood, where we invited jonesy over on a complimentary ticket "Bleedin cheek..! I should av' a cut of the door..!?" Time for one last blast, "Surprise them, Don't tell em' what your gonna play, see if they can guess it.?" Said Jones, but no-one can mistake the opening chords of the Sex Pistols biggest hit, 'God Save The Queen’, we played through that faultlessly, accompanied by Steve on guitar & backing vocals of 'No Future', as the last guitar note died away... "Splendid..!" Jonesy said of the band. "Do 'we' get paid if it ain't the sex pistols playing a sex pistols song on the radio..!??" CLIP FROM SHOW |
God Save The Queen |
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That
night in L.A was tough, the venue booked had had to pull the show due to the
fire dept' not granting permission to put the concert on, worried over the
numbers of people expected to turnout to see the band, & so a last minute
swap of venue was done, upstairs in Zen Sushi, Silverlake, was not ideal, but
was to be the chosen venue. With no in house p.a, we had to use minimal
equipment again, just the basic back line, no drum mic's, no line-in to the
desk for the guitar & bass, one monitor between everyone, and a room
packed full of cynical punk people & ex-celebrities who'd travelled
far & wide from L.A & Orange County with no expectations. This was
the bands first time in L.A, & we wanted to impress, after a warm up from
the all girl band 'The Ramona's', turning the amps up full we took
to the stage with all we had..... No one left disappointed. A couple
of weeks after our appearance, Lydon called by to say 'Hello', full
transcript of that show can be found on www.sex-pistols.net website.
Catch Steve jones on Jonesys Jukebox on Radio KROQ :-
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