Sex Pistols American debut - 30 years ago today!

DJ_NevilleC

The night punk hit Atlanta -- hardBy BO EMERSONThe Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionPublished on: 01/05/2008The first U.S. performance by the noisiest, yawpiest, most self-mutilating, snot-nosed, anti-establishment, best-selling punk band of all time was not at legendary CBGB's. It was not at Max's Kansas City. It was not even in New York City. Or L.A. Or Detroit.It was at a mall in Atlanta, Ga. Above a bowling alley. Next to a K-mart.Thirty years ago Saturday, propelled by a canny manager who thought he'd court conflict by sending his lads into the Deep South, the Sex Pistols made their stateside debut at the Great Southeast Music Hall, a modest-sized club in the Broadview Plaza shopping center.That one evening of rock and roll heralded the quick ascension and brief transit of one of the most influential bands of the 1970s ??? or of any decade. Twelve days later, charismatic leader and vocalist Johnny Rotten would leave the band. A year later, bassist Sid Vicious, charged with the murder of his girlfriend, would be dead of a drug overdose. As fast as it started, it was over.In Atlanta, the story was much the same. The show that launched a thousand safety pins caused a media uproar. Press from around the world fought to gain entry to the pocket-sized club. And then the hubbub just vanished. Blind guitar picker Doc Watson played the next engagement at the Music Hall, to a respectful crowd of bluegrass fanciers.The club itself moved to Cherokee Plaza, then closed. The building was eventually razed, and the shopping center now houses a Home Depot and a Starbucks. All that's left are a few fuzzy images on the documentary film "D.O.A." and a few indelible memories.Audience puzzled LydonThe Pistols' U.S. premiere was just a great rock show, said music scenester Danny Beard, "as opposed to the desperate cry of the English unwashed, which is what the English critics would have you believe."A local '60s cover band, Cruis-O-Matic, opened the concert, and knowing that torn T-shirts and mohawks would be the uniform of choice, decided to go the other way with Izods and khakis. "It went straight over their heads," said bassist Rex Patton, who got hit by a tossed pickled pig's ear."We gave them exactly what they wanted: Stuff they could really hate," said guitarist Edward Tanner. "We may have opened up with 'Double Shot of My Baby's Love.'" (Patton remembers a "Secret Agent Man" / "The Kids Are Alright" medley.)For the headliners, however, the audience was perhaps too polite."What's wrong with these kids?" Lydon asked a friend later that night, according to the book "12 Days on the Road: The Sex Pistols and America" "They didn't get to the stage. They didn't even try. They just stood there."Known for spraying bodily fluids on their audiences, the Pistols were also restrained, recalls photographer Rick Diamond, who quietly snapped photos from the floor."The Sex Pistols never spit on anybody," he said, though parodist Darryl Rhoades, who joined Tanner for a send-up called "Boot in Your Face," hocked one into the crowd. It landed on Diamond.'Zell Miller was a regular'"They were used to chaos at their events," said Jeff Calder, of the New Wave outfit the Swimming Pool Qs, who remembers clouds of talcum powder puffing off of Lydon's head. "By comparison, the Great Southeast Music Hall was a bunch of gawkers ??? not anything like the kind of shows they were having in England. I should add that Zell Miller was a regular at the club."Apparently, the then-lieutenant governor was attracted by the Music Hall's country music and self-consciously rustic decor, where customers sat on cushions on wooden risers and the bar served beer in buckets. But the hall was more Buckheadneck than redneck, featuring comics such as Steve Martin, bluegrass and folkie groups, including David Bromberg, and rock bands like Silverman and Buckingham Nicks.Atlanta, it seems, was something of an accidental kickoff city. Visa problems delayed the band's departure from England, and four northeastern dates in December and early January were canceled.The setting made little difference to the international press. CBS's Charles Kuralt even did a stand-up in the parking lot. "It was like a mini-Super Bowl out there," said Diamond.On the following weekend, local hard-core musicians, inspired by the show, returned to the Music Hall in what Beard calls "the first and last Atlanta punk festival." Performing were the Fans, Angelust, and a band called the Fabulous Knobs, whose front-man capped his performance by sawing off his wooden leg with a chainsaw.Post-Pistols AtlantaCritics and the ensuing years give the Sex Pistols credit for returning vitality to a bloated rock music world. But Georgia music would go in a different direction.Beard, proprietor of Wax N Facts record store, would take the B-52s into a budget studio the next month and record the toe-tapping "Rock Lobster." Jonny Hibbert, Cruis-O-Matic's lead singer, would release R.E.M.'s first single, "Radio Free Europe" on his HibTone label.Jeff Calder, visiting from Florida, would move to Atlanta, gather up guitarist Bob Elsey, record the first demos of "Rat Bait," and eventually form the Swimming Pool Qs.The show's biggest impact? Probably on the fledgling Cruis-O-Matic, a band that, after personnel changes, went on to play 200 nights a year for 12 years before Tanner became a respectable lawyer in Fayetteville.Will any of the participants celebrate this 30th anniversary of Atlanta's punk primacy?"Yeah," deadpanned Patton. "I'll spit on a complete stranger."