The Burning Up Times - Strangled.co.uk

Burning Up Times Issue 3
JJ, 100 Club soundcheck, July 1976 © Garry Coward-Williams
the style of clothes. Certainly, it was then
that the songs, like Grip and Toulouse,
started speeding up.
Was the Stranglers vs. Pistols/Clash
‘fi ght’ at Dingwalls simply machoposturing
or a refection of building
divisions in the movement?
There were defi nitely punches thrown
in the venue which is why they both
got chucked outside and me, Jet and
Dagenham Dave all rushed out. Jean and
Paul Simonon just squared up to each
other for a bit and we looked on. The
only element from the Sex Pistols was
a voyeuristic Johnny Rotten, who was
smashed into the side of the Sex Pistols’
van by [Dagenham] Dave to make sure
that he did not take part.
When did you become aware of the
Pistols?
The fi rst time we met the Pistols was in
June 76 at Walthamstow Assembly Hall.
Top of the bill was Ian Dury, then The
Stranglers and then the Sex Pistols. It cost
50p to get in and about 16 people turned
up. I remember seeing them get out of this
transit van, we had heard of them and it
was clear that they were the nearest thing
we had to any competition. It was like
a scene from West Side Story, we were
sizing them up and they were sizing us
up. Steve Jones came into our dressing
room and had a chat and after he left Jean
reckoned that he was the tough one. There
was never any friendship with the Sex
Pistols that I knew of.
From early interviews, it’s clear that
initially the Punk movement was like one
big, happy family. When did it start to
fragment?
I am not sure that is right, but there
was a commonality of cause, in that
we believed that music could be more
simple. There was a general feeling of
change in the air, possibly similar to
what Liverpool was like in 1961/62.
Some bands were very friendly like the
Stranglers and the Vibrators, although
the latter now claim that this relationship
damaged their credibility with the press
who were very pro-Clash and certainly
anti-Stranglers. The Clash and the Pistols
played the game of being elitist. I know
that the Clash were told by their manager
Bernie who they could or could not
associate with and the Stranglers were
in the not camp. This was particularly
strange because Joe Strummer had been
a friend and fan of the band as he came
to see them play countless times when
he was in the 101ers and I counted him
as a pal. But you can see it from Bernie’s
point of view, I mean, Punk with a
Hammond organ played by a bloke with
long hair and a goatee and a 36-yearold
drummer with a beard? And they
wrote songs like Strange Little Girl? No,
in the Clash/Sex Pistols camp we were
decidedly not of the right recipe. That is,
not to say that Jet’s contention that the
band were the original punks is wrong,
but simply that their faces and music
didn’t really fi t. Only Jean had, to some
degree, the Punk look/feel/aggression.
It was during this time that I do recall
some tension between him and Jet. The
funny think is that the Clash went on to
become a stadium rock band.
You were present at so many legendary
gigs, were there any that were especially
memorable?
The Stranglers, when the PA worked,
which it often didn’t, were very consistent
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