Re: (TV) chris spedding

["Philip P. Obbard" <pobbard@yahoo.com>]

Wow, I was just thinking about answering this, and it's been years since I was
actively interested in the Sex Pistols... yeah, Spedding produced the Pistols'
first demos in April or May of 1976. I think he did three songs, and they can
be heard on the PIRATES OF DESTINY semi-legit CD. I don't have a copy anymore,
but I seem to recall that they were pretty awful - guitars too loud, rhythm
section inaudible, etc., although I suppose it could have been taken from a
poor-quality copy. Anyhow, as far as I know, only Steve Jones played guitar on
NEVERMIND THE BOLLOCKS. I've heard all sorts of stories about who really plays
bass guitar on the LP - Steve Jones handles a few tracks, Glen Matlock handles
some others, and even Sid played on a few (sometimes mixed out, sometimes
overdubbed later) - but as far as I know, Spedding had nothing to do with the
guitars.

I just saw a reissue of SPUNK (which collected two sets of demos, from July
1976 and January 1977, as well as the proposed single version of "Anarchy in
the UK") called THE SPUNK AND SPEDDING DEMOS, but from what I could tell the
Spedding stuff wasn't actually included.

IMO, the seven tracks Dave Goodman recorded for them in July of 1976 are the
only real essential Pistols' recordings outside of NEVERMIND THE BOLLOCKS and a
handful of b-sides ("Did You No Wrong", "Satellite", their cover of "No Fun",
to name a few - all now collected on KISS THIS). This session has been issued
in part or whole on dozens of LPs and CDs over the years (including SPUNK,
although on the Receiver CD it sounds as if the running speed is too slow).
It's best heard on 7-track MINI ALBUM done by Dojo - not to be confused with
incomplete 5- and 6-track variants done by Restless and another label. Anyhow,
most of these tracks are terrific, and it's great to hear stuff like "No
Feelings" back when it still had an audible bass part.

The Pistols' back catalog is, hands-down, the worst catalog I have ever seen.
Even Virgin's attempts to reissue the SPUNK material (in a 2CD set, with
NEVERMIND THE BOLLOCKS on the other disc) have been shamefully poor (sessions
intermixed, NO liner notes, tracks 'playfully' mistitled, etc). For once, the
Hendrix, Presley, and Beach Boy catalogs actually look pretty good.

--Philip

--- OwenGwilliam@cs.com wrote:
> 
> Philip will probably know better than I do, but I thought Spedding's 
> involvement was more in the production of early demos. I thought I'd read 
> that while he was widely reputed to have played, he didn't.

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