The music in the late 70's was so heady it was hard to notice the emergence of Punk from the great slate of Rock - with the Fleetwood Mac album Rumours a fixture on the radio and new bands like Aerosmith, Electric Light Orchestra, Supertramp, Frampton, Foreigner and Heart keeping disco from getting too much airplay.
Punk didn't have the same significance in Canada or the U.S. as it did in the U.K. The climate was different, socio-economically. Times were tough in Britain - meanwhile prosperous Americans weren't complaining. Led Zeppelin was touring the States in 1977, the same year the Sex Pistols released their loud and raucous, anarchist rant against the establishment: "God Save The Queen" (during the Queen's Silver Jubilee week.) It became a smash hit there but, barely blipped on the radar across the Atlantic. After a miserable American tour that ended with guitarist Johnny Rotten leaving the band, the Sex Pistols broke up in early 1978.
The band only really gained mass notoriety when Pistols bassist Sid Vicious was charged with the murder of his co-dependent, heroin addicted girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. He found her dead on the bathroom floor of their room at the infamous Chelsea Hotel in New York City after awaking from a drugged stupor. She had bled to death, having been stabbed once by his knife.
In February 1979, after getting out of Bellevue Hospital where he detoxed and healed from an attempted suicide by slashing his wrists following Nancy's death, Sid (aka John Simon Ritchie) overdosed on heroin and died just days before facing charges in Spungen's murder trial.
Who Killed Nancy? is the documentary from Sex Pistols and Sid Vicious scribe, Alan G. Parker, author of several books. The film proposes a conspiracy theory, as the title suggests. According to CIFF Music on Film Programming Manager, Aubrey McInnis, it's a must-see film for fans and the curious alike. It plays tonight at 9:30, Eau Claire Market - Cineplex Odeon - Screen 2.
(Diane Bennett is covering Events, Headliners & Music on Film)
