Lookit! Its another Sid book! What I wanna know though folks is...is this the one?


Book Description
The last word on Sid Vicious, published to mark the 50th anniversary of his birth on 10 May

Synopsis
The old school register for Soho Parish Primary school has a note in the margin recording that five-year-old John Simon Ritchie turned up for his first day at school unaccompanied in September 1962. He'd walked from his mum's council flat near Drury Lane, across Covent Garden and several major road junctions to Gt Windmill Street alone. Somehow it's a fitting start to the wild and troubled life that would be Sid Vicious's.

It's also a story that's indicative of the detailed research Alan Parker has put into this biography of Sid Vicious. He spent an evening discussing young Simon Ritchie's schooldays with the headmistress of Soho Parish, has interviewed the likes of fellow Sex Pistols Paul Cook and Glen Matlock at length, as well as numerous other punk luminaries.

The basics of Sid Vicious's brief 21 years are well known: art school, junkie mother, life in a squat, a year in the Sex Pistols until their demise in 1978, Nancy Spungeon's death, Sid's arrest, followed by Sid's own fatal overdose on 2 February 1979. Parker brings a wealth of new detail to the story, much gained from the New York Police Department and extensive interviews with Anne Beverley (Sid's mother), prior to her own suicide in 1996. This enables him to come to dramatic conclusions about who killed Nancy Spungeon and how Sid himself died.

This will be the definitive and final word on Sid Vicious, and the perfect tribute to a man who has become a true icon of the 21st century.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sid-Vicious-No- ... 752875469/
ref=sr_1_1/203-1357713-6346350?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179141952&sr=1-1

True icon of the 21st century?

This is Alan Parkers third stab ( ) at a Sid book, Sids Way and Too Fast Too Live his earlier attempts. On top of that theres Paytress's Art Of Dying Young and another one called Sid, Rock N Roll Star.

I've not read any of them. Sids story always seemed a bit slight for a book all by itself. This new one though appears to be the fattest of the lot at just over 300 pages. Must be a lot more too it, plenty of background on the era as a whole I'd presume.

So ask those who might know, was Too Fast any good? Was Paytress's book better?

I think I have both Alan Parker ones... I def have the Mark Paytress one.
I would like to know what the diff is with this one.
With the 1st and 2nd Parker ones, he said in the 2nd that the diff was now Sid's mum was dead so there was a lot more he could now say that she told him that he couldn't before.

But why there is a 3rd i don't know....... what else is there to know?

I will more than likely get it though.........

I'm not at all a Sid lover or anything, and i KNOW he was a useless junkie, but he did look good and i like reading about it all.......again!

ok, Alan speaks about the book here:

http://www.philjens.plus.com/pistols/pistols/parker.htm

Nice one Steve. Sounds like the one then Perculiar interview in some ways that...but hey...its "The Ultimate Sid Book" I'll be getting it.

Parker is a dreadful writer, have you seen his book on the Clash, quite possibly the worst music related book I own.
The best book about Sid is the Malcolm Butt one.
http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Vicious-Rock- ... 0859653730


Just a personal view!

Im intrested in this book as it has new interviews with NYPD officers etc, but at the end of the day will it be a non biased account we all know Alan Parker is a big Sid fanboy.
I'll wait till its in Music Zone/Fopp for a fiver.

Re: the synopsis. It's stretching it a bit to suggest Sid went to Art School. Kingsway was and is a college of further education, albeit they probably do some art courses. I haven't read any of the books, but I thought he and Lydon went there to re- take their O levels. (?).

Was really hoping this was a meaty intelligent bastard of a book encompassing Sids travails and the whole bloody punk rocking miasma.
I'm worried now, and confused. Mabbe all that can be said about Sid, can be said well in under 200 pages?

Have you read Paytress's book too Stu? He's decent enough isn't he? Is Rock N Roll Star THE one!??

There's nothing new in Paytress's book.
Butt's has lots of info I didn't know and better detail than the others on his childhood / adolescence. Much better written than any of Parker's books too. It cuts to the chase basically.

Is there anything to say about Sid that we couldn't write up ourselves - probably in about 200 words?

Try this....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Vicious

...is there really anything to add?

I think the single most depressing thing to happen as a consequence of punk was the iconisation of Sid. To many kids - too young to have been there - Sid embodies the spirit of punk. In reality he was a kid who was manipulated by McLaren and who too readily bought into the rock n roll cliches embodied by the likes of Dee Dee Ramone and Johnny Thunders. So many wonderful things came out of punk and yet the tragedy of Sid - which should be a cautionary tale - is seen by many as its defining moment.

Enough already with the Sid books.

You want punk?! Here ya go...

True, but it was much worse around '79-80 with all the 'Sid RIP' tattoos and dyed crops around. He was a face though before his stint in The Pistols. I don't think he was recognized as a crap musician back in the day as nobody knew the difference. He certainly spawned a thousand copycat bassists complete with gore and low slung white fenders.

Och! Nidger Hold fire, take them bike boots off and chow baby, we're talking books man.

I was hoping we'd duck the Sid 'was he or wasn't he(?)' debate here my friend, and just stick with opinions on the question at hand - "Which is, the best of the several books written about him?"
I ask because I've never read one (bar I don't Want To Live This Life many many years ago), I'd quite like to now, and I know it'd actually tell me much more than I realised I knew, or wanted to know. I expect the new Iggy book is much the same.

Sids not the defining figure of punk ...in my book (:wink:) I think Savage did that double marvelously with the Pistols in Englands Dreaming. Yet a book aproaching and encompassing a similar-ish back story/ground, with Sids biography as an ever present, would cover a different side to things that I'm not completely adverse to ever reading about. A cautionary tale and all.
May well be the McClaren, Dee Dee, Thunders, Spungeon world examined in all its sordid glory. So? Won't be looking to revel in it, gleaning tips or whatever.

I'd like to read a seriously good and intelligent book about Sid (thats a little more than Wiki ok). No One Is Innocent (excellent title for a kick off) ought to be it at 300 pages, but its looking like it probably isn't. I'm being choosy precisely because I don't want to have to read umpteen books about Sid Vicious, just the one would do me, and the best one I'll be damned!

I'm erring toward Rock N Roll Star now thanks too Stu's assurances. Overlooked it seems between Parker and Paytress's higher profile titty tat.

Ged, El Sid? Are you suuuuuuuure

Well I take yer point but why bother?

How about reading the excellent Strummer biog 'Redemption Man' or umpteen other biogs rather than scratch around for something that probably doesn't exist - an interesting biog about someone who was basically, at best, a one trick pony.

Nidge. I'm me, you're you baby. Thats the long and short and tall of it. If its any good I'll let you know, but still doubt you'd want to give it go. Unlike myself, who'll have already read the bloody thing like, yer dig.

There may come a time though, you never know