TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

Punk kicked over the headstone of what they perceived as dead old rock music, and we had to be grateful, it was for our own good. There was no going back, was there? You have to put this into the context of those who were there and what they claimed they created and experienced. Don Letts, arguing for the existence of punk on the Sky Arts documentary Anarchy On Thames in 2018 made the point "Massive unemployment, three day weeks, the bin men were on strike, I mean the city stank." Except that in 1976 the unemployment rate was half of what it had been five years' before, the three day week was the winter of 1973/74, the bin men didn't actually strike until 1977. Why every commentator who was there makes everything sound worse than it actually was is a mystery. Probably a saviour complex. 10cc never 'went on' about the binmen. There was no need to blame punk on the societal situation, punk was just a result of boredom as Alan Jones points out in the same show. Oh, and it was a fantastic summer too, so shut up.

Queen had been booked to appear on Today show plugging Somebody To Love, their new single. Fact fans - the catalogue number of Somebody To Love was EMI 2565, the Sex Pistols' Anarchy In The UK was EMI 2566. Since both Queen and The Sex Pistols were signed to the company, who were part-owners of Thames TV it probably felt impelled to keep things in-house. Several of the music acts that won Thames TV's Opportunity Knocks also ended up signed to EMI. Legendary EMI promotions man Eric Hall claimed the producer of Today couldn't get Musicians Union clearance on the promo clip for the Queen single, so it couldn't be used, while another reason, more of a cooked up last-minute excuse was that Freddie Mercury had toothache and couldn't make it. It was probably the latter as Mercury rarely bothered to give interviews, but as the frontman he had to.

Today's producer Mike Housego had suggested a replacement band he'd heard so much about to Eric Hall, who adamantly claimed "he brought it up, not me... I thought a plug's a plug." When the band were told by Malcolm McLaren that there was a TV show in the offing, but it wasn't Supersonic or Top of the Pops, they refused, but after he threatened to withdraw their weekly wage if they didn't do it they relented.

Today was Thames weekday news and magazine programme, broadcast live from studio six in Thames TV's Euston Road building, 6.00 - 6.35 pm. As luck would have it Eamonn Andrews presented the show on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Llew Gardner on Friday, leaving Bill Grundy to do Wednesday. Lucky old Bill. He made his intent clear that he didn't want to interview them.

A car went sent to pick up the band, plus Siousxie Sioux, Simone Santivari and another couple of fans from their fanbase in Beckenham/Bromley. Arriving at the studio they were ushered into "the green room", the TV studio equivalent of a railway waiting room. Steve Jones found a bottle of Blue Nun Riesling and duly necked it, and when it was time the band were ushered out again and into the tiny studio. The members of the band sat down, with their coterie standing behind them.

Glen Matlock would claim in 2018 that there was no premeditated agreement to disrupt the show, or to mock the host, but Matlock claimed of Grundy "he seemed to have a bit of an attitude." Grundy began the interview by claiming "But words actually fail me about the next guests on tonight's show. If you thought you'd seen it all in the world of pop music, you clearly haven't." By seeing it all he might have meant the Swastika armband on display and Steve Jones' topless female t-shirt from Vivian and Malcolm's shop, Sex.

Despite Grundy claiming "they're as drunk as I am" attending studio director Tony Bulley was adamant that he wasn't.

In response to Grundy's goading about the financial advance the band were given, Jones happily chipped in "we fuckin' spent it", while Grundy had Lydon/Rotten repeat a swear word, assuring him of a later reprimand. Grundy had allegedly been told to "cool it" via his earpiece.

Grundy's unpleasant come-on to Siouxsie was Uncle Creepy in the extreme, and would probably now be seen as the most shocking thing said in the whole interview. But Grundy's suggestion to the band that in the five seconds left to "say something outrageous" was pure Fleet Street. Playing at being shocked after goading a response. Bulley responded to the suggestion that the director should have pulled the plug there and then, "People have suggested that we should have pulled the plug, or gone to black. We'd never do that, and the director certainly wouldn't do that." Since it was the last item on that day's show it was deemed easier to just allow it to happen rather than go into unprepared overdrive in order to replace them with only seconds to go until the end of the show.

The show finished with the collective jigging along to the show's theme, a tinny-sounding synth version of The Association's Windy. In the UK that song will forever be associated with The Sex Pistols. They should have re-issued it.

The band left the studio, but instead of being hastened out of the building as soon as possible they went back to the green room. It was suggested that overspill complaint phone calls had been diverted from the station's front desk directly to the green room, where the band were only too happy to help the public with their enquiries.

Glen Matlock later claimed that as they were leaving the Thames building in the Euston Road, a "black maria" police van drew up outside.

Eric Hall received a desperate phone call from McLaren a few hours' later "What the hell we gonna do Eric?" to which Hall replied "Nothing we can do, it's done, it's done. It's history." The press loved it and they were on the front cover of the two top national tabloids the following day with the now famous "The filth and the fury" headline in the Daily Mirror, and "Were The Pistols loaded?" in the Sun. This was just a local TV interview, not networked. So the nation woke up to news about an incident they hadn't even been aware of.

The following day Thames TV issued a public apology on air the wording of which contained the excuse "Because the programme was live we could not foresee the language that would be used.” The New Musical Express in an article the following week suggested "But Nigel Watts, a researcher working for London Weekend Television, claimed he had warned the Today team to expect such behaviour from The Pistols. Only days earlier, Mr. Watts had worked on a Punk documentary presented on LWTV’s London Weekend Show, where it was necessary to use a bleeper to cover certain words in conversations. He criticised Thames for not doing the same."

Discussing the fallout of the affair on Sky Arts' documentary about the show in 2018 Tony Bulley claimed that "We were all told, schtumm, you say absolutely nothing. Bill is being called 'upstairs'." As a result of the incident, Grundy was suspended by Thames for a fortnight and reprimanded by the Director of Programmes Jeremy Isaacs for "inexcusably sloppy journalism.”

The Urban Myths TV re-enactment, written by Simon Nye, makes the point that only two people had said "fuck" on TV before, Kenneth Tynan and Peregrine Worsthorne. "It's always the posh gits, isn't it?" claimed Bill Grundy (played by Steve Pemberton) "until now" replied show researcher, Christine Whitehead.

As amazing as it may seem, considering the show's notoriety Thames didn't actually videotape the interview, that recording was down to Bob Pratt over at the BBC who sensed this might be worth recording off-air. A domestic off-air recording was also made and a transcript was printed in the following week's NME along with screen captures. A few seconds of an off-air recording was used by Sky Arts in their documentary.

The following day a gigantic tethered inflatable pink pig was about to hover over Battersea power station in South London, with armed marksmen waiting to shoot it down should it get loose, but there wasn't enough helium to inflate it. Things were obviously going mad.

The interview has been spoofed many times from The Goodies to the inevitable animated Lego version but by far the best remake was The Amish Sex Pistols sketch from It's Kevin on BBC2 in 2013, featuring actor Kevin Eldon and Peter Serafinowicz in staggeringly good form as Grundy.

Anarchy on Thames and Urban Myths both broadcast by Sky Arts in May 2018 are recommended, not necessarily for their historical accuracy, but for the mere fun alone.

"I'll be seeing you soon, I hope I'm not seeing you again."

TODAY

Thames

1st December 1976