Sid! By Those Who Really Knew Him DVD Review

“He was the only true punk icon who burnt out but never sold out,” writes music author Mark Paytress about Sid Vicious in a booklet in the 30th Anniversary Collector’s Edition of Sid! By Those Who Really Knew Him (ITN Archives/Odeon Entertainment released on 11/17/09), a DVD accompanied by a ten song CD disc of Sid live in New York in 1978 with Arthur Kane and Jerry Nolan. Patress, who also wrote the book “Vicious: The Art Of Dying Young” (Sanctuary), chronicles Sid’s early life as a solitary student with a bohemian hippie mother who later became addicted to heroin (and would walk around naked in front of his teen-age friends – it makes sense to me that the unstructured commune and excess free love mentality of the 60′s would repercuss into punk offspring!). Most people may not know that his name came from him being bitten by his friend John Lydon’s hamster who was named Sid, and when he was attacked he proclaimed, “Oh, Sid is vicious!”

About a David Bowie copyist who took everything but music as a joke, the DVD Sid! offers stories by many who knew him, including Glenn Matlock, former Sex Pistols bassist; Viv Albertine of The Slits, a good friend; Jah Wobble, cohort and musician, and a variety of photographers, club owners, acquaintances and musicians. Dead at age 21 from a heroin overdose in New York after being accused of stabbing American girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death, was this the same Sid (originally Simon John Ritchie) who was said by Carolyn Coon to have been so beautiful that he burned people’s eyes and took their breath away? Was he the Sex Pistols genius who taught himself to play the bass after listening to a new Ramones record all night or was he a non-musician performer (whom some said was a gifted singer) who couldn’t play the bass at all? Or was he the drunkard who caused a girl to become blind in one eye after shattering his pint haphazardly at the 100 Club when the Damned were playing, the rogue who caused Viv Albertine to wear Doc Martens all the time because they were constantly running away from fights he started? Or the originator of the dance The Pogo where he jumped up and down in front of bands to show his enthusiasm?

Like most human beings, Sid Vicious was a mass of contradictions. Many believe he would still be alive today had he not met heroin addict Nancy Spungen (whom Glenn Matlock would say ate ice cream after slitting her wrists and pouting that Sid didn’t love her anymore). Sid! explores this iconic proponent of the Punk movement (where the experience itself was more important than talent or quality of music involved) in great detail, offering psychological insights into the singer who changed Frank Sinatra’s song “My Way” for all of history. How he fell apart under the weight of almost instantaneous world recognition is evident in his statements, “I’ll probaby die before I’m 25 but I will have lived the way I wanted to live” and “I’m totally numb. I’m more of a robot than a person. I don’t work on an emotional level.” One of the few songs he wrote, Belsen Was A Gas, contains the lyrics “Belsen was divine/If you survived the train/Then when you get inside/It’s Auf Wiedersehen” which were thought by many to be a huge breach of good taste!

For a truly in-depth look at a complicated (and, introverted though he was, social) personality, Sid! By Those Who Really Knew Him delivers everything you might want to know about someone with whom the youthful masses of a generation identified. The voice of an era, Sid! reminds us of a time where, as an Atlanta, Georgia fan exclaims after the Sex Pistol’s first U.S. performance, “They were great! They were great! If only I could make out the words they’d be even greater!”

MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 86 minutes
DVD Release Date: November 24, 2009

Grade: A

Special Collector’s DVD Edition includes a 10 song CD disc of Sid Vicious Live In New York with
Arthur Kane and Jerry Nolan

With Jah Wobble, Simone Stenfors, Alan Jones, Vivienne Westward, Glenn Matlock, Marco Pirroni, Viv Albertine, Steve Severin, Carolyn Coon, David Varian, Malcolm McLaren, Ron Watts, Bernard Brooke-Partridge, Rat Scabies, Peter Gravelle and John Tiberti

Sid! By Those Who Really Knew Him DVD Review by Christina of Music Room Reviews

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