An
interview with
Den Browne,
friend and flatmate of Sid and Nancy
by
Mudkiss fanzine: read the rest of
the interview on their
website
___________________________________________________________________________
"I was heavily into the smack scene - using and dealing - from
'73 to '85. Addiction was a bad mistake and I don't recommend the
junkie lifestyle to anyone - but I did manage to meet some great
people like Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen and Alex Trocchi (author
of "Young Adam" and Cain's Book"). I'm writing a memoir, I guess,
of that time.
Sid and Nancy never met Alex, but the stories combine to give
different perspectives on the junk scene and an insight into a
particular time and place in the punk era".
Mel
How did you meet Sid and Nancy?
Den
One day I answered a ring at the door and was amazed to find Sid
and Nancy there. They'd come to score off someone else in the
house and rung the wrong bell. I told them I could get them a much
better deal, anyway they ended up crashing at my place that night
(they were staying with his mum in Dalston then). That night
turned into about 3 months (until Virgin got them the place at
Pindock Mews). So we're talking roughly of a period from just
before "Holidays in the sun" till just after "Never mind" came
out.
I knew Sid and
Nancy
pretty well, but never met any of the other Pistols or Malcolm
McLaren. Later on, after my girlfriend and I split up, I briefly
stayed with them at Pindock Mews.
Later of course after I'd met Sid and Nancy I realised that it was
Johnny and Jerry she'd come over with from NY.
Nancy
saw Johnny T as a kind of lovable bastard, very macho Italian guy,
wants his pasta on the table and kids put to bed on time thinks
women shouldn’t take heroin, but is very loyal to him. Of course,
there's a view that the arrival of heroin on the
UK
punk scene can be put down entirely to the presence of the
Heartbreakers on the Anarchy tour - though this seems too
simplistic to me.
Mel
Did you mix with any other bands at the time you lived with Sid
and Nancy?
Den
No - the Pistols' set up was pretty insular. I've realised since
then that Sid had known most of the people on the
London punk scene well before the Pistols,
through Flowers of Romance and so on - but he never said much
about that period.
Sid was pretty dismissive of most of
the other UK
groups: Gen X - "mail order punk," Stranglers - "football fans'
music", ‘The Damned’ - "comedy act from Croydon". Although he used
to take the piss out of the first Clash album, there was a bit of
grudging respect - partly because their salary was twice the
Pistols' (£50 a week rather than £25).
Sid's thing was really US punk and
especially the first two Ramones albums. His ultimate hero was Dee
Dee Ramone. I can still see Sid, sitting on the edge of our bed,
right by the stereo, hunched over his white Fender, frantically
trying to keep up with "51st and 3rd" etc. That tended to be
mostly what we listened to - plus Iggy, some Lou Reed, Stooges,
Dolls, Richard Hell, some of my reggae/dub stuff and some Bowie.
Gianni and I were really into Patti Smith and Television but Sid
and Nancy found
them a bit too arty-farty I think.
Mel
I once read that Nancy
was quite promiscuous and Sid didn’t seem to mind that she slept
with other guys?
Den
I think she's had a really shit deal from the media over the years
- whether it’s the "Nauseating Nancy" tabloid morons or various
music journalists who should know better. I'd be interested to
know if Nina Antonia has a view on this - I really agreed with
what she said re: music media sexism
Nancy
was like lots of single, attractive, sexually active women in
their early 20s. She was very aware of her sexuality and enjoyed
sex. A lot of the time with Nancy,
the problem was that people here find that type of
New York in-yah-face no-bullshit type of
woman hard to deal with.
She and I
talked a lot about her experiences as a sex worker in
New York, and I think its pretty true to
say most of her views on sex derived from abusive experiences -
i.e. take charge before someone else does.
She was
certainly the dominant partner with Sid. She claimed that Sid had
been "practically a virgin" and "never had a proper fuck" before
meeting her, and he didn't disagree.
Clearly when
you've got two couples living in the same room for 3 months or so,
there aren't going to be any secrets after a while... during the
time I knew them their sex-life was virtually non-existent, due to
him being so out of it all the time. Basically at that time he
preferred getting stoned to having sex - easier and more reliable.
Also, when you're first into heroin, sex is pretty difficult for
guys - though this changed as you got used to it. Sometimes
Nancy would get extremely pissed off by the
situation and this would be where most of their rows/fights
started. Other times she'd do a whole fetish gear number trying to
"arouse" his interest, but Sid was rarely able to see it through.
Now you ask me, though', I don't have any real factual knowledge
of her having sex elsewhere then.
Mel
Any good stories of Sid and Nancy you wish to share with us?
Den
“Out there in the night a story of a photo” - One night Sid and
Nancy, me and my girlfriend Gianni ("Jannie" in my book) decided
to go and see X-Ray Spex at the marquee. We'd all done loads of
gear and after watching some of their set, we went to the bar at
the back of club. There were the four of us we ended up on a dirty
old sofa. I came round to find a couple of flashbulbs popping and
various punks and tourists debating whether it was "really them"
or not and saying how out of it we looked (this was before Sid's
habit was common knowledge). Now I'd like to think that somewhere
on the planet there might be a middle-aged Swede or whatever, who
still has that long forgotten picture.
Mel
What do you think happened that fateful day in ‘The
Chelsea Hotel’
in room 100?
Den
For what its worth, here goes...I can still remember the cold
horror of waking up that morning and hearing about
Nancy's death. My thought then and ever
since has been that Sid did it. He might not have meant to,
probably didn't even know what he'd done, given his tuinal intake
- but I'm sure he did it. The reason is that I saw so much casual
violence between them during our time together, that it’s easy to
see how they only needed to be a bit more out of it than usual -
downers have nasty psych side effects too - and use a knife rather
than a padlock chain, and that's it.
I felt Sid had
changed quite a bit since they'd been at our place - he'd
generally been funny, positive, original and "up". Now he seemed
morose and grouchy most of the time - partly due to his huge
methadone intake at the time (which made the sexual tension with
Nancy
even worse). On the other hand, she was pretty up then, as she'd
decided she was now his manager and was trying to take care of
business (while he lay in front of the TV all day). But generally
I felt for all their bravado, the scene was going bad.
This is a
purely personal view, but I think his depression was also down to
the fact that for all his belief in himself as a big star
(something he'd learnt from Johnny T), the future looked very
uncertain. There were no record companies in bidding wars to sign
him. There weren't queues of musicians wanting to play with him,
not even Jerry and Johnny. He wasn't bursting with new songs to
record. Although the financial situation was better than when the
Pistols had been active, there were court cases to come. And all
the time his habit was getting bigger. Virgin had supplied a
helpful doctor - but what would happen in NY, one of the toughest
places on the planet to be a junkie.
Mel
Did you witness any of the violence between Sid and Nancy, when
you lived with them?
Den
Yes sometimes the arguing and violence between them would be more
of a game/ritual type thing.
Nancy
would sometimes really taunt him to get a reaction. Bringing each
other down as much as possible then reaching total despair and
making up again. Other times it could be totally random and
sudden. One afternoon at Pindock Mews the 3 of us were sitting on
their bed, stoned. It was a really hot afternoon and
Nancy
was in bra'n'pants. She starts saying she wants a drink, and as
Sid is on the edge of the bed, can he get it for her? He ignores
her and it all goes quiet. Suddenly he picks up an ashtray and
hits her across the head with it.
No-one says
anything, Sid carries on watching TV.
Nancy
cried quietly for a second, and then just sat there as the blood
ran down, eventually collecting and congealing in her bra.
Horrible scene and one I have quite a bit of trouble with now.
Mel
What was the scene at Pindock Mews really like?
Den
After Sid and Nancy moved out, the scene at my place went downhill
rapidly. Gianni decided life was dull after Sid and Nancy and
tended to stay in bed all day watching TV in a methadone haze. I
got badly ripped off on a deal and this caused a lot of
difficulties. Sid and Nancy would still come round, but after a
while I preferred to go over to their place to get out of the
Eton Ave gloom. That was where I met
Johnny Thunders.
We split up
that summer ('78). I needed a place to go and given what had gone
down before, I thought I couldd crash at their place until I got
sorted. I also had a vague hope of getting some of the money that
Sid owed me.
By then
Nancy
was meant to be Sid's manager, and was actually pretty together a
lot of the time. Other times she'd go into diva mode. The flat was
over a car re-spray workshop - one afternoon she starts nagging me
to go down and get them to turn off their radio and all their
equipment cos it’s giving her a headache.
I found Sid
wasn't as he'd been at our place. At times he could still be
sharp, funny and perceptive, but a lot of the time the humour was
sneering and aggressive. He was also drinking more. It seems
amazing to me, even now, that someone who could shoot up a gram of
Heroin in one go and barely bat an eyelid, would be totally
transformed by a single bottle of beer. Luckily there were warning
signs, but basically if he drank any alcohol, he'd get in a
dangerous, leery mood, trying to pick an argument with whoever was
around. That was the main reason I left after a week or so - and
it seemed like the next thing I was reading was about someone
od'ing and dying there. I didn't see them again after that, and
knew they wouldn't be back after they left for
New York.
Mel
You talk of Nancy and Sid with real affection – What is your
most ‘special moment’ you all shared?
Den
Despite it all there was something very childlike about them, with
real no-bullshit innocence, honesty, which had a lot to do with
why Gianamaria and I liked them so much. Probably early on ...
when we met, they were crashing at his mum's and had a full-on
"everything's against us" attitude - pretty fair, based on their
experiences then. They were really blown away at having a
simpatico place to stay. The main thing at Sid then was his sense
of humour: very quick, alert, clever word-play and nice sense of
life's absurdity.
Like I said
before, I am out to rehabilitate
Nancy
a bit. Sure, she could be a real pain (e.g. specialised in staging
dramas around losing her asthma inhaler), but she's not the punk
Yoko Ono she's been made out to be.
I just remember
the first time she came to my place - she looked round, wide-eyed,
and went "Wow, you got BOOKS! ..." Turned out she was massively
into Sylvia Plath, and other
US women poets like Anne Sexton
and Elizabeth Bishop.
Mudkiss ©2008
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