Yet the darker side of Vicious' personality emerged when he assaulted NME journalist Nick Kent with a motorbike chain, with help from Jah Wobble. Once a man gave them "three bob" (three shillings, i.e., 15p in decimal currency) and they all danced. They would play Alice Cooper covers, and people gave them money to stop. Īccording to Lydon, he and Vicious would often busk for money, with Vicious playing the tambourine. John Lydon nicknamed Ritchie "Sid Vicious" after Lydon's pet hamster Sid (which was named after Syd Barrett), who had bitten Ritchie, eliciting Ritchie's response: "Sid is really vicious!" The animal was described by Lydon as "the softest, furriest, weediest thing on earth." At the time, Ritchie was squatting with Lydon, John Joseph Wardle ( Jah Wobble), and John Gray, and the four were familiarly known as "the Four Johns". She tried (but failed) to convince Ritchie to join her in a sham marriage so she could get a work permit. There he met American expatriate Chrissie Hynde before she formed her group, the Pretenders. One favourite spot was Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's then-little-known clothing store, SEX. īy the time he was 17, Ritchie was hanging around London. Lydon described him during this time as a David Bowie fan and a "clothes hound". Ritchie first met John Lydon in 1973, when they were both students at Hackney Technical College. He also spent some time living in Clevedon, Somerset. In 1971, mother and son moved to Hackney in east London, where Ritchie attended Clissold Park School. Anne later married Christopher Beverley in 1965, before setting up a family home back in Kent.Ĭhristopher Beverley died six months later from kidney failure, and by 1968, Ritchie and his mother were living in a rented flat in Tunbridge Wells, where he attended Sandown Court School. In the time they were in Ibiza waiting for John to show up, John decided to abandon fatherhood. However, after the first few cheques failed to arrive, Anne realised that he was not going to come. Shortly after Ritchie's birth, he and his mother moved to Ibiza, where they expected to be joined by his father who, it was planned, would support them financially in the meantime. His mother dropped out of school early due to a lack of academic success and joined the British Army, where she met her husband-to-be, Ritchie's father, a guardsman at Buckingham Palace and a semi-professional trombone player on the London jazz scene.
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Simon John Ritchie was born on in Lewisham to John and Anne Ritchie (1933–1996).
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On 15 December 1979, a compilation of live material recorded during his brief solo career was released as Sid Sings. Less than four weeks after Vicious's death, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle soundtrack album was released. He died in 1979 after overdosing on heroin. Under suspicion of murder, Vicious was released on bail he was arrested again for assaulting Todd Smith, brother of Patti Smith, at a nightclub, and underwent drug rehabilitation on Rikers Island. Likely due to intravenous drug use, Vicious was hospitalized with hepatitis during the recording of the Sex Pistols' only studio album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols his bass is only partially featured on one song, "Bodies." Vicious later appeared as a lead vocalist, performing three songs, on the soundtrack to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980), a largely fictionalised documentary about the Sex Pistols.Īs the Sex Pistols were gaining attention, Vicious met Nancy Spungen, and the couple began a relationship that culminated in Spungen's death from an apparent stab wound while staying in New York City's Hotel Chelsea with Vicious. He replaced Glen Matlock, who had fallen out of favour with the other members of the group. Simon John Ritchie ( – 2 February 1979), known professionally as Sid Vicious, was an English musician best known as the bassist for the punk rock band Sex Pistols.