HAPPY BDAY- SID VICIOUS

SID VICIOUS, 10 May 1957 - 2 February 1979) was an English musician best known as the bassist of the influential punk rock group Sex Pistols.

Sid Vicious was born John Simon Ritchie in Lewisham South East London to John and Anne Ritchie (née McDonald). His mother dropped out of school early due to a lack of academic success and went on to join the RAF, where she met her husband-to-be, Ritchie's father. His father was a guardsman at Buckingham Palace and a semi-professional trombone player on the London Jazz scene. Shortly after John's birth, he and his mother moved to the island of Ibiza, where they expected to be joined by John's father, who was supposed to support the family financially until he joined them; however, after the first few pay cheques never arrived, Anne realised that he would not be coming. Anne later married Christopher Beverley, a middle-class man in 1965, before setting up a family home back in Kent.
John's stepfather died six months later from cancer and, by 1968 John and his mother were living in a rented flat in Tunbridge Wells, where he attended Sandown Court School. In 1971, the pair moved to Hackney in East London.

John was given the nickname "Sid Vicious" by John Lydon (known as Johnny Rotten), after Lydon's pet hamster, Sid. The hamster had bitten Ritchie, who said that "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, Jah Wobble, and John Gray, and the four were colloquially known as "The Four Johns".


According to John Lydon, the two of them would often busk for money with Sid playing the tambourine. They would play Alice Cooper covers, and people gave them money to be quiet. Once a man gave them "three bob" (three shillings, i.e. 15p in decimal currency) and they all danced.


Vicious began his musical career in 1976 as a member of The Flowers of Romance along with former co-founding member of The Clash Keith Levene (who later co-founded John Lydon's post-Pistols project Public Image Limited) and Palmolive and Viv Albertine, who would later form The Slits. He appeared with Siouxsie and the Banshees, playing drums at their notorious first gig at the 100 Club Punk Festival in London's Oxford Street. According to members of The Damned, Vicious, along with Dave Vanian, was considered for the position of lead singer for The Damned but failed to show up for the audition.

Before joining the band, Vicious had associations with The Bromley Contingent, the fashion avant garde that followed the Sex Pistols. According to various publications (such as the biography England's Dreaming by John Savage) and films (namely The Filth and the Fury) Vicious was asked to join the group after Glen Matlock's departure in February 1977 due to his being present at every gig. Manager Malcolm McLaren once claimed "if Johnny Rotten is the voice of punk, then Vicious is the attitude."

McLaren also said in person and in a documentary that if he'd met Vicious before he had hired Rotten to be the singer, Vicious would have been the Sex Pistols front man, because he had the most charisma of anyone on that stage. Alan Jones described Vicious as "[having] the iconic punk look (...) Sid, on image alone, is what all punk rests on." His nails would be painted in a sloppy manner with purple nail polish.

Vicious played his first gig with the Pistols on 3 April 1977 at the The Screen On The Green in London. His debut was filmed by Don Letts and appears in Punk Rock Movie. In November 1977, Vicious met American groupie Nancy Spungen. Both the group and Vicious visibly deteriorated during their 1978 American tour. The Pistols broke up in San Francisco after their concert at the Winterland Ballroom on 14 January 1978. With Spungen acting as his "manager", Vicious embarked on a solo career during which he performed with musicians including Mick Jones of The Clash, original Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock, Rat Scabies of The Damned and the New York Dolls' Arthur Kane, Jerry Nolan, and Johnny Thunders. Vicious performed the majority of his performances at Max's Kansas City and drew large crowds.


On the morning of 12 October 1978, Vicious claimed to have awoken from a drugged stupor to find Nancy Spungen dead on the bathroom floor of their room in the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan, New York. She had suffered a single stab wound to her abdomen and appeared to have bled to death. The knife used had been bought by Vicious on 42nd Street and was identical to a collector's knife given to punk rock vocalist Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys by Dee Dee Ramone.

Vicious was arrested and charged with her murder. He said they had fought that night but gave conflicting versions of what happened next, saying, "I stabbed her, but I didn't mean to kill her. I loved her, but she treated me like shit", then saying that he did not remember and at one point arguing Spungen had fallen onto the knife.

On October 22, ten days after Spungen's death, Vicious attempted suicide by slitting his wrist and subsequently became a patient at Bellevue Hospital. He was charged with assault after an altercation with Todd Smith (singer Patti Smith's brother) at a Skafish concert. Vicious was arrested December 9, 1978 and sent to Rikers Island prison for 55 days. He was released on bail on February 1, 1979.

Bail was originally set at $50,000. However, after court hearings and work from his lawyer, it was lowered.Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols' manager, worked to raise money, and the bond was eventually covered by Virgin Records.

On the evening of 1 February 1979, a small gathering to celebrate Sid's having made bail was held at the 63 Bank St. New York Apartment of his new girlfriend, Michelle Robinson, whom he had started dating the day he got out of Bellevue Hospital the previous October. Vicious was clean, having been on a detoxification methadone program detoxed from heroin during his time at Rikers Island. However, at the dinner gathering, his mother (who was once a registered addict herself had some heroin delivered, against the wishes of Sid's girlfriend. The person who delivered it, Peter Kodick, came and stayed for a while. Vicious overdosed at midnight that night but everyone who was there that night worked together to get him up and walking around in order to revive him. At 3am Sid and Michelle Robinson went to bed together. Vicious was discovered dead late the next morning. An autopsy confirmed that Vicious died from an accumulation of fluid in the lungs that was consistent with heroin overdose. A syringe, spoon, and heroin residue were discovered near the body. It was theorized that he had injected himself with an excess of the nearly 80%-pure heroin.

A few days after Vicious' cremation, his mother found a suicide note in the pocket of his jacket:
We had a death pact, and I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. Goodbye.
Nancy was buried in a Jewish cemetery and Vicious, who was not Jewish, could not be buried with her. According to the book Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Vicious' mother scattered his ashes over Nancy's grave.