Peter Larsen has been the Pop Culture Reporter for the Orange County Register since 2004, finally achieving the neat trick of getting paid to report and write about the stuff he's obsessed about pretty much all his life. Insomniac’s Skyline LA festival will include Carl Cox, Green Velvet and more Tailgate Fest returns with Jake Owen, Billy Currington and a new home in Fontana Kid Cudi, ASAP Rocky and Playboi Carti to headline Smoker’s Club Fest at Glen Helen Amphitheater Meat Loaf, ‘Bat Out of Hell’ rock superstar, dies at 74 Related Articlesįestival Pass: Tailgate Fest, Smoker’s Club announce lineups “We’ve got something in common that only four people in the world have.” Glen Matlock “John has said, ‘The Sex Pistols might not be the best of friends but we’re not the worst of enemies,’” he says. The notoriously fractious group don’t keep in close touch, Matlock says, and at times have done a good bit of back-stabbing and trash talking, but it remains a bond all these years later. It’s not looking very likely … but never say never.” “I wouldn’t say no but I don’t wake up in the morning thinking about it,” Matlock says.
#Who replaced glen matlock movie
“It’s like something out of the movie ‘Cabaret.’”Īs for the Sex Pistols, Matlock, who rejoined the group in 1996 for the Filthy Lucre tour, and also played with Pistols John Lydon, Steve Jones and Paul Cook at sporadic gigs over the next decade, he’s good for another reunion but also fine if that doesn’t happen. “It’s a great story that you’re going to have to come down and find out,” Matlock says. He might do “Ambition,” a song he wrote for Iggy Pop when he worked with Iggy on the 1980 album “Soldier,” and given that the solo show includes a lot of stories about the songs and people he’s played with he teased an Iggy tale, too. “I think it’s the most important punk song, because it inspired me to write ‘Pretty Vacant,’ ” Matlock says of “Blank Generation.” The Scott Walker song “Montague Terrace (In Blue)” is covered on the new record and played in concert, and Richard Hell’s “Blank Generation” is also a staple. “It’s like going to see Bowie, and if he hadn’t done ‘Heroes’ I’d have gone home disappointed,” Matlock says. The showcases he’s doing this time will feature his solo work as well as a Sex Pistols song or two - “Pretty Vacant,” for which he’s typically given the lion’s share of the credit, shows up in almost every show, and “God Save The Queen” is often in the set, too. “They’re quite left-field musicians but they’re all very good at their craft.”
“Everybody sort of helps each other out because they want to be associated with something that’s live and real and tasteful and kind of urgent in some way. “I think that’s a good thing, really,” Matlock says of the collaborative nature of the project. He’d always liked Bryan Ferry’s cover of it, which featured guitarist Chris Spedding, another friend, so he called up Spedding and he stopped by to lay down the final piece. “It’s not the same as, but it’s got that same kind of thing as the Everly Brothers ‘The Price of Love,’” Matlock says. “It’s a skiffle kind of vibe,” he says, referencing the genre that’s sort of an old-timey musical gumbo - blues, jazz, folk all in the pot - and which inspired many young British musicians during its revival in the ’50s.Īmong the highlights is the album’s final track, “Keep On Pushing,” which Matlock recorded with Slim Jim Phantom, but then thought it might need an extra bit of guitar in the mix.
The album is terrific, with Matlock’s rugged voice nicely matched with the early rock ‘n roll sounds that accompany it. “And off we jolly well went,” Matlock says of the sessions that led to “Good To Go.” Then he called up a pair of friends, Stray Cats’ drummer Slim Jim Phantom and longtime Bowie guitarist Earl Slick, and asked them if they wanted to make a bit of music together. So inspired by Dylan’s band, he’s spent the past decade playing more acoustic shows than electric - “A Sex Pistol on stage with an acoustic guitar is certainly different for a start,” he says. We kind of know that it’s like preaching to the choir.” “They don’t all have to be about bringing down the government.
“I like songs that are hopefully about something, that have some kind of consequence,” he says.