Video: John Lydon on the Tom Snyder Show 1980- Part 1

Interviewing rock & roll stars is not easy. They are a wild, usually egotistical bunch who often live outside the boundaries of acceptable human behavior as dictated by societal norms and generally accepted "common sense." For example, it may seem like common sense that once should not be nodding off on heroin, unable to speak, and wearing a shirt with a swastika on it during an on-camera interview. But for Sid Vicious, this seemed like an okay thing to do, and so he did it. Here's that, and nine other rock & roll interviews gone terribly wrong. [...]

As mentioned on Danger Radio Episode 49.

After recently viewing an old clip of The Clash being interviewed by the late (late) and great Tom Snyder (1936-2007), I was so inspired to write about his unique and relevant place in the anals of punk rock history. As host of The Tomorrow Show , which aired from 1973 until it's replacement by David Letterman in 1982, Tom Snyder characterized himself as a true grit journalist with the ability to land on topics that were not only controversial and taboo, but more importantly, misunderstood. [...]

The Sex Pistols, who I thought had broken up again at some point, headlined the Isle of Wight festival last weekend and somehow confused being tolerated by a festival crowd with actual interest in their future musical output. At some point, a 52-year-old man should have some idea that trying to drum up interest in your music by being coy/ridiculous isn't cool anymore, right? Not in this case, clearly. "It's a nice rumour [that the band will record another album] and it might possibly be true we are [...]

Manager of bands, photographer, auteur and archly Anglophilic Kansas Citian Harley Sears recently posted a video of an interview he conducted with original Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock. You may remember Sears from the story we ran in November about his involvement with fashion designer Keanan Duffty's line of David Bowie-inspired clothes at Target. Nicely done, Harley. And while we're on the Pistols, if you haven't watched [...]

This self-described "worst interview in the history of electronic media" with Sigur Ros on NPR made the blog rounds last week. It's worth watching. A commenter on the NPR blog mentioned "the classic Tom Snyder interview with Johnny Rotten." I had never seen this so I hopped on over to YouTube. Here's part one of two. I wish this was from a mockumentary. It'd be hilarious. But it's real and it's obnoxious... "It's a communications company." What the hell are they talking about?