Archived news
from the OLD John-Lydon.Com site
Please note this part of the news archive comes from the previous
John-Lydon.Com site. Therefore it will have a different appearance
and style to the current site.
Although all images should load fine, given the age of the features and info, maybe not all external links will work. If you spot anything that you think can be fixed just let us know...
June 4th, 1998
Sorry for the delay
- part 3 of the Sun video is now available. In a couple days, I will put
up the Axion Beach clip I promised a while back. May 31st, 1998
A very good article
with some detailed info about Lydon's current projects was sent in to me.
It's located here and I've also put up a link to it off the main page which,
from now on, will contain the most recent articles about the new films.
A news update will continue to accompany them here as well.May 27th, 1998
A slight correction
on who will be in the new Janeane Garofalo movie "The Independent" (along
with John Lydon): Jerry Stiller, who played George Costanza's TV Dad on "Seinfeld", will have a lead role in the new movie. As erroneously reported earlier, Barney Martin (Morty Seinfeld on "Seinfeld") was listed as being in the film.
Once a more complete and accurate collection of information on this movie and Lydon's Pistols Documentary exists, there will be separate sections devoted to these two films.
May 19th, 1998
More fallout about
the new movie(s)... This time from MTV.com 5.18.98 7:55 EDT Lydon Signs On For More Movie Bollocks
Former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon is in the midst of wrapping up his second film deal in less than two weeks.
According to his manager, Lydon is finishing up a movie deal with a British company for a Sex Pistols-produced documentary, comprised of all archival footage of the Pistols filmed from 1976 to 1978.
As we previously reported (see "Johnny Rotten Film In The Works"), the former Johnny Rotten has also clinched a deal to oversee the development of script based on his autobiography, "Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks No Dogs."
Lydon's agreement on that project will have him involved in selecting the screenwriter, director and cast members, although he will not be playing himself.
That as-yet-untitled film will focus on the Pistols and the social circumstances surrounding their rise to punk infamy in the '70s.
Meanwhile, Lydon is now in Los Angeles shooting what his management refers to as a "significant cameo role" in "The Independent," a film about the motion picture industry starring Janeane Garofalo.
- Thanks to Jason
May 18th, 1998
More info on the movie
John was filming a part in: It's titled "The Independent" and will be featuring Janeane Garofalo, former porn-star Ginger Lynn, Barney Martin (Seinfeld's TV dad) and of course John Lydon who plays the role of a gay guy in several of the scenes.
- Thanks to an anonymous source
May 14th, 1998
THIS JUST IN... Today, John filmed a part for an upcoming movie he will have a role in. At the moment, I can't offer you any more info but as soon as it's available, you'll read it first on this site! (Note: This is NOT related to the earlier news about the Pistols movie.)
- Thanks to an anonymous source
May 13th, 1998
I just received a copy
of the recent "Talk Radio" UK interview with John. It is only the first
half, so if someone else has the full interview, mail me. May 6th, 1998
Guess what popped up
today on MTV news, Rocktropolis All Star News and The Hollywood Reporter?
Take a look for yourself... 5.6.98 12:00 EDT - Johnny Rotten Movie In The Works (courtesy MTV News)
Johnny Rotten's story is coming to the silver screen.
The Hollywood Reporter says that the former Sex Pistol front man turned PIL (Public Image Ltd.) leader (aka John Lydon) will be the subject of a $5 million movie based on his autobiography, "Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs." The book was published by St. Martin's Press in the fall of 1994. Lydon is heavily involved in the film, and he's overseeing script development and helping choose the screenwriter, director and cast.
Lydon's manager, Eric Gardner, (who is producing the film) told the The Hollywood Reporter that the film will be more of a "portrayal of the social, cultural and political times of England in the 1970s" than a story of the Sex Pistols.
The band has already been the subject of at least one movie -- "Sid and Nancy" portrayed the lives and deaths of bassist Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungeon.
The Sex Pistols, considered the founders of the punk movement, released just one album during the less than two years they were together, 1977's "Never Mind the Bollocks." The band attempted to tour the U.S. early the following year, but 14 days into the trip, they imploded -- Rotten quit the band after their show at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom. He formed Public Image Limited later that year.
Rotten was the band's creative and political force, arrogantly rebelling against the 1960's hippiedom by promoting or at least singing about themes like anarchy, violence, apathy and fascism. He sparked a tattooed, independent 'hard core' working class revolution.
John Lydon Takes Active Role In Sex Pistols Movie (courtesy Rocktropolis)
Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon, better known as Johnny Rotten and also the driving force behind Public Image Ltd., is taking an active role in the making of a new film based on his autobiography, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Lydon will be supervising the development of the script and will help choose a screenwriter, director, and members of the cast.
The much- talked- about film, which has yet to be titled, will be centered around the Sex Pistols and England in the 1970s. It will touch on the cultural, social, and political issues of that time, as well as the music.
The $5 million project, which is a Panacea Entertainment and Rhino Films joint venture, is looking to find foreign distribution at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, while domestic distribution is still pending, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Rhino makes deal to shoot Rotten movie (courtesy The Hollywood Reporter)
Panacea Entertainment has entered into an agreement with Rhino Films to tell the story of the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) and the socio-political times of 1970s England that gave birth to punk rock. Budgeted at roughly $5 million, the film will be based on Lydon's autobiography, "Rotten: No Irish • No Blacks • No Dogs," which was published by St. Martin's Press in fall 1994. Lydon's manager, Eric Gardner, and Rhino Films' Stephen Nemeth will jointly produce the feature. Lydon will be active in the making of the movie, including overseeing script development and helping choose the screenwriter, director and cast. "The film will be more of a portrayal of the social, cultural and political times of England in the 1970s than a story of the Sex Pistols," Gardner said.
Now there is a full story about this in The Hollywood Reporter, but they want $9.95 to subscribe. Anybody care to donate the article if you can find it? Mail it to me if you can!
May 5th, 1998
The new message board
background and design is now up. I decided to go with a darker look, as
opposed to the standard white background found most everywhere else on this
site. I just hope you can still read everything on it. I put the links back up to the two "lost"
movie files on my videos section. They have to be downloaded a little differently
since they're not coming from my site directly, but they still work. April 29th, 1998
It's been confirmed...
John did do an interview on April 12th that was broadcast on BBC's Talk
Radio with Nicky Horn in the UK. From John's location in Pasadena, California,
it was relayed to the UK via an ISDN patch. (You gotta love the internet!)
I should be getting a partial recording of the interview soon (look for
the transcript and sound-bites), but if anyone has the full broadcast on
tape, please mail me! All right, all you
UK residents... John will be going to the UK in June to be a guest on a
Channel 4 soccer-type show. Get your tapes ready for this one! More info
to come as soon as I get it. -Thanks to an anonymous source
April 23rd, 1998
This was spotted today
in Jerry Carroll's column of the San Francisco Chronicle: ...That was legendary Sex Pistols creator Malcolm McLaren taking his written driving test with an open book at the DMV office here. When he was spotted, an official tore up the test. McLaren was told he'd have to take it over again. ``I can't come back,'' McLaren replied meekly. ``I'm from London.'' Tuff, he was told.
Thanks to Kevin for the info.
April 20th, 1998
I just added a few
new pics to the Images section. Many thanks to the people who sent them
to me. I almost forgot... April marks this site's
1 Year Anniversary. Way back in April of 1997, I first put this site up
on my free GTE.net homepage. It used only about 2 of the 5 megs that they
gave me. Since then, it has been "remodeled" about four or five times, moved
from GTE.net to publicimageltd.com, had a search page, message board and
RealAudio added to it, and it now contains over 125 pictures, 20 interviews
and almost 45 megs worth of graphics, sound files and videos available for
download! Yippee. April 19th, 1998
Part 2 of the Sun video
is available for download off the "Sun" page. I just got my new hard drive
back yesterday, after it had crashed twice, so I can now begin to make video
clips again and add some more screen capture as well. I've got a few good
ones in mind too, including the famous clip of John fighting with security
at the Pistols' Axion Beach Festival show in 1996. Check back soon for that
one and more. April 5th, 1998
Whew! I've finally
gotten the long lost message board back up and running! From now on, it
should be trouble free. But just in case, I have come up with a couple different
ways to save it in the future. Have fun! I should have my new hard drive installed
this week, which means the rest of the "Sun" video. Stay tuned... March 29th, 1998
The Loaded interview
is now up, including the pics from the magazine. There were a few old Pistols
pics, including a fold-out poster, which I didn't scan - sorry! March 20th, 1998
I've got the new issue
of 'Loaded'. I haven't read it yet, but it looks very promising. Some interesting
pics also (you'll see what I mean soon). I'll probably be transcribing it
this weekend and scanning the pics as well. Once it's done, you can check
out the new Loaded interview page for all the goodies! I really despise having to put this on almost
every news update: This glorious server has once again been running ridiculously
slow over the past few days. There's not very much I can do about these
types of issues except let you all know so you don't expect lightning-fast
downloads. I could switch servers, which would mean downing this site for
probably a week or so. And I don't think I'll do that just yet. I'm also
still trying to get the message board back up. March 16th, 1998
The 'VOX' interview
is now available. Visit the interviews
section to read it! The latest issue of 'Loaded' is still on
its way to my local supplier and, hopefully, by Wednesday I'll be working
on transcribing that as well. I do have confirmed info that the current
issue does indeed contain the Lydon interview. I was at a local record show over the weekend
and unearthed some interesting artifacts. I found a handful of Lydon concert
photos from a couple of PiL concerts, which I've added to my images section,
page 8. I also found an extremely rare 3" CD single of 'World Destruction'
(it has all four versions on it)! I've never seen this before in CD format.
I've scanned that as well (see the 'images' section, page 8). I also found
a CD single promo of "Acid Drops" released by Virgin. It contains the original
as well as the "edit" version, which is basically the same song without
the last minute of music. None the less, it's nice to add to my collection.
March 15th, 1998
I have a load of news
to write about, which will come later tonight. So please check back soon.
But first... A bit of bad news, folks. As most of you know, the famous "Message Board" suffered some major problems today. I tried to save it in every known way imaginable, but unfortunately, due to the extreme piece of shit server that hosts my site, the board (in all its glory) has become completely irreparable. Therefore, I have been forced to start all over - fresh from the start. I hope to have it back up and running, at the very soonest tonight. At the latest - hopefully by the end of this week. It's hard to tell though, when you're dealing with such blatantly ignorant morons who are so severely incompetent (the owner of this server, for example - who I won't name out of sheer morbid pity).
I would like to take a moment to thank all of you who have taken the time to post messages since the board was originally created. Even though we recently had a similar problem, you still continued to post your messages. I welcome you all back just as soon as I get the board up and running again. I will do everything possible to avoid these problems in the future.
Thank you.
March 1st, 1998
For those of you who
are awaiting the second and third parts to the "Sun" video, unfortunately
you'll have to keep waiting for the time being. I recently suffered a major
hard drive problem which left me virtually unable to do anything more than
simply go on-line. I probably won't be able to make the other two parts
for at least two or three weeks (at the most), hopefully sooner. I will
surely let everyone know as soon as the next installment will be available
for download. February 27th, 1998
Remember the VOX interview
back in September? Well, I finally acquired it. It's a very good interview
too. Lydon discusses many topics including Tony Blair, Jeremy Irons, alcoholism,
parenting, therapy and of course... religion. Not to mention many other
things. I hope to have this up soon along with the Loaded interview (if
not sooner). Thank you very much Rob for sending this to me.
February 23rd, 1998
The message board is
finally working again! The back-up I had to use was a little old (the last
50 messages were lost). But, feel free to post again! February 21st, 1998
The message board is
obviously still down. In the mean time, this month's "Loaded" magazine has
a picture preview of next month's issue which contains the recent John Lydon
interview. The link is off the main page. February 17th, 1998
My apologies, but the
server that hosts this site is having some interesting problems at the moment.
The message board, for some reason, is completely down, so please don't
bother trying to read it or post to it right now. Also, the counter that
used to read about 19,000 visitors decided to reset itself today. I hope
to have this resolved soon. Updates will be posted as needed. February 6th, 1998
John did an interview
for a Canadian television crew recently. It had something to do with a history
of punk documentary. Canadian fans should keep their eyes open for this.
Anyone that happens to tape this when it get aired, or has any more info...
mail me! This server has been running a little slow
at times (for those who have been trying to download the "Sun" video clip).
Hopefully, it'll get faster very soon. In the meantime, keep trying. February 2nd, 1998
RealAudio has arrived!
Go to the sounds page and you'll see the link. Many more files will be added
soon. Remodeling of the main page and various
other areas has finally been completed. And, most importantly, I finally have in
my possession the very rare "Sun" video! (A world of thanks to the person
who took the time to copy and send it to me. Thank you very much.) I've
created a separate page for it, which includes loads of screen captures.
I decided not to make one whole AVI file of the entire video, since it would
take way too long for anyone to download and I really don't have the space
available for a file that large right now. I am going to be putting the
video up in "thirds" on a continual basis. Up now, is part 1 of 3. Every
week or so I'll put up the next part, and so on. Hopefully some day, when
RealVideo becomes more practical, I'll be able to offer entire videos at
once. Right now though, it doesn't work well enough with your average modem
for me to want to use it. Anyway, the new "Sun" page can be found here.
It's also linked off the video and main pages. Enjoy! 