'Sex Pistols' Bonfire today

[Stephen John Connett]

I hope there isn't any lost TV material going up in this stunt?

www.itv.com/news/london/2016-11-26/security-drafted-in-to-stop-punk-rockers-wrecking-the-burning-of-sex-pistols-anarchy-memorabilia-inferno/

[williammcgregor]

What a pathetic gesture/stunt by a complete nonentity. The media should'nt even give him the oxygen of publicity.

[Deleted]

Puerile. And not even original ... the KLF are supposed to have burned £1m a few years ago (some of which was owed to such creditors as Julian Cope), which was equally fatuous, and an artist called Michael Landy destroyed all his possessions, but at least he did it as a work of art. And then there was Pete Townshend.

Malcolm Maclaren was someone with both eyes on the main chance and both ears attuned to picking up on the next gimmick: his son is a poor imitation of the same thing.

I expect he'll regret it one day ... as indeed do the originally unrepentant KLF ...

[williammcgregor]

I agree with you Shelley. The KLF stunt was equally vacuous, juvenile etc etc. Who the hell did they expect to be impressed by such actions?

I have read that John Lydon cannot stand Malcolm McLaren... (But to be fair I don't know Mr McLaren personally so I cannot comment)

Likewise I do not know his son either (but he has made a bizarre decision if he intends to go ahead with the Sex Pistols stunt) and as you suggest he might very well live to regret it one day?

[Deleted]

McLaren ripped the Pistols off. They won a court case and split £1m between them in 1986.

[robertreinstein]

I think it is horrid. Yes, very punky, but also reminds me of ISIS destroying art.

[tom rogers]

Beyond idiotic. Even our new fuhrer would not be so stupid.

[Gary Critcher]

'But to be fair I don't know Mr McLaren personally so I cannot comment)'-------surely he's dead, isn't he??

[Patrick Coles]

Maybe he's declaring 'year zero' and anything OLD hat such as Punk and The Sex Pistols etc are now 'Dinosaurs', relics of a bygone era of no relevance or importance today that need to be destroyed and wiped clean...


....so that yoof can forget about anything from the past, music their ageing 'boring old farts' parents might have listened to back in the late seventies etc....and duly  have it's own all important say NOW

 - and another generation can 'talk about THEIR  generation' ?

after all What goes Around....

[robertreinstein]

He doesn't have all the memorabilia in the world, so f*ck em.
Just let him try to burn my collection of first issues.

[markg]

I have a vague recollection of John burning some Sex Pistols stuff, including an A&M 'God Save The Queen' on one of his Rotten TV shows, but I did not see it so it might not have actually happened.

[Deleted]

I get the whole thing about Year Zero & all that: every youth movement feels that way, Punk was just more vociferous. Putting a match to everything, as Corre did, was a bit pathetic, especially when he could have come up with some other ways of getting rid of it all, whilst still cocking a snook at the Punk Revival.

1. If he didn't want anyone else to get their grubby mitts on it, he could have put it all in a container and let it disintegrate, gather dust, whatever things do when left to their own devices. Then photograph it every year to chart its disintegration.

2. He could have put ut all up for auction on Ebay as individual lots, with a Buy It Now for 50p, thus divesting it all of its market value ... and then screen capturing the sales and putting them all together as some kind of anti-consumerism comment.

3. He could have got Rachel Whiteread to make a construction out of everything, then cover it all in concrete and make a mould, then sell castings, or exhibit it as some kind of anti-civic art.

4. On a similar artistic theme, get Simon Starling to repurpose everything, then re-repurpose it and then reverse the procedure. Then exhibit it on the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square.

5. Send each artifact to a different figure of the establishment.

[williammcgregor]

What's beats me is why he felt the need to make the whole scenario so negative and so childish. It's just an example of the unfortunate "Look at Me" society we have these days.

This was a massive opportunity to do something great for a change, why not just sell it off? either to the highest bidder as usual (or as Shelley mentions above)... then donate 100% of the proceeds to Charity?

We all get the Punk anti-establishment thing but at the end of the day we all eventually have to grow up and live in the real world.

[Stephen John Connett]

The words of the Sex Pistols were nihilistic but their actions were positive, get up, do something, DIY change the world but this event seems nihilism for it's own sake. I Like someone's idea I read online that he should have gathered the ashes in urns make it into something Art and send them to the Queen/Government with a coherent statement. Apparently only 130 people tuned intoyYouTube to watch it. Not so much a fire as a damp squib

[Rich Cornock]

It was nothing more than hype. The claim that the stuff destroyed was worth £5 million seems very far fetched and no doubt hasn't been independently verified by an auction house. I doubt if there was much in the fire other than a few old t shirts and posters that could easily be reproduced