Destination: Baton Rouge

DOA/Sex Pistols Tour Chapter 12: January 9, 1978

Roberta Bayley hanging out in the airport, waiting for our private plane to Baton Rouge. Photo © Roberta Bayley 2023.

Narrator: In our last episode, the Sex Pistols gave a press conference after the show at Randy’s Rodeo. Next stop: Baton Rouge!

I can’t remember all of the details now (45 years later), but somehow I got some sleep after the Randy’s Rodeo show. We woke had to wake up early to fly from San Antonio to Baton Rouge, the next stop on the tour. I think we were all still a bit dazed from the Randy’s Rodeo show. Roberta and I were both surprised that we were taking a private plane to Baton Rouge. San Antonio is around 450 miles away from San Antonio: 7 hours by car but only three to four by plane. Logistically, it made a lot of sense.

I can’t remember exactly which plane we ended up on, but it would have looked like one of these. Photo © Roberta Bayley 2023

Tom Forcade brought so many people on the tour that now that it was cheaper to hire a private plane than buy airline tickets: He hired a few bodyguards to protect the film crew from Warner Brothers’ security goons. Michael Drake introduced us to our new companions while we waited for the plane. They were members of the Young Lords, a Latino gang from the South Bronx. The Young Lords had affiliations with most of the radical left political groups back then: the Black Panthers, the Rainbow Coalition, and Forcade’s own radical group, the Free Ranger Tribe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Lords

Forcade’s own radical group, the Free Ranger Tribe:

https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/999566262602121

This is the list of everyone on the plane (I might be missing one or two): Tom Forcade, Michael Drake, Lech Kowalski (D.O.A. film director), Rufus Standefer (D.O.A. cameraman), three Young Lords bodyguards, Roberta and I.

I always remembered the Young Lords for causing problems for the 1970 New York Pop Festival at Randalls Island Music Festival that affected Jimi Hendrix (The G. O. A. T., IMHO).

Links to stories about the 1970 New York Pop Festival:

https://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_day_the_music_died

https://www.djtees.com/blogs/djtees-blog/randalls-island-festival-1970/

This is a clip of the Jimi Hendrix performance at Randall’s Island if you’re interested:

Some people think the version of “Red House” Jimi did was the best, judge for yourself if you’re a Jimi Hendrix fan (like me):

https://headthegong.com/red-house-jimi-hendrix-new-york-pop-randalls-island-1970/

Ironically, what one of the concert promoters says about the festival problems almost predicts the rise of punk rock:

“The love-peace thing of Woodstock is out. Anarchy. Complete and total anarchy. That's what's replaced it.”

Nonetheless, these Young Lords didn’t seem to be a dangerous threat to the half-dozen Warner Brothers bikers and Vietnam Vets who were “protecting” the Sex Pistols. I think Forcade was just fed up with the threats and intimidation, so he hired some muscle to protect the film crew—especially after all of the damage to the cameras (which cost thousands of dollars). The Young Lords tried their best to show us their muscles and convince us that they could handle any situation, but they were probably half the size of most of the Warner Brothers security thugs. I’m not sure if there was a confrontation or not, but Warner Brothers tour manager Noel Monk, in his book Twelve Days On The Road, suggested there was. The book is full of half-truths and bullshit, it’s hard to say what really happened.

If you look close, you can see Michael Drake and John Holmstrom (wearing the ugly three-piece polyester suit Forcade insisted that he wear thought the tour). Photo © Roberta Bayley 2023

Once the private plane was fueled and ready for take-off, the dozen or so people Tom Forcade had hired for the Sex Pistols tour got on board. Once I was seated, Tom threw the daily newspaper to me.

For me this was the biggest “WOW!” moment during the tour. We had been isolated from most of the media coverage (no iPhones back, no news apps, no time to watch much TV), so the fact that the Sex Pistols were front-page news just amped up our feelings that we were all a part of a historical event. Nothing like the Sex Pistols tour had ever happened before. It was a phenomenon, similar to the Beatles’ first U.S. tour and the Woodstock and Altamont festivals.

Hey—we were a small part of front-page news! It was an amazing feeling! Who knows—maybe people would care about what we saw and wrote about and photographed would be remembered someday.

I always thought of this as the peak moment of the tour. The Sex Pistols had achieved Malcolm McLaren’s vision of the band confronting the redneck culture of America’s Deep South, the Sex Pistols performed an amazing show, somehow Sid Vicious kept his act together, and the world’s press and media were paying attention to the most important punk rock band in the world. What could go wrong when everything was going according to plan?

NEXT: The Kingfish Ballroom. Who the fuck was “The Kingfish,” exactly? (Hint: It has nothing to do with the “Kingfish” Stevens character from the Amos ‘n’ Andy TV show!)

P.S. A special thanks to Roberta Bayley for allowing me to use her photos from the tour. Most of them have never been seen before. So if you know any Sex Pistols fans who are curious for new information about the tour, invite them to join this newsletter. There are more exclusives in the works!

Hey, what are you waiting for? Do it now!

If you’re interested in checking out more PUNK Magazine stuff, The Best of PUNK Magazine book is still available (just click on the banner!):

If you want to read more about Tom Forcade, his amazing influence on 1960s/1970s counterculture and PUNK Magazine, check out this book:

Without Tom Forcade, PUNK Magazine would have been out of business in the Sumer of 1976, He was the most amazing person I ever met, and if you read this book you will begin to understand why!