DOA: The Sex Pistols 1978 Tour and the Film
Chapter Four: Going to Memphis! January 6, 1978
Sorry for the delays in telling the details about my involvement in the Sex Pistols 1978 U.S. tour, but a lot of stuff is happening lately. I’ll share details soon. So please be patient, there will probably be a lot of “Special Announcement!” newsletters over the next few years: The 50th anniversary of PUNK magazine takes place from November 2025 through 2026, and the 50th anniversary of the first Ramones album also happens in 2026, etc. Also, my clothing deal in Japan is heating up, and I am also working on a new t-shirt design for Metropolis!
LINK: METROPOLIS VINTAGE
It’s also taking a lot of work to recount my tour story. A lot of weird things took place in a very short amount of time with a lot of different people and so I have a lot of untold stories. I hope you can keep track, and enjoy them if you can. And leave a comment if you want to know more! Okay?
In our last episode (which you can find in my substack archive), filmmaker Lech Kowalski met up with High Times alternative media mogul Tom Forcade and they began to film the Sex Pistols U.S. tour in Atlanta. Tom managed to piss off Noel Monk, Warner Brothers Records choice for managing the tour. (After it was over, Monk was given a prime position, working with Van Halen.)
This became a clash of cultures: The big Warner Brothers corporation against a bunch independent filmmakers, journalists and publications. The Sex Pistols were supposed to be an anti-establishment rock band, but instead they were under the heel of a large corporation that was calling all the shots. And Forcade wanted to “liberate them.”
So here’s my story of how I ended up on the trip of a lifetime. My story in PUNK Magazine left out a lot of details because Tom Forcade always insisted on complete secrecy during all of our dealings. Many people in the New York City alternative/underground scene thought he was a “double agent” working for the intelligence agencies back in the 1970s (FBI, CIA, we didn’t even know about the NSA yet). From what I’ve heard, poet Allen Ginsberg started the rumor that Tom was a federal informant, but later regretted it and took back his accusation. But the everlasting damage was done.
I highly doubt Tom Forcade worked for the government because I knew him as a true believer in press freedom, the First Amendment, and most important: paying creative writers, artists, photographers and people as much money as possible! The people accusing him of (mostly political) bullshit never contributed to the creative community as much as Tom Forcade did, and our culture became much poorer after he left this dimension…
When I ended up working at High Times magazine in the late 1980s, the rumor persisted. Much like “Paul is Dead,” “Alice Cooper is Eddie Haskell” and other nonsense, people always asked me about the FBI running High Times magazine, and owning the subscriber list and nonsense like that. Like they say, a rumor goes around the world while the truth is still lacing up its boots. But bullshit like this held back a lot of people from being involved in political action to end marijuana prohibition! So please, everyone out there: Do not believe corporate media, it’s all CIA propaganda and always has been. Why is it that people do not believe RFK Jr. when he says that the CIA killed his uncle and father, but still think? … Well, I had better stop right there or most of you will think I am a nut.
Not only that, but recent research has revealed that everyone from Timothy Leary to Lee Harvey Oswald to Charles Manson were involved with the CIA, so who knows what the fuck. All I know is that Tom was definitely the best friend PUNK magazine ever had. He kept us independent supporting us more than anyone else in the world. He spent thousands of dollars trying to make PUNK mag a success before blowing his brains out in 1978.
On January 6th I was hanging out in the PUNK magazine office. I was kind of pissed off that I wasn’t able to go on the Sex Pistols tour, especially after I heard that Tom Forcade was making a documentary film about it! Since we had been meeting about how to get PUNK Magazine up and running again, I thought he might have invited me to see a show or two… Right? I mean: What the fuck???
Instead I was looking forward to the upcoming Palladium show the next night: Ramones/Runaways/Suicide at The Palladium! One of those special big shows for the Ramones! And I had several tickets in the second row! And I did the artwork for the album cover (Raod To Ruin had recently been released), and I was even dating the editor of The Ramones Fan Club newsletter! So this night at the Palladium was going to be a big deal for me. “Fuck English punk rock,” I thought. “The Ramones are the best!” As it turns out, it was one of the last shows with Tommy behind the drums. The show was recorded and is available as an album: NYC 1978
Then I got the phone call that changed my life forever: It was around 3:00 pm in the afternoon on January 6th. The transcript below is from a film script I wrote with Richard Belfiore about my Sex Pistols tour experience, the actual incident was probably a bit different (but who the fuck remembers details anymore?):
FORCADE:
John, I saw the Pistols last night, they were amazing! They were great! You should have been here!
INTERCUT: PHONE CONVERSATION BETWEEN FORCADE AND JOHN
HOLMSTROM
Sounds cool, Tom… Ah, you're right, I should have been there.
FORCADE
We're here in Memphis, getting ready for another show. What's going on with you?
JOHN
Not much.
FORCADE
Great, I'll see you in a few hours.
JOHN
What? A few hours? I'm in New York!
How…
FORCADE
There's a plane ticket for you at my office and your name is on the guest list. Maureen has the plane ticket for you, stop by the office to pick it up. But do not tell anyone at High Times what you’re doing! See you at the show.
I put down the phone and said out loud: “I can’t believe it… I’m going to see the Sex Pistols!”
Elin Wilder, the Associate Publisher, thought I had lost my mind! Hal Drellich, the Art Director, was the only other person in the office. The banks were closed: There was no 24-hour banking, nor ATMs back then, remember all you old folks out there? So I was stuck for gathering some cash at the last minute. Although I had received a $1,500 Christmas bonus from Tom, it all went to pay the rent and bonuses for PUNK magazine people.
I grabbed all the cash I could get my hands on from Elin and Hal and ran up to the High Times office, where Maureen McFadden, Forcade’s always-loyal personal secretary, surreptitiously handed me the plane ticket with a sly smile. I was obviously in on a secret mission of some sort!
Then I went to my apartment and packed everything I could get my hands on for the trip: A nice black sweater my sister Anne gave me for Christmas, a cassette tape recorder, even a few penny rolls! (I was desperate for every dollar I could find!) I packed everything quickly into a small, brown suitcase that I had been using since I was a little kid: very sturdy and dependable, like many things that used to be “Made in the U.S.A.”
As it turned out, I needed every dollar I had to get to the show on time and more. I had to take a cab to the airport (and stiffed the cab driver for the tip, still sorry about that!), then ran as fast as I could to the gate. The plane was due to take off any minute! The attendants were removing the sign for the flight because the plane was about to take off! I got on it in the nick of time: They said if I had arrived a minute later I would have missed it! At this point, I definitely felt like I was in a movie. And things were meant to happen. It was surreal.
On the airplane, I sat next to a Memphis “booster” who told me about how safe the city was and about all the “civic improvement” awards and bullshit the city were getting commendations for. When I asked him about the Taliesyn Ballroom, where the Pistols were about the perform, he said that he didn’t think they even held concerts there anymore. Even worse, when I described the situation, he didn’t think I could ever make to to the show on time, especially since it was located so far away from the airport…
An odd situation was that this was close to Elvis Presley’s birthday (January 8, 1935), and Elvis was “The King of Rock and Roll!” Since he had grown up in Memphis and began his recording career there, this was a big deal. Graceland, located at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard in the Whitehaven, Memphis neighborhood, is still, to this day, a major tourist attraction. I believe there’s some film footage of the Pistols marveling at the phenomenon, but you should check out the film DOA: A Rite of Passage to see everything,
I spent my last few dollars on a car service to the Taliesyn, but once I got there, there was this psychedelic atmosphere of weird, flashing lights… Because there had just been a police riot after the show was oversold due to hundreds of fake tickets. There were dozens of police cars all over the place all flashing their lights like it was a Fillmore East light show. I managed to make my way to the Taliesyn Ballroom box office (despite warnings from the police that I was wasting my time) to see if I was on the guest list… of course I wasn’t. The war against Tom Forcade was underway, although I didn’t know it yet. So I asked the box office staff if there was anyone from Warner Brothers Records on hand… and waited… and waited.
It looked grim. There were just a few other people still trying to get into the show. All ticket requests were being denied because of the riot. There was broken glass all over the area due to the riot, and several police officers were clearing people out of the area. I doubted that I would ever be able to get into the show, which hadn’t taken place yet—so I still had a chance! But then police officers descended on the small box office area and began telling me to move on if I didn’t have a ticket! I needed a miracle.
Police officers began to escort me away! So here is another short excerpt from the film script that Richard Belfiore and I wrote in the early 2000s:
The Officer begins to usher John, who is still holding his small suitcase, away from the entrance when GARY KENTON (25), emerges through the front doors of the club.
GARY:
John!
JOHN:
Gary! Officer, there's my friend.
John gets the officer to look over in Gary's direction
GARY:
He's okay, officer. I'm with Warner Brothers.
The officer lets John through and he approaches Gary.
JOHN:
Gary, thank God you're here.
GARY KENTON:
John, what the hell are you doing here? You shoulda let me know you were coming.
JOHN:
It was a last minute thing. Please,
tell me you can get me into the show.
GARY KENTON:
Of course I can. If it wasn't for Punk Magazine the suits over at Warner Brothers woulda never signed the Sex Pistols.
John follows Gary into the Ballroom.
GARY KENTON:
John the whole nights been nuts! Sid Vicious disappeared for a few hours. And the Publisher of High Times tried to kidnap him!
Sorry, but I have to stop the story here for space and time reasons. There’s a lot more to my “Memphis” story that I will share soon: It gets even crazier from here! So stay tuned, invite your friends, give me a “like” if you enjoy the story, and buy a t-shirt if you’d like to support me monetarily. Thanks!
Please buy a t-shirt so I don’t have to monetize my newsletter. You can do it!
Yeah, well, that part is coming up! So stay tuned.
You’re filling in a lot of blanks in the story for me too john...loving it!!!