Tom Forcade Meets The Sex Pistols
DOA/Sex Pistols Tour Chapter 26: January 12, 1978
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And now, onto our story about the Sex Pistols 1978 tour!
NARRATOR: The set of six-foot steer horns John Holmstrom gave to Johnny Rotten in the Holiday Inn elevator were chopped up by Noel Monk, the Warner Brothers’ tour manager, after Monk suspected that PUNK Magazine was working with Tom Forcade and High Times magazine and therefore must have been CIA agents.
Tulsa, Oklahoma! Roberta and I felt like we were finally accepted as professional journalists by the Warner Brothers/Sex Pistols tour manager, Noel Monk, who promised us total access to the band once we got to San Francisco at my birthday party. Of course, that scumbag was lying, and this is when everything started to fall apart. Instead, everything we were told was a lie, and they were all out to get me. Sorry to sound paranoid, but they were.
This became the beginning of the end for PUNK Magazine, the punk rock movement, and everything we had been enjoying up until now. Before we got to the Winterland concert, everything was cool. Roberta Bayley and I were covering the biggest music event since Woodstock, the Sex Pistols tour was going great and I had every belief that the punk rock movement was about to become a mainstream thing. I would finally become rich and famous, like a combination of Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone and R. Crumb of ZAP Comix.
Alas and Alack! Everything went wrong after looking so right. Looking back, I think it began at the. Tulsa airport, while we were waiting for a flight to Frisco. And once again, I’m going to run an excerpt from the film script Richard Belfiore and I wrote years ago. It’s not an exact depiction of those recent events, but it does sum up everything that was happening, and the Forcade meeting incident is very close to how it happened. (It was weird!)
INT. TULSA AIRPORT - DAY
CUT TO:
Roberta and John stand around as Paul Cook, Steve Jones and Malcolm McLaren sit down. JOHN takes an empt seat next to them while VINNIE, a Bodyguard, stands off in the distance, carefully watching and listening to the conversation.
Roberta reaches for her camera and SNAPS a few photos of everyone. Suddenly out of nowhere, Tom Forcade strides towards them and stops in front of John.
FORCADE: How’s it going, John?
John looks at Forcade, jaw wide open -- in total shock.
FORCADE (CONT’D): Hey, we were looking for you last night. Had one hell of a birthday party planned for you.
JOHN: You did? Uh, um, gee... Well…
FORCADE: So, where were you last night?
JOHN: Uh, at Bob Gruen’s party. Just down the hall from our room.
FORCADE: Sorry I missed you.
JOHN: Yeah, me too.
FORCADE: Say, you’re dressed a bit shabbily, John. What happened to the rest of the suit we bought for you?
JOHN: Suit?
Forcade’s body language and demeanor are somewhat terse and awkward, reeking of phony friendliness.
FORCADE: Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?
JOHN: My friends? Oh, sure. You’ve met Roberta. This is Steve Jones, Malcolm McLaren and Paul Cook. This is Tom Forcade.
Tom tips his cowboy hat as everyone nods in acknowledgement.
FORCADE: Well, nice meeting you all. See you later, John.
As Forcade exits, Paul eyes him suspiciously.
PAUL COOK: I don’t like that guy. He’s a total creep.
Confused, John watches Tom as he heads towards the airport rest room.
JOHN: ‘Scuse me, I gotta take a leak.
John gets up and walks towards the rest room.
INT. AIRPORT RESTROOM - CONTINUOUS
John enters and sees Forcade washing his hands at the sink.
JOHN (CONT’D): Tom, what are you doing? You just totally blew my cover!
FORCADE: I thought you said Noel Monk gave you this big backstage pass to the whole tour and that you’re in tight with the Sex Pistols? So what’s the big deal?
JOHN: Yeah, he did. But...
FORCADE: John, the least you could do is introduce me to them after they hung out at your birthday party and all. After all, I’m the one who brought you on this tour.
JOHN: I know that and I appreciate everything you’re doing. I was just following your own orders to pretend that I don’t know you.
Forcade finishes washing up and puts on his cowboy hat.
JOHN (CONT’D): Man, you would not believe Sid Vicious last night. He’s the most self-destructive person I ever met.
Forcade, with a deadpan look in his eye, studies himself in the mirror as he adjusts his cowboy hat.
FORCADE: No… He’s not.
Forcade turns and walks towards the exit.
JOHN: Huh? What do you mean? Tom... Tom!
John follows after him and exits the Restroom. The door to a nearby stall opens, revealing Vinnie, who was listening into their conversation.
INT. PHONE BOOTH - AIRPORT - DAY
Vinnie drops a dime, then speaks on the phone.
VINNIE: Noel? Do I have some interesting news for you. Call me when you hit the next rest stop.
Although I don’t know if this is how the PUNK Magazine/Tom Forcade connections were exposed, the way future events unfolded… Something like this happened between Tulsa and San Francisco. And that is when everything fell apart. And this is why Noel Monk destroyed Johnny’s set of steer horns that I gave him in Tulsa. (See last episode)
Crazy shit, right? To read even crazier shit, pick up a copy of the only book about Tom Forcade, I am still plowing my way through it and it is an astonishing history of the 1970s radical political movements.
Good point! I always thought that the fact that "punk" never became a part of mainstream culture kept our "cool." Like we never sold out. We kept our integrity. But I do not take solace that the CIA, Jimmy Carter and other outside forces harassed us to the point that Tom Forcade committed suicide and forced PUNK Magazine out of business. I would much rather have stayed in business. To this day I regret that we weren't able to bring out a Misfits cover story like we planned... We might have been able to turn things around!
Yeah, even worse was how the media portrayed the Pistols tour as "The End of Punk!" when in reality it was just beginning to take off and magazine sales took off... But to the record companies, "punk" was always a dirty, four-letter word...