Megalomaniac? It never occurred to me that I was also building up a mass of resentment out there, and it was building daily waiting to get me and my baby back, Big Time once I fucked up in any way. We didn’t ever even try to keep the mystique once we we were out there. We flaunted every lascivious and brilliant detail. And what a story... like the most exciting film you’re ever gonna see. Like Tarantino with Pulp Fiction I never once thought I should keep something in reserve for the sequel. I gave it everything, every last bullet... like Al Pacino in the closing stages of Scarface. You think it can’t fail, we were too big, too strong, too brilliant.....

And I had a UK tour to play. Press at fever pitch everyone wanted to see this band and we were selling out everywhere. As JSP said to me at the time, It was the first time she’d been out with someone more famous than her.

The Sputnik monster, UltraVixens, Tabloid Journalists in tow, went on the road. What a colorful circus we were. Ready to Roar.

On the Second date of the tour the catch phrase of UltraViolence/ Designer Violence became all to real. We were booked to play at Reading University and those students were ready to explain to me why I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was... with bottles. The gig was like that scene in the Battle of Hastings when the archers arrows come over in waves, except these were bottles. Out of the dry ice and smoke came bottles raining down. It was hard to play and tempers were fraying. But you love us right?

Ray Mayhew, always a hot head whose character as the leering maniac but brilliant drummer I had nurtured, caught one bottle and threw it violently back into the crowd.. and a fan was hospitalised.

Mayhew was arrested and charged with wounding on three counts. The tabloids had a new splash on Britain’s most notorious press worthy band. We really were the new Sex Pistols now. We, meanwhile were treating it all as a bit of a laugh. Ray had plenty of other court cases pending already and I printed “Ray Mayhew is Innocent” T-Shirts as a nod to Sid, with his court appearances on the back like tour dates. The Judge told me off for smirking in the witness box and not taking it seriously. Ray got a bit of a telling off and a smacked bottom, made the 10.00 News and triumphantly rejoined the tour in Dunstable to a huge sell out crowd. It felt all so Rolling Stones, so rebellious.

We got his lawyers bill soon enough of course.

That Sunday I went to the newsagents to find the front page splash on the News of The World. “Horror of the Sputnik maniac” it screamed. We’d gone from colourful glam genius’s to “threat to the nations youth” in a week. Years later I had dinner with David Montgomery the then editor of NoTW. He said it was a slow week and they just thought oh why not, they make great copy. The upcoming very lucrative tour of Japan got cancelled because of it, they weren't keen on flying out a band who threw bottles at their fans. Thanks David.

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