Jan. 8, 1978, began overcast, gray, though not particularly cold — a typical Central Texas winter day. An arctic mass moved through later, though San Antonio did not experience the
record snowfalls
that hit other cities that month.
News headlines ranged from San Francisco’s Harvey Milk becoming the first openly gay man elected to public office in California to Israel’s government voting for reinforcing its settlements in occupied Sinai. British rocker David Bowie celebrated his 31st birthday, while Elvis Presley would have commemorated his 43rd had he not died on Aug. 16 the previous year.
And England’s most notorious punk band,
the Sex Pistols,
played San Antonio’s Randy’s Rodeo, a riotous performance the San Antonio Express famously dubbed the “S.A. ‘Shootout’” in a banner headline the next day.
The Pistols, fronted by anti-charismatic singer John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon, had played their first gig barely two years earlier. Since then, they had scandalized their homeland with explosive two-minute rockers seeking “Anarchy In The UK” and inverting the British national anthem on “God Save The Queen”: “There is no future / In England’s dreaming.”
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They swore on television and burned through three consecutive record deals, facing blanket bans from radio, TV and the U.K. concert circuit. Undaunted, Rotten taunted their few paying audiences: “Tell us, what’s it like to have bad taste?” Inevitably, they inspired countless homegrown English bands — the Clash, the Damned, Buzzcocks — to adopt their spiky, slashed-and-burned music and fashion sense.
By November 1977, manager Malcolm McLaren had signed the Pistols to Warner Bros. Records, which had released the year’s multiplatinum success “Rumours” by Fleetwood Mac. The label issued the band’s sole studio full-length, “Never Mind The Bollocks Here’s The Sex Pistols,” in a lurid pink-and green sleeve.
The label demanded a U.S. tour, which McLaren sabotaged until agreeing to seven dates in 12 days, bypassing major markets except San Francisco in favor of Southern cities — Atlanta, Memphis, Baton Rouge, Dallas, Tulsa … and San Antonio.
“McLaren wanted the Pistols to play in cowboy joints,” said Joe Pugliese, then keyboardist for San Antonio punk pioneers the Vamps, which opened the Randy’s Rodeo show. “He wanted to create some kind of conflict.”
“It was a very weird thing for the Sex Pistols to be playing to cowboy hats and fringed vests,” Lydon said, snickering. “And why not? They made room for us, so I’ll always make room for them.”
San Antonio was the tour’s third stop.
Pugliese observed McLaren’s obstructive machinations in his day job with Stone City Attractions, then Texas’ premier concert promoters. Formed in 1972 by Jack Orbin, Greg Wilson and Carl Schwartz, Stone City grew across six years to work shows in 18 markets across three states. Pugliese proved invaluable to his employers by showing them how to prevent gig crashers, based on his own experiences.
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Premiere Talent approached Orbin to book the Pistols in Texas. He consulted with Pugliese.
“I said, ‘Hell, yeah, you should book ’em!’” he said. “They didn’t know anything about ’em. They weren’t really into punk too much.”
Orbin secured Dallas’ Longhorn Ballroom and Randy’s Rodeo on Bandera Highway to host the Pistols. The venue was built as Bandera Bowling Lanes in the ’50s. Randy Sherwood bought the property in the late ’60s, turning it into a honky-tonk.
“In the ’70s, it just became a rental venue,” Pugliese said. “When we told Malcolm about Randy’s Rodeo, he loved the idea. He didn’t realize that it was just a venue that Rush played at.”
“We were desperate to play,” Lydon said. “We were warned it would be a very dangerous place to play. And so we played it!”
In addition to the Vamps, sci-fi heavy metallurgists Ultra rounded out the bill. Not that punkier local fare didn’t vie for a slot, including Tex-Mex power poppers the Krayolas and Austin’s first punk band, the Violators, featuring future Textones leader Carla Olson and eventual Go-Go’s bassist Kathy Valentine.
The Pistols battled with the U.S. State Department in late December 1977 to enter the country, missing planned dates in Pittsburgh and New York, plus a scheduled “Saturday Night Live” appearance. (Elvis Costello filled in.)
The San Antono hype machine went into overdrive. Tickets went on sale for $3.50 everywhere from North Star Mall’s Record Hole, an indie shop stocking the latest U.K. punk imports, to Joske’s department stores. The city’s daily newspapers gave the show breathless preview column inches. Even AM radio powerhouse 55 KTSA aired commercials featuring Rotten snarling over “Anarchy’s” curdled chords.
The Pistols’ heavily graffitied tour bus pulled into the Randy’s Rodeo’s parking lot in the afternoon on Jan. 8, following a relatively low-key night off in Austin during a fraught trek across the South, dogged by national news media and local vice squads. Singer Frank Pugliese, Joe’s brother, observed the controversial U.K. punks’ entrance from a seat in the Vamps’ truck.
“The only real interaction I had with any of the Pistols was with (bassist) Sid Vicious,” he said. “Sid just came over and started talking (expletive). Then he took the sunglasses off my guitarist’s face and said, ‘I’ll give these back to ya after the show.’ Which he never did.”
Buxf Parrot, who would become a founding member of the punk band the Dicks, drove down from Austin for the show. He estimates there were only 20 punks in Randy’s.
“The rest were all these rednecks wanting to see what the hell this was all about,” he said.
Wearing a putrid plaid suit, nearly stiff from Atlanta and Memphis’ spit and beer, Rotten greeted the crowd: “’Allo, cowboys.” They went rabid over “God Save The Queen’s” opening chords, hurling beer cans and debris at the band nonstop from that point.
“It was (expletive) horrible,” guitarist Steve Jones recalled in 1988. “All them cowboys, and it rained garbage all night.”
Rotten taunted them: “I see we’ve got a lot of real men out there tonight. You’re really (expletive) tough, you lot. Is this what makes Texas great? Ah-ha-ha -ha!”
Vicious, barely playing bass, questioned the audience’s sexuality, enraging Brian Faltin, a concertgoer from Kerrville, who hurled full beer cans at him. Vicious swung his Fender bass wildly, hitting a Warner Bros. executive and a photographer.
“Oh, dear,” Rotten deadpanned as tour manager Noel Monk restrained Vicious. “Sid’s guitar fell off.”
Security pulled the band offstage and also bundled Faltin away. Stories later circulated that the future rancher was relieved of a Bowie knife, which he denies. Recognizing that his actions helped propagate the Pistols’ legend, he now believes he should have “stayed home that night and spent my seven bucks on a cheeseburger.”
The Pistols returned to the stage 10 minutes later, rocking authoritatively with little incident until a devastating “Anarchy” stopped dead at the 48-minute mark. The chaos catapulting this gig into legend happened in the first 15 minutes.
Aside from Jones knocking himself out of tune during the first song, the band played with fire and skill, including Vicious’ rudimentary bass lines. As the tour bus’ Baton Rouge-bound tail lights disappeared into the morning darkness, copies of the San Antonio Express hit front porches all over town, telling the tale above the front-page fold: “SEX PISTOLS WIN S.A. ‘SHOOTOUT.’”
A few days later, the Sex Pistols broke up in San Francisco, Johnny Rotten’s pointed epitaph ringing down the curtain: “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
Frank Pugliese, who has fronted San Antonio’s garage punk rulers Sons of Hercules for 32 years, says the Sex Pistols changed nothing in San Antonio, though bands formed in virtually every Austin-bound car departing Randy’s Rodeo that night.
Ty Gavin, the future singer of the Next, and high school classmate Eddie Muñoz, already a guitarist in Austin’s the Skunks, threw shaving cream pies at Rotten at rock photographer Tom Wright’s instigation. Singer-songwriter Steve Earle walked a handful of blocks from his parents’ house to attend, returning home determined to pick up an electric guitar again.
Though Pugliese scoffs, a direct line runs from the Sex Pistols’ 48 Randy’s Rodeo minutes to Taco Land, the Butthole Surfers and the Hickoids all the way to bands playing The Mix or Paper Tiger on any given night.
Tim Stegall is a freelance writer in Austin. Some portions of this article originally appeared in his Austin Chronicle series,“The Austin Punk Chronicles.”
