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Chrissie Hynde: Punk at Ground Zero and the Birth of the Pretenders · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. This is a
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: story about being there, about showing up early, about standing
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: close enough to history that you can feel the heat
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: coming off of it. This is about a woman who
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: found herself in the future, watching bands form, watching cultures collide,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: in the world being remade in real time. Not as
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: a star, not yet anyways, but as a witness and
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: a survivor. This is also the story of an unprovoked attack,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: about studded belts, bicycle chains, and a gun stashed underneath
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the bar. It's about two marriage proposals and a woman
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: who wasn't about to be tied down, a woman who
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: responded to the chaos, violence and loss surrounding her by
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: making a lot of noise. This is a story about
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Chrissy Heine from The Pretenders, so of course it's a
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: story about great music. Unlike that clip I played for
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: That was a preset loop from my melotron called are
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: You Ready Girls? Mk? Two. I played you that loop
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: because I can't afford the rights to le Freak by
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Chic and why would I play you that specific slice
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: of stranded outside Studio fifty four Cheese Could I afford it?
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: January twentieth, nineteen seventy nine, and that was the day
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: that Chrissy Hines banned. The Pretenders released their first single,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: A hard fought, hard won victory for someone who had
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: spent years lurking on the sidelines. As the Clash, the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Sex Pistols, and UK punk at Large were busy being born.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: On this episode punk at Ground Zero, Chaos, Violence, Loss, Survival,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: the origins of the Pretenders, Chrissy Hind, I'm Jake Brennan,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: and this is Disgraceland. She was there. She was there
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two when the Starman Ziggy Starred Us
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: first fell to Earth and landed somewhere in Ohio. She
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: was there in London in nineteen seventy six, she watched
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Mick Jones and Joe's strummer meet and play together for
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the first time. She heard Joe say to Mick, don't
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: do it that way, You'll never make a dime as
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: she was there when the Clash rehearsed for the first time.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: The Damned Too anyone could see they were born to kill.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: She was there when two members of the Sex Pistols
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: agreed to marry her so that she could get her
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: citizenship in England. And she was there in nineteen seventy
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: seven at the Roxy when Don Lets the Rebel Dread
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: spun reggae and dub records at a punk show. She
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: watched as the culture clashed in real time and in stereo.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: She was there in nineteen eighty one in Milwaukee when
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the violent femmes were just buskers on a dirty street
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: corner waiting to be plucked from obscurity. Chrissy Hine was
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: there when punk rock in New Wave took their first steps,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: but first. She was here on the campus of Kent
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: State University in nineteen seventy tin Soldiers and Nixon's coming,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: when the crack of discharged National Guard rifles echoed nearby.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: The scene was chaos, thousands of students refusing to leave.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: They were thinking of Cambodia as flanks of olive green
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: reflected in the whites of their eyes. Rocks and tear
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: gas sword through the air. Car windows, smashed American flags,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: burned garbage cans rolled into the middle of the street.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Their contents had flames. The rotc buildings smoldered in the
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: near distance, and the guardsmen were up on the hill.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Now they were outnumbered, but they had the power, They
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: had the m ones. They turned and faced the angry,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: confused student body. Clarity was coming in the form of
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: a bullet. The guardsmen raised their weapons, and then they
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: fired for thirteen seconds. Shots rang out nearly seventy in total.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Kent State freshman Chrissy Heine, who was then still going
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: by Christine or Christie or just playing Chris, ran her
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: hands across her arms and legs, assuming she'd be shot.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: But she was lucky. Unlike the four who now lay
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: on the university campus dead, or the nine others who'd
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: been injured by the guardsman's gunfire. Chrissy Hein was there,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: but she couldn't comprehend what she was seeing. The disorder,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the violence, the death. None of it made sense. For
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: weeks later, it still didn't make sense. But Crosby, Stills,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Nash and Young had released a new single, Ohio, a
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: fiery piece of protest music that memorialized the unspeakable things
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Chrissy and thousands of others had witnessed. The song didn't
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: bring those dead kids back but it brought a feeling
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: of catharsist to those who had been there. Rock and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: roll was, by definition cathartic. It defended you, it supported you.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: It didn't impose its will with brute's strength or bend
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: you into conformity. And it gave you freedom, if only
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: for two minutes and fifty eight seconds at a time,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: as was the case with the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Song even better than a forty five spinning on a
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: turntable was live rock and roll. Later, Chrissy hin would write,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: when a band played times stood still, A band was time.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: It was a big bang, one song after another, these
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: sequential eras or periods of history being made. A band
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: was creation. It was life, a life made in God's image,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: because God was absolutely a rock and roller. God wore
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: his hair in a cliff and wrapped his tattooed deltoids
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: in a biker jacket, except on Sundays when he put
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: on a proper suit and tie. But he did it
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: all casual, like the top button of his pressed white
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: shirt unbuttoned, his tie loosened. A band was not only
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the way of the world, it was how the world
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: began and how it would end. And Chrissy Hine, for one,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: would not rest like God on the Seventh Day, not
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: until she had a band of her own, until she
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: was the one making time stand still. Even before she
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: was an adult, bands were all Chrissy Hine cared about.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: The other girls could have their boys and their Revlon
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: and all that white picket fence stuff. Chrissy just wanted
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: a Gibson Melody Maker and a copy of The Stooge's
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Funhouse to play along to. But this being in a
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: band business would never fly in Ohio, acron Kyahoga Falls, Cleveland.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: They all felt like they were stuck in the past.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: The future was across the pond in London, the only
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: place on planet Earth where somebody like Ziggy's Stardust could
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: be conceived. It was September nineteen seventy two, twenty one
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: year old Chrissy he found herself walking next to the
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Starman himself, immediately after his American debut at the Cleveland
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Music Hall. Was it fate, was it luck? It didn't matter.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: It was opportunity, an opportunity to observe, to absorb, to
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: see firsthand how freedom simply took style and attitude and
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: badassor she wasn't one of those groupies. Ziggy knew that.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: He knew that as he slipped into the passenger seat
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: of Chrissy's mom's Oldsmobile Cutlass and Chrissy, just twenty one
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: years old, took the Starman and the Spiders from Mars
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: to one of her favorite local spots for dinner. Months later,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: she was still thinking about it, about Ziggi, about English bands,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: about England period. She felt the island call to her.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: The restlessness brewing at her core was switched on here
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: in Ohio. She was a known quantity. She was attracted
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: to rock and roll, which meant she was attracted to toughness,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: to danger, to trouble. The Kailudes were trouble, as were
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the gang of bikers that circled around her one night,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: like wolves sizing up their prey. But she was nobody's prey.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: She was no lamb. She was a pack animal just
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: like the rest of them. She could run with the
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: toughest of the tough. She just needed her own gang
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: of outlaws, a gang to get you through, to help
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: you endure and become strong. But Chrissy Hine wasn't here
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: just to be strong. She was here to be free,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: and soon she was. She was there in nineteen seventy three, London.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Paul It took was a one way ticket. Chrissy him
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: pushed open the door of the liquor store and stepped outside.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Slim button down shirt, vertical stripes opened at the collar, untucked,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: lived in low rise jeans, metal studs glittered down the legs,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: dark ankle boots below, and Keith Richard's shock of hair above.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Her androgynist secondhand attitude was all confidence as she made
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: her way down the sidewalk, the stolen bottle of cheap
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: wine stuffed under one arm. From there she caught the tube,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: wrote it from one stop to the next, wrote it
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: just because there was nothing like it to ride back
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: home in Ohio, before finally arriving at where she was
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: now living, a small rented room in a house in Clapham,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Southwest London. Inside her room she found the few things
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: she brought over from the States, a change of clothes,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: a couple hundred bucks, Give her Take, and her copy
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: of the Velvet Undergrounds, White Light, White Heat, and Iggy
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and the Stooges Is Funhouse and Rob Howard. She listened
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to the records for the millionth time and imagined she
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: was fronting the bands. If only it were that simple,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: like how some things in life were right place, right time,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: that simple twist of fate that another of Chrissy's heroes,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Bob Dylan, was writing about somewhere at this very moment.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: But fate didn't lead her to a band, not yet. Instead,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: fate led her to the next best thing. Journalists, music journalists,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: that is, the kind who fancied themselves a bit like
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Hunter S. Thompson, fearing little and loathing only the music
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: they couldn't stand, and who in nineteen seventy three seventy
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: four were diligently plying their trade long before Elvis Costello
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: or Frank Zappa or whoever. It was said, writing about
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: music is like dancing about architecture. I believe it was
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: actually Charles Pokowski, but there was no dancing around it.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Writers at The New Musical Express aka the NME aka
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: the premier weekly rock paper in the UK, writers like
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Nick Kent and Ian McDonald were drawn to Chrissy's passion
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: for music in her acerbic American tongue, which would gladly
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: lash out at any fool Charlton or Pampus ass and
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: in print no less, it didn't matter if you were
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Neil Diamond or Brian Eno. Nick Kent was drawn to
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: more than Chrissy's tough attitude. The two had barely met
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: when he moved into her place and they began a relationship.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: And this happened simultaneously with Christy getting hired as a
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: music writer for the NME. But the critic thing was
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: never meant to be. She wasn't one to skulk on
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the sidelines to simply observe and report. She was built
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: for the front mines. She just needed to get herself
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: closer to the real action. So when Malcolm McLaren and
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Vivian Westwood offered Chrissy a job at their cutting edge
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: fetish boutique on King's Road, she took the gig in
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: a heartbeat. The shop had been known as Let It Rock,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: a haven for teddy boys. Soon it would be rebranded
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: simply as sex, but at the moment they were calling
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: it too fast to live, too young to die. The
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: shop was frequented by Chrissy's kind of people, creative types, outsiders,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: restless oddballs and schemers. Susie Sue Adam Ann, John Leyden.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: If you wanted a psychedelic suit, something Keith Richards would wear,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: you went up the street to Granny Takes a Trip.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: But if you wanted leather, rubber or vinyl. If you
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: wanted studs, chains, tip clamps, and stiletto's so sharp they
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: could slice open an envelope, then you went to Welcome
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: in Vivian's Place. Their shop was ground zero for what
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: was coming, but before punk actually broke, before it was
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: called punk. Malcolm and Vivian's shop was also ground zero
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: for where Chrissy Hines's first major professional and personal relationship
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: in London came to a loud, violent end. Nick Kent
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: was pissed. He burst through the front door at four
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: thirty Kings Road, dramatically enough for everyone inside Malcolm and
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Vivian's boutique to notice him. Heads turned and eyes went wide.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Here comes the NME guy making a mad dash for
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: the counter for his girlfriend or should I say ex girlfriend,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: seeing as she had just dumped him. Like yesterday's news
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: to Chrissy, Nick was fish and chip paper. Now Chrissy
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Hine didn't own Nick Kent anything. The only thing Nick
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Kent had given Chrissy Hine other than a byline was
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: an STD. In fact, she didn't know anyone anything, because
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: here in London and Malcolm McLaren's shop, Chrissy Hahn was
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: a person of her own creation. She was becoming someone
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: that no one back in Ohio would recognize. She was
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: becoming free. And now here came the jilted lover, upset
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: about the breakup or about her leaving the paper, whatever
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: it was, and he was ready to punish her for
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: that freedom. A bewildered customer inside of Sex looked on
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: as Nick Kent reached the counter. Nick's face went beat red.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: He grabbed at his belt buckle with his hands, fumbling
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the undo the clasp, and when he did, he then
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: yanked on the belt, pulling it clean off his waist
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: and one fell swoop. The belt was cheap, but it
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: was studded with large coins that could inflict maximum damage
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: if wielded like a whip. He wrapped one under the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: belt around his fist and began to swing, and the
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: leather smacked the counter and the noise it made was
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: shockingly loud. Malcolm McLaren freaked out and hit the deck,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: yelling something about a madman, and Nick Kent swung again,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: this time whipping Chrissy with the weight of the heavy
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: coins on the belt, and Chrissie screamed. She could already
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: feel a welt forming in her periphery. She could now
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: see the bewildered customer mobilizing himself. The customer's fist came
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: quickly barreling into the melee, and it caught Nick Kent
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: in the mouth, and there was a sound of bone
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: and flesh, a flash of blood, and in a blink,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: one of Nick's teeth tumbled from his gums as he
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: fell backward and hit the floor. He was out cold.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: But Chrissie wasn't waiting around to see what would happen next.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: She was already out the door, her heart pounding, running
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: toward the western end of King's Road, where the ghosts
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: of old Victorian songs haunted what was known as the
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: World's End. The next morning, the world was still there,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: but Chrissy hins roll in it had changed again. For
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: a guy who trafficked in shock, Malcolm McLaren didn't quite
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: know what to say, so he said it as best
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: he could. It's too confusing you working here. It was
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: his roundabout way of saying you're fired. Vivian Westwood agreed,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: too much drama. Chrissy found herself back where she'd started
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: when she'd first arrived in London. She had no money,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: and she'd made great contacts, but she had no prospects.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Worst of all, she had no band. But the stakes
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: were higher now. She could no longer afford rent, which
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: meant she was sleeping on the desks and floors of friends,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: And she had no permit, which meant her very status
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: in Europe was now illegal. She had no other choice,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: so she went round all the record labels in town,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and because her split with the enemy had yet to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: really be broadcast, she used her press credentials to procure
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a stack of promotional albums, which she then took to
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: a record store and Soho sold them all, and then
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: used that money to a plane ticket that took her
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: right back to the belly of the most uninteresting, least
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: happening beast. Ohio, do you know how to use one
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: of these? The fat man at his stubby little fingers
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: wrapped around the handle of a revolver, which he just
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: pulled out of a drawer behind the bar at the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Hotel Garfield in Cleveland, Like this right, Chrissy hin said
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: nothing as the fat man cocked the gun with his
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: leathery thumb. God forbid you ever to use it. But
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: then again, God help any of these fucking wackos, you
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: have to pull it off. Chrissy's eyes scanned the room
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: and saw a few of these wackos at work, nursing
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: rounds of Johnny Walker Red well before noon, maxing out
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: their credit lines at a table in the corner with
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the Garfield's resident bookmaker. It wasn't just the hotel. The
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: whole city was crawling with dangerous types, all of whom
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: had their own itchy fingers on the trigger. She wasn't
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: crazy about the necessity of a gun to ten bar,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: but it was a job, the job that paid her
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: one hundred bucks a week, a job which also allowed
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: her to sing in Jack Rabbit, a local R and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: B covers band she'd recently joined. They played stuff by
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the Isles and the Commodores. Not a dream gig by
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: any stretch, but it was a gig and a band,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: which is better than nothing. And then fate blew in
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: off the Cuyahoga River. Chrissy was fired from the Hotel
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Garfield after one of the regular soldiers of Grass in
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: the apartment building she lived in a Denis squalor in
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: which one had to climb into the sink to bathe
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: because the actual bathtub was busted burned to the ground,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: and then Jack Rabbit fell apart. Like most small time
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: cover bands do, Chrissy was drifting a complete unknown, like
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: your guy Dylan would say. Oh, and this is where
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: fate comes in. It came in the form of a telegram,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: and the telegram read come to Paris, We'll send ticket
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: sing in band, We'll be right back after this. We're We're,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: We're Paris was a red herring. The gig was real,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the band was real. It all came as advertised. But
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: this particular gig, this band, this moment, it wasn't right.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: It turns out that it was just Fate's way of
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: luring Chrissy Hin back to Europe, because as soon as
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: she bounced from the City of Light and went back
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: to London Town, that's when everything started to happen. That's
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: when Chrissy Hin found herself nearly becoming a member of
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: not one, not two, but three seminal English punk bands,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: only to miss each opportunity just slightly. She had no
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: one to blame or thank for it all other than
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: her old boss, Malcolm McLaren. It was nineteen seventy five
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: or thereabouts, and McLaren knew that Chrissy Hin had it all.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: The fuck you attitude, the get fucked swagger, the fuck
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: off fringe miniskirt, and the tongue in cheek fuck men,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Valerie Salona's Scum Manifesto T shirt that she'd cribbed from
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: his store. He never knew she'd actually paid for those things,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: but that vibe of badassory was part of her lore.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Just months earlier, when Chrissy was back in Ohio, all
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: pathetic and pitiful like a dog with a tail between
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: its legs, McLaren had actually written to her. He offered
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: to pay her airfare she returned to London to join
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: a new band he was forming. But if Christy was
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: one thing besides being tough and restless, she was loyal,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: and at that moment she was loyal to the po dunk,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: R and B cover band that she was in, and
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: now here she was watching the band that Malcolm McLaren
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: had assembled, The Sex Pistols as they began their noisy
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: crusade of anarchy across the UK, and that my Friends
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: is band number one. That Chrissy him maybe would have
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: could have should have been a maybe if she hadn't
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: been almost four thousand miles away at the time. Now
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: onto ban number two, mcl nothing if not a man
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: of opportunity. Following the creation of the Pistols, he presented
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Chrissy with a new opportunity. He introduced her to the
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: guitarist Mick Jones, who was looking for a songwriting partner.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Chrissy and Mick went to his apartment, guitars in hand,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: trading chords, trading vocal lines. Chrissy came into her own
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: with Mick sitting across from her. She was finding her voice,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: finding like minded souls and maybe maybe it would have
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: worked Chrissy and Mick in a band together if only
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: John Graham Miller aka Joe Strummer had not walked into
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the picture and changed everything in an instant. Joe Strummer
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: couldn't even play guitar as well as Chrissy, but even
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: she had to agree the chemistry. The way that Joe's
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: grittiness balanced mixed sweetness was undeniable. Then that Folks was
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the clash band number two that Chrissy high nearly helped launch,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: which brings us to band number three. Malcolm McLaren was persistent.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Next he introduced Christy to a bass player named Ray
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Burns and a drummer named Chris Miller. The trio called
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: themselves Masters of the Backside, which yeah, I know, and
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: they jammed in a church hall for some friends, mostly
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: the sex boutique crowded. But no sooner was that performance
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: over than ray Burns started calling himself Captain Sensible and
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Chris Miller was now going by rat Scabies. And before
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: she knew it, Chrissy hadn't dropped by the guys who
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: were about to be known as the Damned. So as
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: punk band number three soldiered on without Chrissy Hind in
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: their ranks, Chrissy was feeling that familiar sting of deja vu,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: no work, nowhere to live but an illegal squat, trying
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: not to take it too hard that she was always
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the bridesmaid and never the bride when it came to bands.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: But wait, oh shit, that was it the bride? What
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: if she could literally be the bride? The bride of
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: an Englishman, that is, so that she could be granted
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: citizenship and could therefore prolonger time abroad. It was a
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: goofy enough proposition that John Lyden aka Johnny Rotten of
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the sex Pistols agreed to do it when Chrisy asked.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: But that was just a few days before the Pistols
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: blew up. Now there was the talk of the town
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: courtesy of a scandalizing, profanity laced appearance on British television.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: John now had a reputation to protect her something like that,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: which was the excuse he gave Chrissy when he backed
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: out of the whole thing. No matter, Chrisy knew she
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: could convince Sid to do it. Sid Vicious was nineteen,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: not yet a member of the sex Pistols, but everyone
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: who went to show's knew Sid. Sid had the look,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: he had the sneer. He was Skinny Elvis on skid Row.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Sid walked the walk at a Pistol show, again before
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Sid was in the Sex Pistols. Sid walked that walk
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: right up to one Nick Kent, Chrissy's ex and also
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: an ex Pistols of sort, having allegedly rehearsed with an
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: earlier version of the band, only to now talk shit
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: about them In the Enemy. Sid was a staunch defender
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: of his friends and the sex Pistols, especially when some
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: failed musician turned hack rider had to go. So Sid
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: look Nick Kent right in his eyes. I don't like
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: your trousers, Kent laughed. Was that supposed to scare him? Nah,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: that's Sid scaring him. Well, that's what this was for.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Sid then produced a bicycle chain, which he proceeded to
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: use to beat Nick Kent with mercilessly. Chrissy had to
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: admit it was pretty funny watching Sid vicious tune up
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the guy who once attacked her at her place of business.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: So she took the wiry punk down to the local
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: office to tie the knot, but the place was closed
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: bank holiday. Going back the next day was out of
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the question because Sid was dueing court to answer for
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: his involvement in another violent altercation, this time for throwing
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: glass that shattered and cut a woman's eye during a
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: show by the Damned. And so it continued living illegally,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: living unfulfilled, living in neutral while the rest of London's
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: movers moved forward. At this point, Chrissy knew all the
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: players moving around, even if she wasn't one herself. There
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: was DJ don Lett spinning reggae and dub forty fives
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: for the punks down at the Roxy. There was Lemmy
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Killmeister leaving Hawkwind forming motorhead, shifting into a higher, meaner
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: gear and getting higher. Not through sheer ambition alone. Amphetamines helped.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Lemmy was the only one in town tougher than Chrissy.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: But how Chrisy wanted to know? How do you stay
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: tough when you couldn't get anything going? She laid out
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: her sob story to Lemmy like he was some kind
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: of guru on the mountaintop. She had all this opportunity,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: all this right place, right time, but no simple twist
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: of feet. Lemmy didn't sugarcoat it. Who told you it
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: was gonna be easy? Tough was tough? That was the message,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: the softer all back in Ohio, Chrissy watching the city
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: slowly turn into parking spaces. Let me tell Chrissy what
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: she needed to hear. He also told her the name
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: of a drummer she should track down, a guy called
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: gas Wild, tell him let me sing you. And with
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: that time was no longer in neutral for Chrissy Heine,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: time was about to stand still. All right, disc goes.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Earlier in this episode, I mentioned how Chrissy hin discovered
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the Violent Fems back when they were an unknown band
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: busking on the streets of Milwaukee. Some say that it
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: was the Pretender's guitarist, James Honeyman Scott who actually did
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: the discovering, but it doesn't matter. The story of how
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the Violent Fems were given their first shot at the
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: big time by Christy Hine is wilder than you're thinking.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I just didn't have enough time to get into it here,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: but if you want to hear that story, you can
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: do so right now in this week's brand new Disgrace
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: and Mini episode, which is available exclusively for our All
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Access members. To become a member of All Access, where
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: you can not only hear this mini episode, but also
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: get ad free listening and other exclusive content like our
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: video podcast. This film should be played loud. Just go
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: to Disgrace dampod dot com for more details and sign
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: up today. All Right, now back to our regularly scheduled
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: programming and the conclusion of our Chrissy Heines story. The
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: drummer known as Gas Wilde did not share Chrissy Hines's toughness.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: He did share her fondness for the high life, uppers, downers, Cooke,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: smack web, whatever was going around, but he tended to
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: let the high life get the better of him more
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: often than not. Luckily for Chrissy, gas Wild also shared
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: something else before he was sacked, the name of a
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: bass player he'd once toured with Pete Farndon. He looked
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: like Dwayne Eddie by way of The Hell's Angels. Well
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: maybe that's a bit hyperbolic, but he looked apart and
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: he was as much in the pocket basis as gas
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: wild was a loose cannon. And Pete also happened to
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: know a guitar player looking for her gig, James Honeyman
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Scott Jimmy was tight, fast and this futuristic rockabilly thing
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: or whatever his style was, it didn't sound like anyone else.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: And both those guys just so happened to know a
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: drummer who could fill the empty stool left by gas Wilde,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: a human rhythm machine with great nuance named Martin Chambers.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: The moment that Chrissy, Pete, Jimmy, and Martin got in
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: the same room together and tore through one of Chrissy's
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: original songs, Precious. Chrissy had to turn and face the
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: wall so as not to betray her own toughness and
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: show her hand. She was laughing. She was laughing because
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: she had never heard such a beautiful, perfect sound in
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: her life. She was laughing because she knew she had
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: finally gotten what she'd wanted ever since she had left
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Ohio for the first time five years prior. A band,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: her band, and her band was playing her songs, songs
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: she'd written while trying to get something going with Mick
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Jones and Captain Sensible and all those other guys. Songs
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: that weren't built around traditional verses and bridges and choruses. Instead,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Chrissie's songs were built around attitude and defiance up the neck,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: the weight private life. There were confidence songs, songs written
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: by a person who knew her place, even if that
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: place had been denied her for years. They had hooks
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: as heavy as a coin studded belt or a bicycle chain,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: and mostly they felt real, even if the band performing
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: them were now calling themselves the pretenders. With the connections
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Chrissy had built up over the years, the Pretenders went
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: into the studio, first with the great Nick Lowe, who
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: produced their version of the Kinks deep cut Stop Your Sobbing.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: The song was released as the Pretender's first single in
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: early nineteen seventy nine, just weeks before Chrissy's one time
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: near husband said Vicious die of a fatal hotshot, but
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I digress. Stop Your Sobbing did well, cracking the UK
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Top forty, but it didn't yet reveal the true power
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: of the Pretenders. Soon the band were back in the studio,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: this time with producer Chris Thomas, whose stacked resume included
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the debut album by Chrissy's friends, The Sex Pistols. By
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: the end of that year, the Pretender's self titled album
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: was ready, but first in November of seventy nine, ahead
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: of the album's January release, the band put out another single,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: an earworm called Brass in Pocket. The song was an
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: instant hit in the UK, riding up the charts, where
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: it was still gaining traction on Christmas Day, when, for
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: the first time in nine years, tragedy struck too close
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: to home. The house was on Endel Street in Covent Garden,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: London's West End. It was a proper house, not a
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: squad with a shared filthy kitchen or a sink that
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: doubled as a bath. She had a mattress, and she
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: had ordered and routine she paid rent each month. Chrissy
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: lived on Endels Street with two housemates, two fellow creatives,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: a typesetter Steve Mann and an artist Kevin Sparrow, who
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: designed album artwork for bands of the Stranglers and Eddie
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: and the Hot Rods. Christy wasn't home on Christmas Day
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: that year. She was at a friend's house where she
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: was celebrating the holiday. Also the fact that the song
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: that she had written and performed was actually heating up
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the charts. Kevin wasn't at home either, he was at
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: another friend's place, and it was at that other house
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: that Kevin Sparrow's body was found on Christmas, dead with
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: lethal amounts of whiskey and heroin in his system. Only
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: two weeks later, Brass and Pocket hit number one in
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: the UK. For Chrissy, the achievement was bittersweet, trying to
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: wrap her head around all this sudden success after years
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: of trying, years of lurking on the sidelines, and now
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: once again trying to make sense of something that made
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: no sense, disordered death. It was like Kent State some
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: nine years prior, a moment of crisis turned cathartic by
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: the music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and now
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Chrissy was creating her own outlets for Catharsis, her own music,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: her own words. The music promised freedom for the feelings
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: she couldn't explain away. Eventually, Chrissy would express her own
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Catharsis in a song for Kevin, but that would be
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: years later, after the losses had begun to pile up,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: after the pretender's original lineup had been reduced from four
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: to two. But that's another story. I'm Jake Brennan and
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: this this Disgraceland. All right, thanks for checking out this
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Chrissy Hine episode of Disgracelam. This is an easy question
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: of the week for us guys. Who's the most badass
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: female musician in rock and roll? I mean, it's hard
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: to think of somebody other than Chrissy hin although there
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: are a ton of candidates, but Christy kind of broke
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: the mold. Get at us and let us know your choice.
• 34:22
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• 34:25
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• 34:29
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• 34:32
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• 34:34
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• 34:37
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• 34:40
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• 34:43
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• 34:46
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• 34:49
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• 34:52
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• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Disgracelam was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
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• 35:01
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