Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:
First off I'm not buying the fashion victim bit, as music and fashion have often been the passion in the UK. Be it Mods, Rockers, Glam, Ska, Punk, New Wave, Goth, Britpop. People like to identify with their favorite bands, in dress and attitude. In this case Malcolm McClaren just tried to set the style ahead at the outset, by borrowing heavily from the NY scene.
Bands crash and burn all the time early in their careers, at least they walked away instead of pulling a lengthy absence like the Stone Roses.
The Clash fired a drummer because he was supposedly "conservative" and they did in this case replaced with him a decent musician.
The bigger question was Glen fired or did he quit because he was tired of Johnny's attitude. There is suggestion he actually was hired to record tracks even after being fired. And bring in Sid wasn't the smoothest move artistically it was done none the less with the assumption he might actually be able to learn how to play the bass. Paul McCartney had Linda in his band for years, with little evidence of music talent on her part.
There is a DVD about the making of Never Mind the Bollocks and it has all four of the original members talking about it. Seems Glen was fired for his "Beatle Chords" that Steve said he couldn't play. Steve did the bass lines after Glen's departure. I recommend this DVD, it is pretty cheap.
