FIRE-HIT CLUB ‘HOME AWAY FROM HOME’ FOR SEX PISTOLS
Venue was part of punk history
“DESTROY!” sneered The Sex Pistols on 1977’s Anarchy In The UK, but it would take just over 40 years before the club which hosted one of their few ever Welsh gigs went up in flames.
Now the loss of the former Stowaway Club in Newport – which, along with a neighbouring church, was gutted by fire a week ago – has been lamented by those who remember its heyday in the mid d to late ’70s as a haven for punk k legends such as s Johnny Rotten n and his infamous s ilk.
The nightclub had several names over the years, including Zanzibar, Escapade and Brooklyn Heights.
But its place in punk history has largely been forgotten.
As these rare and raw photos taken by fan Robert “Noddy” Needs show, the club – which also hosted acts like Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Pretenders, and Adam & The Ants – was regarded as a home away from home for the likes of the Pistols.
“There was already a bit of a readymade punk scene going on in South Wales at the time – although the term ‘punk’ hadn’t really been coined at that point,” says Robert, 63 – an age he shares with former Pistols’ frontman John Lydon.
“So the Pistols were amazed to find this appreciative audience waiting there for them, because places further north of the country saw them get quite hostile receptions, with booing and that.
“Of course, some in Newport tried to wind them up by shouting, ‘ Get off’ and ‘Rubbish’, but nothing out of hand – besides, you needed to be a brave man to heckle Johnny Rotten.
“I remember he’d just stare at you and go, ‘Don’t like it? Well, you know where the door is.’
“In fairness, their playing was pretty rough, though – like they were still learning their instruments – and the sound system was so dodgy you could barely tell one song from the next.”
A dedicated follower of fashion, Robert and his mates would regularly travel to London to spend their hard-earned cash at Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s clothes shop Sex on the King’s Road in Chelsea.
“That’s where I originally met the Pistols – so when they got to the Stowaway Club they already knew me and invited me backstage.
“I took a shot of Johnny Rotten over his shoulder and he asked which magazine it was for,” recalls Robert.
“I replied, ‘Oh no, it’s just for me’, and he laughed and led me to the band’s dressing room.”
He adds that the presence of the group – soon to cause a national scandal with their sweary outburst on TV presenter Bill Grundy’s tea time chat show – was at odds with The Stowaway’s otherwise straightlaced reputation – aptly, the building had started life in 1863 as Stow Hill Baptist Chapel.
“By and large, the place was smart casual – not a sticky floored TJ’s-type place with peeling posters all over the walls – and, most of the time, you couldn’t even get in unless you had a shirt and tie on,” says Robert.
“A chicken-in-a-basket kind of place” is how Pistols’ bassist Glen Matlock once described it to local filmmaker Nathan Jennings.
“But, Tuesdays and Wednesdays were band nights, which is when anything went and you could dress how you liked.”