Rolling Stone, August 7, 1980
© 1980 Rolling Stone
Tom Snyder:
Tomorrow Show 26th June 1980
"Random Notes"
"What the fuck are you doing?" Tom Snyder angrily asked Public Image Ltd. leader John Lydon during a commercial break in the calamitous June 27th edition of NBC's Tomorrow Show. "You're making a fucking fool of yourself."
Snyder, for once, was right on the mark. Former Sex Pistol Lydon and PiL guitarist Keith Levene had flown in from London just to appear on the show, but when it was all over, no one could quite figure out why. The show's first guest, film producer Alan Carr, apparently anticipated the worst. Winding up a promotional visit on behalf of his Village People movie "Can't Stop the Music," Carr remarked, "If you think I'm strange you should see what's coming on next. Trust me, it's the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show.'"
Lydon more than lived up to that intro. Bumming cigarettes from Snyder and generally jerking him around throughout the broadcast. "Excuse me for talking while you're interrupting," Snyder said with quiet exasperation. "Humor me," Lydon replied. "Not for long," said Snyder. But if the on-the-air atmosphere was tense, things were considerably more hostile during the commercial breaks, with Lydon disparaging the show's set as "fucking stupid." At one point, according to a witness, Snyder called Lydon "a fucking asshole." "Why did you come on the show if you're not going to talk?" he asked. "You can leave if you want to." Lydon and Levene stayed, but to no apparent purpose. Afterward, Lydon contended that he'd been set up and was heard to describe Snyder as a "fucking cunt" and "a wanker." Snyder, however, may have had the last word: dismissing his difficult guests, he said, "It's unfortunate that we are all out of step but you."
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