We get the questions a lot.

"What exactly is Ken Socrates' connection to the world of Rock n' Roll? We've heard he was Malcolm McLaren's original choice as bassist in the Sex Pistols until his personality was considered too unstable for the band. We've read about his friendship with some of the Old Gods, including Keith Richards, Tom Waits and Screaming Jay Hawkins. We've wondered about the rumours of his bombastic, sometimes violent feud with Nick Cave and one or two of the Bad Seeds and we'd like to hear the actual tale. Why does Deborah Harry, to this day, maintain an active restraining order against him? Just where does Ken fit into the Story of Rock and Roll?"

Well, at last, we will make the attempt to decipher, from the vague snippets of half-truths Ken has bestowed upon us, the mythology surrounding this hazy aspect of his life. We've used various sources - Ken's wildly unreliable memories of the time period; his even less dependable (often unreadable) stories written for the shady publications he "worked" for back then; exaustive research by our diligent staff, weeding through ancient media reports, interviewing drug addled ex-rockers, scouring the internet for the smallest details. Everywhere, we sought the truth.

Did we find it? Perhaps. Perhaps not. We certainly found the legend and maybe that's enough. You be the judge.

Part One: World's End

London, 1975 - The Punk Rock revolution began in an area of London known as World's End, home of the infamous Sex shoppe, a clothing store run by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. The shoppe supplied fashions that suited the attitudes of the burgeoning punk rock movement. Bands like the Sex Pistols and Siousxie and the Banshees found their style here and, in fact, McLaren was the Pistols manager. Ken Socrates had finished college one year earlier and had gone missing mere weeks after his graduation and his first known reappearance after the vanishing was here, wandering aimlessly up and down King's Road, where the shoppe was located, ranting and pointing at the sky like a posessed prophet of some sort. By all accounts, he was extraordinarily dishevelled, his clothing shredded, his hair a filthy, wild tangle, his face a grimy, bruised visage of deranged fervor.

He was instantly adored.

They not only accepted him as one of thir own but looked to him initially as a fierce inspiration, the embodiment of pure anarchy. McLaren was taken with the spirit of his madness and immediatlely attempted to incorporate him into his plan for the Sex Pistols, even allowing Ken to sleep in his own home, on a cot near the boiler in his basement. Two days after his arrival he was introduced to the three other members of the band in their attic rehearsal space as the new bassist. The meeting did not go well. Ken was not yet speaking coherent english, his speech patterns a jumble of angry growls, hisses and the occaisional bug-eyed, claw-waving dinosaur screech. John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten) kept his distance but seemed amused by Ken's antics. Not so with the others. Steve Jones began arguing loudly with McLaren, leaning in too close to Ken and before anyone could intervene Ken had him by the hair. Bassist Paul Cook tried to help his old friend but Ken was "inhumanly fast" according to observer Vivienne Westwood and Cook was thrown down a flight of stairs. The incident lasted over an hour as Ken raged a torrent of monsterous gibberish at them, all the while dragging the now unconscious Jones behind him. Westwood recalls that McLaren was of no help whatsoever, cowering in a corner trying to hide the fact that he had obviously soiled himself. It all ended suddenly when Ken darted to an open window and disappeared into the London night.

Needless to say, at least in Malcolm McLaren's mind, the experiment was over. Glen Matlock was brought in to be the Pistol's bassist and Ken was out. Ken himself seemed to see the situation in a different light and continued to show up at the band's rehearsals, often wild-eyed with a jaw full of raw meat, terrifying McLaren into a state of clinical anxiety. Jones, who had no memory of the previous incident and now mistakenly believed himself to be the guitarist in a Monkees revival, is actually credited with diffusing the situation when he introduced Ken to psychotic groupie Belinda Batbasket, an outcast from the Bromley Contingent who took Ken into her home and attempted to redirect his rage. The two bonded instantly, both feeling like rejects and sharing an almost limitless passion for music, journalism and rampaging drug and alcohol abuse.

Together, they decided they would make their own mark.

Initially, of course, they decided to form a band. They recruited others they felt would be on the same wavelength as themselves. Nigel "Scissors" McGurk was the first onboard, the son of a cheese shop owner and marginal guitar player, he was known to be a compulsive pyromaniac who would regularly break into fevered sweating and panting at the sight of any open flame. Tommy Horrible (real name Thomas Oliphaunt) played drums in a crude and spastic style reminiscent of the scene in 2001: A Space Oddessy where the primates discover tools for the first time. Ken and Belinda had found him in a local pub, The Gnarled Crone, selling animal tranquilizers to the locals and after he bought them enough beer, he was in. Kaz Mortgensson was a simple choice as bassist. Not only did he own a van, he also owned a bass and was known to maintain an exotically gargantuan pornography collection. Ken, of course, would be the lead singer in the hopes that his extravagant stage persona would not only energize and entrance an audience but would hopefully disguise the fact that he could not, in any way whatsoever, sing. Belinda assigned herself the managerial duties and, in the winter of 1976, calling themselves The Blazing Scabs, they ran their flag up the flagpole to see who would salute.

The Blazing Scabs - (Left to Right) Scissors McGurk,
Tommy Horrible, Ken Socrates and Kaz Mortgensson.

It was, of course, complete and total chaos. Gigs were hard to come by early on and the band often had to travel well outside the city limits to find venues to host their shows. Kaz recalls a particularly awkward evening at Farthingstone Tavern in rural Ebchester, a sheep farming town south of Newcastle Upon Tyne. "Well...we were late arriving, as usual. We'd each eaten a fistful of questionable mushrooms before piling into the van and the trip had taken two hours longer than it should have. We actually ran over four sheep before we realized we'd lost the road and were driving through someone's bloody farm." As a result of their tardiness, they took the stage after 11 p.m., without a soundcheck, in front of an extremely beligerent, alcohol sodden audience that not only had no idea who they were, but were agitated that the local accordian player, Festus Ackerman, had been replaced on stage by "...four shit-stained queer-boys...". The peformance lasted exactly 45 seconds when, after being pelted with at least sixteen beer bottles, Ken pulled out a can of mace and sprayed the entire front row. Reports are unclear on how the foursome escaped but indications are they were forced to scatter on foot into the hillsides where Tommy remained lost for three days.

The band limped along through that spring and summer, playing intermittent gigs, largely unnoticed by the entire Punk rock community. They staged a number of ill-advised publicity stunts, the most famous of which involved the foursome, wearing nothing but adult diapers, army boots and Venetian Carnivale Masks, storming Buckingham Palace and attacking the Guard with Banana Cream Pies. Few took notice and those who did considered their behaviour strange and absurd rather than anarchistic. They even had trouble landing themselves in jail as none of the four ever passed the psychiatric evaluation that would allow them to stand trial for any of their actions. Frustrated and on the verge of disintigration they lobbied hard with Malcolm McLaren for a spot in the famous 100 Club Punk Festival in September of 1976. They went so far as abducting McLaren's grandmother Margaret and secured a spot in the second night's lineup until the grandmother, a wily old vixen, managed to drug Nigel by lacing a batch of chocolate chip cookies with valium and escaped. They were immediately replaced in the festival by Stinky Toys.

It was the final straw for the band as, that very evening, their frustration erupted into a violent fracas at a London laundromat and they went their separate ways, all exept for Tommy who had been stuffed into a dryer and left spinning. The shocker of it all was that Belinda actually left with Kaz with whom, it turned out, she had been sleeping for months, attracted, apparently, by the fact that he had a van.

So Ken found himself alone again. This time, however, it was different. The experience with The Blazing Scabs had changed him. He was more street wise, confident, more jaded and bitter, perhaps, but focused on who he was and what he wanted. He left behind his dreams of being a musician and turned to the one thing that he truly knew how to do well, the one thing he could utilise, not only to further his own ambitions, but to gain a measure of revenge agains those who had wronged him. It would be his calling, his weapon to wield against the world, the conduit of his vast rage and willpower, the pathway to the legend he would become.

Journalism.

End of Part One.

Part Two: Bad Craziness

Coming Soon.

Part Three: Release The Bats

Coming Soon.

© Ken Socrates 2005. All rights reserved.