Other Sex Pistols: Exiled To Tronheim 1977 Housewares

Sid’s Norwegian Romance tells the inside story of a surprisingly sweet romance between Sid Vicous and a Norwegian teenager during the Sex Pistols’ two-day stay in Trondheim in 1977. Teddie worked for the band as assistant and translator and her highly personal story gives a unique insight into the band’s internal dynamic. While other Pistols associates and band members were by now hardened road warriors, Teddie’s crystal clear recollections are those of an innocent 16-year-old thrown into a world of surreal excess. Instead of the self-destructive caricature of Sid Vicious of popular myth, he is revealed as a troubled, vulnerable but emotionally generous young man; both fixed to the Pistols’ ongoing narrative but also psychologically detached from it.

Accompanied by 40 previously unpublished photographs of the band both off stage and playing at Samfundet in Trondheim, the book provides a rare first-hand view of four young men at the eye of an international media storm, labouring under the sudden weight of expectation on their shoulders. Trygve Mathiesen’s research into the two days the Pistols spent in Trondheim is thorough and revealing. The group who would tear up the rock ‘n’ roll rulebook, buy jeans, eat ice cream, fall in love and cause a riot, set to a backdrop of a Norwegian culture attempting to understand and assimilate this frantic, fast-moving moment in history.

– Alex Ogg, author of No More Heroes: A complete History of UK Punk from 1976 to 1980 and Independence Days – The Sory of UK Independant Record Labels.