Nils Stevenson, Times of London obit
Hyfler/Rosner
Keeping the Sex Pistols show on the road
NILS STEVENSON was immersed in alternative popular culture long
before he became the manager of the Sex Pistols and Siouxsie and the
Banshees. He had been a Sixties mod, danced to the early Jamaican rhythms of
ska, followed Jimi Hendrix in the psychedelic era and had been a glam-rocker
with David Bowie. But it was the punk explosion of the late Seventies which
gave him his main support role in the history of popular music.
Leaving art school in 1971 after a short spell, Stevenson worked
for The Sunday Times's ballet critic Richard Buckle, helping him to organise
a ballet gala starring Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fontaine to raise money to
buy Titian's Death of Actaeon. But it was a visit in 1974 to Andy Warhol's
Factory in New York that was to change his life. There he witnessed the
nascent Manhattan punk scene, which predated and influenced the British
movement and included bands such as the New York Dolls.
When he returned to London he opened a vintage clothing stall in
a market on the Kings Road, close to the Sex clothing shop run by Malcolm
McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. The shop was a magnet for London's first
punks, and McLaren invited him to see his group, the Sex Pistols, perform at
London's Marquee Club.
Stevenson immediately saw their potential and his enthusiasm for
McLaren's protégés meant he was soon asked to be the band's road manager. He
took with him his brother Ray, as the band's semi-official photographer.
"Nils did everything," Paul Cook, the drummer, later said. "He drove us
around, designed the flyers, humped the gear, sorted out the problems and
protected us."
Before long Stevenson was managing Siouxsie and the Banshees,
who were also part of the scene surrounding the Sex shop. Yet as punk hit
the headlines, Stevenson had still seen no money and he resigned from his
partnership with McLaren in early 1977. Left with no place to live, he moved
in with the New York punk group the Heartbreakers, who had relocated to
London, and assisted their manager Lee Childers. But his main concern
remained the Banshees. "My plan was to turn Siouxsie into the female
equivalent of Johnny Rotten," he said.
After almost two years spent playing gigs on the punk circuit,
the band eventually signed with Polydor in 1978, and Stevenson co-produced
their first single, Hong Kong Garden, with the future U2 producer Steve
Lillywhite. Stevenson managed the Banshees until 1981, when he once again
resigned. "It isn't fun any more," he complained at the time, and fell into
serious decline, which was not helped by a burgeoning drug habit.
Eventually, Steve Jones, the former Sex Pistols' guitarist,
dragged him - by all accounts, quite literally - to a Narcotics Anonymous
meeting, where he began the slow process of rehabilitation. By 1983 he was
again working with McLaren, on the album Duck Rock, which spawned the hit
singles Double Dutch and Buffalo Gals. He also managed the pioneering rap
duo World Famous Supreme Team and later Neneh Cherry.
He remained involved with McLaren, and during the mid-1980s the
pair worked on a number of ideas for films and began producing jingles for
television commercials in Los Angeles. Among the films they made was The
Ghosts of Oxford Street for Channel 4, for which Nils secured not only the
services of Sinéad O'Connor, Tom Jones, Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl,
but also used his early contacts to get the Royal Ballet involved.
He managed the pioneering British house act Electribe 101 into
the 1990s. He gained a degree in media studies from Goldsmiths College,
London, in 1995. His book Vacant: The Diary of the Punk Years 1976-79
(1999), which featured his brother's photographs, is regarded as one of the
seminal works on the era. He had recently been managing the band Sweetie and
recorded a single for his own Superstonic label with Marco Pironi of Adam
and the Ants and Siobhan Fahey, once of Bananarama.
Nils Stevenson, pop entrepreneur, was born in London on February
25, 1953. He died there on September 20, 2002, aged 49.
