For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure: God Save the Longhorn Ballroom From the Sex Pistols

Seeing as how C.J. Ramone's in town tonight, I'd hoped this recording of the Ramones at the Fair Park Band Shell from July 26, 1990 (password's "gle-gle.blogspot.com," if you're so inclined), would be at the very least listenable. Only, it sounds like it was recorded from someone standing in a Cotton Bowl bathroom. Shame too, since I recall that show quite well -- the "Escape From New York" tour featuring Blondie and three outta the four Talking Heads. One of my first reviewing gigs for the Times Herald. Breezy, in the mid-90s, "Blitzkrieg Bop" and Debbie Harry a vision in white. What more could a growing boy ask for?

But since that didn't pan out, let me offer instead this punk-rock redux often discussed, easily seen, but seldom simply heard: the Sex Pistols at the Longhorn Ballroom on January 10, 1978. (The offering I've found requires a wee bit o' hoop-jumping, but nothing unnavigable. And it's got the original KZEW ad for the show and audio of Sid's audience brawl.) And at this late date we need not rehash the meaning of this moment, which is recounted in Noel Monk's book 12 Days on the Road: The Sex Pistols and America -- the very first chapter, matter of fact, which can be read in its entirety here. (It begins thusly: "Sid Vicious's face is smeared with blood. Not all of it his. The Sex Pistols have hit Texas, and Texas has hit back.")

Too bad that Channel 8 clip from the Longhorn that night has disappeared off YouTube. That's how I recall the show, watching live from our living room the lengthy recap from the newscast featuring unamused reporter Bruce Halperin wandering the scene, which resembled a rodeo that done fell on a pile of safety pins. My parents thought it looked like a freakshow; in hindsight, not hardly. And, hey, I see here you can buy the vinyl boot, Welcome to the Rodeo (so named for Johnny Rotten's sneering how-do following "God Save the Queen"), for $35. Now that's punk.

Now, then. Name the one local band that opened for both the Ramones at the Electric Ballroom on July 24, 1977, and the Sex Pistols at the Longhorn. Barry Kooda and Mike Haskins are disqualified from answering.