"Well, you're a flash c***!" Sex Pistols legend Glen Matlock recalls a night-time drive around New York City perched on David Bowie's knee

Matlock and Bowie — (Image credit: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images | Larry Busacca/WireImage)

Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock has shared an amusing anecdote about a meeting with David Bowie in New York.

Matlock told the story while appearing as a guest on a new episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks which is set for broadcast tonight (October 16) on Sky Max and NOW in the UK. He is joined on the show by Courtney Love, The Zutons' saxophonist Abi Harding, Jamali Maddix, Joel Dommett, Noel Fielding and host Greg Davies, for what's billed as a 'rock-themed' episode of the popular music quiz.

Matlock's story dates back to 1980, when he was touring with Iggy Pop, having worked with the Detroit punk legend on Pop's fourth album, Soldier.

“We played an extra club gig in New York and David Bowie came,” he begins “And he’s got the same car [shown below] and driver [Tony Mascia] as in [Nicolas Roeg's 1976's film] The Man Who Fell To Earth, right? We all bundled in that, going down Madison Avenue, and I’m sitting on David Bowie’s knee because there’s nowhere to sit.”

“And in those big limos, there’s supposed to be two vanity mirrors, right, and he hasn’t got a vanity mirror, he’s got a little painting. I went, Hang on a second, that’s a Picasso, ain't it? And he went, ‘Yeah, it is’. Then I looked [to the other side of the car] and went, Hang on, that’s a Matisse! In his car…

He said, ‘Yeah’. I said, Well you’re a flash cunt!, and he went, ‘Yeah, I guess I am’.”

David Bowie's limo — David Bowie's Lincoln limo (Image credit: The Man Who Fell To Earth)

In an interview last year with The Times, Matlock revealed that touring with Iggy Pop meant that he was confronted with the singer's penis on a nightly basis.

“The problem with flashing your willy on stage is that you have to get ready to flash your willy on stage, and he always did it in front of me,” he recalled. “I got a bit fed up with seeing it, to be honest.”

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A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.