THE SEX PISTOLS

“I Am An Antichrist

I Am An Anarchist

Don´t Know What I Want

But I Know How To Get It”

 

 

 

 

 

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 “D+”

 

Main Decade: 70’s

Main Eras:

Punk (1976-1980)

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Key Members:

Johnny Rotten: Vocals

Glen Mattlock: Bass

Sid Vicious: Bass

Steve Jones: Guitar

Paul Cook: Drums

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Key Songs:

Anarchy In UK, God Save The Queen, Pretty Vacant, Holidays At The Sun, Bodies, Problems

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It's one of the most legendary moments in rock history. We've all seen the video at some point: it's January 14, 1978, and The Sex Pistols are about to fulfill their tradition of playing an encore at their concert in the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. But a tired and strangely apathetic Johnny Rotten announces that they will only play one more song. “You’ll get one number and one number only because I’m alazy bastard.” The chosen song is a cover of The Stooges’ “No Fun.” Sid Vicious once again embodies the caricature of a character that has made him the absurd emblem of the band, a character that is completely consuming him and will lead him to his grave in barely a year. He can’t play, but that doesn’t matter. He’s a true diva posing for his fans. Texas is now behind him, and his wounds are healing. Cook and Jones are the only ones who take the song seriously. They’re the only ones who ever thought that The Sex Pistols make music. Well, it’s true that Mattlock thought so too, but Mattlock is history now. Rotten, for his part, sings “No Fun,” making the lyrics his own, wondering aloud why he’s still going on with this whole charade, hoping it will all just end once and for all. And when the lights go out, before throwing the microphone to the ground, he asks the audience a question: “Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? Good night.”

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And that was the end of it. Once again, "The Dream is Over," but this time more melodramatic than ever. Recorded live for posterity. So how did we get here?

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This whole bizarre story begins in London, in 1974, with Steve Jones asking Malcolm McLaren to mentor his newly formed band. McLaren was a peculiar, contradictory fellow and a fervent admirer of Durruti and the Situationists. He ran a rocker fashion shop called Too Fast To Live, which featured a jukebox. Steve Jones, for his part, was the typical London hooligan of the 70s, one more of that disillusioned working-class youth, victims of a suffocating economic crisis and with the phantom threat of nuclear war hanging over their heads. Jones was a petty thief who stole more for pleasure than necessity, and the clothes from Too Fast To Live were one of his regular targets. So too were the sound systems of the biggest stars of the time; in this ignoble way, he had managed to assemble a truly impressive setup at the expense of Bowie, Iggy Pop, Rod Stewart, Keith Richards, and others, and it wasn't difficult for him to form his own band. The band was called The Strand, and besides Jones, who was the vocalist, there was Paul Cook on drums, and Wally Nightingale on guitar, who is credited with the idea of ​​forming the group. They didn't seem like much, but McLaren agreed anyway, thinking that perhaps this way Jones would stop ripping him off. It was then that a guy named Glen Mattlock, who worked in McLaren's shop and played bass, also joined the band.

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After signing with The Strand, McLaren took a trip to New York for several months, during which he tried and failed as the manager of The New York Dolls. But McLaren's time in New York marked an important moment in the history and evolution of rock. Around that time, Legs McNeil had christened his fanzine Punk, unwittingly giving a name to a countercultural movement that was gaining momentum, primarily on the backs of The Ramones, Television, and other bastard children of The Velvet Underground. Punk had emerged as a forceful and unrestrained response to the narcissism of Progressive Rock, its self-indulgent displays of interminable solos in ridiculously short songs, and its over-the-top shows on enormous, exorbitantly expensive stages unsuitable for epileptics. Fed up with yawning virtuosity, Punk elevated the amateur musician with the cry of "Do it yourself!" and reclaimed the simplicity and immediacy of the most primitive rock patterns, imbuing them with all possible speed, power, and distortion, turning The Stooges and the early Who into unexpected prophets of the emerging musical style that soon served to channel all the pent-up fury of a deeply depressed youth. And soon Punk was no longer just a musical style but a whole countercultural movement that pointed an accusing finger at its enemies: politicians, hippies, law enforcement, Progressive Rock… Punk hated love and hated war. With no hope for the future, only rage remained. And so the punks took to the stage, showing us the most unpleasant faces they were capable of, insulting and spitting at the audience.

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Although The Ramones bored him, McLaren was fascinated by Punk as a concept and especially by the persona and aesthetic of Richard Hell from Television, and when he returned to London, he was brimming with new ideas. To begin with, he changed the theme of his shop, steering it towards leather and sadomasochism, and then renamed it Sex, labeling it as anti-fashion. As for The Strand, McLaren thought Nightingale was superfluous for carrying out his plans because it was “too good.” So Wally was out on the street, Jones traded the microphone for a guitar, and the band set about finding a new vocalist. Bernard Rhodes, a friend of McLaren's who would later become The Clash's manager, noticed a kid with green hair wearing a ripped Pink Floyd t-shirt held together with safety pins, with holes cut out for the band members' eyes and "I hate" added to the original "Pink Floyd." The kid's name was John Lydon, but the deplorable state of his teeth would earn him the nickname Johnny Rotten. His image was perfect for the band concept McLaren had in mind. His audition consisted of singing Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen" into the jukebox of the clothing store, using a showerhead and hose as a microphone. He had never intended to be a singer, but they offered him the microphone at The Strand, and he accepted. It was August 1975.

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The group then changed its name to QT Jones & His Sex Pistols, before finally settling on The Sex Pistols. Some say the name The Sex Pistols was an explicit reference to McLaren's clothing store, while others claim they were a New York street gang. With the Pistols, it's often very difficult to distinguish reality from urban legends and the hoaxes they themselves created and spread. For every event, you'll always find several different versions.

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Euphemistically, we could say that musically, The Sex Pistols were nothing special, but let's be clear: they were REALLY bad. In the early English punk scene, The Sex Pistols were one of the worst bands anyone could remember. And yet, despite how badly they played, they soon became the band everyone was talking about. No other band was as offensive and crude on stage, or off stage for that matter. Fights, incidents, and riots were never absent from a Pistols concert. Insults, bottles, and spit were always flying around the stage... in both directions. Their attitude and stage presence always guaranteed controversy and juicy headlines. The combination with the sensationalism of the British press foreshadowed an explosive cocktail. What no one could have predicted was the magnitude of the explosion. The music industry, the press, the public—everyone was used to professional posers who played the role of bad boys with the utmost naturalness as part of the business, knowing perfectly well where the line was drawn. But The Sex Pistols had no limits. And besides, the product they offered wasn't music, but chaos. And few understood this in time. Bill Grundy didn't understand it, and it cost him his job as presenter of Today after one of the biggest live scandals in British television history.

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Punk was expanding noisily and unstoppably. The outcasts of decadent English society had found a way to express all their frustration and discontent. And that way very often included rioting and violence. In this breeding ground, The Bromley Contingent was formed, a group of die-hard fans who followed The Sex Pistols everywhere almost like common groupies, and among whose followers were names like Billy Idol and Siouxsie Sioux (who would later form Siouxsie & The Banshees, whose drummer, Sid Vicious, we'll hear about soon). The Bromley Contingent turned The Sex Pistols into the great cultural touchstone of London and Sex, McLaren's clothing store, into the nerve center that dictated trends in fashion and aesthetics: Punk dominated London and the Pistols were the new messiahs. Without having released a single album, everything they did or said went viral and inspired all of London's youth. And everything they did and said caused a new scandal in their devilish career.

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And then The Ramones released their first album and although they had nothing to do with The Sex Pistols in terms of aesthetics, ideology, stage presence or even music, the success of the Ramones (April 1976) led to the spread of the Punk fever throughout Britain and paved the way for McLaren's band.

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EMI quickly grasped the potential of punk in the UK and decided to take a gamble, signing the Sex Pistols for a £40,000 advance. For EMI, it seemed like a sure bet, and for the Pistols, being the first English punk band to sign with a major label put them ahead of other groups like The Damned or The Clash, who offered a much more interesting musical approach. Rotten and company went into the label's studios and recorded their first single: "Anarchy in the UK," which was released at the end of November 1976. With its powerful ideological lyrics, it caused a genuine social and musical upheaval, immediately becoming a generational anthem for the disaffected. Its cover, featuring a tattered Union Jack held together by safety pins, also became part of popular culture. And, of course, the single went straight to number one on the UK charts. The song's popularity also opened many people's eyes to punk. Suddenly it became clear that punk was politically and socially dangerous, and boycotts and censorship emerged that would haunt the Sex Pistols until the end of their days. From this moment on, the band's songs stopped being played on television and radio stations. Many concerts were canceled due to political pressure, and this same pressure eventually forced EMI to break their contract.

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But if Anarchy in the UK was the Hiroshima of punk, the Sex Pistols already had Nagasaki up their sleeve: God Save the Queen—which, after the break with EMI, was waiting for a record label to release it—represented a direct attack on the power of the untouchable monarchy. At that time, criticizing the crown meant breaking a great taboo. Mattlock himself thought that this was going too far and that they were losing control of his creation. He left the band in February 1977, hinting at a bad relationship with an idolized Johnny Rotten. For his part, McLaren would say he was fired for his unacceptable taste in Paul McCartney, and Rotten would suggest that Mattlock was dismissed for washing his feet too much.

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They didn't take long to introduce his replacement: Sid Vicious, a brainless idiot, a fanatical admirer of the band with an out-of-control drug addiction, who, as we've already mentioned, was the drummer for Siouxsie & the Banshees. Sid had that punk James Dean image that fit the band like a glove. The fact that he didn't even know how to hold the bass and that he was completely unhinged wasn't a problem at all.

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McLaren managed to sign with A&M for 50,000 pounds. The signing of the documents was staged in the street, in front of Buckingham Place, for added theatricality. "God Save the Queen" went into production, but it was the label's own employees and other A&M musicians who pressured them not to release the single. The record company eventually yielded to political and employee pressure and broke the contract with the Sex Pistols. The records that had already been pressed for "God Save the Queen" were almost entirely destroyed, although a small number of copies survived to become one of the most sought-after vinyl records among collectors.

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Finally, it was Virgin who, in May 1977, released the second single by the Sex Pistols, who thus signed their third record deal in just six months. And, of course, "God Save the Queen" (which Rotten intentionally pronounces as "shave") caused the major scandal that everyone expected. Despite heavy media censorship and the refusal of many record stores to stock it, the single reached number 2 on the UK charts, second only to Rod Stewart's "I Don't Want to Talk About It." However, a rumor persists—never denied—that the charts were manipulated to lessen the offense to the Queen. The line "No Future" became a new, scathing slogan for the movement, and the image of Queen Elizabeth II, censored by the band's name and the single's title, would also become another powerful image left in the Sex Pistols' wake. Scandals followed one after another. The press rubbed their hands together whenever someone mentioned them. In June, they boarded a boat to perform a concert on the Thames, hoping that during the celebrations for Elizabeth II's 25th year on the throne, "God Save" would be heard from the Palace of Westminster. Several police boats boarded the band's vessel like privateers and put an end to the provocation.

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The difficulties in circumventing the political boycott and performing forced them to appear at clandestine concerts under pseudonyms in what became known as The Sex Pistols On Tour Secretly. The band was fulfilling phases of McLaren's master plan, and the next step was to record the long-awaited album. It was here that Sid Vicious's shortcomings became a real problem. Everyone's biggest concern was that Sid wouldn't be allowed into the studio, something that was achieved thanks to him contracting hepatitis and only being able to record a few isolated lines for "Bodies." Although they tried to hire Mattlock as a session bassist, in the end it was Jones who recorded the raw and thunderous bass that resonates throughout the entire album.

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It was at the end of October 1977 that the highly anticipated and as controversial as it was crucial, Never Mind the Bollocks, was released. Here's The Sex Pistols, which immediately became the pinnacle of punk and consequently a prominent number one hit despite all the efforts of the authorities to hinder its distribution. Is it a good album? Clearly, its value lies entirely in the extramusical, in the emotional and iconographic aspects, in having become the greatest representative symbol of an entire generation. Artistically, I think it's a very flat and monotonous album, and that it's somewhat overrated, but it's not as horrendous as some have said. Undoubtedly, stripped of all its non-strictly musical components, for someone who isn't a punk fan—and I'm not—it's a minor album.

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With Never Mind The Bollocks, the Sex Pistols reached the pinnacle, but from that moment on, their brutal decline began. It seemed impossible to foresee that in just two and a half months they would have disbanded.

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The difficulties and scandals were reaching levels that made the situation seem untenable. The band lived in constant tension. Concerts in England were canceled one after another. Their US tour was postponed indefinitely due to visa problems stemming from criminal records. The Bromley Contingent had finally disbanded, tired of so much controversy. To top it all off, the arrival of Sid Vicious completely shattered the delicate balance that held the band together. The other members didn't see Sid as a radical punk who played bass and laughed, provoking chaos and controversy, but as a genuine, crazy junkie incapable of playing two notes correctly in a row, whose antics attracted everyone's attention. It was around this time that Sid began his tumultuous relationship with a groupie named Nancy Spungen. It wasn't like Lennon meeting Yoko. It was more like fire meeting gunpowder. Nancy was just as crazy as Sid, if not more so. Together they consumed and destroyed themselves, clinging to heroin.

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At Christmas 1977, taking advantage of the dates freed up by the postponement of their American tour, The Sex Pistols gave a couple of performances in Huddersfield, along with a morning benefit concert. These were their last performances on English soil for many years, until the recurring and posthumous fundraising reunion.

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In January, they finally embarked on their tour of the United States. Initially, the tour had been structured in two parts: the first part would cover the northern part of the country, visiting cities with a more open mind, presumably more favorable to a show like theirs. The second part of the trip would cross the ultraconservative southern territory, which would hardly accept The Sex Pistols. McLaren had prepared this part of the tour with provocation and conflict in mind. The postponement of dates led to the cancellation of all the concerts planned in the northern part. Therefore, everything was reduced to Tennessee, Louisiana, and Texas, which directly doomed the tour to failure.

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Sid Vicious arrived in the USA in terrible condition, suffering from severe heroin addiction. His popularity was proving catastrophic for him, but in his hazy parallel universe, he was a true rock star, and his wish to die before 30 was close to being fulfilled. In San Antonio, Sid hit a spectator over the head with his bass guitar. And it wasn't just a tap. If you picture Paul Simonon on the cover of London Calling, you can imagine. It's a miracle the victim was able to file a police report.

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In ultra-moralistic Texas, Sid hit rock bottom. Before a crowd mostly made up of cowboys who hadn't come to see them but to mark their territory, he slashed "Gimme a Fix" across his torso with a broken bottle. "All cowboys are queers!" he yelled to the rowdy crowd. A woman climbed onto the stage and punched him, leaving his nose bleeding. “Look at this living circus!” exclaimed a surprised Rotten, barely able to contain his laughter, but already showing clear signs of growing tired of it all. Oh! And after the concert, Sid still had the energy to challenge his own bodyguard to a fight, in which he received a sound beating. What a night, mate!

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And so we arrive at the scene we described at the beginning, with Johnny Rotten asking the audience at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom if they had ever felt like they were being ripped off. Only 28 months had passed since that disastrous audition next to the jukebox in McLaren's boutique. And ironically, all this chaos had barely brought them any financial benefit. Three of the band members were still living with their parents, and the fourth slept in the rehearsal space. To give an example, the final performance in San Francisco earned each of the Sex Pistols about $70.

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The story after the Sex Pistols left Punk mortally wounded but finding a path to salvation in fusion and mutation towards somewhat more elaborate and experimental sounds. Synthesizers and electronic music took over, and guitars and distortion began to lose their unquestionable leadership since the days of Chuck Berry. Punk was dying, leaving behind a desolate landscape.

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Rotten reclaimed his surname Lydon and formed a new band, Public Image Ltd., which achieved a degree of success in its early years but was completely outdated by the end of the 80s. He then dedicated himself to what he did best: creating controversy. He had his own show on VH1. He appeared on reality TV. He called every new band he was asked about (Oasis, Gorillaz, Green Day, etc.) rubbish… except for Lady Gaga, about whom he was heard to offer one of the few compliments he ever paid to another artist. He appeared in commercials where he was chased by cows. And he also filmed several episodes for Discovery Channel featuring gorillas, insects, and sharks. A true character.

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Cook and Jones kept the name The Sex Pistols for a while and recorded several singles, including "No One Is Innocent" with Ronnie Biggs, the notorious fugitive involved in the Great Train Robbery. They then worked as session musicians and later formed another band together, The Professionals, which failed to achieve any success. Cook also worked in the 90s playing drums for Edwin Collins (although the famous "A Girl Like You" used a sampled percussion track, and Cook's role consisted of playing that prominent vibraphone).

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Meanwhile, after being kicked out of the Sex Pistols in '77, Mattlock formed a new band, The Rich Kids, without much success, and since then he has embarked on countless projects and collaborations, most notably Iggy Pop's album Soldier, which featured several songs written by him.

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McLaren saw his dream of becoming a filmmaker dashed. First, he lost funding for a punk musical in the style of A Hard Day's Night, which was to be called WhoKilled Bambi?, for which he barely managed to film a single day. He then tried his hand at a mockumentary about the Sex Pistols, titled *The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle*, in which he proclaimed himself the true mastermind and manipulator behind the success of the great punk band. He was pulling the strings. McLaren lost all rights to the film after a lawsuit from John Lydon. Julien Templen picked up the mantle and finished the film, taking all the credit. Two decades later, the band members responded to *The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle* with *The Filth and the Fury*, also directed by Templen. McLaren even released his own albums in the mid-80s, which were well-received. He died in 2010.

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And Sid… After the San Francisco concert, Sid moved to New York, where he descended into even deeper hell. One morning, he woke up to find Nancy dead beside him, a hunting knife stuck in her stomach. He was charged with murder and claimed to be so high that he remembered absolutely nothing of what had happened. The situation looked very bad. He was jailed awaiting trial and managed to get out on bail. But once free, he smashed a beer mug over the head of Rob Smith—Patty Smith's brother—and was sent back to prison, where he spent a couple of months convicted of the assault. In jail, he tried to commit suicide by cutting his wrists with a broken lightbulb, and when he was taken to the hospital, the nurses prevented him from jumping out of the window. Behind bars, he managed to quit drugs, but upon his release, he allowed himself one last night of vice to celebrate his freedom. His own mother, a known small-time drug dealer, knowingly gave him a lethal dose. Sid wanted to die before turning 30. He did it at 21.

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The original lineup of The Sex Pistols reunited several times, the first time in 1996 for a tour aptly named The Filthy Lucre Tour. Since then, the clearly lucrative nature of their appearances has considerably tarnished that idealized image people had of them as men with strong ideological convictions. We've seen Lydon participate in reality shows and even seen the cover of Anarchy in the UK sold for printing on credit cards. They did, however, reject their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with all the rudeness they could muster. But of those guys who could barely play but managed to change the history of music, nothing remains but the memory. As Johnny Rotten once said: "We did what was necessary, that's why we didn't survive. Only the fake survive."

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by marlaior

Sep/19/2015

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