The Sex Pistols

The Sex Pistols were an English Punk band from London, England. They formed in 1975 and were active until 18978, although they have reunited often. They are notable for their only studio album, Never Mind the Bullocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, which met with worldwide acclaim. After releasing their only album in 1977, the band broke up, which was a major dissapointment to punk fans.
== History ==
=== Origins and early days ===
The Sex Pistols evolved from the Strand, a London band formed in 1972 with working-class teenagers Steve Jones on vocals, Paul Cook on drums, and Wally Nightingale on guitar. According to a later account by Jones, both he and Cook played on instruments they had stolen. They would go to music performances and, when the concert was over, would go up on stage and 
steal as much musical equipment as they could carry.
Early line-ups of the Strand—sometimes known as the Swankers—also 
included Jim Mackin on organ and Stephen Hayes (and later, briefly, Del Noones) on bass. The band members hung out regularly at two clothing shops on Kings Road, in London's Chelsea neighbourhood: John Krivine and Steph Raynor's Acme Attractions (where Don Letts worked as manager) and Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die.
The McLaren–Westwood shop had opened in 1971 as Let It Rock, with a 1950s revival Teddy Boy theme. It had been renamed in 1972 to focus on another revival trend, the rocker look associated with Marlon Brando. As John Lydon
 later observed, "Malcolm and Vivienne were really a pair of shysters: 
they would sell anything to any trend that they could grab onto." The shop was to become a focal point of the punk rock scene, bringing together participants such as the future Sid Vicious, Marco Pirroni (who became a guitarist, songwriter and record producer), Gene October (who became the singer for the punk band Chelsea), and Mark Stewart, among many others. Jordan, the English model and actress noted for her work with Vivienne Westwood and the SEX boutique, was a wildly styled shop assistant, who is credited with "pretty well single-handedly paving the punk look".
In early 1974, Jones convinced McLaren to help out the Strand. Effectively becoming the group's manager, McLaren paid for their first formal rehearsal space. Glen Matlock, an art student who occasionally worked at Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die, was recruited as the band's regular bassist. In November, McLaren temporarily relocated to New York City. Before his departure, McLaren and Westwood had conceived of a new identity for their shop: renamed SEX, it changed its focus from retro couture to S&M-inspired "anti-fashion", with a billing as "Specialists in rubberwear, glamourwear & stagewear".
After informally managing and promoting the New York Dolls for a few months, McLaren returned to London in May 1975. Inspired by the punk scene that was beginning to emerge in Lower Manhattan—in particular by the radical visual style and attitude of Richard Hell, then with Television—McLaren began taking a greater interest in the Strand.
The group had been rehearsing regularly, overseen by McLaren's friend Bernard Rhodes, and had performed publicly for the first time. Soon after McLaren's return, Nightingale was kicked out of the band and Jones, uncomfortable as frontman, took over guitar duties. According to journalist and former McLaren employee Phil Strongman, around this time the band adopted the name QT Jones and the Sex Pistols (or QT Jones & His Sex Pistols, as one Rhodes-designed T-shirt put it). McLaren had been talking with the New York Dolls' Sylvain Sylvain about coming over to England to front the group.
When those plans fell through, McLaren, Rhodes and the band began 
looking locally for a new member to assume the lead vocal duties. As described by Matlock, "Everyone had long hair then, even the 
milkman, so what we used to do was if someone had short hair we would 
stop them in the street and ask them if they fancied themselves as a 
singer." Among those they approached was Midge Ure, who was involved with his own band, Slik. Kevin Rowland—who would co-found Dexys Midnight Runners three years later—auditioned, but apart from Matlock, no one was 
impressed. With the search going nowhere, McLaren made several calls to Richard Hell, who turned down the invitation.
=== John Lydon joins the band ===
In August 1975, Rhodes spotted nineteen-year-old Kings Road habitué John Lydon wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt with the words I Hate handwritten above the band's name and holes scratched through the eyes.[21][22][23]
 Reports vary at this point: the same day, or soon after, either Rhodes 
or McLaren asked Lydon to come to a nearby pub in the evening to meet 
Jones and Cook. According to Jones, "He came in with green hair. I thought he had a 
really interesting face. I liked his look. He had his 'I Hate Pink 
Floyd' T-shirt on, and it was held together with safety pins. John had 
something special, but when he started talking he was a real 
arsehole—but smart." When the pub closed, the group moved on to SEX, where Lydon, who had 
given little thought to singing, was convinced to improvise along to Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen" on the shop jukebox. Though the performance drove the band members to 
laughter, McLaren convinced them to start rehearsing with Lydon. Lydon later described the social context in which the band came together:
New Musical Express journalist Nick Kent
 jamed occasionally with the band, but left upon Lydon's recruitment. 
"When I came along, I took one look at him and said, 'No. That has to go,'" Lydon later explained. "He's never written a good word about me 
ever since."[27]
 In September, McLaren again helped hire private rehearsal space for the
 group, which had been practising in pubs. Cook, who had a full-time job
 he was loath to give up, was making noises about quitting. According to
 Matlock's later description, Cook "created a smokescreen" by claiming 
Jones was not skilled enough to be the band's sole guitarist. An 
advertisement was placed in Melody Maker for a "Whizz Kid Guitarist. Not older than 20. Not worse looking than Johnny Thunders" (referring to a leading member of the New York punk scene). Most of the guitar players who auditioned were incompetent, but in McLaren's view, the process created a new sense of solidarity among the 
four band members. Steve New
 was considered the only talented guitarist who tried out and the band 
invited him to join. Jones was improving rapidly, and the band's developing sound had no room for the technical lead work at which New 
was adept. He departed after a month.
Lydon had been renamed "Johnny Rotten" by Jones, apparently because of his bad dental hygiene. The band also settled on a name. After considering options such as Le Bomb, Subterraneans, the Damned, Beyond, Teenage Novel, Kid Gladlove, and Crème de la Crème, they decided on Sex Pistols—a shortened form of the name they had apparently been working under informally.
McLaren said the name derived "from the idea of a pistol, a pin-up, a
 young thing, a better-looking assassin". Not given to modesty, false or
 otherwise, he added: " launched the idea in the form of a band of 
kids who could be perceived as being bad." The group began writing original material: Rotten was the lyricist and 
Matlock the primary melody writer (though their first collaboration, "Pretty Vacant", had a complete lyric by Matlock, which Rotten tweaked a bit); official credit was shared equally among the four.
Their first gig was arranged by Matlock, who was studying at Saint Martins College. The band played at the school on 6 November 1975, in support of a pub rock group called Bazooka Joe, arranging to use their amps and drums. The Sex Pistols performed several cover songs, including the Who's "Substitute", the Small Faces' "Whatcha Gonna Do About It", "(Don't you Give Me) No Lip" by Dave Berry, and "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone", made famous by the Monkees; according to observers, they were unexceptional musically aside from being extremely loud. Before the Pistols could play the few original 
songs they had written to date, Bazooka Joe pulled the plugs as they saw their gear being trashed. A brief physical altercation between members of the two bands took place on stage.
=== Building a following ===
The original line-up of the Sex Pistols, early 1976. Left to right: Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock and Paul Cook.
The Saint Martins gig was followed by other performances at colleges and art schools around London. One of these on 9 December 1975 was at Ravensbourne College, Chislehurst, near Bromley in Kent, UK where they supported the Newcastle-based rock band Fogg. The band played for free 
as according to McLaren they were 'turning professional' the following year, although as McLaren's letter confirming the booking stated: 'free 
beer for the band would be appreciated'. Despite the band's punk 
posturing, their PA equipment (including EV Eliminator bass bins) was so much better than that of the established touring band Fogg that their 
equipment was used for the gig. The result of them staying later was a 
bar bill of over £50 during the headliner's performance. Simon Barker, a
 friend of Steve Severin saw the gig and enthused about the band.[38] This resulted in them seeing the band at the Marquee on 12 February 1976. The Sex Pistols' core group of followers—including Siouxsie Sioux, Steve Severin and Billy Idol—came to be known as the Bromley Contingent, after the large suburban town several were from. Their cutting-edge fashion, much of it supplied by SEX, ignited a trend that was adopted by the new fans the band attracted. McLaren and Westwood saw the incipient London punk movement as a 
vehicle for more than just couture. They were both captivated by the May 1968 radical uprising in Paris, particularly by the ideology and agitations of the Situationists, as well as the anarchist thought of Buenaventura Durruti and others.
These interests were shared with Jamie Reid, an old friend of McLaren's who began producing publicity material for the Sex Pistols in spring 1976. (The cut-up lettering employed to create the classic Sex Pistols logo 
and many subsequent designs for the band was actually introduced by McLaren's friend Helen Wellington-Lloyd.) "We used to talk to John [Lydon] a lot about the Situationists," Reid later said. "The Sex Pistols seemed the perfect vehicle to communicate 
ideas directly to people who weren't getting the message from left-wing 
politics." McLaren was also arranging for the band's first photo sessions. As described by music historian Jon Savage, "With his green hair, hunched stance and ragged look, [Lydon] looked like a cross between Uriah Heep and Richard Hell."
The first Sex Pistols gig to attract broader attention was as a supporting act for Eddie and the Hot Rods, a leading pub rock group, at the Marquee on 12 February 1976. Rotten "was now really pushing the barriers of 
performance, walking off stage, sitting with the audience, throwing Jordan across the dance floor and chucking chairs around, before 
smashing some of Eddie and the Hot Rods' gear."[47] The band's first review appeared in the NME, accompanied by a brief interview in which Steve Jones declared, "Actually we're not into music. We're into chaos." Among those who read the article were two students at the Bolton Institute of Technology, Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley,
 who headed down to London in search of the Sex Pistols. After chatting 
with McLaren at SEX, they saw the band at a couple of late February gigs. The two friends immediately began organising their own Pistols-style group, Buzzcocks. As Devoto later put it, "My life changed the moment that I saw the Sex Pistols."
The Pistols were soon playing other important venues, debuting at Oxford Street's 100 Club on 30 March.[51] On 3 April, they played for the first time at the Nashville, supporting The 101ers. The pub rock group's lead singer, Joe Strummer, saw the Pistols for the first time that night—and recognised punk rock as the future. A return gig at the Nashville on 23 April demonstrated the band's growing musical competence, but by all accounts lacked a spark. Westwood
 provided that by instigating a fight with another audience member; McLaren and Rotten were soon involved in the melee. Cook later said, "That fight at the Nashville: that's when all the 
publicity got hold of it and the violence started creeping in.... I 
think everybody was ready to go and we were the catalyst."[54] The Pistols were soon banned from both the Nashville and the Marquee.[55]
On 23 April, as well, the debut album by the leading punk rock band in the New York scene, the Ramones, was released. Though it is regarded as seminal to the growth of punk rock in England and elsewhere, Lydon has repeatedly rejected any 
suggestion that it influenced the Sex Pistols: "[the Ramones] were all 
long-haired and of no interest to me. I didn't like their image, what 
they stood for, or anything about them"; "They were hilarious but you can only go so far with 'duh-dur-dur-duh'. I've heard it. Next. Move on." On 11 May, the Pistols began a four-week-long Tuesday night residency at the 100 Club.[58]
 They devoted the rest of the month to touring small cities and towns in
 the north of England and recording demos in London with producer and 
recording artist Chris Spedding. The following month they played their first gig in Manchester, arranged by Devoto and Shelley. The Sex Pistols' performance of 4 June at the Lesser Free Trade Hall set off a punk rock boom in the city. On 4 and 6 July, respectively, two newly formed London punk rock acts, the Clash—with Strummer as lead vocalist—and the Damned,
 made their live debuts opening for the Sex Pistols. On their off night 
in between, the Pistols (despite Lydon's later professed disdain) showed up for a Ramones gig at Dingwalls, like virtually everyone else at the heart of the London punk scene. During a return Manchester engagement, 20 July, the Pistols premiered a new song, "Anarchy in the U.K.", reflecting elements of the radical ideologies to which Rotten was being exposed.
According to Jon Savage, "there seems little doubt that Lydon was fed material by Vivienne Westwood and Jamie Reid, which he then converted 
into his own lyric." "Anarchy in the U.K." was among the seven originals recorded in another demo session that month, this one overseen by the band's sound 
engineer, Dave Goodman. McLaren organised a major event for 29 August at the Screen on the Green in London's Islington district: Buzzcocks and the Clash opened for the Sex Pistols in punk's "first metropolitan test of strength". Three days later, the band were in Manchester to tape what would be their first television appearance, for Tony Wilson's So It Goes.
 Scheduled to perform just one song, "Anarchy in the U.K.", the band ran
 straight through another two numbers as pandemonium broke out in the control room.
The Sex Pistols played their first concert outside Britain on 3 September, at the opening of the Chalet du Lac disco in Paris. The 
Bromley Contingent accompanied them, with Siouxsie Sioux's swastika armband causing a stir. The following day, the So It Goes performance aired; the audience heard "Anarchy in the U.K." introduced with a shout of "Get off your arse!" On 13 September, the Pistols began a tour of Britain. A week later, back in London, they headlined the opening night of the 100 Club Punk Special. Organised by McLaren (for whom the word "festival" had too much of a 
hippie connotation), the event was "considered the moment that was the 
catalyst for the years to come." Belying the common perception that punk bands couldn't play their 
instruments, contemporary music press reviews, later critical 
assessments of concert recordings, and testimonials by fellow musicians 
indicate that the Pistols had developed into a tight, ferocious live band. As Rotten tested out wild vocalisation styles, the instrumentalists 
experimented "with overload, feedback and distortion...pushing their 
equipment to the limit".
=== EMI and the Grundy incident ===
On 8 October 1976, the major record label EMI signed the Sex Pistols to a two-year contract. In short order, the band was in the studio recording a full-dress session with Dave Goodman. As later described by Matlock, "The idea was to get the spirit of the live performance. We were pressurised to make 
it faster and faster." The riotous results were rejected. Chris Thomas, who had produced Roxy Music and mixed Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, was brought in to produce.[75] The band's first single, "Anarchy in the U.K.", was released on 26 November 1976. John Robb—a
 music journalist—described the record's impact: "From Steve Jones' 
opening salvo of descending chords, to Johnny Rotten's fantastic 
sneering vocals, this song is the perfect statement...a stunningly 
powerful piece of punk politics...a lifestyle choice, a manifesto that 
heralds a new era". Colin Newman, who had just cofounded the band Wire, heard it as "the clarion call of a generation."[77]
"Anarchy in the U.K." was not the first British punk single, pipped by the Damned's "New Rose". "We Vibrate" had also appeared from the Vibrators, a pub rock band formed early in 1976 that had become associated with punk—though, according to Jon Savage "with their long hair and mildly risque name, the Vibrators were passers-by as far as punk taste-makers 
were concerned." Unlike those songs, whose lyrical content was comfortably within rock 'n' roll traditions, "Anarchy in the U.K." linked punk to a newly politicised attitude—the Pistols' stance was aggrieved, euphoric and 
nihilistic, all at the same time. Rotten's howls of "I am an 
anti-christ" and "Destroy!" re-purposed rock as an ideological weapon. The single's packaging and visual promotion also broke new ground. Reid
 and McLaren came up with the notion of selling the record in a 
completely wordless, featureless black sleeve. The primary image associated with the single was Reid's "anarchy flag" poster: a Union Flag
 ripped up and partly safety-pinned back together, with the song and 
band names clipped along the edges of a gaping hole in the middle. This 
and other images created by Reid for the Sex Pistols quickly became punk icons.
The Sex Pistols' behaviour, as much as their music, brought them 
national attention. On 1 December 1976, the band and members of the Bromley Contingent created a storm of publicity by swearing during an early evening live broadcast of Thames Television's Today programme. Appearing as last-minute replacements for fellow EMI artists Queen, the band and their entourage were offered drinks as they waited to go 
on air. During the interview, Jones said the band had "fucking spent" its label advance and Rotten used the word "shit". Host Bill Grundy, who claimed to be as drunk as his interviewees, engaged in repartee with Siouxsie Sioux, who declared that she had "always wanted to meet" him. Grundy responded, "Did you really? We'll meet afterwards, shall we?" This prompted the following exchange between Jones and the host:
: Jones: You dirty sod. You dirty old man.
: Grundy: Well keep going, chief, keep going. Go on. You've got another five seconds. Say something outrageous.
: Jones: You dirty bastard.
: Grundy: Go on, again.
: Jones: You dirty fucker.
: Grundy: What a clever boy.
: Jones: What a fucking rotter.[82]
Daily Mirror front page, 2 December 1976
Although the programme was broadcast only in the London region, the ensuing furore occupied the tabloid newspapers for days. The Daily Mirror famously ran the headline "The Filth and the Fury!", other papers such as the Daily Express ("Fury at Filthy TV Chat") and the Daily Telegraph ("4-Letter Words Rock TV") followed suit. Thames Television suspended Grundy, and though he was later reinstated, the interview effectively ended his career.
The episode made the band household names throughout the country and 
brought punk into mainstream awareness. The Pistols set out on the 
Anarchy Tour of the UK, supported by the Clash and Johnny Thunders' band
 the Heartbreakers, over from New York. The Damned were briefly part of the tour, before McLaren kicked them off. Media coverage was intense, and many of the concerts were cancelled by organisers or local authorities; of approximately twenty scheduled gigs, only about seven actually took place. Following a campaign waged in the south Wales press, a crowd including carol singers and a Pentecostal preacher protested against the group 
outside a show in Caerphilly. Packers at the EMI plant refused to handle the band's single.
Bernard Brook-Partridge, a Conservative member of the Greater London Council and chairman of the Arts committee from 1977, declared, "Most of
 these groups would be vastly improved by sudden death. The worst of the
 punk rock groups I suppose currently are the Sex Pistols. They are 
\unbelievably nauseating. They are the antithesis of humankind. I would 
like to see somebody dig a very, very large, exceedingly deep hole and 
drop the whole bloody lot down it."
Following the end of the tour in late December, three concerts were 
arranged in the Netherlands for January 1977. The band, hungover, boarded a plane at London Heathrow Airport early on 4 January; a few hours later, the Evening News was reporting that the band had "vomited and spat their way" to the flight. Despite categorical denials by the EMI representative who accompanied the group, the label, which was under political pressure, released the band from their contract. As McLaren fielded offers from other labels, the band went into the 
studio for a round of recordings with Goodman, their last with either him or Matlock.
=== Sid Vicious joins the band ===
Representation of Sid Vicious
Sex Pistols in Paradiso in 1977: Johnny Rotten & Steve Jones
In February 1977, word leaked out that Matlock was leaving the Sex Pistols. On 28 February, McLaren sent a telegram to the NME confirming the split. He claimed that Matlock had been "thrown out...because he went on too long about Paul McCartney.... the Beatles was too much." In an interview a few months afterwards, Steve Jones echoed the charge that Matlock had been sacked because he "liked the Beatles." Jones expanded on the matter of the band's issues with Matlock: "He was
 a good writer but he didn't look like a Sex Pistol and he was always washing his feet. His mum didn't like the songs." Matlock told the NME that he had voluntarily left the band by "mutual agreement".
Later, in his autobiography, Matlock would describe the primary 
impetus for his departure as his increasingly acrimonious relationship 
with Rotten, which he described as being exacerbated by the rampant 
inflation of Rotten's ego "once he'd had his name in the papers" and 
instigated by McLaren. Lydon would later claim that "God Save the Queen,"
 the belligerently sardonic song planned as the band's second single, 
had been the final straw: "[Matlock] couldn't handle those kinds of 
lyrics. He said it declared us fascists." Though the singer could hardly
 see how anti-royal-ism equated with fascism, he claimed, "Just to get 
rid of him, I didn't deny it." (The claim was denied by Matlock.) Jon Savage suggests that Rotten 
pushed Matlock out in an effort to demonstrate his power and autonomy 
from McLaren. Matlock almost immediately formed his own band, Rich Kids, with Midge Ure, Steve New, and Rusty Egan.
A 1977 promotional poster.
Matlock was replaced by Rotten's friend and self-appointed "ultimate Sex Pistols fan" Sid Vicious. Born John Simon Ritchie, later known as John Beverley, Vicious was previously drummer of two inner circle punk bands, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Flowers of Romance. He was also credited with introducing the pogo dance
 to the scene at the 100 Club. John Robb claims it was at the first Sex 
Pistols residency gig, 11 May 1976; Matlock is convinced it happened during the second night of the 100 Club Punk Special in September, when 
the Pistols were off playing in Wales. In Matlock's description, Rotten wanted Vicious in the band because 
"[i]nstead of him against Steve and Paul, it would become him and Sid 
against Steve and Paul. He always thought of it in terms of opposing camps."
Julien Temple,
 then a film student whom McLaren had put on the Sex Pistols payroll to 
create a comprehensive audiovisual record of the band, concurs: "Sid was
 John's protégé in the group, really. The other two just thought he was crazy." McLaren later stated that, much earlier in the band's career, Vivienne Westwood had told him he should "get the guy called John who came to the
 store a couple of times" to be the singer. When Johnny Rotten was 
recruited for the band, Westwood said McLaren had got it wrong: "he had got the wrong John." It was John Beverley, the future Vicious, she had been recommending. McLaren approved the belated inclusion of Vicious, who had virtually no
 experience on his new instrument, on account of his look and reputation
 in the punk scene.
Pogoing aside, Vicious had been involved in a notorious incident during that memorable second night of the 100 Club Punk Special. Arrested for hurling a glass at the Damned that shattered and blinded a girl in one eye, he had served time in a remand centre—and contributed to the 100 Club banning all punk bands. At a previous 100 Club gig, he had assaulted Nick Kent with a bicycle chain. Indeed, McLaren's NME telegram said that Vicious's "best credential was he gave Nick Kent what he deserved many months ago at the Hundred Club".[93][103]
 According to a later description by McLaren, "When Sid joined he 
couldn't play guitar but his craziness fit into the structure of the 
band. He was the knight in shining armour with a giant fist."[104]
"Everyone agreed he had the look," Lydon later recalled, but musical 
skill was another matter. "The first rehearsals...in March of 1977 with Sid were hellish.... Sid really tried hard and rehearsed a lot". Marco Pirroni, who had performed with Vicious in Siouxsie and the Banshees, has said, "After that, it was nothing to do with music 
anymore. It would just be for the sensationalism and scandal of it all. Then it became the Malcolm McLaren story".
Membership in the Sex Pistols had a progressively destructive effect 
on Vicious. As Lydon later observed, "Up to that time, Sid was 
absolutely childlike. Everything was fun and giggly. Suddenly he was a big pop star. Pop star status meant press, a good chance to be spotted in all the right places, adoration. That's what it all meant to Sid." Westwood had already been feeding him material, like a tome on Charles Manson, likely to encourage his worst instincts. Early in 1977, he met Nancy Spungen, an emotionally disturbed drug addict and sometime prostitute from New York. Spungen is commonly thought to be responsible for introducing Vicious to heroin, and the emotional codependency
 between the couple alienated Vicious from the other members of the 
band. Lydon later wrote, "We did everything to get rid of Nancy.... She 
was killing him. I was absolutely convinced this girl was on a slow 
suicide mission.... Only she didn't want to go alone. She wanted to take Sid with her.... She was so utterly fucked up and evil." Lydon also admits to regretting introducing the two in The Filth and the Fury.
=== "God Save the Queen" ===
On 10 March 1977, at a press ceremony held outside Buckingham Palace, the Sex Pistols publicly signed to A&M Records (the real signing had taken place the day before). Afterwards, intoxicated, they made their way to the A&M offices. Vicious smashed
 in a toilet bowl and cut his foot (there is some disagreement about 
which happened first). As Vicious trailed blood around the offices, Rotten verbally abused the staff and Jones got frisky in the ladies' 
room.[110]
 A couple of days later, the Pistols got into a rumble with another band
 at a club; one of Rotten's pals threatened the life of a good friend of
 A&M's English director. On 16 March, A&M broke contract with the Pistols. Twenty-five thousand copies of the planned "God Save the Queen" single, produced by Chris Thomas, had already been pressed; 
virtually all were destroyed.
Jamie Reid's "God Save the Queen" sleeve; in 2001, it was named the greatest record cover of all time by Q magazine.
Vicious debuted with the band at London's Notre Dame Hall on 28 March. In May, the band signed with Virgin Records, their third new label in little more than half a year. Virgin was more 
than ready to release "God Save the Queen", but new obstacles arose. Workers at the pressing plant laid down their tools in protest at the song's content. Jamie Reid's now famous cover, showing Queen Elizabeth II with her features obscured by the song and band names in cutout letters, offended the sleeve's plate makers. After much talk, production resumed and the record was finally released on 27 May.
Johnny Rotten on stage.
The scabrous lyrics—"God save the Queen/She ain't no human being/There is no future/In England's dreaming"—prompted widespread outcry. Several major chains refused to stock the single. It was banned not only by the BBC but also by every independent radio station, making it the "most heavily censored record in British history". That week, there *was* no number 1 hit in Britain - according to Lydon, et al. in The Filth and The Fury, the top spot was empty, because so many radio stations, the BBC, and individuals protested the song's content. Rotten boasted, "We're the only honest band that's hit this planet in about two thousand million years." Jones shrugged off everything the song stated and implied—or took nihilism to a logical endpoint: "I don't see how anyone could describe 
us as a political band. I don't even know the name of the Prime Minister." The song, and its public impact, are now recognised as "punk's crowning glory".
The Virgin release had been timed to coincide with the height of Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee celebrations. By Jubilee weekend, a week and a half after the record's release, it had sold more than 150,000 copies—a massive success. On 7 
June, McLaren and the record label arranged to charter a private boat and have the Sex Pistols perform while sailing down the River Thames, passing Westminster Pier and the Houses of Parliament. The event, a mockery of the Queen's river procession planned for two days later, ended in chaos. Police launches forced the boat to dock, and constabulary surrounded the gangplanks at the pier. While the band members and their equipment were hustled down a side stairwell, McLaren, Westwood, and many of the band's entourage were arrested.
With the official UK record chart for Jubilee week about to be released, the Daily Mirror predicted that "God Save the Queen" would be number one. As it turned out, the record placed second, behind a Rod Stewart single in its fourth week at the top. Many believed that the record had actually qualified for the top spot, but that the chart had been rigged to prevent a spectacle. McLaren later claimed that CBS Records, which was distributing both singles, told him that the Sex Pistols were
 actually outselling Stewart two to one. There is evidence that an exceptional directive was issued by the British Phonographic Institute, which oversaw the chart-compiling bureau, to exclude sales from 
record-company operated shops such as Virgin's for that week only.
Violent attacks on punk fans were on the rise. In mid-June Rotten himself was assaulted by a knife-wielding gang outside Islington's Pegasus pub, causing tendon damage to his left arm. Jamie Reid and Paul Cook were beaten up in other incidents; three days after the Pegasus 
assault, Rotten was attacked again. A tour of Scandinavia, planned to start at the end of the month, was 
consequently delayed until mid-July. During the tour, a Swedish 
interviewer observed to Jones that "a lot of people" regarded the band as McLaren's "creation". Jones replied, "He's our manager, that's all. 
He's got nothing to do with the music or the image...he's just a good 
manager." In another interview, Rotten professed bafflement at the furore 
surrounding the group: "I don't understand it. All we're trying to do is
 destroy everything." At the end of August came SPOTS—Sex Pistols On Tour Secretly, a 
surreptitious UK tour with the band playing under pseudonyms to avoid cancellation.
McLaren had wanted for some time to make a movie featuring the Sex Pistols. Julien Temple's first major task had been to assemble Sex Pistols Number 1, a twenty-five-minute mosaic of footage from various sources, much of it refilmed by Temple from television screens. Number 1 was often screened at concert venues before the band took the stage. Using media footage from the Thames incident, Temple created another propagandistic short, Jubilee Riverboat (aka Sex Pistols Number 2). During summer 1977, McLaren had been making arrangements for the feature film of his dreams, Who Killed Bambi?, to be directed by Russ Meyer from a script by Roger Ebert. After a single day of shooting, 11 September, production ceased when it
 became clear that McLaren had failed to arrange financing. In The Filth and The Fury, it is revealed that Sting's first acting gig was in the film.
Never Mind the Bollocks
Since the spring of 1977, the three senior Sex Pistols had been returning to the studio periodically with Chris Thomas to lay down the tracks for the band's debut album. Initially to be called God Save Sex Pistols, it became known during the summer as Never Mind the Bollocks. According to Jones, "Sid wanted to come down and play on the album, and we tried as hard as possible not to let him anywhere near the studio. Luckily he had hepatitis at the time." Cook later described how many of the instrumental tracks were built up from drum and guitar parts, rather than the usual drum and bass.
Given Vicious's incompetence, Matlock had been invited to record as a session musician. In his autobiography, Matlock says although he agreed to "help out", that he cut all ties after McLaren issued 28 February NME telegram announcing Matlock had been fired for liking the Beatles, and 
that he only appeared on the songs previously recorded as singles and b-sides. According to Jon Savage, Matlock did play as a hired hand on 3 March, for what Savage describes as an "audition session". In his autobiography, Lydon claims that Matlock's work-for-hire for his
 ex-band was extensive—much more so than any other source reports—seemingly to amplify a putdown: "I think I'd rather die than do 
something like that." Music historian David Howard states unambiguously that Matlock did not perform on any of the Never Mind the Bollocks recording sessions.[135]
It was Jones who ultimately played most of the bass parts during the Bollocks recordings; Howard calls his rudimentary, rumbling approach the "explosive missing ingredient" of the Sex Pistols' sound.[135] Vicious's bass is reportedly present on one track that appeared on the original album release, "Bodies".
 Jones recalls, "He played his farty old bass part and we just let him 
do it. When he left I dubbed another part on, leaving Sid's down low. I 
think it might be barely audible on the track."[136] Following "God Save the Queen", two more singles were released: "Pretty Vacant" (largely written by Matlock) on 1 July[137] and from the Bollocks sessions, "Holidays in the Sun" on 14 October.[138] Each was a Top Ten hit.[139]
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (which includes "Anarchy in the U.K." and another earlier recording, "No Feelings") was released on 28 October 1977.[140] Rolling Stone
 praised the album as "just about the most exciting rock & roll 
record of the Seventies", applauding the band for playing "with an 
energy and conviction that is positively transcendent in its madness and
 fever".[141]
 Some critics, disappointed that the album contained all four previously
 released singles, dismissed it as little more than a "greatest hits" 
record.[142]
Containing both "Bodies" in which Rotten utters "fuck" six times 
(primarily at the start of the second verse - "fuck this and fuck that, 
fuck it all and fuck her fucking brat!", quoted notoriously in Sid and 
Nancy, Love Kills) and the previously censored "God Save the Queen", and also the word bollocks (popular slang for testicles) in its title, the album was banned by Boots, W. H. Smith and Woolworth's. The Conservative Shadow Minister for Education condemned it as "a 
symptom of the way society is declining" and both the Independent Television Companies' Association and the Association of Independent 
Radio Contractors banned its advertisements. Nonetheless, advance sales were sufficient to make it an undeniable number one on the album chart.
The album title led to a legal case that attracted considerable attention: a Virgin Records store in Nottingham that put the album in its window was threatened with prosecution for 
displaying "indecent printed matter". The case was thrown out when defending QC John Mortimer produced an expert witness who established that bollocks was an Old English term for a small ball, that it appeared "in place names without 
stirring any sensual desires in the local communities", and that in the 
nineteenth century it had been used as a nickname for clergymen: "Clergymen are known to talk a good deal of rubbish and so the word 
later developed the meaning of nonsense." In the context of the Pistols' album title, the term does in fact 
primarily signify "nonsense". Steve Jones off-handedly came up with the 
title as the band debated what to call the album. An exasperated Jones 
said, "Oh, fuck it, never mind the bollocks of it all."
After playing a few dates in the Netherlands—the beginning of a 
planned multinational tour—the band set out on a Never Mind the Bans 
tour of Britain in December 1977. Of eight scheduled dates, four were cancelled due to illness or political pressure. The band played at Cromer Links Pavilion in Norfolk on Christmas Eve 1977 after assurances that the performance would finish strictly on time and no obscenities 
would be heard.The tickets went on sale at the local Regal cinema priced
 at £1.75. On Christmas Day, the Sex Pistols played two shows at Ivanhoe's in Huddersfield.
 Before a regular evening concert, the band performed a benefit matinee for the children of "striking firemen, laid-off workers and one-parent families." These would turn out to be the band's final UK performances.
=== US tour and the end of the band ===
In January 1978, the Sex Pistols embarked on a US tour, consisting mainly of dates in America's Deep South. Originally scheduled to begin a few days before New Year's, it was delayed due to American authorities' reluctance to issue visas to band 
members with criminal records. Several dates in the North had to be cancelled as a result. Though highly anticipated by fans and media, the tour was plagued by 
in-fighting, poor planning and physically belligerent audiences. McLaren later admitted that he purposely booked redneck bars to provoke hostile situations. Over the course of the two weeks, Vicious, by now heavily addicted to heroin, began to live up to his stage name. "He finally had an audience of 
people who would behave with shock and horror", Lydon later wrote. "Sid was easily led by the nose."
Early in the tour, Vicious wandered off from his Holiday Inn in Memphis, Tennessee,
 looking for drugs. He was found in a hospital, having written the words "Gimme a fix" in his chest with a marker pen. During a concert in San Antonio, Texas, Vicious called the crowd "a bunch of faggots", before striking an audience member across the head with his bass guitar. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he received simulated oral sex on stage, later declaring "that's the kind of girl I like". Suffering from heroin withdrawal during a show in Dallas, Texas, he spat blood at a woman who had climbed onstage and punched him in the face. He was admitted to hospital later that night to treat various injuries. Offstage he is said to have kicked a female photographer, attacked a 
security guard, and eventually challenged one of his own bodyguards to a
 fight—beaten up, he is reported to have exclaimed, "I like you. Now we can be friends."
Rotten, meanwhile, suffering from flu and coughing up blood, felt increasingly isolated from Cook and Jones, and disgusted by Vicious. On 14 January 1978, during the tour's final date at the Winterland Ballroom
 in San Francisco, a disillusioned Rotten introduced the band's encore saying, "You'll get one number and one number only 'cause I'm a lazy 
bastard." That one number was a Stooges cover, "No Fun". At the end of the song, Rotten, kneeling on the stage,
 chanted an unambiguous declaration, "This is no fun. No fun. This is no
 fun—at all. No fun." As the final cymbal crash died away, Rotten addressed the audience directly—"Ah-ha-ha. Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? Good night"—before throwing down his microphone and walking offstage. He later observed, "I felt cheated, and I wasn't going on with it any longer; it was a ridiculous farce. Sid was completely out of his brains—just a waste of space. The whole thing was a joke at that point.... [Malcolm] wouldn't speak to me.... He would not discuss 
anything with me. But then he would turn around and tell Paul and Steve that the tension was all my fault because I wouldn't agree to anything."
On 17 January, the band split, making their ways separately to Los Angeles. McLaren, Cook and Jones prepared to fly to Rio de Janeiro
 for a working vacation. Vicious, in increasingly bad shape, was taken 
to Los Angeles by a friend, who then brought him to New York, where he 
was immediately hospitalised. Rotten later described his own situation: "The Sex Pistols left me, stranded in Los Angeles with no ticket, no hotel room, and a message to 
Warner Bros saying that if anyone phones up claiming to be Johnny Rotten, then they were lying. That's how I finished with Malcolm—but not with the rest of the band; I'll always like them." Rotten flew to New York, where he announced the band's break-up in a newspaper interview on 18 January. Virtually broke, he telephoned the head of Virgin Records, Richard Branson, who agreed to pay for his flight back to London, via Jamaica. In Jamaica, Branson met with members of the band Devo, and tried to install Rotten as their lead singer. Devo declined the offer.
Cook, Jones and Vicious never performed together again live after Rotten's departure. Over the next several months, McLaren arranged for 
recordings in Brazil (with Jones and Cook), Paris (with Vicious) and 
London; each of the three and others stepped in as lead vocalists on tracks that in some cases were far from what punk was expected to sound like. These recordings were to make up the musical soundtrack for the 
reconceived Pistols feature film project, directed by Julian Temple, to
which McLaren was now devoting himself. On 30 June, a single credited to
 the Sex Pistols was released: on one side, notorious criminal Ronnie Biggs sang "No One Is Innocent" accompanied by Jones and Cook; on the other, Vicious sang the classic "My Way", over both a Jones–Cook backing track and a string orchestra. The single reached number seven on the charts, eventually outselling all the singles with which Rotten was involved. McLaren was seeking to reconstitute the band with a permanent new frontman, but Vicious—McLaren's first choice—had sickened of him. In return for agreeing to record "My Way", Vicious had demanded that
McLaren sign a sheet of paper declaring that he was no longer Vicious's manager. In August, Vicious, back in London, delivered his final performances as a nominal Sex Pistol: recording and filming cover versions of two Eddie Cochran songs. The bassist's return to New York in September put an end to McLaren's reunion dream.
Category:Punk Bands
Category:Stub
Category:Bands from the 70's
Category:Bands