What is the first name of the person who argued "the real rebel yell came from Jones' guitars?"
The Sex Pistols' 4 June 1976 concert at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall was to become one of the most significant and mythologised events in rock history. Among the audience of merely forty people or so were many who became leading figures in the punk and post-punk movements: Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto, who organised the gig and were in the process of auditioning new members for the Buzzcocks; Bernard Sumner, Ian Curtis and Peter Hook, later of Joy Division; Mark E. Smith, later of The Fall; punk poet John Cooper Clarke and Morrissey, later of The Smiths. Anthony H. Wilson, founder of Factory Records, saw the band for the first time at the return engagement on 20 July. Among the many musicians of a later time who have acknowledged their debt to the Pistols are members of the Jesus and Mary Chain, NOFX, The Stone Roses, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, Green Day, and Oasis. Calling the band "immensely influential", a London College of Music study guide notes that "many styles of popular music, such as grunge, indie, thrash metal and even rap owe their foundations to the legacy of ground breaking punk bands—of which the Sex Pistols was the most prominent."According to Ira Robbins of the Trouser Press Record Guide, "the Pistols and manager/provocateur Malcolm McLaren challenged every aspect and precept of modern music-making, thereby inspiring countless groups to follow their cue onto stages around the world. A confrontational, nihilistic public image and rabidly nihilistic socio-political lyrics set the tone that continues to guide punk bands." Critic Toby Creswell locates the primary source of inspiration somewhat differently. Noting that "[i]mage to the contrary, the Pistols were very serious about music", he argues, "the real rebel yell came from Jones' guitars: a mass wall of sound based on the most simple, retro guitar riffs. Essentially, the Sex Pistols reinforced what the garage bands of the '60s had demonstrated—you don't need technique to make rock & roll. In a time when music had been increasingly complicated and defanged, the Sex Pistols' generational shift caused a real revolution."Although much of the Sex Pistols' energy was directed against the establishment, not all of rock's elder statesmen dismissed them. Pete Townshend of the Who said:
When you listen to the Sex Pistols, to "Anarchy in the U.K." and "Bodies" and tracks like that, what immediately strikes you is that this is actually happening." This is a bloke, with a brain on his shoulders, who is actually saying something he sincerely believes is happening in the world, saying it with real venom, and real passion. It touches you and it scares you—it makes you feel uncomfortable. It's like somebody saying, "The Germans are coming!  And there's no way we're gonna stop 'em!"
Toby