Steve Jones had spotted someone who looked “a bit different” in Malcolm McLaren’s clothes shop. However, it wouldn’t be until 1975 and the arrival of John Lydon (later rechristened John Rotten) that the band took on a whole new level and became the Sex Pistols. Disillusioned by the bloated progressive-rock and hippie music scene of the time, the fledgling band took their musical inspiration from the 60s mod and rock n roll of The Who and The Small Faces. In 1972 school-friends Steve Jones and Paul Cook decided to form a band originally named The Strand (later The Swankers) other friends such as Wally Nightingale, Jim Mackin, Stephen Hayes, and Del Noones would come and go over the next few years.
It just proves they were doing something right in the first place. There is always someone, somewhere, trying to undermine them. Over the years the Pistols have had to put up with these kind of lies and petty jealousies. On that very night – July 4th 1976 – the Sex Pistols played the Black Swan, Sheffield (over 260 kilometres away) and had regularly been playing live for over 8 months. Fabrications are constantly spouted that when The Ramones came to England in 1976 the Sex Pistols turned up at their first show at London, Roundhouse, and asked them how to form a band. The Sex Pistols ARE punk the rest are “punk rock”. There was the Sex Pistols and there was the rest. “An imitation from New York, you’re cheese and chalk…” There never was a punk movement. The Pistols were inspired by anger and poverty, not art and poetry. The Sex Pistols certainly could play one listen to their ferocious raw rock and roll will soon tell you that.ĭespite claims from New York, the Sex Pistols are the true originators of punk no one else had their attitude, balls, or honesty. Not bad for a band that supposedly “couldn’t play”. For a band who (really) only released one album and four singles, they spawned a sea of imitators and still do to this day. The Pistols didn’t just kick down doors they kicked them off the wall.
Without them popular culture in the last 30+ years would be very, very different. The Sex Pistols are no ordinary band their story is long and complicated, and not without its casualties. Amidst the chaos that was the Sex Pistols, it’s often overlooked just what a great band they are, and what great records they made.
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