Most audiences thought that the Pistols looked weird, couldn’t play, and couldn’t sing, and the band members, who responded to the crowd’s taunting with acid tongues of their own, often found themselves getting in physical fights with audience members both onstage and off. But at a time when the music industry was still the realm of long-haired peace-and-love hippie bands, the Sex Pistols, with their “punk” appearance, their simple three-chord sound and their intentionally provocative stage antics, were more than most people could take. The sound and the lyrics were angry anthems of teenage rebellion against a world with, as put in one of their signature songs, “no future”.īy November 1975, the Sex Pistols were playing gigs at bars and clubs–any place that would book them. The Sex Pistols were born.įueled by Johhny Rotten’s snarling attitude and by looks designed to shock, and a dose of anarchism from McLaren and Matlock (inspired by the 1968 Paris student rebellions), the new band began performing its own songs, with lyrics by Rotten and music by Jones or Matlock. Lydon was hired, and was dubbed “Johnny Rotten” by the other band members (according to legend, the name came from the decayed state of Lydon’s teeth). So as an audition, the band put Alice Cooper’s anthem of teenage rebellion, “I’m Eighteen” on the jukebox and had him sing along.
With his spiky green-dyed hair and his “I Hate Pink Floyd” t-shirt, held together with safety pins, Lydon had exactly the look that the band was searching for, but he had never been in a band and had never sung before. It was McLaren who introduced the band members to Johnny Lydon, a regular customer at the shop. Matlock worked part-time at a London leather-wear shop called “Sex”, owned by Malcolm McLaren, an anti-establishment wanna-be artist who had spent some time in the United States managing a band called The New York Dolls, and now served as The Strand’s de facto manager.
The band did mostly covers of 60’s rock, especially The Who, but they were looking for a new look and sound (and, it turned out, a new name). Paul Cook and Steve Jones had been friends since grade school Glen Matlock joined the band after a couple years. In 1974, three young men in London formed a band that they called The Strand. A promotional poster for the Sex Pistols album “Never Mind the Bollocks” (photo from Wiki Commons)
0 kommentar(er)
