KULTURA / CULTURA
Half a century of the din that changed Britain Fifty years after the Sex Pistols released Anarchy in the U.K., the enduring mark left on world culture by this band, which existed for less than two years, still hasn’t faded I t was Thursday, 26 th November, 1976, when British record company EMI released Anarchy in the U.K., as the debut single of the four-member band the Sex Pistols. The track is three minutes and thirty seconds of raw, distorted noise accompanied by lyrics in which Johnny Rotten (born John Lydon) announces a radical protest: “I am an An- tichrist / I am an anarchist / Don't know what I want, but I know how to get it”... It was a resounding declaration of war against British officialdom. Young people of the time had no jobs, while the cities were paralysed by striking workers and the ra- dio scene was offering only detached rock music. That’s why punk didn’t originate in colleges or music academies, but in damp basements and the poor working-class dis- tricts of London, representing the cry of a generation that believed it had no future. Who exactly were the Pistols at the point when that single was released? The band was originally founded by a group of young men from West London: guitarist Steve Jones, a petty criminal who literally stole the band’s equipment from the ven- ue of a David Bowie concert, and drum-
mer Paul Cook, a placid guy with an ex- ceptional sense of rhythm. They teamed up with bass guitarist Glen Matlock. Then an art student and the band’s most mu- sically educated member, Glen wrote the music for most of the Pistols’ key songs, including Anarchy in the U.K. The jigsaw puzzle was assembled by Malcolm McLaren, a visionary provocateur and band manager, together with his part- ner and fellow fashion designer, Vivienne Westwood. Angry youngsters gathered at their shop, located at 430 King's Road in London’s Chelsea, which was called SEX. McLaren brought an addition to the band in the form of Johnny Rotten, a guy with green teeth (hence the nickname Rotten) and a creepy, wide-eyed stare, who passed the audition by singing along to Alice Coop- er playing on the boutique’s jukebox. Just five days after the release of the single, on 1 st December 1976, the Pistols were invited to appear on Thames TV's live evening show in place of the band Queen. Host Bill Grandy, who was drunk at the time, provoked them into saying some- thing scandalous. Rotten and Jones re- sponded with a string of profanities during the peak prime-time broadcast. A reaction came the very next day, with tabloid news- paper The Daily Mirror publishing the fa- mous headline “The Filth and the Fury”. Overnight, shouting expletives on tele- vision had turned a fringe underground movement into the number one enemy of the state. Bass guitarist Glen Matlock was sacked from the band in February 1977. He was replaced by Rotten's best friend: John Si- mon Ritchie, better known as Sid Vicious. And, no, he didn’t know how to play bass guitar. In the studio during the recording of the band’s only real album “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols” all bass elements had to be recorded by guitarist
Steve Jones. But Sid had something that was more valuable to McLaren than the ability to play an instrument: he was the walking personification of self-destruction, punk and rebellion. With his spiky black hair, studded leather jacket and padlocked chain around his neck, Sid became the punk movement’s ultimate visual symbol. Unfortunately, his inclusion in the band only served to hasten its demise. His relationship with Nancy Spungen and swift descent into heroin addiction turned early 1978’s American tour into a chaotic circus. After leaving the stage in San Francisco in January 1978, Rotten looked out into the crowd and famously asked “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”, after which he promptly left the band. It was a year later, while awaiting trial for the murder of Nancy Spangen, that Sid Vicious died of an overdose in New York, aged just 21. This brought down the final curtain on the tragic myth of the Sex Pistols. At the end, we should not forget the legendary Pistols gig, held on 4 th June 1976 in Manchester. That night, they sparked a DIY (do-it-yourself) revolution. It became clear to the audience that they didn’t need to be musical virtuosos with expensive gear to start a band. Raw energy, rebellion, and attitude were enough. Interestingly, thou- sands of people today claim to have been there that evening, even though there were barely forty people in the crowd. Howev- er, almost everyone in that room went on to write music history after the gig – Buzzcocks, Joy Division, The Fall... The Clash were formed that same year. Mor- rissey, who would later form The Smiths, was there, alongside Mick Hucknall, the future frontman of Simply Red. Just that one evening in a half-empty venue was enough to inspire entire generations of musicians and transform Manchester in- to much more than a grey industrial city.
46 | Muzika » Music
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