Biographic - Sunday August 9, 2015 Comic Strip Licensing and Permissions

Transcript

Forty years ago this month, a quartet of teens joined forces to form a new kind of Rock band... and soon changed the face of popular music! The punk revolution, which swept the U.K. and morphed into the genre known as new wave, was hatched in the London clothes boutique of entrepreneur Malcolm McLaren and his partner, designer Vivienne Westwood. Having briefly managed The New York Dolls, McLaren began to manage a brand created by local youths Steve Jones and Paul Cook, adding Glen Matlock to the line-up. In August 1975, the band recruited John Lydon as a singer and bestowed upon him the nickname Johnny Rotten. Their raw music, nihilistic outlook, and distinctive image- short, spiky hair, safety pin piercings and Westwood's "anti-fashion" clothes designs- were in distinct contrast to the long-hair-and-flares look that typified the music scene at that time. The group attracted a rabid following of kids who copied the look and the attitude. An altercation during a tv interview was headline news and saw them banned from venues all across Britain. They were dropped by two record labels in quick succession, and their 1977 single "God Save The Queen" outraged the establishment and was banned by the BBC. By the time their debut album was released in late 1977, The Sex Pistols were the most notorious outlaws in Rock. By that point, the band had parted company with Glen Matlock. His replacement, Sid Vicious, was short on musical ability but big on punk attitude, and his behavior became increasingly erratic and destructive. In January 1978, during a short and turbulent U.S. tour Rotten quit the group. He emerged a few months later, calling himself John Lydon once more, at the helm of a new band, Public Image LTD. The remaining trip limped along for a short while, but Sid's life was spiraling out of control. He died from a drug overdose the following February, at the age of 21, while out on bail awaiting trial for murder. His sordid demise was later recounted in the 1986 Gary Oldman movie "Sid and Nancy." Cook and Jones briefly played together in The Professionals Jones went on to play with the likes of Bob Dylan and Iggy Pop before hosting a radio show in Los Angeles. Lydon has turned his hand to acting, written an autobiography and worked as a tv presenter. The four surviving members of The Sex Pistols have reunited on a number of occasions over the years. The band was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Staying true to their punk roots, they refused to attend the ceremony!

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