Lonely Boy

Author: Steve Jones
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306824825
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
Without the Sex Pistols there would be no punk. And without Steve Jones there would be no Sex Pistols. It was Steve who, with his schoolmate Paul Cook, formed the band that eventually went on to become the Sex Pistols and who was its original leader. As the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of punk -- the influence and cultural significance of which is felt in music, fashion, and the visual arts to this day--Steve tells his story for the very first time. Steve Jones's modern Dickensian tale began in the street of Hammersmith and Shepherd's Bush, West London, where as a lonely, neglected boy living off his wits and petty thievery he was given purpose by the glam art rock of David Bowie and Roxy Music. He became one of the first generation of ragamuffin punks taken under the wings of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. In Lonely Boy, Steve describes the sadness of never having known his real dad, the abuse he suffered at the hands of his stepfather, and how his interest in music and fashion saved him from a potential life of crime spent in remand centers and prisons. He takes readers on his journey from the Kings Road of the early '70s through the years of the Sex Pistols, punk rock, and the recording of "Anarchy in the UK" and Never Mind the Bollocks. He recounts his infamous confrontation on Bill Grundy's Today program -- the interview that ushered in the "Filth and the Fury" headlines that catapulted punk into the national consciousness. And he delves into the details of his self-imposed exile in New York and Los Angeles, where he battled alcohol, heroin, and sex addiction but eventually emerged to gain fresh acclaim as an actor and radio host. Lonely Boy is the story of an unlikely guitar hero who, with the Sex Pistols, transformed twentieth-century culture and kick-started a social revolution.

The Sex Pistols Invade America

Author: Mick O’Shea
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476631840
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Book Description
In November 1977, Warner Bros. secured the rights to release the album Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols in America. The following January, the Sex Pistols--already the "scourge" of Britain--were discovered by unsuspecting American audiences in an infamous U.S. tour, accompanied by sensational media coverage and moral panic. Malcolm McLaren, the band's manager, eschewed the established rock 'n' roll markets of New York and Los Angeles in favor of off-the-radar venues in Memphis, San Antonio and Baton Rouge, sowing the seeds for countercultural clashes in the conservative South. Two weeks later the band split up but punk had invaded mainstream American culture. Drawing on input from fans, the author chronicles the Pistols' first and only U.S. tour and separates fact from fallacy in the mythology surrounding those 12 days of mayhem.

God Save Sex Pistols

Author: Johan Kugelberg
Publisher: Rizzoli Publications
ISBN: 0847846261
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
A definitive celebration packed with previously unseen material of the original punk band—the group that defined a movement, energized a generation, and brought punk music and the safety-pin aesthetic to the mainstream. The Sex Pistols have defined the look, sound, and feel of the punk movement since they formed in London in 1975. Together for less than three years—a short run that included just four singles and one studio album before they broke up in 1978—their impact on the musical and cultural landscape of the last forty years is nothing short of remarkable. The Sex Pistols—Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Glen Matlock (later to be replaced by Sid Vicious)—were brought together by the cultural impresario Malcolm McLaren. Between the cultivated attitude of the players themselves, the aggressive management of McLaren, and the tremendous success of their era-defining album Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols, the band embodied the punk spirit and colored the worlds of music, fashion, youth culture, and design forever. Published to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the band’s formation, Johan Kugelberg and Jon Savage draw on an unprecedented wealth of material—from McLaren’s handwritten letters to never-before-seen photographs of the band, Jamie Reid’s iconic album artwork, and a range of ephemera from concert tickets to fanzines—to produce the most comprehensive visual history of the band ever produced and a bible of popular culture for years to come.

The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren

Author: Paul Gorman
Publisher: Constable
ISBN: 1472121104
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 614

Book Description
'I couldn't put this book down. Malcolm inspired us to make art out of our boredom and anger. He set us free' Bobby Gillespie, Primal Scream Included in the Guardian 10 best music biographies 'Excellent . . . With this book, Gorman convincingly moves away from the ossified image of McLaren as a great rock'n'roll swindler, a morally bankrupt punk Mephistopheles, and closer towards his art-school roots, his love of ideas. Tiresome, unpleasant, even cruel - he was, this book underlines, never boring' Sunday Times 'Exhaustive . . . compelling' Observer 'Definitive . . . epic' The Times 'Gobsmacker of a biography' Telegraph 'This masterful and painstaking biography opens its doorway to an era of fluorescent disenchantment and outlandish possibility' Alan Moore Malcolm McLaren was one of the most culturally significant but misunderstood figures of the modern era. Ten years after his life was cruelly cut short by cancer, The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren sheds fascinating new light on the public achievements and private life of this cultural iconoclast and architect of punk, whose championing of street culture movements including hip-hop and Voguing reverberates to this day. With exclusive contributions from friends and intimates and access to private papers and family documents, this biography uncovers the true story behind this complicated figure. McLaren first achieved public prominence as a rebellious art student by making the news in 1966 after being arrested for burning the US flag in front of the American Embassy in London. He maintained this incendiary reputation by fast-tracking vanguard and left-field ideas to the centre of the media glare, via his creation and stewardship of the Sex Pistols and work with Adam Ant, Boy George and Bow Wow Wow. Meanwhile McLaren's ground-breaking design partnership with Vivienne Westwood and his creation of their visionary series of boutiques in the 1970s and early '80s sent shockwaves through the fashion industry. The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren also essays McLaren's exasperating Hollywood years when he broke bread with the likes of Steven Spielberg though his slate of projects, which included the controversial Heavy Metal Surf Nazis and Wilde West, in which Oscar Wilde introduced rock'n'roll to the American mid-west in the 1880s, proved too rich for the play-it-safe film business. With a preface by Alan Moore, who collaborated with McLaren on the unrealised film project Fashion Beast, and an essay by Lou Stoppard casting a twenty-first-century perspective over his achievements, The Life & Times Of Malcolm McLaren is the explosive and definitive account of the man dubbed by Melvyn Bragg 'the Diaghilev of punk'.

I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol

Author: Glen Matlock
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781906615352
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
Glen Matlock was a founding member of the Sex Pistols and co-wrote most of their iconic songs. His story of the Pistols’ rise to global infamy is an honest, insightful account of a group of intelligent malcontents, determined to change the music business and to attack hypocrisy and stale conventions in society at large. Glen brilliantly captures the flavour of seventies Britain and reveals the complexities and personality clashes that made the Pistols so explosive at that time. Also includes true tales of the Pistols reunion tours of 1996 and 2002.Never mind the other bollocks-filled books about the Sex Pistols, here’s the truth.

Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored

Author: John Lydon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471137228
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 728

Book Description
John Lydon has secured prime position as one of the most recognizable icons in the annals of music history. As Johnny Rotten, he was the lead singer of the Sex Pistols - the world's most notorious band, who shot to fame in the mid-1970s with singles such as 'Anarchy in the UK' and 'God Save the Queen'. So revolutionary was his influence, he was even discussed in the Houses of Parliament, under the Traitors and Treasons Act, which still carries the death penalty. Via his music and invective he spearheaded a generation of young people across the world who were clamouring for change - and found it in the style and attitude of this most unlikely figurehead. With his next band, Public Image Ltd (PiL) Lydon expressed an equally urgent impulse in his make-up - the constant need to reinvent himself, to keep moving. From their beginnings in 1978 he set the groundbreaking template for a band that continues to challenge and thrive in the 2010s. He also found time for making innovative new dance records with the likes of Afrika Baambaata and Leftfield. Following the release of a solo record in 1997, John took a sabbatical from his music career into other media, most memorably his own Rotten TV show for VH1 and as the most outrageous contestant ever on I'm a Celebrity…. Get Me Out of Here!He then fronted the Megabugsseries and one-off nature documentaries and even turned his hand to a series of much loved TV advertisements for Country Life butter. Lydon has remained a compelling and dynamic figure - both as a musician, and, thanks to his outspoken, controversial, yet always heartfelt and honest statements, as a cultural commentator. The book a fresh and mature look back on a life full of incident from his beginnings as a sickly child of immigrant Irish parents who grew up in post-war London, to his present status as a vibrant, alternative national hero.

The Secret Life of a Teenage Punk Rocker

Author: Andy Blade
Publisher: Cherry Red Books
ISBN: 9781901447507
Category : Punk culture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Andy Blade was the frontman of Eater, a London punk band of the mid-70s. Few knew that Blade had come from a very untypical background - and that he would go on to embrace a very different lifestyle. The book also offers vivid insight into the London new wave scene from someone who was present at many of the epochal moments. A photo section includes previously unseen pictures of the band from Andy Blade's archives. A truly definitive and fascinating glimpse at the scene from one of the few who was at the very heart of the movement.

Set the Boy Free

Author: Johnny Marr
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062438727
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
The long-awaited memoir from the legendary guitarist and cofounder of the seminal British band The Smiths. An artist who helped define a period in popular culture, Johnny Marr tells his story in a memoir as vivid and arresting as his music. The Smiths, the band with the signature sound he cofounded, remains one of the most beloved bands ever, and have a profound influence on a number of acts that followed—from the Stone Roses, Suede, Blur, and Radiohead to Oasis, The Libertines, and Arctic Monkeys. Marr recalls his childhood growing up in the northern working-class city of Manchester, in a house filled with music. He takes us back to the summer of 1982 when, at eighteen, he sought out one Stephen Morrissey to form a new band they called The Smiths. Marr invites fans on stage, on the road, and in the studio for the five years The Smiths were together and how after a rapid ascent, the working-class teenage rock star enjoyed and battled with the perks of success until ideological differences, combined with his much publicized strained relationships with fellow band mates, caused him to leave in 1987. Marr’s “escape” as he calls it, ensured the beginning of the end for one of the most influential groups of a generation. But The Smiths’ end was only the beginning for Marr. The bona-fide guitar hero continues to experiment and evolve in his solo career to this day, playing with Paul McCartney, Pretenders, Modest Mouse, Oasis and collaborating today’s most creative and renowned artists. Rising above and beyond the personal struggles and bitter feuds, Marr delivers the story of his music and his band, sharing the real insights of a man who has made music his life, and finally giving fans what they’ve truly been waiting for.

And I Don't Want to Live This Life

Author: Deborah Spungen
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0307807436
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Book Description
“Honest and moving . . . Her painful tale is engrossing.”—Washington Post Book World For most of us, it was just another horrible headline. But for Deborah Spungen, the mother of Nancy, who was stabbed to death at the Chelsea Hotel, it was both a relief and a tragedy. Here is the incredible story of an infant who never stopped screaming, a toddler who attacked people, a teenager addicted to drugs, violence, and easy sex, a daughter completely out of control—who almost destroyed her parents’ marriage and the happiness of the rest of her family.

Rotten

Author: John Lydon
Publisher: Plexus Publishing (UK)
ISBN: 9780859653411
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
"Much more than just a rock autobiography, this book is an oral history of punk : at once angry, witty, honest, poignant and crackling with energy. Malcolm McLaren, Sid Vicious, Chrissie Hynde, Billy Idol, Britain in the late seventies, the Pistol's explosion onto the moribund music scene and their implosion under the pressures of superstardom - all these and more are dissected with Lydon's scalpel-sharp pen, in perhaps the best book ever written about music and youth culture, by one of its notorious figures." - back cover.