The Sex Pistols -

The Sex Pistols were an English rock band that spearheaded the London punk scene in the summer of 1976. Their debut single, “Anarchy In the UK,” appeared on EMI that November but was quickly withdrawn after the band cursed on television. After two annulled recording contracts, they signed with Virgin and issued the 1977 singles “God Save the Queen,” “Pretty Vacant,” “Holidays In the Sun” and the album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.

They imploded in January 1978 after a brief, shambolic tour of the US south. Singer John Lydon recorded a string of albums with his next band, Public Image Ltd. Original bassist Glen Matlock formed the Rich Kids with Scottish singer Midge Ure. Guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook continued the Pistols name with the 1978/79 singles “Silly Thing” and “The Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle,” followed by a namesake mockumentary film.

Despite their brief existence and small output, the Pistols were the catalyst for UK punk and its outgrowth in new wave and post-punk. Uninhibited by technical limitations, their stance inspired numerous onlookers to take up instruments for the first time. Bands that formed in their wake include The Clash, The Damned, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Penetration, the Buzzcocks, The Adverts, X-Ray Spex, The Slits, Generation X, and Joy Division.

Members: John Lydon [aka Johnny Rotten] (vocals), Steve Jones (guitar), Paul Cook (drums), Glen Matlock (bass, harmonies 1975–77), John Ritchie [aka Sid Vicious] (bass 1977–78)

Background

The Sex Pistols evolved from The Strand, a garage-rehearsal band formed in early 1973 by Shepherd’s Bush teenagers Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Warwick “Wally” Nightingale. They named their band after the song “Do the Strand” by Roxy Music, one of Cook’s favorite bands at the time. Collectively, they were inspired by the “lad’s rock” of Mott the Hoople, the Faces, Slade, and the New York Dolls.^[1]

Jones and Nightingale acquired most of their instruments through a heist of the Hammersmith Odeon on the final night (7/3/73) of the Ziggy Stardust Tour by David Bowie and his then-backing band, The Spiders from Mars. As Nightingale later revealed, they “took the whole PA, every single one of their microphones. RCA were recording [the concert], so they were Neumann microphones, about five hundred pounds apiece.”^[2]

As rehearsals commenced, the three musical novices assumed new roles: Jones (vocals), Nightingale (guitar), Cook (drums). The bass slot was initially filled by Cook’s brother-in-law, Del Noones, while a fifth member, Cecil, briefly joined on percussion. They played a mix of Small Faces covers and two early originals: “Did You No Wrong,” a Cook-penned love song; and “Scarface,” a morbid number co-written by Nightingale and his father.

Malcolm McLaren: Too Fast to Live

In late 1973, Jones and Cook stumbled on a vintage boutique at World’s End on King’s Road called Too Fast to Live, owned by haberdasher Malcolm McLaren and designer Vivienne Westwood. The place sold retro rocker ware, having once catered to ’70s Teddy boys in its prior incarnation, Let It Rock. Enchanted with the clothes, memorabilia and atmosphere, Jones and Cook spent hours at the shop, where they warmed to McLaren and befriended his weekend sales clerk, Glen Matlock, an only child from Kensal Rise. Cook and Matlock first met in 1968 when pupils of nearby schools held impromptu football games on Wormwood Scrubs.

New Musical Express journalist Nick Kent featured McLaren in the April 6, 1974, NME fashion survey “The Politics of Flash,” which examined designers and boutiques associated with contemporary rock musicians. The article presented McLaren as a rock couturier with connections to the New York Dolls, who frequented World’s End on their recent London visit.

In light of the NME feature, Jones sought musical guidance from McLaren, who rented The Strand rehearsal space at Covent Garden Community Centre, where the band rehearsed The Troggs chestnut “Wild Thing” and the recent Bad Company hit “Can’t Get Enough.” Del Noones cleared out for Matlock, a bassist since his mid-teens.

By summer 1974, Nightingale’s father secured the group access to an acoustic room at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, where the lineup of Jones, Cook, Nightingale, and Matlock rehearsed songs by the Small Faces (“Song of a Baker”), Kinks (“I”m Not Like Everybody Else”), Rolling Stones (“Fortune Teller”), and the Foundations (“Build Me Up Buttercup”).

Meanwhile, Kent introduced American expat Chrissie Hynde to the McLaren-Westwood circle. The Akron-born guitarist moved to London in 1973 and met Kent through the music press. Kent helped her obtain a brief post at the NME. When the magazine assigned her a retrospective piece on the Velvet Underground, she opted instead for a sales position at 430 King’s Road.

SEX | New York

McLaren meanwhile reconnected with designer and silkscreen printer Bernard Rhodes, who collaborated with McLaren and Westwood on printed T-shirts for their revamped shop, SEX, unveiled in mid-1974 with fetish and bondage wear, rubber and PVC clothing, provocative graphics, and manifesto-style shirts that mixed political, musical, and cultural references.

That autumn, McLaren, Westwood, and Rhodes produced a SEX manifesto T-shirt under the slogan “You’re gonna wake up one morning and know what side of the bed you’ve been lying on!” The design divided cultural references into “hates” and “loves.” Hates included Mick Jagger, Yes, the Playboy Club, Leo Sayer, Victorianism, David Hockney, and “a passive audience.” The Loves included Eddie Cochran, Jamaican rude boys, Raw Power, Archie Shepp, Muhammad Ali, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Iggy Pop, John Coltrane, James Brown, King Tubby’s sound system, Guy Stevens records, Lenny Bruce, Joe Orton, and Walt Whitman. Buried in the latter column was “Kutie Jones and his SEX PISTOLS,” the first known printed appearance of the Sex Pistols name.

McLaren left London in November 1974 for New York, where he planned to sell SEX clothing and renew his connection with the New York Dolls. The group had lost momentum after Too Much Too Soon amid management problems, drug use, and internal disputes. As Marty Thau withdrew from management, McLaren offered his services without a formal contract and became the de facto organizer around the group.

McLaren rented the Dolls a rehearsal loft on 23rd Street and tried to stabilize the lineup, arranging treatment for Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, and Arthur Kane. He also pushed the group toward new material and a redesigned stage presentation. McLaren and Westwood dressed the musicians in red vinyl and patent leather, while a large Soviet hammer-and-sickle banner provided the backdrop for the Red Patent Leather shows at the Little Hippodrome in February and March 1975.

Meanwhile, McLaren explored the emerging club scene on New York’s lower east side, where a new breed of acts sprung from CBGB’s, a converted bluegrass dive-bar at Bowery and Bleecker. He witnessed an early set by Television, a CBGB-resident act fronted by Richard Hell, who sported cropped hair, torn clothing, and deliberately stripped-down appearance — the perfect image, in McLaren’s view, of a Seventies rock frontman. McLaren booked Television and Pure Hell beneath the Dolls for three additional Little Hippodrome shows in March.

The Dolls then traveled through New Jersey and South Carolina into Florida, where engagements included Dante’s Den, a Tampa residency, and the Flying Machine near Fort Lauderdale. Internal disputes ended the original lineup near Zephyrhills when Thunders and Nolan returned to New York and formed the Heartbreakers with Richard Hell. McLaren and Sylvain Sylvain subsequently traveled through New Orleans and returned to Manhattan, where McLaren discussed bringing Sylvain to London for the group forming around SEX.

Back in London, SEX hired Pamela Rooke, a 19-year-old Seaford native who called herself Jordan and commuted daily from Sussex in self-styled fetishwear, severe makeup, and sculpted peroxide hair. She became the shop’s head assistant and wore its rubber, PVC, and bondage designs on the King’s Road and her daily train journeys from the south coast.

The Strand

In McLaren’s absence, Rhodes oversaw the Riverside rehearsals of Jones, Cook, Matlock, and Nightingale. In late February 1975, The Strand made their only public appearance at a birthday party above Salter’s Café on King’s Road. They performed three songs: “Scarface,” “Can’t Get Enough,” and the Sam Cooke chestnut “Twisting the Night Away.” The appearance convinced Jones that he did not want the frontman role.

McLaren returned to London in May with Sylvain’s white Gibson Les Paul and reassessed the Strand at Riverside Studios. He gave the instrument to Jones and encouraged him to concentrate on guitar. McLaren found the group more capable than he remembered but regarded Nightingale as incompatible with his plans for the lineup, a judgment accepted by Cook and Jones.

Nightingale arrived at a Riverside rehearsal in June to find Jones on guitar with McLaren present. The group dismissed Nightingale on the spot and Jones assumed the permanent guitar slot. This change left Cook, Matlock, and Jones without a lead singer.

July Auditions

McLaren invited Nick Kent to Strand rehearsals as a possible second guitarist. The journalist had soured with his NME position and considered direct involvement in the rock scene. His greater age and access to clubs such as the Speakeasy also connected Jones, Cook, and Matlock with an older London rock circle. After several weeks, Kent deemed the group directionless and proposed that he take control under a new name; a proposal rejected by Matlock. Meanwhile, Kent’s ex-girlfriend Chrissie Hynde remained in the King’s Road network, which now included four north- and east-London youths all known as John.

A parallel group took shape that summer around guitarist-singer Mick Jones and bassist Tony James, who placed a July Melody Maker advertisement for musicians influenced by the Rolling Stones, New York Dolls, and Mott the Hoople with a “great rock’n’roll image.” Guitarist Brian James answered the advertisement, and the developing lineup became London SS. In August, Jones and Tony James met Rhodes at the Nashville after he recognized a SEX T-shirt worn by Jones. Rhodes offered to manage the group, which soon operated as a second rehearsal-and-audition circle alongside the musicians around McLaren.

The two projects reflected a growing emphasis on short hair, narrow clothes, and a harder mid-Seventies appearance removed from the prevailing flares and feathered hair. McLaren and Rhodes applied the same visual criteria while scouting outside London.

As McLaren eyed rock management, he drew on his fascination with Larry Parnes, the Fifties UK pop Svengali who groomed the first wave of English rock stars, each with ritzy stage names: Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, Tommy Steele, Vince Eager, Duffy Power, Dickie Pride, Johnny Gentle, Lance Fortune, and Georgie Fame. McLaren perceived a like-minded vision in Tam Paton, the manager of recent Scottish pop sensation the Bay City Rollers. Imagining Scotland as the possible spot for an upcoming groundswell, McLaren and Rhodes set off in July to pawn Jones’ stolen rock gear in Glasgow, where the search was on for a young potential singer who didn’t have long hair and wasn’t wearing flares.

In Glasgow, Rhodes spotted a young man exiting McCormack’s music shop who fit the profile. His name was Midge Ure, a quiff-haired 21-year-old with striking pegged jeans and a clean-cut Fifties-style appearance that contrasted the city’s post-hippie fashions. Rhodes introduced him to McLaren in a nearby car, where McLaren described the New York Dolls, SEX, Westwood’s clothes, and the London group he was assembling. McLaren asked Ure to join without first asking whether he played an instrument or sang. Ure informed them that he was indeed a singer and guitarist, but already committed to a band called Slik, which had just signed with the Rollers management. Seven months later, Slik had a No. 1 UK hit with “Forever and Ever.”

The Johns

While McLaren was in New York, four north- and east-London teenagers named John began frequenting SEX: John Lydon, John Gray, John Wardle, and Simon John Ritchie, then known as John Beverley.

Lydon grew up around Finsbury Park in an Irish immigrant family and attended Hackney Technical College after his expulsion from William of York Catholic School. Beverley met Lydon at Hackney while taking a photography course and shared his interest in clothes, Bowie, and London clubs. Wardle, an East Ender expelled from the London Nautical School, met Lydon at Kingsway College and shared his interest in reggae and black American music. Gray was a longtime Lydon friend and fellow concertgoer who accompanied him through the same north-London social circle.

Westwood and Rhodes took particular notice of Beverley, whose clothes and appearance fitted the frontman they had in mind. By late August, however, Beverley worked a stall on Portobello Road when McLaren acted on Rhodes’ recommendation to approach one of the Johns. Lydon, meanwhile, visited SEX frequently with a recently cropped, spiked, dyed-green hairdo. He wore a customized Pink Floyd T-shirt with the eyes torn from the group photograph and the words “I HATE” scrawled above the logo, with safety pins that held the shirt together.

McLaren asked Lydon whether he could sing. Lydon replied that he could only sing out of tune and added that he played violin. McLaren invited him to meet Jones, Cook, and Matlock at the Roebuck on King’s Road at seven that evening. Lydon arrived with Gray for support, then returned with the group to SEX after the meeting. McLaren placed him in front of the shop jukebox with a shower attachment as a microphone and selected Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen.” Lydon improvised over the record with abrupt poses, shouted phrases, and exaggerated movements while Jones, Cook, and Matlock watched. McLaren chose him for a trial rehearsal with the group.

September Rehearsals

McLaren arranged a week of trial rehearsals above the Crunchie Frog in Rotherhithe, but Jones, Cook, and Matlock failed to appear on the first day, leaving Lydon alone at Bermondsey Wharf. Matlock telephoned Lydon the following day to apologize and received a threat involving a hammer. The four eventually rehearsed together at the Crunchie Frog and the Rose & Crown in Wandsworth, where Lydon resisted the Small Faces, Faces, New York Dolls, and Stooges material favored by Jones, Cook, and Matlock.

The group still lacked permanent rehearsal space by the third week of September. Matlock found a Melody Maker advertisement for a room owned by Badfinger manager Bill Collins behind 6 Denmark Street, and McLaren guaranteed the £1,000 deposit. A narrow passage between numbers 6 and 8 led to a small ground-floor rehearsal room with an attic above; Jones moved into the upper room and used the address as his first permanent base away from Shepherd’s Bush.

Cook reconsidered the project the following day and told McLaren that he intended to leave, citing the condition of the group and McLaren’s expenditure on the room. McLaren responded by seeking a second guitarist who could strengthen the lineup alongside Jones. A September 27 Melody Maker advertisement requested a “WHIZZ KID GUITARIST,” no older than twenty and “not worse looking than Johnny Thunders,” and brought a succession of applicants to Denmark Street.

The Melody Maker advertisement brought several young guitarists to Denmark Street. Faebhean Kwest arrived with cropped bleached hair, red drainpipe trousers, winklepickers, and a battered Telecaster, with Johnny Thunders, the MC5, and Link Wray among his musical reference points. The group tested him on the Small Faces’ “All or Nothing” and the Monkees’ “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone.” Kwest’s involvement ended with the audition. Two years later, he surfaced in Raped, which morphed into Cuddly Toys.

Another applicant, 15-year-old Steve New, brought considerably more playing experience. The northwest London guitarist attended Quintin Kynaston School and played with the London Schools’ Jazz Orchestra from age fourteen. His listening extended from Edgar Varèse, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Frank Zappa to Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, David Bowie, T. Rex, The Doors, and Love. New retained long hair despite pressure for a trim, but his musicianship secured him several weeks of rehearsals as lead guitarist, with Jones focused on rhythm parts. As Jones developed enough command to cover both functions, the group abandoned the second-guitar arrangement and continued with Jones alone. Matlock kept in touch with the young guitarist.

Identity | Initial Repertoire

With the four-piece settled, the group rehearsed almost daily at Denmark Street through October. Their repertoire still drew heavily on mid-Sixties material by The Who (“Substitute”), Creation (“Through My Eyes”), Count Five (“Psychotic Reaction”), and Dave Berry (“Don’t Gimme No Lip Child”), but Lydon resisted dependence on cover songs. He also altered familiar material to fit his own language; their version of the Small Faces’ “Whatcha Gonna Do About It” replaced the opening declaration of love with “I hate you, baby.”

The group built an original repertoire around ideas from Matlock, Jones, and Lydon. Matlock developed “Pretty Vacant” after seeing a Television poster that listed Richard Hell’s “Blank Generation,” while a Sunday Times caption about the Bay City Rollers supplied the phrase “they’re so pretty.” Lydon reshaped the verses around refusal and indifference. He also experimented with titles such as “Kill Me Today,” “Concrete Youth,” and “Mindless Generation,” then discarded the more literal death and generation themes for indirect images, contradictions, and compressed phrases. “Seventeen” emerged from the same period with lines about work, clothes, noise, and youth. The line “We don’t care about long hair, we don’t wear flares” served as their style manifesto.

McLaren also pressed the group to produce a song called “Submission” around the bondage imagery of SEX. When Jones and Cook failed to appear for a rehearsal at the Roundhouse, Matlock and Lydon went to the pub opposite and discussed the assignment over a pint. They rejected the intended S&M theme and converted the title into “submarine mission,” then traded aquatic lines across the table. Matlock worked out the chords at home and brought the completed framework to the next rehearsal.

As their first performances approached in November, the group still lacked a final public identity. Proposed names included Le Bomb, Subterraneans, Beyond, Teenage Novel, Kid Gladlove, and Crème de la Crème. Jones meanwhile began calling Lydon “Rotten” because of his decayed teeth, and the nickname became Johnny Rotten. McLaren also floated “Slave Cook” for Paul Cook, while Matlock briefly rendered his first name as Glenn; neither change lasted, and Jones retained his own name.

McLaren insisted on Sex Pistols, the shortened form of the “Kutie Jones and his SEX PISTOLS” phrase printed on the 1974 manifesto shirt. Lydon favored the still shorter SEX, while Cook preferred a more conventional name and Matlock sided with Lydon. Jones backed Sex Pistols, and McLaren prevailed before the group entered its first public engagements under the name.

November 6, 1975: St. Martin’s School of Art

The Sex Pistols played their first show on November 6, 1975, at St Martin’s School of Art on Charing Cross Road in London. Matlock obtained the support slot through contacts from his foundation course at St Martin’s, where he gave up a planned second-year social-secretary post to concentrate on the band. The college placed the show in a fifth-floor common room with no stage or tables, where a temporary bar served an audience of roughly 20 to 40 people.

The Pistols opened for Bazooka Joe & His Rhythm Hot Shots, an unsigned London rockabilly group formed in 1970 by Danny Kleinman and John Ellis, who left the group in 1974 but attended the St Martin’s show. Bazooka Joe appeared with singer-guitarist Kleinman, guitarist Robin Chapekar, bassist Stuart Goddard, and drummer Mark Tanner. Former member Pat Collier also attended, while John “Eddie” Edwards worked as a roadie.

The two groups disputed use of the Bazooka Joe backline, so the Pistols moved equipment from their Denmark Street rehearsal room across Charing Cross Road. Cook later recalled a 20-minute set of “No Lip,” “Satellite,” “Substitute,” “Seventeen,” and “What’cha Gonna Do About It.” Jones played through a 100-watt amplifier in the unstaged room, where several witnesses remembered the volume as the dominant feature of the set. Goddard remembered a tight band behind Lydon. Student-union president Jeremy Diggle heard an untogether performance at excessive volume, while Lydon recalled no applause.

McLaren and Westwood watched with Jordan and SEX accountant Andy Czezowski. Central School students Alex McDowell and Sebastian Conran attended at an invitation from Matlock. Future Raincoats member Gina Birch watched with art student Alex Michon.

Diggle later said he cut the power once the Pistols reached their allotted 20 minutes because the volume overwhelmed the common room and Bazooka Joe were due for their set. Chapekar separately recalled pulling the Jones amplifier when Bazooka Joe returned from the nearby Cambridge Arms. Kleinman took the microphone from Lydon, who insulted the headliners at the cutoff. The Bazooka singer pinned Lydon against a wall as a brief fight broke out between the groups.

Matlock feared the disturbance had cost the Pistols their next booking at Central School of Art. However, McDowell loved their set and secured their Central booking. (McDowell later helped Matlock assemble Rich Kids and briefly managed Matlock. The pair founded Rocking Russian Design in 1978 for Rich Kids graphics.)

Goddard, a recent SEX denizen, was more receptive to the Pistols than his bandmates. He soon left Bazooka Joe and searched for new musicians under the stageame Adam Ant. Two earlier Bazookas, Ellis and Collier, soon teamed with roadie Edwards in The Vibrators.

November 7, 1975: Central School of Art

The Sex Pistols played their second show on November 7, 1975, at Central School of Art and Design in Holborn. Matlock secured the date through student social secretary Alex McDowell and Sebastian Conran at the school’s Red Lion Square premises.

They shared the bill with Roogalator, a comedic funk-rock act that claimed ot be the first short-haired band of the post-Beatles era. Roogalator featured singer-guitarist Danny Adler, keyboardist Nick Plytas, bassist Paul Riley, and drummer Dave Solomon.

The Pistols played first and completed their full repertoire. A reconstructed eleven-song set comprises “Did You No Wrong,” “Substitute,” “Don’t Give Me No Lip Child,” “Seventeen,” “Watcha Gonna Do About It,” “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone,” “Submission,” “Go Now,” “Pretty Vacant,” “No Fun,” and “Understanding.” Matlock later ranked the Central performance among the strongest shows from the group’s early period.

Julien Temple attended the show and remembered Sid Vicious among the small audience. Steve Barker, the future longtime host of the reggae program On the Wire, also attended and met McLaren through a mutual friend. Westwood and Jordan watched from the audience, where the group attracted another small cluster around the SEX shop. Lydon appeared in the torn Pink Floyd shirt marked “I Hate,” while Jones wore a black shirt with black lace-up shoes. Matlock wore paint-spattered trousers with a pink leather top.

Within weeks of this performance, Roogalator met Robin Scott, a Croydon College friend of McLaren. Scott became their manager and producer while his younger brother, Julian, replaced Riley on bass.

Late November 1975 Shows

The Sex Pistols played Westfield College on November 21, 1975, in the main refectory at the Kidderpore Avenue campus in Hampstead. The group shared the bill with Mobius and Factory.

Factory formed in Hastings in 1970 with singer Andy Qunta and guitarist Tony Qunta. Drummer Laurie Cooksey completed the original quartet with bassist Geoff “Jaffa” Peckham, whom Steve Kinch replaced in September 1974. Factory recorded four songs at R.G. Jones Studios in January 1971 and issued “Time Machine” backed with “Castle on the Hill” as a limited single on Oak Records.

Little verified information survives on Mobius, an unsigned progressive rock band with onetime Magic Roundabout guitarist Ian Hollands.

The next issue of the college newspaper W.C. carried an article on the concert that mentioned the Pistols. Later setlist reconstructions place the first live performance of “New York” at Westfield.

Around the same period, the Pistols made an unadvertised appearance at Hertfordshire College of Art and Design in St Albans. Foundation student Shanne Hasler initially took the amateur performance as a parody but spoke with Lydon once she noticed similarities between their cropped appearance and her own altered clothes and hair. The group directed Hasler toward SEX and Jordan; she subsequently attended numerous Pistols shows and became one of the earliest regular followers around the band.

The Sex Pistols played the Queen Elizabeth College All Night Christmas Ball on November 28, 1975, at the Campden Hill Road campus in Kensington. The advertised bill placed Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames at the head of an all-night program with Slack Alice, Mike Absalom, the North Circular Accidental Band, and several dance and disco acts. The event occupied multiple college rooms, with Fame on an upstairs main stage and the North Circular Accidental Band in a ground-floor room.

Fame led a revived version of the Blue Flames, whose earlier incarnation participated in the British blue-beat wave with two ska instrumentals in 1963 and the 1964 Rhythm and Blue-Beat EP. Slack Alice featured singer Alice Spring, who began her recording career as Sandra Alfred with the 1957 rock-and-roll single “Rocket and Roll” and later fronted new wavers Darling. Absalom brought a comic folk repertoire developed through several late-sixties and early-seventies albums and the British college circuit.

The advertised bill also named “Circus,” apparently the Sunderland symphonic-rock band Cirkus, who were recording in London that month with their new singer Alan Roadhouse.

The Pistols did not appear in advance advertising for the ball. North Circular drummer Bryan Ledgard later remembered the group arriving during the interval between his band’s two sets, changing from ordinary clothes into torn stagewear, then borrowing the North Circular amplifiers and drum kit. The Pistols played for roughly 20 minutes in the ground-floor room, where Ledgard recalled shouted exchanges between the band and a small group near the stage. Lydon subsequently mocked the North Circular Accidental Band name, prompting bandleader Doug Sherriff to return the joke at the expense of the Sex Pistols name (“where is the ‘sex’ in Sex Pistols.”).

NME writer Kate Phillips and assistant editor Tony Tyler attended the ball but missed the Pistols set. Phillips encountered the group later beside the dance floor and included the Pistols in her account of the event in the December 27 issue. Tyler subsequently alerted NME assistant editor Neil Spencer to the group, establishing a press connection that led to Spencer’s coverage of the Pistols at the Marquee in February 1976.

December 5, 1975: Chelsea School of Art

The Sex Pistols played Chelsea School of Art on December 5, 1975, at the Manresa Road campus off King’s Road. The student-union party paired the group with Machine Bubble Disco, with admission restricted largely to Chelsea students. McLaren invited several contacts from the surrounding music and art circles as the group began to draw attention beyond the college bookings.

Chelsea textile-design student Viv Albertine attended through fellow student Rory Johnston, who introduced her to McLaren that night. Albertine already followed Bowie, Roxy Music, and the New York Dolls but responded to the Pistols as a model for direct participation rather than distant fandom. Albertine invited her then-boyfriend, Mick Jones, who declined while he worked with Tony James and other prospective members of London SS.

Singer Peter Perrett also attended with his wife Zena. He previously led England’s Glory with bassist Harry Kakoulliki and already knew McLaren and Westwood through SEX. McLaren recently introduced Perrett to Jones and Cook at Denmark Street, where Perrett heard the pair rehearse. By late 1975, he was assembling the musicians who developed into the Only Ones.

Another McLaren associate, Ted Carroll, attended with business parter Roger Armstrong. In 1971, Carroll founded Rock On as a Portobello Road record stall. He met McLaren through the London rock-and-roll revival. At the August 1972 London Rock and Roll Show at Wembley Stadium, McLaren sold Let It Rock shirts from a stall that Carroll helped mind; the hostile Teddy Boy response to Little Richard and newer acts turned McLaren away from the revivalist culture around the shop. Carroll, who co-managed upcoming Irish rockers Thin Lizzy, made McLaren curious about band management.

By 1975, Carroll expanded Rock On from Golborne Road into Soho and Camden, with Armstrong running the Soho operation. The pair launched Chiswick Records that year and issued an EP by the Count Bishops as the label’s first release in December. Carroll remembered McLaren inviting numerous contacts to Chelsea because a small buzz had developed around the Pistols.

December 9, 1975: Ravensbourne College

The Pistols returned to south London on December 9 for a show with Fogg at Ravensbourne College of Art in Chislehurst. McLaren offered the group without a fee and requested beer as part of the arrangement. Fogg came from Newcastle and worked the British club and college circuit with a hard-rock repertoire; the group had already recorded for EMI.

Student Simon Barker attended the Ravensbourne show through his connection with McLaren and SEX. Barker came from a Bromley circle cented on a mutual love for Bowie, Roxy Music, the New York Dolls, the Stooges, and the Velvet Underground.

The Ravensbourne repertoire appears to have combined the existing originals “Seventeen,” “Submission,” “Pretty Vacant,” “New York,” and “Did You No Wrong” with material by the Small Faces, Monkees, Stooges, and other earlier groups. Later reconstructions also place the Creation song “Through My Eyes” in the set.

Barker remembered students shouting at the Pistols and recalled himself as the only person applauding. He considered their playing rudimentary but immediately recognized the combination of sound, clothes, and confrontation as a break from the prevailing college circuit. After the show, Barker described the performance to his friends Steven Bailey and Susan Ballion, both fellow Roxy enthusiasts in the Bromley circle.

Journalist Nigel Williamson later claimed attendance at Ravensbourne, although his published recollections changed substantially across accounts and conflict with the established chronology of the show.

December 10, 1975: City of London Polytechnic

On December 10, The Sex Pistols played the City of London Polytechnic Christmas Party at Fairholt House. The event occupied student facilities in the upper floors of the Commercial Street building near Aldgate East, with a bar and pinball machines near the performance area. The poster billed Brett Marvin and the Thunderbolts, Shabby Tiger, the Sex Pistols, and Cisco, followed by a disco.

Brett Marvin and the Thunderbolts came from the British blues and pub circuit, where members also participated in the Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs records. Shabby Tiger brought a markedly different form of mid-seventies glam rock, with gruff lead vocals, tuneful song structures, and melodramatic lyrics built around groupies, prostitutes, and other nightlife characters. The Blackburn group had signed with RCA and issued several singles by the time of the Fairholt show. Cisco completed the live-band portion of the bill.

Cisco, a Nottingham brass-rock group formed in 1973 by guitarist Dave Sharp. Cisco combined horns and percussion with funk, soul, and jazz-rock material, then placed third in the 1974 Melody Maker National Folk and Rock Contest at the Roundhouse. The group also contributed “This Heavy Load” to the Nottingham Castle Rock compilation.

Student Bobby Seal attended primarily for Brett Marvin and watched the Pistols from near the bar. He remembered a set weighted toward cover songs and singled out Jones as the strongest instrumentalist. Lydon appeared abrasive onstage but spoke more conventionally with students at the bar once the group finished. No comparable fight, shutdown, or equipment dispute followed the performance.

The December shows widened the small network around the Pistols. Albertine entered through Chelsea, while Barker carried the Ravensbourne experience back to Severin and the Bromley circle. Ari Up also saw the Pistols with Nora Forster in 1975, although surviving accounts do not establish which concert they attended.

January 1976 Activity

The Sex Pistols made their only securely documented January appearance on January 23, 1976, at a Friday student disco in the Bar Common Room at Watford College of Technology on Hempstead Road. The performance passed without a recorded disturbance. A later set reconstruction lists five originals — “Did You No Wrong,” “Seventeen,” “New York,” “Submission,” and “Pretty Vacant” — among covers of Dave Berry, the Small Faces, the Monkees, the Stooges, and the Who.

Simon Barker meanwhile carried his response to the Ravensbourne show into his existing Bromley social circle. Barker already knew Steve Bailey, later Steve Severin, from Bromley Technical High and William Broad through college. Simone, Barker’s girlfriend, moved within the same circle, whose clothes and cropped, dyed hairstyles drew on Bowie, Roxy Music, and A Clockwork Orange. Susan Ballion, later Siouxsie Sioux, already wore heavy makeup and repeatedly altered her short, colored hair.

Siouxsie later remembered her first Pistols performance as a sparsely attended college show where students kept their distance from the group. She could not identify the venue with certainty and recalled only that it may have been near Beckenham.

The Berry connection itself remains useful. “Don’t Gimme No Lip Child” was the B-side of Berry’s July 1964 hit “The Crying Game,” and the Pistols had transformed it into one of their regular covers by late 1975. A genuine Berry/Pistols bill would therefore have been an excellent detail, but presently it looks like an old unsourced diary-note rather than an established concert.

City Boy fit January 1976 just as neatly historically. The Birmingham sextet signed Phonogram/Vertigo in 1975, recorded the first album with Robert John Lange late that year, and had the debut scheduled for February 1976. “Surgery Hours (Doctor, Doctor)” appeared as a January single. Again, however, I cannot connect them to a Pistols performance.

February 12, 1976: Marquee, London

The Sex Pistols played the Marquee Club on February 12, 1976, as support to Eddie and the Hot Rods. McLaren arranged the pairing through Hot Rods manager Ed Hollis, whose group had risen quickly from the Southend pub circuit. Singer Barrie Masters led the Hot Rods with guitarist Dave Higgs, bassist Paul Gray, and drummer Steve Nicol. Island Records signed the group in late 1975 and issued “Writing on the Wall” six days ahead of the Marquee date.

The Hot Rods allowed the Pistols to use their stage monitors and PA equipment. The arrangement gave Lydon an unfamiliar level of vocal monitoring, although later accounts differ on what followed. Lydon remembered losing the monitors and driving a microphone stand through one cabinet. Matlock recalled Lydon puncturing speaker cones with a pencil once he heard his amplified voice. Masters remembered damage from Lydon kicking the monitors.

A later set reconstruction lists “Did You No Wrong,” “Don’t Gimme No Lip Child,” “Understanding,” “Seventeen,” and “New York” across the opening sequence. The group continued with “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone,” “Submission,” “Watcha Gonna Do About It,” “Pretty Vacant,” and “No Fun,” then returned for “Substitute.”

Lydon moved from the stage into the audience with a long microphone lead and watched the group from the floor. He also threw chairs and directed one into the PA.

Simon Barker, the December Ravensbourne Pistols convert and Bowie enthusiast, attended the Marquee show with his friend Steve Bailey, later Steve Severin, who saw the Pistols for the first time that night. Severin shared Barker’s interest in Bowie, Roxy Music, Lou Reed, and the New York Dolls, and responded to the Pistols as a more immediate extension of those interests.

Nils Stevenson attended at McLaren’s invitation, along with Westwood, Chrissie Hynde, and Jordan. Stevenson had left Barnet Art School in the early seventies and spent time in New York, where he encountered the emerging downtown rock scene. Back in London, he operated a vintage-clothing stall near SEX on King’s Road. His response to the Marquee performance led McLaren to recruit him as road manager; Stevenson soon brought his photographer brother Ray into the Pistols operation.

Sixth-form students Vic Godard and Rob Symmons entered the Marquee partway through the Pistols set after hearing the commotion from Wardour Street. Godard followed soul, while Symmons collected sixties R&B and attended shows by Dr. Feelgood and the Count Bishops; both also listened to the Velvet Underground. Godard later remembered the Pistols as closer to an art event than a conventional rock group. Inspired by their unrefined approach, Godard and Symmons began experimenting with an acoustic guitar and tape recorder, then commenced a members search for Subway Sect.

NME assistant editor Tony Tyler brought journalist Neil Spencer to the show after Tyler encountered the Pistols at Queen Elizabeth College. Spencer entered near the end of the set and found a small audience amid the equipment disturbance. A French spectator challenged the group over their playing during the encore; Matlock answered with a curt “So what?”

The confrontation continued once the Pistols left the stage. Masters remembered Lydon approaching him at the bar and repeatedly challenging him over the damaged equipment. Masters eventually struck Lydon. Guitarist Dave Higgs publicly complained about the damaged PA and the lack of an apology, while the Hot Rods withdrew a planned run of further Pistols support appearances. Masters later concluded that Hollis and McLaren amplified the quarrel through the music press.

First Major Press Notice

Spencer devoted his February 21 NME review entirely to the Pistols and omitted the headlining Hot Rods. Subeditor Ian MacDonald supplied the headline “Don’t Look Over Your Shoulder But the Sex Pistols Are Coming.” Spencer described the covers, “Pretty Vacant,” the chair incident, and the hostile audience exchange. He closed with an unnamed Pistol declaring, “Actually we’re not into music. We’re into chaos.”

Spencer’s article marked the first substantial national coverage devoted to the Sex Pistols and alerted readers outside London to a group that remained largely unknown beyond a small network around SEX. The references to Iggy and the Stooges, primitive playing, confrontation, and the closing declaration about chaos gave those readers recognizable points of entry.

At Bolton Institute of Technology, students Howard Trafford and Peter McNeish read the article together in the college bar. Trafford had previously advertised for musicians interested in playing the Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray,” which brought him into contact with McNeish. The pair experimented with material by the Stooges and Brian Eno but had yet to establish a functioning group. Trafford fixed on Spencer’s mention of a Stooges cover and the closing statement, “We’re not into music. We’re into chaos.”

Trafford telephoned NME to learn where the Pistols would play next. He obtained the use of a flatmate’s Renault, while McNeish contributed travel money from a student conference. Their friend Richard Boon, a fine-art student at the University of Reading, offered them accommodation and accompanied them to SEX, where McLaren supplied details of the weekend dates. Trafford and McNeish saw the Pistols at High Wycombe on February 20 and Welwyn Garden City the following night.

Back at Boon’s Reading lodgings, Trafford pressed McNeish on whether their proposed group would remain a hobby or become a full commitment. McNeish chose the latter course. A February Time Out review of the television series Rock Follies, which ended with the phrase “get a buzz, cock,” soon supplied the name Buzzcocks. Trafford adopted the surname Devoto from a name mentioned by one of his lecturers. McNeish retained Pete and adopted Shelley, the name his parents intended to give him had he been born a girl.

The article produced similar recognition elsewhere. In Cannock, sixteen-year-old Robert Lloyd was already trying to establish a group with school friend Graham Blunt when Spencer’s closing quotation caught his attention. Lloyd remembered the reference to chaos as confirmation that the music he wanted had finally appeared.

In Derry, fifteen-year-old guitarist Damian O’Neill had just replaced his older brother Vincent in a teenage group with guitarist John O’Neill, bassist Michael Bradley, drummer Billy Doherty, and singer Feargal Sharkey. O’Neill had yet to hear the Pistols when he clipped Spencer’s article and placed it on the first page of the group scrapbook.

In Devon, Tim Smith and Gaye Black were planning a move to London and discussing a group of their own. Reports of the Pistols in the music press, including Spencer’s review, strengthened their decision to leave the southwest and seek the developing London scene.

Meanwhile, Severin relayed his enthusiasm to a close friend, William Broad, a former Ravensbourne student then studying philosophy and literature at Sussex University. Broad played guitar in a small campus group, the Rockettes, but wanted a more abrasive direction than his bandmates would pursue. Severin urged him to return to London and see the Pistols.

February 14, 1976: Butlers Wharf (Andrew Logan’s Party)

The Sex Pistols played Andrew Logan’s Valentine’s Ball on February 14, 1976, at his warehouse studio in Butler’s Wharf near Tower Bridge. Logan trained as an architect before establishing himself as a sculptor and jewelry maker. He founded Alternative Miss World in 1972 and made his Butler’s Wharf parties a meeting point for London artists, filmmakers, and fashion designers. Cultural commentator Peter York later grouped this post-Pop milieu under the name “Them.”

McLaren and Westwood already moved through Logan’s circle and attended his Alternative Miss World events. McLaren nevertheless sought to distinguish the Pistols from the older art-fashion network. He asked Logan for an interesting riverside setting to launch the group and invited contacts from the surrounding scene to the Valentine party.

Logan’s large warehouse studio stood beneath a corrugated-iron roof with an adjoining gold-painted Portakabin called the Gold Room. The Pistols performed against scenery assembled from the dismantled Biba children’s department and sets from Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane. The amplification reverberated through the metal-roofed space, and Logan remembered most guests retreating toward the Gold Room.

A later reconstruction lists “Did You No Wrong,” “Don’t Give Me No Lip Child,” “Understanding,” “Seventeen,” “New York,” “Watcha Gonna Do About It,” “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone,” “Submission,” “Pretty Vacant,” “No Fun,” “Substitute,” and “Problems.” Nick Kent remembered an extended “No Fun” as Lydon swung a microphone stand and damaged equipment.

McLaren reacted to the presence of NME by urging Jordan to create a visible incident. Jordan agreed to participate if Lydon initiated the action. Lydon broke the zips on her leotard on “No Fun,” and Jordan removed the damaged section onstage. Jenny Runacre remembered Jordan and Westwood confronting the audience from the performance area.

Filmmaker Derek Jarman recorded the group on Super 8, creating the earliest surviving moving footage of the Pistols. NME photographer Joe Stevens attended with photographer Kate Simon and Chrissie Hynde, then made his first photographs of the group. Nick Kent also watched from the art and music crowd.

Bernie Rhodes brought London SS associates Mick Jones, Tony James, and Brian James. Brian James responded to the Pistols’ treatment of “No Fun” and spoke with Lydon once the set ended. The encounter convinced him that an audience existed for the direction he wanted to pursue; he left London SS and began a new member search with drummer Rat Scabies.

The Valentine Ball placed the Pistols between two London networks. McLaren exposed the group to the established art and fashion circle around Logan while using their appearance to reject the manners and aesthetics of the same milieu. Jarman’s film and Stevens’s photographs preserved the collision, while musicians in the audience carried its implications into new groups across London.

From Logan’s party onward, the Pistols functioned as a catalyst across art, film, photography, fashion, and the embryonic London band network.

Late-February 1976 Shows

The Pistols returned to Hertfordshire College of Art and Design in St Albans on February 19. Shanne Hasler, who encountered the group at an unadvertised college appearance in late 1975, later recalled arranging two further St Albans bookings. Photographer Ray Stevenson documented the February show in one of the earliest surviving concert sequences of the group.

The Sex Pistols played Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education in High Wycombe on February 20 at the closing Rag Week student disco. Social secretary Tony Wilkins added the group to a Main Hall bill headed by Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, with payment reduced to half a crate of Carlsberg. A local group called the Clits also appeared.

Sutch came from the first generation of British theatrical rock performers. He formed the Savages around 1960 and developed a horror act built around knives, mock violence, and an entrance from a coffin, with Joe Meek producing early singles such as “Till the Following Night” and “Jack the Ripper.” Lydon later remembered the Pistols watching Sutch emerge from his coffin from the back of the hall.

The Pistols played a brief set that securely included “No Fun.” Lydon taunted the student audience and moved along the stage edge while spectators divided between supporters and hecklers. Bottles and insults reached the stage as the confrontation escalated.

Lydon also struck the stage with a gold microphone belonging to Sutch. McLaren later claimed that Lydon smashed the microphone once it failed, although local witnesses disputed permanent damage and the microphone was reportedly returned intact. A college helper eventually lifted Lydon from the stage area and threw him into the hall.

Organizers cut the power and replaced the group with a disco record. Pistols supporters protested until someone restored the electricity for another song, then Wilkins disconnected the group permanently. The DJ answered the disturbance by repeating the recent NME description of the Pistols as interested in chaos rather than music.

Howard Trafford and Peter McNeish watched with their Reading-based friend Richard Boon, who housed the pair for their trip south. The Pistols party included Nils Stevenson, Bernie Rhodes, Sid Vicious, Jordan, Helen Wallington-Lloyd, and Shanne Hasler. Local promoter Ron Watts also watched by chance while visiting the college on unrelated business; McLaren subsequently approached him for a booking at the 100 Club.

High Wycombe students Jonathan More and Paul Ferguson also responded to the performance. More studied furniture design at the college, while Ferguson played drums in local progressive group Beowulf. Junior Bucks Free Press reporter Janice McKelvie covered the show and described an audience split between fascination, hostility, and confusion.

Trafford, McNeish, and Boon followed the Pistols to Mid-Herts College of Further Education in Welwyn Garden City on February 21. EMI rockers Mr. Big headed the bill while promoting their late 1975 debut Sweet Silence and the January single “For the Fun to Find.” The group combined hard rock with layered male harmonies and an unusual two-drummer lineup. They recently opened UK dates for Queen on the Night at the Opera tour.

Boon remembered the Welwyn performance as less dramatic than High Wycombe. No comparable fight or shutdown survives in contemporary accounts. The two consecutive shows nevertheless fixed Trafford and McNeish on forming a group and bringing the Pistols north.

March 1976 Activity

The Sex Pistols returned to Hertfordshire College of Art and Design in St Albans on March 25, 1976, for their third documented appearance at the school. Shanne Hasler later recalled arranging further college dates once she began following the group, although no surviving account specifically identifies her as the March promoter. A later set reconstruction lists “Did You No Wrong,” “Don’t Give Me No Lip Child,” “Seventeen,” “New York,” “Watcha Gonna Do About It,” “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone,” “Submission,” “Pretty Vacant,” and “No Fun.”

The Sex Pistols played the 100 Club for the first time on March 30, 1976, on a bill with Plummet Airlines and SALT. Promoter Ron Watts offered the date once McLaren approached him following the High Wycombe show. Watts operated the 350-capacity basement club beneath Oxford Street and accepted the Pistols despite their growing reputation for confrontations.

Plummet Airlines formed from Nottingham art students and entered the London pub circuit through residencies at the Kensington and Hope & Anchor. Singer-guitarist Harry Stephenson led the group with guitarists Richard Booth and Duncan Kerr, bassist Darryl Hunt, and drummer Keith Gotheridge. SALT paired singer-harmonica player Stevie Smith with former Killing Floor guitarist Mick Clarke and bassist Stuart McDonald in a hard blues-rock group built through South London pub residencies.

Clarke remembered SALT playing first to their regular long-haired audience, followed by an influx of differently dressed Pistols followers. Only about 60 people attended the Pistols portion of the evening. Photographer P.T. Madden nevertheless remembered a strong sense of expectation around the nearly empty room.

Lydon appeared heavily intoxicated and repeatedly mismatched lyrics with songs. A disagreement with Matlock intensified when the bassist altered a line in “Pretty Vacant” into an insult directed at the singer. Lydon challenged Matlock to fight, then abandoned the stage when Matlock refused.

Lydon climbed the stairs toward Oxford Street while Jones ripped the strings from his guitar in frustration. McLaren found the singer waiting near a route 73 bus stop and threatened to dismiss him unless he returned. Lydon went back downstairs and completed the show.

William Broad saw the Pistols for the first time that night and remembered Lydon with cropped orange hair and tiny tinted glasses.

Chrissie Hynde attended with guitarist Chris Spedding, one of the busiest British session players of the early seventies. Spedding emerged from Pete Brown’s Battered Ornaments, then worked in jazz-rock with Ian Carr’s Nucleus and arranger Mike Gibbs while sessions connected him with Jack Bruce, Harry Nilsson, John Cale, and numerous British studio projects. By 1975, he had redirected his solo career toward concise Fifties-derived rock and adopted greased hair, straight-leg trousers, and leather biker clothes purchased through McLaren and Westwood. His Mickie Most-produced “Motor Bikin’” reached the UK Top 20 that year. Recent sessions also placed him alongside Bryan Ferry on material later collected on Let’s Stick Together. Hynde brought Spedding to the 100 Club, where his response to the Pistols led to their first studio demos in May.

The New Movement

McLaren wanted other groups to emerge around the Pistols. He believed their impact would increase if audiences encountered them at the center of a broader musical movement rather than as an isolated attraction. Two associates from the developing Pistols operation helped turn the remnants of London SS into separate projects.

Bernie Rhodes concentrated on Mick Jones and encouraged him to assemble a new group from the West London circle. Jones recruited Paul Simonon in March and began teaching him bass while Rhodes continued the search for additional musicians. Keith Levene entered the developing lineup in the spring, but the group still lacked a settled singer and drummer.

Andy Czezowski worked with the other London SS branch. Brian James had left Jones and Tony James early in 1976 and rejoined drummer Chris Millar, whom London SS had previously rejected. Czezowski helped the pair with rehearsal space, transport, and practical organization while James developed original material, including “New Rose.” By the close of March, James and Millar had a functioning musical nucleus, while Jones, Simonon, and Rhodes remained in a broader member search.

April 3, 1976: The Nashville, London

The Sex Pistols played the Nashville Rooms on April 3, 1976, as support to the 101ers. The 600-capacity West Kensington venue developed from a country-music room into one of the principal London pub-rock stages, with regular bookings by Dr. Feelgood, the Stranglers, Eddie and the Hot Rods, and other groups from the surrounding circuit.

The 101ers formed in 1974 from musicians around a Maida Vale squat at 101 Walterton Road. Singer-guitarist Joe Strummer fronted guitarist Clive Timperley, bassist Dan Kelleher, and drummer Richard Dudanski in a repertoire built from American R&B, rock-and-roll covers, and a growing body of originals. The group recorded “Keys to Your Heart” in March for an eventual Chiswick single and maintained an extensive pub and college schedule.

Strummer was born John Graham Mellor in Ankara in 1952 and attended boarding school in Surrey, then studied at Central School of Art and Design. He sang with the Vultures in Newport and returned to London, where shared housing and pub performances led to the 101ers. By 1975, he adopted the name Joe Strummer and developed a forceful stage persona around rhythm guitar, shouted vocals, and American R&B material.

Strummer watched the Pistols soundcheck from the empty room and heard McLaren discussing clothes with Lydon. He remained in the audience once the support set began, unlike other 101ers members who showed little interest. Lydon introduced the group with a handkerchief at his nose, then opened with “Substitute.” The Pistols also played “Did You No Wrong,” “Don’t Give Me No Lip Child,” “Seventeen,” “New York,” “Watcha Gonna Do About It,” “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone,” “Submission,” “Satellite,” “No Feelings,” “Pretty Vacant,” and “No Fun.”

The contrast unsettled Strummer more than the repertoire itself. The 101ers approached pub audiences through familiar R&B and rock-and-roll forms, while the Pistols presented their songs without seeking approval from the room. Strummer later recalled that the difference became apparent within seconds. He concluded that rhythm and blues represented the past and that the Pistols pointed toward the next musical direction.

Strummer continued with the 101ers through an April schedule that included two Roundhouse dates with Van der Graaf Generator and the Spiders from Mars, while “Keys to Your Heart” remained slated for a June release. Meanwhile, he reassessed the R&B framework that defined the group.

Meanwhile, Brian James and Chris Millar also attended the Nashville show while their search continied for a singer. In the audience, they noticed John Beverley in a gold lamé jacket. They also saw David Lett, whose black clothes and sharply styled hair caught their attention. James and Millar invited both men to audition at their Lisson Grove rehearsal room; Lett appeared early while Beverley remained a no-show.

Eighteen-year-old Shane MacGowan also saw the Nashville show; his first encounter with the developing London scene. MacGowan already followed the Stooges, pub rock, and an extensive range of older rock music. He cut and dyed his hair soon after seeing the Pistols and began appearing regularly around subsequent shows.

Photographer P.T. Madden attended and photographed the performance. Sound engineer Dave Goodman also saw the Pistols for the first time and approached them with an offer to supply his PA system. Goodman subsequently handled live sound for the group and became an important engineer on their early demo sessions.

Melody Maker writer Allan Jones watched from a different perspective. His subsequent review dismissed the Pistols as inept imitators of the Stooges and described Steve Jones as a “surrogate punk suffering from a surfeit of Sterling Morrison.” He concluded that the group did “as much for music as World War II did for the cause of peace.” Jonh Ingham quoted the review several weeks later and recorded Steve Jones asking who Sterling Morrison was.

April 4, 1976: El Paradise Strip Club

The Sex Pistols played El Paradise on April 4, 1976, at a strip club on Brewer Street in Soho. McLaren and Nils Stevenson sought the venue once the group encountered resistance from established clubs and difficulty finding compatible support bills. McLaren rented the room for a Pistols-centered Sunday gathering and promoted the event through word of mouth and handbills designed by Stevenson with Helen Wallington-Lloyd.

El Paradise occupied a narrow room roughly 20 to 30 feet long with a bare floor and a bar at one end. Several rows of damaged cinema seats faced a mirror-backed stage approximately ten feet wide and four feet deep. Strippers performed ahead of the Pistols and resumed once the group finished. The amplified volume overwhelmed the small room, where Lydon fell against floor-mounted stage lights and burned his side.

Jordan attended and helped operate the improvised bar with Michael Collins. The pair served tequila in a grapefruit-colored punch despite the absence of a drinks license. When the Maltese landlords arrived to inspect the room, several guests consumed the remaining alcohol. Police arrived around 2 a.m. as the steel entrance shutter repeatedly opened and closed; members of Arrows were among those searched outside.

The small audience included Viv Albertine, Kate Crockford, Debbie Wilson, Linda Ashby, and people connected with SEX. Wilson already moved through the Bromley club circle with Tracie O’Keefe and met Ashby at El Paradise. Ray Stevenson photographed the performance, while Institute of Contemporary Arts events organizer Ted Polhemus attended through his existing connection with McLaren and Westwood.

Sounds writer Jonh Ingham saw the Pistols for the first time that night. Ingham had noticed Neil Spencer’s February NME review but could not locate the group until he overheard colleague Vivien Goldman speaking with McLaren by telephone. McLaren invited him to El Paradise, where Ingham responded to the group’s volume, short songs, clothes, and Lydon’s direct hostility toward the audience.

Ingham described the performance to Sounds editor Alan Lewis the following morning. Lewis commissioned a full interview, which Ingham conducted with the group around Denmark Street. Published on April 24, the resulting article presented the Pistols through their rejection of long hair, pub rock, nostalgia, and conventional career expectations. Lydon urged listeners to form groups of their own, while McLaren outlined his intention to create a wider scene around the Pistols.

El Paradise represented McLaren’s first sustained attempt to build a dedicated environment around the group instead of placing them inside the existing college and pub circuits. He considered establishing a recurring night and explored taking over the former UFO premises, although a proposed second El Paradise event did not proceed. The gathering concentrated the growing Pistols audience into one room and gave Ingham the material for their first full national interview.

Early Concerts

November 6, 1975 St. Martin’s School Of Art, London, ENG – Bazooka Joe

November 7, 1975 Central School Of Art, London, ENG – Roogalator

November 21, 1975 Westfield College, London, ENG – Mobias and Factory, an unsigned Hastings hard-rock band that issued the 1971 single “Time Machine” (b/w “Castle On The Hill”) on small-press Oak.

November 28, 1975 Queen Elizabeth College, London, ENG – Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames, Slack Alice, Mike Absalom

December 5, 1975 Chelsea School Of Art, London, ENG

December 9, 1975 Ravensbourne College, London, ENG – Simon Barker sees them

December 10, 1975 London Polytechnic Fairholt House, London, ENG

1976

January – shows with Dave Berry and City Boy

Siouxsie and Steve see them for the first time

January 23, 1976 Watford College, Watford, ENG

February 12, 1976 Marquee, London, ENG (supporting Eddie & The Hot Rods)

February 14, 1976 Butlers Wharf, London, ENG (Andrew Logan’s Party)

February 19, 1976 Hertfordshire College Of Art, St. Albans, ENG

February 20, 1976 College Of Higher Education, High Wycombe, ENG – Screaming Lord Sutch, Pistols borrow their equipment; Lydon damages a rare vintage microphone. Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley see them for the first time.

February 21, 1976 Welwyn Garden City, ENG – Mr. Big

March 25, 1976 Hertfordshire College Of Art, St. Albans, ENG

March 30, 1976 100 Club, London, ENG – Plummet Airlines and Salt

April 3, 1976 Nashville, London, ENG – 101ers

April 4, 1976 El Paradise Strip Club, London, ENG

April 23, 1976 Nashville, London, ENG

April 29, 1976 Nashville, London, ENG

May 5, 1976 Babalu Disco, London, ENG

May 11, 1976 100 Club, London, ENG

May 17, 1976 Screen On The Green, London, ENG (CANCELLED)

May 18, 1976 100 Club, London, ENG – with Strange Days

May 19, 1976 Northallerton, ENG

May 20, 1976 Penthouse, Scarborough, ENG

May 21, 1976 Town Hall, Middlesborough, ENG – Doctors of Madness

May 25, 1976 100 Club, London, ENG – supported by Dogwatch, an unsigned act still three years away from their singular album (Penfriend, Bridge House Records).

May 30, 1976 Reading University, Reading, ENG

June 4, 1976 Lesser Free Trade Hall, Manchester, ENG – with Mandalaband

June 15, 1976 100 Club, London, ENG

June 17, 1976 Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London, ENG (supporting Kilburn & The High Roads & The Stranglers)

June 29, 1976 100 Club, London, ENG

July 3, 1976 Hastings Pier Ballroom, Hastings, ENG (supporting Budgie)

July 4, 1976 Black Swan, Sheffield, ENG – The Weak Heart Drops (after a lyric in a Big Youth record)

July 6, 1976 100 Club, London, ENG

July 9, 1976 Lyceum, London, ENG – Pretty Things and Supercharge

July 10, 1976 The Sundown, London, ENG

July 20, 1976 Lesser Free Trade Hall, Manchester, ENG (supporting Slaughter & The Dogs) – Buzzcocks first gig

August 10, 1976 100 Club, London, ENG – The Vibrators

August 14, 1976 Barbarellas, Birmingham, ENG

August 19, 1976 Village Inn, Runton, ENG

August 21, 1976 Boat Club, Nottingham, ENG

August 29, 1976 Screen On The Green, London, ENG (supported by The Clash & The Buzzcocks)

August 31, 1976 100 Club, London, ENG

September 2, 1976 Nags Head, High Wycombe, ENG – Suburban Studs

September 3, 1976 Club De Chalet Du Lac, Paris, FRA

September 5, 1976 Club De Chalet Du Lac, Paris, FRA

September 11, 1976 Royal Ballroom, Whitby, ENG

September 12, 1976 Fordgreen Ballroom, Leeds, ENG

September 13, 1976 Quaintways, Chester, ENG

September 15, 1976 Lodestar, Blackburn, ENG

September 17, 1976 H.M. Chelmsford Prison, Chelmsford, ENG

September 20, 1976 100 Club, London, ENG (Punk Special, supported by The Clash, Subway Sect, Siouxsie & The Banshees & Stinky Toys)

September 21, 1976 Top Rank, Cardiff, WAL

September 22, 1976 Stowaway Newport, WAL

September 23, 1976 Bubbles, Swansea, WAL

September 24, 1976 76 Club, Burton On Trent, ENG

September 27, 1976 Outlook Club, Doncaster, ENG

September 28, 1976 The Place, Guildford, ENG

September 29, 1976 Strikes Club, Stoke, ENG

September 30, 1976 Cleopatras, Derby, ENG

October 1, 1976 Didsbury College, Manchester, ENG

October 2, 1976 Priory Ballroom, Scunthorpe, ENG (CANCELLED)

October 5, 1976 400 Ballroom, Torquay, ENG (CANCELLED)

October 8, 1976 Lafayette Club, Wolverhampton, ENG (CANCELLED)

October 9, 1976 The Cricket Ground, Northampton, ENG (CANCELLED)

October 12, 1976 College of Technology Student’s Union, Dundee, SCOT

October 13, 1976 Porterhouse, Retford, ENG (CANCELLED)

October 13, 1976 Lafayette Club, Wolverhampton, ENG

October 14, 1976 Mr Digby’s, Birkenhead, ENG

October 15, 1976 Eric’s, Liverpool, ENG – The Yachts

October 19, 1976 Winter Gardens, Cleethorpes, ENG (CANCELLED)

October 20, 1976 Bogarts, Birmingham, ENG

October 21, 1976 Queensway Hall, Dunstable, ENG

November 15, 1976 Notre Dame Hall, London, ENG

November 19, 1976 Hendon Polytechnic, London, ENG

November 29, 1976 Lancaster Polytechnic, Coventry, ENG

Image-wise, the Sex Pistols were among the first in a wave of bands — which also included Split Enz, Sailor, Easy Street, Deaf School, Roogalator, Slik, and the Kursaal Flyers — to sport short hair in the post-Beatles era. This, combined with their anti-triangular mode of dress, is often cited as a catalyst in the fashion world’s move away from the scruffy, bedraggled styles of the early-to-mid 1970s and toward the cleaner aesthetic of the following decade.

Notorious for their loud and abrasive approach, the Pistols gleefully displayed limited levels of skill at their respective instruments, a posture that emboldened hundreds of inexperienced onlookers to follow suit.

Discography: