The Sex Pistols and Me
by
Andrew JacobsThis year marks my 20th anniversary as a Sex Pistols fan.
I first heard “Anarchy In The U.K.” over at my friend Joe’s house sometime in either 1985 or 1986. I was 15 years old and even though the song didn’t make too much of an impression on me the first time that I heard it, I do remember thinking that it was the noisiest and, even more importantly, ANGRIEST song that I’d ever heard in my entire life up to that point.
Sometime during the summer of 1986, I rented and watched The Great Rock ‘N Roll Swindle, a movie about the Pistols’ meteoric rise and fall in the mid to late 1970s. Being as how at the time I was a teenager from Southern California (Orange County specifically, no less), it was not an easy film for me to watch or understand to say the very least. The thick British accents of almost everyone who appeared in the film didn’t make it easier.
There were, however, two things about the movie that I absolutely loved:
∑ The scene where Sid Vicious shoves a piece of half eaten cake into some girl’s face (I must’ve rewound and re-watched that scene a million times back then – hey, I was 16 YEARS OLD for fuck’s sake!).
∑ The music.
By the time the movie ended, I was a Pistols fan for life.
So, taking a cue from both the movie High Fidelity and a really good zine that I recently read titled Broken Records, I present to you my top 5 highlights of being a Pistols fan for the past 20 years:
1. For my 16th birthday, I had my parents shell out $100 to buy me the Japanese import VHS video of The Great Rock ‘N Roll Swindle that I’d rented that summer. Needless to say, they were not too happy about it. HOW FUCKING PUNK IS THAT?
2. During the summer of 1996 (and my 10th anniversary of being a Pistols fan), my brother Evan and I saw the reunited Pistols live in concert on their Filthy Lucre Tour with original bassist Glen Matlock (who could, of course, play circles around Sid Vicious) at the Hollywood Palladium. Definitely one of the best concerts I’ve ever gone to in my entire life.
3. I’ve purchased and re-purchased Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols on vinyl, cassette and CD more times than any other album that I’ve ever re-purchased in my entire life. Why? Because it’s just that good.
4. Julien Temple, the writer and director of The Great Rock ‘N Roll Swindle, made another Sex Pistols film called The Filth And The Fury. Here’s the best part though – it was even better than The Great Rock ‘N Roll Swindle. I’m STILL kicking myself for not going to see it in the movie theater in mid 2000 when it was first released.
5. A few weeks ago, I listened to Never Mind The Bollocks again after not listening to it for several years and I still love it just as much now, at the ripe old age of 36, as I did when I was 16. In fact, I’m pretty sure that it’s the only album from my mid teens that I still like in my mid 30s, which also means that it’s stayed with me longer than any other album that I’ve loved as well.
Andrew Jacobs
08/22/06