The Sex Pistols didn’t invent punk rock. That honour goes to American upstarts at CBGB. But the Pistols deserve–and accept–the blame for bringing it to the ’burbs. When a teen turns up with spiky hair, a dog collar and a leather jacket, the response is “What are you, the Sex Pistols?” It’s a generic term now, like Xerox or Kleenex. The band blazed that trail. With flamethrowers.
The Pistols’ antiestablishment attitudes sprouted from their working-class upbringing. Steve Jones was a prolific thief who claims to have walked off with David Bowie’s equipment and used it to start the band. Paul Cook was bound for the electrical trades. In the early ’70s, the two childhood friends frequented a London clothing store called Let It Rock. Its owners, designers Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, saw fashion as a method of individual expression and cultural disruption, and they helped position the Pistols for just that.
