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Sex Pistols music biography continued...

of a London clothes boutique, Sex, which specialized in "anti-fashion," McLaren had conceived the idea of a rock & roll act that would challenge every established notion of propriety. He recruited store employee, Glen Matlock, for bass, and store regular, John Lydon, who was nicknamed Johnny Rotten for his aversion to cleanliness, for lead singer. The original group, named the Sex Pistols by McLaren, was rounded out by Paul Cook and Steve Jones. Calculated to be as confrontational and threatening as possible, their angry first single "Anarchy in the U.K." caused the band to be dropped by their record label, EMI. "God Save the Queen," the group's next single, was released on Virgin. Banned by the BBC, the tune was a top-selling single in the UK (cited as a blank at the Number Two position on official charts, listed as Number One on independent charts). Matlock meanwhile was replaced by John Richie, a previously nonmusical friend of Rotten, who named him Sid Vicious. When no British concert venue would book the Pistols, the group went abroad — to Europe and then the U.S. --by which time their debut album, 1977's Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, had been released and had peaked at #1 despite the ongoing controversy surrounding the group.



In January 1978, at the end of the tumultuous U.S. tour, Rotten left the band and announced its breakup. Over the next several months, the three other band members recorded songs for McLaren's film version of the Sex Pistols' story, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. Vicious died of a heroin overdose in February 1979. In 1996, Rotten, Jones, Cook and Matlock reunited for the Filthy Lucre Tour; since 2002, they have staged further reunion shows and tours. In February 2006, the Sex Pistols were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but they refused to attend the ceremony, calling the museum "a piss stain". Fans were cheered that the group hadn't broken from its longstanding tradition of contrariness.