The Sex Pistols are such a media driven band that one would think that there’s not much more you could learn about them. I even wrote a term paper in grad school mainly about the Pistols. The course was entitled, Music and Indoctrination. But there is still plenty to learn until Paul Cook’s bio comes out. I’ve read and own Glen Matlock’s, I Was A Teenaged Sex Pistol and John Lydon’s Rotton: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs. But Steve Jones’ Lonely Boy, written with Ben Thompson, is the most entertaining and possibly the most revealing.
Written in a cockney slang style with plenty of four letter words thrown in, Jones claims to have been largely illiterate until he brushed up on his reading and writing skills in recent years. During this time he has also been seriously focused on his pursuit of sobriety, something that he brings up at the beginning of the book. The title of the book doesn’t become completely clear however until the end. Jones makes a lot of what he calls his “dark and depressing” upbringing and childhood and . There is an open and honest psychological aspect to the book, something you might not immediately expect from a roughneck like Jones, but there it is.
Jones works one of his many high quality axes onstage with the original lineup of the Sex Pistols
However, you keep wondering if he’ll finally meet and settle down with one of the multitude of women that he beds, but he never does. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything for anyone here. Many readers could have easily predicted that and it doesn’t change anything. There is really no suspense.
There are plenty of good times, though, and interesting stories. Fans of the Sex Pistols and of the glam rock era bands like Mott the Hoople that preceded their rise will definitely want to get a hold of a copy. Steve Jones is good company, just as long as he isn’t stealing your guitar or your girlfriend. He makes a lot of those two themes, but he knows what he’s talking about. I wish that he would have spent a little more time looking into his musical career but he claims to not remember a heck of a lot about various periods. I would have especially liked to have heard about his involvement on Iggy Pop’s Instinct, certainly my favorite Steve Jones album after Never Mind The Bullocks.
Also given his perverse love of guitars and the ferocious sound he is able to get out of them, one would think that he has something to say about guitars and musical equipment in general. But he doesn’t seem to be too focused on music right now. At the time of writing, he had resumed his DJ gig in L.A. and he’s appeared on numerous albums over the years but the last few Sex Pistols reunion tours seem to have taken something out of his drive to play guitar. It would seem that music is really just one of his numerous and not always healthy obsessions, the only real work he has ever done.
The Pistols on stage with Sid Vicious
I’ve been reading a lot of rock bios lately and I read this one in one sitting, on a plane flying from Budapest to New York City. It’s a long flight and I planned to have a good read this time. It turned out well. How did Steve Jones get so good on the guitar so fast? The method was similar but different to one followed by Duane Allman, ironically. One of my first guitar teachers told me that story many years ago. You’ll have to read the book to find out. Don’t try this at home, kids!
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