SEX PISTOLS
NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS
40TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION
In conversation with my therapist I tell her, the Sex Pistols ruined my life. You're just looking for someone to blame I think she'll say. Of course she says nothing. If it wasn't for the Sex Pistols I say, my semi on the new estate in a boring midlands town would be paid for by now and I'd have more children, maybe grandchildren, maybe I'd have a seven seater van. I feel she isn't that interested in this particular delusion. Others have her scratching at her notebook, scheduling extra appointments. Something from that Sex Pistols era maybe altered my dna and my destiny, set me free and chained me to a different type of misery. There's always misery. Maybe something made me think that I could do whatever I wanted to, although mainly I just try to avoid doing what I don't want to do. It's something I suppose at least. I am pretty sure without the Sex Pistols there would be no outsideleft at all. And I'd probably have kept that real job.
So what does Never Mind The Bollocks sound like at 40?
What I can't get my head around so well, is that when I was listening to the Clash, the Jam and the Sex Pistols, the Saints, the Damned, X-Ray Spex, The Adverts, Slaughter and the Dogs and the first band I ever saw, the Buzzcocks, 40 year old pop music at that time was Glenn Miller doing LIttle Brown Jug, I mean it was a prehistoric sound long before the Saints recorded Prehistoric Sounds. Now this is 40. Now that's how my daughter hears the Clash and the Sex Pistols when I play them and say, "This is one of dads all time favorites." Rolls her eyes. It seems so sorta weird in that context. Punk rock in the 70s reaffirmed the generation gap. And I still like it now when that happens.
At 40, the striking, iconic Jamie Reid artwork no longer uglies up the world the way it originally did. Pantone or Crayola should consider doing a Sex Pistols Yellow to tie in with this. It's been borrowed by everyone, an example of which you'll see when we check in with Punk Publishers, Andy Conway and Dave Wake later in the week.
The songs, in the history of the world there are only about a dozen or so actual Rotten, Jones, Cook, Matlock and/or Vicious Sex Pistols songs and they sound racious if you haven't listened to them in a while. Unparalleled. The Sex Pistols for me were at the head of a movement of possibility, that the world might change and then of course 40 years really can slip by in a blink of an eye and you'll find more hypocrisy, more talk of freedom and more freedoms curtailed one way or another and establishment entrenchment than ever. 2017 what the world actually needs more than many things would be for another Sex Pistols to emerge.
40 years on, this Rolling Stone review is barely a time capsule piece with the writer desperately struggling to make sense for himself, for his audience, of what this band is all about.
The whole package is massive and stuffed with extras. 3CDs include the original studio album with 1977 B-sides, a disc of outtakes and one disc of 1977 live material. Additionally there is a DVD featuring 1977 footage of the band playing live from the infamous boat party held on the River Thames, London, the Winter Gardens, Penzance in Cornwall and the Happy House, Stockholm, Sweden.
Bringing it all together is a 48-page hardback book with narrative from music journalist Pat Gilbert plus rare photos from Bob Gruen, Barry Plummer, John Tiberi and Dave Wainwright.
Here's what you get and it can be ordered now...
Disc 1 – Never Mind The Bollocks
1. Holidays In The Sun
2. Bodies
3. No Feelings
4. Liar
5. God Save The Queen
6. Problems
7. Seventeen
8. Anarchy In The UK
9. Submission
10. Pretty Vacant
11. New York
12. EMI
Disc 2 – Studio Rarities / Dave Goodman Demos / Chris Thomas Demos & Outtakes
Studio Rarities & B Sides:
1. No Feeling (B side of withdrawn God Save The Queen On A&M Records)
2. Did You No Wrong (B side of God Save The Queen)
3. No Fun (B side of Pretty Vacant)
4. Satellite (B side of Holidays In The Sun)
Dave Goodman Demos:
5. New York (Demo Version)
6. Unlimited Edition (Demo Version of EMI)
7. Liar (Demo Version)
8. Pretty Vacant (Demo Version)
9. Problems (Demo Version)
10. No Future (Demo Version of God Save The Queen)
Chris Thomas Demos & Outtakes:
11. Did You No Wrong (Alternative Vocal)
12. Seventeen (Alternative Vocal)
13. Satellite (Rough Mix)
14. Submission (Rough Mix)
15. Holidays In The Sun (Rough Mix)
16. EMI (Rough Mix)
17. Seventeen (Rough Mix)
18. Holidays In The Sun (Alternative Mix)
19. Body (Demo Version Of Bodies)
20. Submission (Alternative Mix)
21. Belsen Was A Gas (Demo Version)
Disc 3 - 1977 Live
Trondheim – StudentersamfuNdet - Norway:
1. Anarchy In The UK
2. I Wanna Be Me
3. Seventeen
4. New York
5. EMI
6. No Fun
7. No Feelings
8. Problems
9. God Save The Queen
Happy House – Stockholm - Sweden:
10. Anarchy In The UK
11. I Wanna Be Me
12. Seventeen
13. New York
14. EMI
15. Submission
16. No Feelings
17. Problems
18. God Save The Queen
19. Pretty Vacant
20. No Fun
Disc 4 - DVD 1977 footage
Riverboat Party – River Thames London 1977:
1. Pretty Vacant
2. Anarchy In The UK
3. Problems
Happy House Stockholm – Sweden 1977:
4. Anarchy In The UK
5. I Wanna Be Me
6 Seventeen
7. New York
8. Problems
9. No Fun
Winter Gardens – Penzance – Cornwall - 1977:
10. Problems
11. No Fun
12. Anarchy In The UK
Promo Videos:
13. Good Save The Queen
14. Pretty Vacant
15. Holidays In The Sun
Radio 1 Rock On Interview:
16. John And Sid Interview
