Never Mind The Beatles Here's The Sex Pistols

There's been so much blogging and reminiscing about the 40th anniversary of the Beatle's Sgt. Pepper this week, with even Sir Paul capitalizing by releasing his first ever Starbucks-launched album, Memory Almost Full. Let me be the fly in the Frappy -- so to speak -- and submit that the thornier brambles of our cortices deserve to be roused (smacked might be more appropriate punishment) for letting the 30th anniversary of the release of the Sex Pistols' landmark missile God Save The Queen slip by this past week with no media fanfare whatsoever. In fact, The Pistols finished recording their touchstone album Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols almost 30 years to the month, (it would street later in the year) with the exact date of their infamous plunder of the Thames -- (a press cruise that went ingeniously wrong) hitting a perfect 30 on June 7th.

(Band and crew were ceremoniously pinched that fateful evening for fucking up the Queen's Silver Jubilee, or at least were tossed over in the direction of a dry pub, depending on whose clippings you believe.) But our point -- all Pistolero-sentimentality aside -- is that the blogosphere, at least, owes a far greater debt of gratitude to John Lydon and the Pistol's magnificent gatecrash of the music industry than any utopian soiree served up by the Beatles only a mere 10 years earlier.

Incandescent verses such as 'God Save the Queen, the fascist regime' -- still burn bright, but even more prescient -- and please, replace your own false idol here for this next line: 'they made you a moron' and you begin to see what I mean. And we're not just talking about the thrill of witnessing David Hasselhoff clusterfuck a hamburger. Contrary to the lazy and flat-out erroneous stereotype shadowing Lydon these past three decades - he's not some venom-spewing monster or Dickensian-modeled-insult machine sitting around waiting to be primed. The man is -- and always has been -- one pithy son of a bitch. Right up there with Keith Richards in the insightful and entertaining way he's played wrongbettor to the more chickenshit angels of our nature. There's a wonderful Q magazine interview from 2001 floating around where Lydon fires up a few of these. Won't abide phoniness. The word 'act' isn't in his repertoire. Fed up, as always, with the 'hollow horseheads,' as he puts it - and we know who they are. Though the names keep changing (did you know Fred Thompson was in an episode of China Beach?) He even hilariously chides his own vain tendencies: 'I like a bit of aloe on my bum now and then' he says 'if that's spoiled, well, I've gone upmarket.' That's funny shit.

Another more recent example was his laser-precision slag-off of Bono at the inflated Live-8 extravaganza: 'He's crushing his testicles in tight trousers for world peace,' hooted Lydon, which did make the round with bloggers quite rapidly in 2005. But we digress. Point is, the much media-maligned Lydon is nobody's fool. Couple that with the great Pistol's legacy, and his acclaimed solo work with Public Image and memorable Afrikaa Bambaataa collaboration 'World Destruction' (which The Sopranos used it to close an episode a few years back -- now that's fine company) and you realize, attention must be paid.

There's something refreshingly life-affirming about the guy. He's always publicly and privately deplored the infantile hero worship surrounding the more sensational hijinx of the Pistols, as well as publicly scolding anyone who celebrates the death-cult that grew around ex-mate Sid Vicious, consistently berating the countless God-awful thrash-bands and misery-mites still feeding off the Pistol's dust. Who can forget his self-scribed Pistols Reunion T-shirt (Fat, 40 and Loving It) or his more recent public lashing that sent the Rock n' Roll hall of fame officials scuttling back to their corporate skyboxes, when the band refused to participate in the 2006 induction ceremony. Their blistering valentine in disguise -- something about how 'next to the Sex Pistols' the hall of fame 'was a piss stain' -- rightfully nailing every music business asshole responsible for turning even the Beatles into an added-value component for Walmart. And by the way, Lydon's even 'fessed up to liking Paul McCartney as a person. Imagine that. I had the pleasure of interviewing him during the heyday of his Public Image era. Back then, the first thing he told me or anyone who dared to ask what it was really like to be the Headmaster of punk was to 'Fuck off. You're two centuries too late.' But after the pints flowed and the tape stopped, he quite matter-of-factly declared what his true creed was -- and is -- and to his credit, always has been: 'Never hand over your own power,' Lydon said. 'And when they ask you to go away. Refuse.' Not a bad code. If that, too, sounds like the mantra of the blogosphere -- then by all means -- do rattle your keyboards in a humble Huzzah to the Sex Pistols and their fearless leader, the man from Finsbury Park.