THE music industry has finally had its revenge: once upon a 1977 time, the Sex Pistols took the industry for a ride and gave us all some hope, but now that they've been remade and repackaged, if not remodelled, the industry is wreaking its revenge by making then jump through promotional hoops to sell tickets for their tawdry comeback tour. Better to burn out than fade away?
The ignominy of it all: once upon a time the excitement was little less than heart stopping - there was the iconoclasm of the music, the rush of adolescent adrenalin and all those groovy situationist slogans. Then it became a tabloid tale of heroin addiction, murder, law suits and exploitation. Now it's just four middle aged men sitting behind a table in the Union Jack bedecked loo Club on Oxford Street plugging their tour/album/T shirt/bubble bath. Ever had the feeling you're about to be cheated?
"Nothing much has changed," says John Lydon. "Nobody out there has done bollocks to change the world, and if any of you press people want to complain about people grabbing money' - [`We're in it for the money,' the Pistols cheerily announced on arrival], what about all those trashy little pop stars you have out there? I don't see you bitching about any of those bumholes."
Attack being the best form of defence, Lydon then trained his sights on Oasis: "They're just a pop band"; Green Day: "Childish prattle" and Tricky: "There is not one original thought in there".
The worst thing about all of this is that memories are made of a band like The Sex Pistols. Hearing Anarchy In The UK for the first time and knowing that they were hammering the final nail into the grave of hippiedom, watching them swear at Bill Grundy on television, thereby provoking hordes of "Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells" types into a hypocritical frenzy of sanctimoniousness. There was the sacking of Glen Matlock because "he liked The Beatles", God Save The Queen going to number one in Jubilee year, the way Sid looked in the video for Pretty Vacant, the self serving media outrage, the frantic tours ... the sheer rock'n'rollness of it all.
Some egg heads are busy, as we speak, pondering over how "relevant" The Pistols' music is today and if their "shock value" still remains - given that we have since gone through the celebrity psychosis of grunge and drive by shootings in gangsta rap. Relevance? Who needs it? The Pistols were of their time, and it had little to do with the failings of the limp Callaghan government of the day, and everything to do with the universal and timeless harnessing of brash and brazen youthful energy.
It hardly comes as a shock that Lydon, Jones, Cook and Matlock will not be writing any new material for the tour, or that they have no plans to rehearse "our three chord songs" or that Malcom McLaren will have "absolutely no part" in the reunion. In a desperate attempt to hark back to the spitting, swearing and shouting press conferences of old, Lydon then added "to be quite honest, it is highly likely that we will beat the crap out of each other in the first three seconds", so you better hold on to your ticket stubs.
This latest rock n roll revival sees The Sex Pistols play at Finsbury Park, London on June 23rd, Glasgow SEC on July 16th and Mayfield Leisure Centre, Belfast on July 17th. A Dublin date will be announced shortly.
This is all too pathetic. Twenty years on reunion tours are only for the likes of complete and utter saddos like The Eagles. The Pistols are tampering with our collective folk memory, committing an act of gross musical necrophilia and besmirching the memory of a glorious musical movement. The tour will be a disaster it will all end in tears and I know where I'll be when they play their first gig - right down the front enjoying every second of it.
