Crude, intensely emotional, unbearably offensive, the Sex Pistols are rendered one of punk rocks most exhilarating and influential bands. Over the course of their short, turbulent existence, they released a single studio album that changed if not the history of rock, than at least it's course. While the Sex Pistols were not the first punk rockers, they were the most threatening.
        Never Mind the Bullocks Here's the Sex Pistols unquestionably ranks as one of the most important rock and roll records ever. It's raw and snarling, and includes mesmerizing challenge to not only rock and roll, but also the culture that was molded along with it. Whether the Sex Pistols were simply a sophisticated hype gone wild, or a true voice of their generation has been widely debated. Neither matters nor explains how they came to spark one of the few critical moments in pop culture; the rise of punk.
        The Sex Pistols were the brainchild of a young entrepreneur named Malcolm McLaren.  The owner of a small London clothing store, Sex, which specialized in "anti fashion." McLaren had conceived the idea of a rock and roll act that would challenge every established notion of punk at that time. In 1975, McLaren was managing the New York Dolls in their final months as a group.  A part-time employee of Sex, Glen Matlock played bass with Paul Cook and Steve Jones; they let McLaren know they were looking for a singer.  McLaren approached 19 year-old John Lydon, whom he had seen hanging around the jukebox at Sex and who was known mainly for his rudeness.  Lydon had never sung before, but he accepted the invitation.  Throughout several meeting that the boys had he also managed to impress the others his scabrous charisma. McLaren had found his act; he named the band the Sex Pistols.  Allegedly, Lydon's disregard for personal hygiene prompted the nick name Johnny Rotten.
        The band played their first show on November 6, 1975, at a suburban art school dance.  Their amplifiers were unplugged ten minutes into the show.  In the early months of 1976, Mclaren's carefully cultivated word-of-mouth about the Sex Pistols made them leaders of the nascent punk movement.  Their gigs inspired the formation of bands like the Clash, X-Ray Spec, Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and countless other rebels groups in the late seventies. The press and record industry ignored the Sex Pistols at first, but by the end of the summer the attention they received, both positive and negative, was to much and too loud to be ignored.  In November (one year after their first gig) the record label EMI outbid Polydor with a recording contract for 40,000 pounds. The Sex Pistols first single, "Anarchy in the U.K," was released in December. That same month the band used to word "fucker" in a nationally televised interview.  This lead promoters and local authorities to be outraged and to cancel all but five dates scheduled on the group's national tour and caused EMI to withdraw the single "Anarchy in the UK" (Which was #38 on the U.K. charts in January of 1977), and to terminate its contract with the Sex Pistols.
        In March Matlock left to form the Rich Kids and was replaced by John Ritchie, a friend of Rotten, who named him Sid Vicious.  That same month A&M record label signed the Sex Pistols and a week later fired them.  In May Virgin Records signed the Pistols and released their second album "God Save the Queen".  The song was immediately banned from airplay in England in offense of the Queen. Nonetheless it was a top selling single cited as a blank entry at #2 position on the official charts, and listed as #1 on the independent charts.
       When Britain turned it's back on the Sex Pistols, they went abroad.  In America they found themselves objects of little adulation, and considerable hostility. On January 14, 1978 immediately after a concert in San Francisco Rotten announced the breakup of the group. After the break up of the Sex Pistols, Jones and Cook remained active in the punk movement and formed the Professionals. Vicious initialized a solo career, which ended when he was imprisoned for stabbing his girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death in their Chelsea Hotel room.  He died of a heroin overdose while out on bail before he could be tried.