The Routledge Handbook of the Sex Pistols (and the Black Essay It Didn't Include)

routledge.com 

  

 

This expensive collection will appeal to those interested in and working across 

a wide range of intellectual and creative disciplines - sociology, psychology,

cultural anthropology and a bit of fuckology ...[1] 

 

 

 

I. 

 

Why is it that the very name Sex Pistols today creates tedium everywhere? 

 

Probably because their story has been told over and over and over again, so that when one was tasked with submitting an original text on the band for a new Routledge Handbook it proved nigh on impossible: everything that could be said, had been said; everything that could be written, had been written. 

 

The world needed a new collection of essays on, by, or about the Sex Pistols like it needed a hole in the head and I'm not sure which is worse; their recuperation by capitalism and the culture industry; their archiving in museums and art galleries; or their becoming the focus of academics who like to think of themselves as punk scholars. 

 

If Malcolm McLaren's watchwords were sex, style, and subversion, mine are now silence and secrecy; words which have an important role to play as part of a cultural counter-narrative or, more precisely, a strategic non-narrative. Perhaps if we can give the Sex Pistols back some of their mystery, they might regain some of their allure, their magic, their danger. 

 

My problem, however, as a writer who had formally agreed to submit a piece to a book project that wishes to critically examine (and celebrate) the diverse legacy of the Sex Pistols, is what might this strategy mean in practice. The last thing I wanted to do was further illuminate the band or make them more accessible: Do not play, don’t give the game away (Lesson 4). 

 

My solution was to follow Amy Winehouse and go back to black … For black is the colour from which the Sex Pistols were born and to which they will always return; the colour that fascinated McLaren as an art student and which is associated in Western culture with the anarcho-nihilism and seduction of evil that the Sex Pistols would later embody. 

 

 

II. 

 

The Routledge Handbook of the Sex Pistols is published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of a key event in the band's history: the release of their debut single, 'Anarchy in the U.K.' (EMI Records, November 1976). A record that originally came in an all-black sleeve, with no information and no image of any kind: a perfect statement of what the band were all about, politically, philosophically, and artistically. 

 

It's debatable whether McLaren was nodding towards Malevich's 'Black Square' painted sixty years earlier, recalling Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1760), or if, as Paul Gorman suggests, the insistence on such a sleeve was simply in line with his own aesthetic, as seen in his portraits of the 1960s and the clothes designs produced with Vivienne Westwood for Sex [2]. 

 

Either way, it was a great idea and when EMI executives complained that an all-black sleeve with no identifying information would make it extremely difficult for fans to find it in the record stores, McLaren smiled and said: I don't want them to find it. 

 

And when one of my editors was told that I planned on submitting a text consisting of thirteen all-black pages pointed out that no one will be able to read it, I echoed Malcolm in my reply ...

 

  

III. 

 

Predictably, they weren't terribly impressed by the idea. They thought it was fine as an art school prank, but not appropriate for a comprehensive, peer-reviewed, must-have volume in the Routledge Music Handbook series [3]. 

 

And so I compromised and wrote a fairly standard academic essay, albeit one in which I privileged The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979) over Never Mind the Bollocks (1977) and gave full credit for the Sex Pistols as a conceptual art project to McLaren working in collaboration with Vivienne Westwood and Jamie Reid. 

 

By downplaying the contribution of the actual band members - who cares about the music? - I was able to argue that things only really became interesting once Rotten was thrown out of the band [4]. In this way, I hoped to subvert the book's effort to "immortalize the Pistols in perpetuity" [5] and prevent the canonisation of St Johnny.  

 

Just to be clear: I've nothing against the good people at Routledge. In fact, I will always be grateful to them for publishing Nick Land's book on Bataille - The Thirst for Annihilation (1992) - despite rumoured reservations concerning the work. 

 

And I've nothing either against the editors of the book: Mike Dines may be a bit of a hippie, which raises issues around trust for some people, but he's essentially a good egg and Gabriela Gelain é a minha brasileira favorita (with the exception of Clarice Lispector).  

 

It's just that I loathe hagiography and wish to shit on any book that flirts with the genre à la Seve Jones.  

 

The Sex Pistols were not "instrumental in creating a cultural transition from the staid 'black-and-white' authorized era of post-war austerity to what was to become a more radical and creative future in which everybody had agency and a do-it-yourself ethos that transformed social norms" [6]. 

 

They were, rather, the most notorious, filthy, disgusting, dirtiest rock 'n' roll band in the whole bloody world! [7]

 

 

For details see note [8]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This opening is, of course, a hybrid paraphrase of publisher's blurb and Johnny Rotten's bored studio preamble to the band's cover of The Stooges' 'No Fun', which became the B-side to 'Pretty Vacant' (Virgin Records, 1977). Click on the link for the unedited version recorded in October 1976. 

 

[2] I have discussed all this in the post titled 'But Malcolm, They'll Not Be Able to Find It' (24 March 2024). 

 

[3] Obviously, there is a playful, pranksterish aspect to this work, but I still see it primarily as a provocative piece of meta-commentary that powerfully affirms the nihilism at the heart of the Sex Pistols project. The Black Essay would have effectively highlighted the irony of celebrating a movement based on No Future fifty years after its inception. 

[4] See Stephen Alexander, 'Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Swindle: Or Why I Still Believe in the Ruins', in The Routledge Handbook of the Sex Pistols, ed. Mike Dines, Gabriela Gelain, Paul Graves-Brown and John Schofield (Routledge, 2026), pp. 180-191. 

 

[5] Ellen Bernhard, Assistant Professor of Communication, Georgian Court University (USA), writing in a critical review of The Routledge Handbook of the Sex Pistols that features as the book's frontispiece and appears on the Routledge website. This phrase is everything I resist in my essay via the promotion of a gargoyle aesthetic and belief in the Ruins. 

 

[6] I'm quoting from the description of The Routledge Handbook of the Sex Pistols, presumably written by the editors. 

 

[7] Malcolm McLaren (as The Embezzler) speaking to camera outside Seditionaries in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980). 

 

[8] The first figure shows the original sleeve design for 'Anarchy in the U. K.' by the Sex Pistols (EMI, 1976) The second is the 13th and final page of my unused 'Black Essay' (2024) intended for The Routledge Handbook of the Sex Pistols. The first section of this post is based on the abstract for this non-text.   

 

A Rotten Breakfast

Mmes. Singh & Garraway trying to look interested and amused 

as John Lydon performs his signature routine and promotes some product 

on Good Morning Britain (ITV, 15 October 2026)

 

 

I. 

 

Yesterday, 70-year-old former Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten was wheeled on to the set of Good Morning Britain - ITV's "lively BAFTA-nominated breakfast show that serves up an enticing blend of news and entertainment to start your day" [1] - in order to promote his new book [2].   

 

Watching such a spectacle live and first thing in the morning is, if I'm being honest, a bit more than I can take. 

 

However, I have now seen the interview with Kate Garraway and Ranvir Singh (the latter of whom wasn't even born when 'Anarchy in the U.K.' was released - and I very much doubt that nine-year-old Kate was pogoing round her bedroom at the time).    

  

Rotten performs in his now familiar role as national treasure and a man more sinned against than sinning; surely someone from the RSC should sign him up to play Lear - perhaps with Cook and Jones dragged up as Goneril and Regan, and Matlock in the role of Edmund. 

 

Anyway, I thought it might be instructive to critically examine a transcript of the interview. Note that italicised words and phrases in the text that follows are from the interview linked to above, as are the longer lines quoted.   

 

 

II.  

 

The segment begins with Ms Singh reminding the GMB audience - which numbers on average around 700,000 and mostly consists of viewers in their mid-50s - how the fabulous Sex Pistols exploded on to the music scene, scandalised the nation, and helped change popular culture forever. 

 

There is no mention of the role that an earlier ITV show played in this: these days, everyone has to pretend that punk was great and that the Sex Pistols were just four lovable spiky tops; these days no one wants to be seen to side with poor old Bill Grundy.      

 

Similarly, these days we are also asked to believe that "the man once known as Johnny Rotten is still tearing up the rule book". Really? Even the lovely presenter had to lean forward slightly at this point as if to check she was reading the autocue correctly.    

 

Lydon finally gets his chance to speak and - yawn - he begins with an attack on his former band mates for having the cheek to tour without him (Frank Carter having replaced him as the Sex Pistols frontman in 2024 and now singing the songs for which he, Lydon, had once provided lyrics). 

 

Not unreasonably, Ms Singh suggests he should have put his grievances behind him and joined them on the road, to which Lydon responds: "No, ma'am. I worked enough with them in the first place. They're deceitful, lying hyenas, and I never want another thing to do with them."

 

That being the case, then why complain or express disappointment when they draft in a new lead vocalist? I can't imagine Steve, Paul and Glen would make a fuss should PiL decide to perform a Sex Pistols track (as earlier variations of the band have done in the past), even though they - not Lydon - wrote the music. 

 

I'm really not sure why Rotten feels he has some kind of moral claim over songs that were credited to all four band members. He clearly has no legal right to prevent their performance or use, as the ruling in the Pistol case made clear [3].     

 

 

III.  

 

In an attempt to move the conversation on, Lydon claims that the Sex Pistols are now nothing other than a karaoke band. Which is true. 

 

But this is a bit rich coming from a man who on a spoken word tour in 2024 would lead the audience in a singalong-a-Johnny whilst a backing track of 'Anarchy in the U.K.' played [4]. Lydon has been offering us an imitation of Johnny Rotten for forty years or more.

 

Also, there's an irony in his choice of the word karaoke: for it is one that Malcolm McLaren increasingly used in his later years. But rather than acknowledge that he is still drawing inspiration from the latter, Lydon can't resist taking another cheap shot, describing his former manager as "just a bloke that run a clothes shop" who had no advice to offer and nothing of any importance to contribute to the band. 

 

This kind of casual dismissiveness - of everyone not just McLaren - is typical of Lydon, who remains convinced that he was the central figure in the Sex Pistols story, when, actually, he was a late-comer and a collaborator [5].    

 

 

IV. 

Ageing is a subject of significant and growing interest amongst members of the Punk Scholars Network - particularly those who are now over the hill themselves. And it's interesting to see how individuals who once subscribed to an ethos of living fast and dying young now deal with the physical realities of growing old. 

 

Lydon tried to laugh and joke his way off the topic when it was put to him - "I hit 69 and I thought that sounds like an interesting number" - although, interestingly, he confesses, he was more concerned about turning 21 than 70 (I'm somewhat sceptical about the truth of this, however).   

Dear old Kate Garraway - 59 - flattered her guest by expressing her astonishment that he had reached three score years and ten: "I mean, talk about energetic, youthful energy!" Clearly, she hasn't seen his most recent performances with PiL: unfortunately, thanks to YouTube, I have. 

 

Fans insist that although his physical movement is now restricted - and he can no longer really sing - his stage presence and vocal intensity are greater than ever. In other words, he's fat and he bellows and wails. Rotten always promised us he was no Mick Jagger - and I can absolutely confirm that when it comes to delivering a high-energy stage performance and still looking the part, he's no Mick Jagger. 

 

 

V.  

 

Of course, Lydon was always going to bring the conversation around to his lovely wife and having to care for her in the years before her death, aged 80, in 2023, having been diagnosed with Alzheimer's five years previously.

 

I find it increasingly irritating that he publicly plays the Nora card so often. I might be mistaken, but I do feel he emotionally milks her death whenever he wants not to solicit sympathy, so much as virtue signal and humanise himself in the eyes of viewers. 

 

Again, Lydon's fans view his openness as a rare and authentic display of vulnerability and suggest that talking about things is a way for him to overcome his grief. 

 

But critics argue that he turns personal tragedy into a slick media segment; an emotional narrative that is perfectly suited to the requirements of daytime TV. It may be that it was Kate Garraway who steered the conversation on to Nora - "I'd love you to to talk to us a little bit about her" - but Lydon was only too happy to give her what she wanted: "The more iller she got, the closer we got."

 

Ultimately, it's not cynicism on my part to notice that discussing his role as a loving husband and carer instantly humanises him, deflecting harsher political or personal critiques from hosts and viewers alike. 

 

 

VI.

 

I have to admit, I did smile when Lydon was shown - apparently for the first time - a photo taken by British photographer Lou Boileau to mark his 70th birthday and which is apparently going to be housed in the National Portrait Gallery. 

 

He said: "I don't like it. It's horrible!" and just for a moment I thought of Johnny Rotten and of all he once meant to me.   

 

VII. 

 

Finally, Lydon voices his opposition to AI and the fact that artists can have their voice and image appropriated: "It's horrible ... I don't want Mozart reinvented by a machine." [6]

 

Johnny Rotten, in other words, is a champion of the real deal and rejects falsehood and fakery in all its forms - including artificial intelligence. He even (jokingly?) promises a future album with the title Actual Intelligence.    

 

I suppose this shouldn't surprise us: punk was always obsessed with authenticity - a quality that, along with sincerity, risks transforming the human being into an overly earnest bore, like Lydon, forever banging on about the vital character of live performance, etc.    

 

  

Notes

 

[1] I'm quoting from the official blurb for Good Morning Britain on ITV's digital streaming platform ITVX.

 

[2] Archive (2026) is a forthcoming photographic memoir which "brings together rare and previously unseen photographs spanning John's extraordinary life and career" and "captures five decades of music, controversy, creativity and cultural change". Alongside the pictures, Lydon "offers candid commentary and personal reflections on the experiences and people who shaped his life". 

      I'm quoting from the official Public Image Ltd website. Click on the link if interested and if you wish to pre-order a copy of either the luxury edition (£49.99) or the superluxe edition (£149.99).

 

[3] In 2021, Lydon lost a High Court battle with his former bandmates Paul Cook and Steve Jones. They wanted to license songs by the Sex Pistols for use in Danny Boyle's six-part miniseries, Pistol, but Lydon - aggrieved that he wasn't being consulted about the making of the show (and that it was based on Jones's autobiography, not his) - sought to exercise an imaginary right to veto. 

      The judge in the case was clear, however: the Band Member Agreement signed in 1998 stated that licensing decisions could be approved by a majority vote and, like it or not, Lydon was therefore required to sign the necessary licenses. 

 

[4] See the post 'Johnny Rotten as an Abject Antihero' (9 July 2024).

 

[5] Obviously, Lydon would reject this characterisation. In fact, later in the interview (5:55 on) he claims that he has not been absorbed and eventually corrupted by the music industry - even though, of course, he was swallowed by the Virgin shark in 1978. 

 

[6] That's a nice line. Unfortunately, however, Lydon spoils it thanks to his own tendency for malapropism: instead of declaring the reinvention of Mozart by a machine as an atrocious thing to do, he says it's an audacious thing to do. It seems fairly obvious that's not what he means.  

 

Bow Wow Wasn't: On Two French Masterpieces That Didn't Quite Fit the Bill for McLaren and Egan

Jean-Honoré Fragonard: Le Verrou (1777) [1]

Eugène Delacroix: La Liberté guidant le peuple (1830 / restored 2024) [2]

 

 

I.

 

Having recently viewed the extended remix of Peter Pahor's documentary about the life and work of Nick Egan - Creative Vandal (2024) [3] - I was left thinking about the design decision taken with regard to the cover of Bow Wow Wow's debut studio album. 

 

As everybody knows, See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! (1981) features a brilliant photographic recreation of Édouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) [4].

 

But what a lot of people - including me - didn't realise before hearing Nick discuss this work was that Manet's painting was not the first or only choice: that at least two other famous French masterpieces were also considered, including Fragonard's Le Verrou (1777) and Delacroix's La Liberté guidant le peuple (1830) ...   

 

 

II.  

 

Le Verrou is one of Fragonard's most famous works. It depicts what is known as a galant scene [5]. 

 

Whether the male libertine is locking the door with consent so that he and his elegantly dressed mistress are not disturbed, or whether he is bolting the door so as to prevent her escape and what we are witnessing is an attempted rape is open to interpretation [6]. 

 

Either way, it's slightly risqué and one can see why it would appeal to Malcolm McLaren and Nick Egan, although, in my view, it would have made a much better cover for the Bow Wow Wow single 'Louis Quatorze' - which famously contains the lines: Louis, Louis's locking my door / Louis's serious, I'm delirious [7] - than for the album, so they were right to reject it.     

 

 

III.

 

La Liberté guidant le peuple is a very well-known Romantic painting by Delacroix that many people - including Egan - mistakenly believe to be a depiction of the 1789 Revolution, when, actually, it commemorates the uprising of July 1830 that toppled the short reign of King Charles X [8].    

 

Everyone loves a bare-footed, bare-breasted woman wearing a Phrygian cap while waving the tricolour and brandishing a bayonetted musket. Malcolm McLaren and his cohorts certainly did - one might recall, for example, that Jamie Reid later adapted this Marianne image for the cover of his 1987 book Up They Rise [9]. 

 

But, again, I think McLaren and Egan wisely decided not to use this image for the cover of See Jungle! It's a bit too punk and political and doesn't quite fit with the aesthetics and ideology behind Bow Wow Wow - which was more about going wild in the country and teenage kicks than it was anarchy and bloody revolution.  

 

Delacroix's picture would have been fine for the Sex Pistols - the young boy storming the barricades is even holding two pistols - but, in relation to Bow Wow Wow, it's probably not even as strong an option as Fragonard's work. 

 

And neither match up to Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, which is the perfect choice: très moderne and still capable of causing scandal and outrage - particularly when the nude female figure is replaced by a fourteen-year-old girl.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Known in English either as The Bolt or The Lock, this painting by Fragonard is an oil on canvas measuring 73.5 x 93.5 cm. It can be viewed at the Louvre.

 

[2] Known in English as Liberty Leading the People, this painting by Delacroix is an oil on canvas measuring 260 x 325 cm. It too - of course - can be viewed at the Louvre. 

 

[3] I was fortunate enough to be invited to an evening with Nick Egan, hosted by Catalina Guirado at Karma Sanctum Hotel, in Soho, earlier this week, and there was a screening of Peter Pahor's film - as well as an exhibition of Nick's latest paintings. See the TTA post 'Live Forever / Fuck Forever' (11 October, 2026) which anticipates this event. 

 

[4] Whilst as art director Egan was responsible for the overall sleeve design and staging the photo shoot, the actual photograph was by Andy Earl. It is now part of the National Portrait Gallery collection. See the TTA post: 'Why I Love Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe' (27 April 2017). 

 

[5] A galant scene [fête galante] is a genre of art that was particularly popular in 18th-century France, blending reality with Rococo fantasy. 

      Such scenes depicted aristocratic figures engaged in lighthearted conversation, music-making, or gentle courtship activities. While most often set in outdoor locations, such as idyllic gardens, some artists ventured into the bedroom or boudoir and works like Fragonard's Le Verrou were rather more suggestive of amorous games and illicit affairs. 

 

[6] Of course, it could be that the man is attempting to leave (perhaps post-coitally) and the woman is holding him back and trying to prevent him unbolting the door. 

 

[7] Lyrics (written by McLaren) from the Bow Wow Wow track 'Louis Quatorze' which featured on the cassette-only mini-album Your Cassette Pet (EMI, 1980), and told the story of a young girl being sexually assaulted at gunpoint (or perhaps of a teenage girl's fantasy of such). It was released in Europe as a 7" single by EMI in 1981 and then re-recorded and released in the same format for the UK market by RCA in 1982. 

 

[8] Speaking to camera in Creative Vandal, Egan twice says that Delacroix's 1830 picture depicts the French Revolution. It's a common error - one that I often made until fairly recently, probably like most people with only a vague knowledge of French history. 

      See Egan discussing his work with Bow Wow Wow at 8:28 - 11:22. His claim that nobody saw the reworking of Manet as having anything to do with sexuality whatsoever is either naive or disingenuous - either way, I could only smile when I heard this. McLaren's projects have always been stylish and subversive - always been attempts to capture the look of music and the sound of fashion - but, above all, they have always been about confronting the English public with sex.  

 

[9] See Jamie Reid and Jon Savage, Up They Rise: The Incomplete Works of Jamie Reid (Faber and Faber, 1987). A signed and numbered six-coloured silkscreen print of this work produced by Reid in 2007 can be viewed at (and purchased from) fairart.com 

 

 

This post is for Nick Egan and Catalina Guirado.

 

 

Eight Diary Fragments from 1981 with Reference to Malcolm McLaren and My Teenage Politics

Malcolm Mclaren holding Vol. II (1981)

of The Von Hell Diaries (1980-89)

 

 

1981 was a big year for me: I turned eighteen (13 Feb); I left school (22 May); I started college in Leeds (29 Sept). 

 

But it was also the year - having become enfranchised - that I began to form a political perspective informed by situationism and that I openly declared loyalty to team Malcolm over team Johnny ... 

Sat 3 January 1981

 

Listened to Malcolm being interviewed on the radio. He was yapping on about the importance of youth grasping the opportunities offered by so-called 'high pleasure technology' and explaining how being able to have music blaring out from under your skirt wherever you went was terribly sexy and exciting. Not entirely convinced, but 'Radio G String' is a fantastic track [1].      

 

 

Sat 17 January 1981 

 

McLaren on the radio again - this time interviewed by John Walters. He insisted that punk had destroyed the star system and that kids of 13 would now rather watch Deep Throat on their home video recorders than worship a pop idol. Again, not entirely convinced about this and certainly don't think Adam Ant would agree. Pretty sure Malcolm doesn't believe it either. Ultimately, it's just a projection of fantasy in the hope that it might one day be realised [2].  

 

 

Fri 27 February 1981

 

Malcolm on Round Table. He says some clever and amusing things, but mostly just laughs a lot. Claimed that he sold all the ideas to do with pirates and Red Indians to Adam for £2000. Slagged off Richard Branson and Virgin, but was surprisingly full of praise for Joe Dolce's 'Shaddap You Face' which is presently number one in the charts [3].    

 

 

Thursday 7 May 1981

 

Having turned 18 in February, today was my first opportunity to vote [4]: so off I went with my friend Andy to the local polling station set up in a nearby school. I decided not to give my X to any of the parties - hate them all! Instead, I wrote 'Anarchy is the key - do it yourself the melody' on the ballot paper [5] - so Malcolm should be proud (even if this is merely a gesture). Disappointingly, Andy told me after that he voted for the Liberals ...!   

 

 

Saturday 1 August 1981 

 

Ultimately, I think I am more like Malcolm in spirit than Rotten. Lydon is a bit of a bore and thinks in a smaller, more selfish and more spiteful manner than McLaren who unfolds his schemes on a much larger stage and invites everyone to join in. Whenever I read an interview with Malcolm, it makes me smile - and that's not always the case with Rotten.    

 

 

Friday 14 August 1981

 

Reading two books at the moment borrowed from Romford library: The Student Revolt (1968) and Revolution (1970). Have also ordered a copy of Christopher Gray's book on situationism - Leaving the 20th Century (1974) [6]. 

      Copied out various lines including this one: 'It is better to fail disastrously through taking an uncompromising stand, than to achieve some of one's aims through taking part in the conventional process.' And this one: "Through the excitement of deep emotions, principally the emotions of hatred, one can manipulate the passions that are essential to Situationism.'

     Can now see where Malcolm got a lot of his ideas from - the 'politics of boredom', the 'comedy of outrage', 'unlicensed pleasure' as the only goal, etc.   

 

 

Saturday 7 November 1981 

 

A day in London with Kirk [7] ... First stop Carnaby Street where he bought a pair of trousers and I bought some pink spray-on hair colour. Couldn't find the bat earring that Kirk was after, however. Some skinheads gave us looks - the fact that Kirk was wearing a cape probably had something to do with it.   

      From Soho, we went to Chelsea on the bus. I bought a T-shirt with a print of Rotten's face on it from Boy on which was written: 'They're all wankers and wallies'. From Boy we went to what was once Seditionaries but is now called Worlds End. Loved the 13-hour clock with hands spinning backwards and the sloping wooden floor, but these design elements were the only interesting thing: did not think much of the clothes - not sure I want to be a pirate, Malcolm! [8]    

 

 

Saturday 14 November 1981

 

Having expressed reservations about wanting to be a pirate just last week after a visit to Worlds End, ironically went to see Bow Wow Wow playing at Leeds University [9] with my little gang - Kirk, August, Gillian, and Gaelle [10] - and I have to admit the band looked (and sounded) fantastic; particularly Annabella who, at just fourteen, is incredible [11]. If anyone can make you want to hoist the Jolly Roger it's her!

      Kirk made his way to the front of the stage: August annoyed me a little by wanting to stand way back. I stayed with Gill and Gaelle somewhere in the middle. I'm not a fan of encores, but was glad they returned to play some of the old favourites: 'Sexy Eiffel Towers', 'Radio G String', 'Louis Quatorze' - and, of course, 'C30'. It was a great evening - even if I was disappointed that Malcolm wasn't anywhere to be seen [12].        

 

 

Editorial Notes

 

[1] 'Radio G String' is a track by Bow Wow Wow (with lyrics written by McLaren) which features on Your Cassette Pet (EMI 1980). It has also appeared on various compilation albums including Girl Bites Dog (Parlophone Records, 1993): click here. 

 

[2] I would later come to appreciate that the word 'fantasy' used here is inappropriate and that I should have written desire. For whereas the latter is, according to situationist theory, a libidinal reality, the former is what capitalist society substitutes for desire and lived experience. 

      This is expressed in a famous slogan from the May '68 uprisings: Faites vos désirs réalités! and was given a little more poetry and philosophical substance in this declaration sprayed on the walls of the Sorbonne: Je prends mes désirs pour la réalité car je crois en la réalité de mes désirs (I take my desires for reality because I believe in the reality of my desires). In sum: McLaren was not a fantasist. 

 

[3] See the post 'What's-a-Matter Midge? (Hey!)' published 31 July 2021. 

 

[4] Local government elections were held across England and Wales on this date. The Labour Party, under the newly appointed leadership of Michael Foot, made substantial gains while the Tories under Margaret Thatcher lost control of over 1,000 council seats and control of the GLC (enter stage left Ken Livingstone).

 

[5] This slogan appears as part of the 'Rot 'n' Roll' text designed by Jamie Reid (in collaboration with McLaren) that featured on the back cover of the Sex Pistols' single (sung by Sid Vicious) 'C'mon Everybody' (Virgin Records, 1979) - taken from the soundtrack album The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Virgin Records, 1979). Reid's artwork can be found in the V&A Archive: click here. 

 

[6] The first of these works - The Student Revolt: The Activists Speak (1968) - was compiled by Hervé Bourges, a prominent French journalist. He put together the text by conducting a series of interviews with the main student leaders driving the May 1968 uprising, including, most notably, Daniel Cohn-Bendit. 

      It was translated into English by Ben Brewster, a Marxist intellectual who worked extensively with the New Left Review, and published in the UK as a hardcover by Jonathan Cape. It was simultaneously released as a widely distributed paperback by Panther Books.

      The second of these works - Revolution (1970) - was by Peter Calvert and published as part of a series of books on key concepts in political science by Pall Mall Press (London).  

      Finally, the book I had to request - Leaving the 20th Century: The Incomplete Works of the Situationist International (1974) is probably now the best-known - certainly within punk circles. Edited and translated by Christopher Gray, it had iconic visuals provided by Jamie Reid (who later used the exact same aesthetic in his designs for the Sex Pistols). It was the first English-language anthology of Situationist writings and Gray hoped to capture something of the violence, madness, and dark humour of Guy Debord, Raoul Vaneigem, and the rest of the gang. 

 

[7] Kirk Field - author of Rave New World (2023) - was my closest friend and partner in crime during the college years (1981-84) and I have mentioned him in several posts on Torpedo the Ark, including this one, for example: 'Punk Friends Reunited' (9 April 2019).  

 

[8] Obviously, I now very much regret not buying in to McLaren and Westwood's new vision. But, rightly or wrongly, I remained sartorially very much inspired by punk. For as I noted in my diary the following day (Sunday 8 Nov 1981) - following a gig at the Lyceum with Theatre of Hate (supported by Peter and the Test Tube Babies and the Meteors) - "although the so-called 'hardcore' punk look is dated, it still looks great".

      Finally, it might be noted that, amusingly, that last line about not wanting to be a pirate was later repeated by Jerry in the famous 'Puffy Shirt' episode of Seinfeld [S5/E2, 1993], written by Larry David and directed by Tom Cherones.  

 

[9] Tickets were priced at £2.50. The band were booked by the then Entertainments Secretary of the Leeds University Student Union, Andy Kershaw, who went on to find fame as a DJ and broadcaster. 

 

[10] August Finer, Gillian Hall, and Gaelle Sherwood. As with Kirk Field, readers who are interested can find their names in Labels and from their go to posts in which they feature.  

 

[11] Actually, Annabella, born on 31 October 1966, had just turned fifteen a fortnight before this gig. 

 

[12] While McLaren masterminded the band's conception, visual aesthetic, and supplied lyrics for the songs, he left the day-to-day coordination of regional dates to tour manager Andy Corrigan. Malcolm occasionally attended some shows, but there is no record of him at the Leeds University gig on November 14th.   

 

 

Go Ape Crazy: On the Role of King Kong in Malcolm McLaren's Imagination

Malcolm Mclaren and Vivienne Westwood: 

'Exposé: Punk Rock Sex' T-shirt (Seditionaries 1978)

Image via: metmuseum.org 

 

King Kong, King Kong, I don't think clear  

King Kong king, the king is here 

 His heart's still pumping, his blood's still running  

King Kong king, the king is here [1]

 

 

I.

 

Everybody loves King Kong (1933) - the tragic story of a giant gorilla transported to a world not of his own making, who falls for a beautiful young white woman originally offered to him as a sacrifice.

 

And when I say everyone, I mean everyone - from Adolf Hitler to Malcolm McLaren ... 

 

 

II. 

 

Actually, although it is a widely reported claim that Hitler was spellbound by King Kong, historians debate whether this is more popular myth than verifiable fact. 

      

For while several contemporary accounts from people within his inner circle confirm the Führer was a Hollywood film fan who enjoyed watching movies nearly every night - and while the Nazi newspaper Der Angriff published a very positive review of King Kong (in predictably racialised terms) - Bill Niven points out that there is no official record definitively proving Hitler ever saw it [2].  

 

McLaren, however, was definitely a fan of King Kong and repurposed this powerful piece of cinematic mythology on at least two occasions: firstly, weaving it into his own aesthetic as a provocative fashion designer and, secondly, as a lyricist with Bow Wow Wow, the band he conceived and managed after his Sex Pistols project terminated. 

 

 

III.

 

Returning to the UK in early 1978 after the Sex Pistols' fateful US tour resulted in the dissolution of the band as a regular four-piece, McLaren and his partner Vivienne Westwood set about printing a series of obscene novelty designs that he had come across in America on a range of plain T-shirts and muslin tops sold at Seditionaries.

 

Among these was a cartoon-style image of King Kong atop the Empire State Building masturbating over a female figure (presumably Ann Darrow - the struggling actress and Kong's love interest in the 1933 film as played by Fay Wray). 

 

The cultural significance of the shirt titled 'Exposé' (and subtitled 'Punk Rock Sex') is debatable. It's crudely provocative and mildly amusing, but I wouldn't say it's one of the great pieces designed by McLaren and Westwood. Sid liked wearing it, so that's something, I suppose - but I wouldn't personally describe it as representing the raw, anti-establishment aesthetic that defined early punk fashion [3]. 

 

 

IV. 

 

Three years later, and Malcolm still had the great ape in mind when he wrote lyrics for a Bow Wow Wow track called 'King Kong' which incorporates a slogan from the advertising material used to promote the film in 1933: King Kong is here!     

 

Other lyrics have a certain ambiguity or complexity. Kong is not merely seen as a symbol of primal chaos and untamed animality, he is also viewed by McLaren as a product of American mass media designed to entertain cinemagoers around the world and generate huge profits for the film industry - a monster who eats and shits money and who eventually bores us by repeating his antics over and over on screen. 

 

King Kong, in other words, is part of the Spectacle and McLaren's aim is to subvert, weaponise, and repurpose his image and his story in order not merely to offend polite society, but challenge consumer capitalism - to liberate him, if you like, and give Kong back his outrageousness. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Bow Wow Wow, 'King Kong', a hugely underrated track with lyrics by Malcolm McLaren and music by Matthew Ashman, David Barbarossa, and Leigh Gorman, on the album See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! (RCA Records, 1981).  

 

[2] See Bill Niven, Hitler and Film: The Führer's Hidden Passion (Yale University Press, 2018).  

 

[3] In fact, I tend to agree with Paul Gorman that the new shirts produced for Seditionaries in the autumn of '78 had a tone of peevishness "rather than triumphant disruption". If they worked as (slightly juvenile) provocations, "in the absence of a coherent clothing collection providing a framework, they lacked panache and indicated that the McLaren/Westwood design relationship was marking time". 

      See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 403. 

On the Sexual Objectification of the Black Male Body à la McLaren and Westwood

Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood: 

'Naked Footballer' T-shirt (SEX, 1975) 

Image via: bonhams.com 

 

By the end of the seventies the feared yet desired black male body 

had become as objectified as it was during slavery, only a seemingly positive 

twist had been added to the racist sexist objectification ... [1]  

 

 

I. 

  

The argument against the objectification of black masculinity is fairly straightforward: to reduce men to racialised sexual stereotypes and physical attributes rather than recognising them as individuals is dehumanising and degrading - stripping them of both agency and dignity (as well as their clothes). 

 

Frantz Fanon made this case over seventy years ago, pointing out how the idea of a black man as hypersexual, aggressive, and animalistic is one that originated during the colonial era and was used to justify slavery and violent oppression.

 

In his seminal 1952 study, Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon writes about the way the white world works its diabolical magic, transforming the black male subject into nothing but a BBC: "no longer do we see the black man; we see a penis: the black man has been occulted. He has been turned into a penis. He is a penis" [2]. 

 

 

II. 

 

Not that this particularly troubles those working in the arts who happily borrow from the world of pornography in order to appear transgressive, often relying on stereotypes while claiming to challenge social taboos. 

 

Famed photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, for example, loved to fetishise the black male body and produce homoerotic imagery for elite consumption [3].    

 

And punk fashion designers Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood were also not above jumping on this particular bandwagon in the early-mid 1970s, producing a T-shirt featuring a naked image of the NFL player Maurice (Mo) Spencer [4] with a semi-erect penis (see above).  

 

Commonly referred to as the 'Naked Footballer' (1974), this shirt was one of the very earliest designs created for SEX, their notorious boutique at 430 King's Road and is now discussed not only in the context of punk fashion, but also racial and sexual politics.   

 

Interviewed in 2008, McLaren was still defending the design and insisting that his intent was to confront the deep-rooted racial fears and sexual stereotypes clung to by the British public in the '70s - and of course garner publicity for the store [5]. 

 

Yet, as with other ideas and images intended to be radical and subversive, McLaren and Westwood's commodification of a racialised and sexualised body just to shock and perhaps terrify white onlookers is questionable to say the least. 

 

It could be argued - and argued quite convincingly - that they were simply reproducing tired historical tropes. That in this case the punk context ultimately changes very little and any positive twist had no lasting liberatory impact. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] bell hooks, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (Routledge, 2004).

 

[2] Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Richard Philcox (Grove Press, 2008), p. 147. Fanon's original French text - Peau noire, masques blancs - was published in 1952 (Éditions du Seuil). 

 

[3] To be fair, that's a debatable statement - at least in part. On the one hand, Mapplethorpe did take explicit photographs of black men and his prints were mostly intended for wealthy white collectors and museums. But, on the other hand, defenders of his work - including some of his models - argue that his 1986 Black Book - featuring 96 nude images - was a celebration of black male beauty and classical form and didn't merely reduce black men to nameless (and often faceless) sexual objects.  

      As a queer artist working during a time of sexual liberation, Mapplethorpe's work arguably operates under different parameters, leaving the definitive judgment of his intent to the viewer. Readers who wish to make their own mind up on this subject can purchase the most recent edition of The Black Book (Schirmer/Mosel, 2010) on Amazon UK.

 

[4] Spencer played in the NFL during the years 1974-78. In late 1969, when still a teenager, he modelled for an adult physique magazine called Bob Anthony's Beefcake. When McLaren came across the image in a gay bookshop on a visit to New York in 1973, he determined that it had to be appropriated and become part of his own conceptual art project - a project that would eventually produce the Sex Pistols; at least two of whom, Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious, were photographed wearing the shirt.    

 

[5] "Satisfyingly for McLaren", writes Paul Gorman, "local residents complained when these T-shirts were displayed in the shop window." Later, during a police raid on SEX, the 'Naked Footballer' shirts were removed along with the (still more controversial) 'Two Cowboys' shirts. However, the authorities decided against including them in the charges of indecency that were brought against McLaren and Westwood. 

      See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), pp. 220 and 268. 

 

 

On Valerie Solanas's Place in the Punk Imagination

Valerie Solanas (1936-1988): photo by Fred W. McDarrah (1966) 

'You're Gonna Wake Up ...' (Scum version) 

Sleeveless shirt design by McLaren-Westwood for SEX (1974) 

  

Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore 

and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, 

there remains to ... thrill-seeking females only to 

overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, 

institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.

 

 

I.

 

A bit like Alexander Trocchi, Valerie Solanas is one of those countercultural figures who left a real impression on Malcolm McLaren's imagination and thus on the aesthetics and politics of punk in the UK.

 

Listed as sleeping on the correct side of the bed on one of the first of the new shirts designed by Mclaren and Vivienne Westwood for SEX in 1974, Solanas had the additional honour of having lines from her SCUM Manifesto (1968) spray-painted on the interior walls of 430 King's Road. 

 

These appeared alongside various Situationist slogans from May '68 and a paragraph taken from Trocchi's erotic novel Helen and Desire (1954) that for some reason haunted McLaren for decades afterwards, beginning: I groaned with pain ... [1] 

 

I was amused to recently discover (thanks to Paul Gorman) that when once asked by an interviewer how she would spend a perfect day if she could go anywhere, do anything, meet anyone, Westwood replied she would visit Solanas in her jail cell after her conviction for shooting Andy Warhol with an automatic pistol [2] [3].  

 

 

II. 

 

Looking at the opening paragraph from the SCUM Manifesto printed above, I suppose it's easy to see why Solanas was attractive to McLaren and Westwood: you can't get much more of an aggressively anti-establishment attitude than that - it's pure punk masquerading as feminist theory; a violent rejection of mainstream society that calls for total revolution (or, failing that, complete destruction). 

 

And Solanas herself, of course, might be seen as the ultimate outsider: angry, uncompromising, free-wheeling, thrill-seeking, etc. A little unhinged, certainly, but also, in her own way, groovy. 

 

For McLaren, heavily influenced by Situationism - an avant-garde political movement that advocated using shock tactics and "anti-art" to wake up passive consumers - Solanas's literal assault on the pop-art elite (Warhol) and her wildly confrontational text perfectly suited his project of weaponised cultural chaos.

 

 

III.

 

Of course, the relationship between Solanas and punk was strictly one-way: she never publicly commented on her co-option by McLaren and Westwood into their imaginary universe and commercial aesthetic. 

 

When SEX and Seditionaries were operating in the golden punk period between 1974 and 1980, Solanas was completely removed from pop culture. Following her 1968 shooting of Andy Warhol, she moved between prison and the madhouse, or was otherwise homeless. 

 

Living in extreme poverty and struggling with paranoid schizophrenia and drug dependency, Solanas became a deeply reclusive figure, still highly paranoid about people stealing her work (as, in fact, they were). If she was aware of McLaren and Westwood printing her words on shirts, she never spoke about it to the few people who interviewed her before her death in 1988. 

 

To McLaren and Westwood, Solanas was a quasi-mythical icon of anti-establishment rebellion - someone whose manifesto could, quite literally, be used to decorate the interior of their Chelsea boutique. I don't suppose they gave two shits about Solanas as a woman desperately trying to make ends meet. 

 

But then, to be fair, they were cultural provocateurs running a business and promoting a band, not social workers and there's surely nothing more bourgeois than the idea of 'intellectual property rights'.   

  

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post 'I Groaned With Pain ... On Malcolm McLaren's Obsession with Alexander Trocchi's Erotic Fiction' (22 Sept 2026).   

 

[2] The interview appeared in a feature titled 'London Belles' from a short-lived, free magazine called West One and took place shortly before the shop at 430 King's Road was renamed SEX (i.e., when it was still operating as Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die). At the time of the interview, Solanas was incarcerated following her 1968 shooting of Andy Warhol (see note 3 below). 

      See the Paul Gorman post of 16 October 2017 which can be found on the historic pop culture site Flashbak: click here. 

 

[3] On 3 June 1968 the radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas fired at Warhol three times with a .32 calibre automatic pistol. The first two shots missed, but the third hit its target and penetrated multiple organs. Warhol survived the incident - after undergoing five hours of surgery - but was never quite the same again, the shooting having a profound effect on his later life and work. 

      For some reason, even though Malcolm loved Andy, Warhol was listed on the wrong side of the 'You're Gonna Wake Up One Morning and Know What Side of the Bed You've Been Lying On!' shirt (1974). Presumably, this was because the artist was viewed having sold out and become part of the establishment culture. David Hockney and Salvador Dalí were also named on the wrong side of the bed.   

  

I Groaned With Pain ... On Malcolm McLaren's Obsession with Alexander Trocchi's Erotic Fiction

 

Alexander Trocchi (1925-1984): Photo by Marvin Lichtner (1967) 

'I Groaned with Pain' shirt design by McLaren-Westwood for SEX (1974)

I groaned with pain as he eased the pressure in removing the thing 

which had split me and then his huge hands grasping me at the hips 

my blonde hair forming a pool on the dark wood between his feet 

he raised me to doting love soothing the bleeding lips and 

causing the tearing commotion at my loins to subside 

in a soft corrosion

 

  

I. 

 

Malcolm McLaren's obsession with the above lines extracted from Helen and Desire (1954) - an erotic novel by the writer Alexander Trocchi - was one that can be traced across at least a twenty-year period: you can find them printed on a shirt sold at SEX in 1975 and you can hear them still echoing on McLaren's concept album Paris in 1994.  

 

 

II. 

 

Born in Glasgow in 1925, Trocchi was the son of a music-hall performer of Italian heritage. 

 

After working as a young merchant seaman aboard ships transporting food, fuel, and vital military supplies from the UK and US to the Soviet port of Murmansk during WWII, Trocchi studied English literature and moral philosophy at university. 

 

In the early 1950s, he moved to the Continent, living in Paris and editing an avant-garde literary magazine - Merlin (1952-55) - which featured work by writers including Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, and Jean-Paul Sartre. 

 

Later, in collaboration with the satirical author Terry Southern and publisher Richard Seaver, Trocchi co-edited the 366-page countercultural anthology Writers in Revolt (1962) - which featured work by the above trio alongside contemporaries such as Genet and Ginsberg and ghosts from the past such as Sade and Baudelaire (i.e., all the usual suspects). 

 

 

III.   

 

When not occupied with his editorial work - or shooting up with heroin - Trocchi was busy with his own writing and many of his novels were published by the Olympia Press, i.e., the publishing house that specialised in literary fiction likely to be described as pornography by the old guard and pornography hailed as literary fiction by the vanguard.   

 

Under the pseudonym Frances Lengel, Trocchi churned out numerous erotic works, including McLaren's favourite, Helen and Desire (1954).   

 

IV. 

An interesting character - to say the least - Trocchi was not only pally with members of the American Beat scene, but involved with both the Lettrists and the Situationists. 

 

And, after moving to London in 1962 - where he stayed for the rest of his life - he then became a formative influence on the UK underground scene, working for an invisible insurrection that would promote sodomy as crucial to creativity. 

 

Less than impressed with the direction he was taking, in 1966 the Situationists announced their disapproval and expelled him from the movement. Trocchi continued writing, but, sadly, published little new work.        

 

It was in 1969 that a young art student named Malcolm McLaren was introduced to "the heavily addicted Trocchi, who by then was reduced to selling second-hand books and manuscripts and living in a shabby flat on the Kensington and Chelsea borders" [1].  

 

As Paul Gorman explains, the invitation to McLaren was extended "because Trocchi was  eager to meet radical students to help him work on his utopian Project Sigma texts" [2] - but Malcolm was more interested in Trocchi's past work and connections rather than his future plans for a network of intellectuals interested in non-traditional ways of living and expanding their consciousness with drugs.      

 

 

V. 

 

Skip forward a few years to 1974, and McLaren is now installed at his shop on the King's Road, with his partner Vivienne Westwood (and sometimes collaborator Bernie Rhodes). It has been decided to produce a new range of screen-printed T-shirts to sell at the shop that will soon be rebranded as SEX. 

 

And the first of these designs is the 'I Groaned with Pain' square sleeveless top (shown above) with a text taken from Helen and Desire, hand-written by McLaren: 

 

"The Trocchi shirt represented the first formal annexation of text in the sphere of fashion [...] McLaren transformed the T-shirt from humble undergarment into a powerful means of communicating social and political commentary." [3]

 

Later, McLaren would enlist the support of Saturday boy (and future Sex Pistol) Glen Matlock to assist him in decorating the interior walls of SEX with various spray-painted slogans taken from May '68 and Valerie Solanas's SCUM Manifesto (1968). 

 

Trocchi's 'I groaned with pain ...' paragraph was also added and while McLaren often says punk is all about sex, style, and subversion, it could also be characterised as a mix of porn, politics, and provocation. 

 

 

VI. 

 

The story, however, does not end at 430 King's Road. To fully appreciate the depth of McLaren's obsession with Alexander Trocchi, one has to fast-forward to McLaren's 1994 Paris project, in which he composes a love letter to the French capital and traces out a musical map of feeling.

 

On the opening track, titled 'Mon Dié Sénié', McLaren doesn't just vocalise lyrics based on his favourite lines from Helen and Desire  - "Your blonde hair formed a pool on the dark wood between my feet", etc. - he seamlessly weaves them together with excerpts from another of Trocchi's Olympia Press novels, School for Wives (1955): "She felt the seed stir at the pit of her belly in response to my strong tonguing movements."

 

Years after selling shirts at SEX and Seditionaries, McLaren was still obsessing over Trocchi's words and looping back to his own past in an attempt to live yesterday tomorrow and perhaps breathe new life into the literary pornography that had so inspired him and influenced the look of punk [4].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable Books, 2020), p. 103.

 

[2] Ibid.

 

[3] Ibid., p. 219. 

 

[4] Readers might like to note that by 1994 there was the beginning of a resurgence of interest in Trocchi and his role in the avant-garde movements of the mid-20th century. A biography written by Andrew Murray Scott titled Alexander Trocchi: The Making of the Monster was published alongside Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds: A Trocchi Reader, edited by Scott. Both books were published by Polygon (1991).      

   

 

Musical bonus: another track from McLaren's Paris (1994): 'Rue Dauphine'. It's perhaps my favourite track on the album, bringing together as it does Serge Gainsbourg and Sid Vicious, as well as containing the 'I groaned with pain' line from Trocchi's novel (though somewhat amusingly this is used in relation to licking a postage stamp).  

 

For a sister post to this one on Valerie Solanas and her place in the punk imagination, click here.