Sex Pistols biography
Building a following
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The Saint Martins gig was followed by other performances at colleges and art schools around London. The Sex Pistols' core group of followers-including Siouxsie Sioux, Steve Severin and Billy Idol, who would go on to form bands of their own-came to be known as the Bromley Contingent, after the neighbourhood several were from. Their cutting-edge fashion, much of it supplied by Sex, ignited a trend that was adopted by the new fans the band attracted. McLaren and Westwood saw the incipient London punk movement as a vehicle for more than just couture. They were both captivated by the May 1968 radical uprising in Paris, particularly by the ideology and agitations of the Situationists, as well as the anarchist thought of Buenaventura Durruti and others. These interests were shared with Jamie Reid, an old friend of McLaren's who began producing publicity material for the Sex Pistols in spring 1976. (The cut-up lettering employed to create the classic Sex Pistols logo and many subsequent designs for the band was actually introduced by McLaren's friend Helen Wellington-Lloyd.) "We used to talk to John Lydon a lot about the Situationists," Reid later said. "The Sex Pistols seemed the perfect vehicle to communicate ideas directly to people who weren't getting the message from left-wing politics." McLaren was also arranging for the band's first photo sessions. As described by music historian Jon Savage, "With his green hair, hunched stance and ragged look, Lydon looked like a cross between Uriah Heep and Richard Hell."
The first Sex Pistols gig to attract broader attention was as a supporting act for Eddie and the Hot Rods, a leading pub rock group, at the Marquee on 12 February 1976. Rotten "was now really pushing the barriers of performance, walking off stage, sitting with the audience, throwing Jordan across the dancefloor and chucking chairs around, before smashing some of Eddie and the Hot Rods' gear." The band's first review appeared in the NME, accompanied by a brief interview in which Steve Jones declared, "Actually we're not into music. We're into chaos." Among those who read the article were two students at the Bolton Institute of Technology, Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley, who headed down to London in search of the Sex Pistols. After chatting with McLaren at Sex, they saw the band at a couple of late February gigs. The two friends immediately began organizing their own Pistols-style group, the Buzzcocks. As Devoto later put it, "My life changed the moment that I saw the Sex Pistols."
The Pistols were soon playing other important venues, debuting at Oxford Street's 100 Club on 30 March. On 3 April, they played for the first time at the Nashville, supporting The 101ers. The pub rock group's lead singer, Joe Strummer, saw the Pistols for the first time that night-and recognized punk rock as the future. A return gig at the Nashville on 23 April demonstrated the band's growing musical competence, but by all accounts lacked a spark. Westwood provided that by instigating a fight with another audience member; McLaren and Rotten were soon involved in the melee. Cook later said, "That fight at the Nashville: that's when all the publicity got hold of it and the violence started creeping in.... I think everybody was ready to go and we were the catalyst." The Pistols were soon banned from both the Nashville and the Marquee.
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