A Rotten Memory

A newly unveiled plaque marks the location of the first Sex Pistols gig at Central Saint Martins School of Art in London, England. Photo Dave Etheridge-Barnes/Getty Images.

A number of questions arose on the evening of Nov. 6, 2005. For instance, what would the world be like now if a certain infamous punk band had decided on the name Teenage Novel? What would have happened if these four straggly young men who showed up to play their first gig 30 years ago had chosen one of the other suggestions put forward by their manager, Malcolm McLaren — something like, Beyond or Le Bomb? It wouldn’t be the same, and odds are there wouldn’t be a crowd gathered on a drizzly evening in London outside Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first-ever gig by the Sex Pistols, the band with the best name in punk.

On this night in 1975, the Pistols carried their own gear across from a rehearsal space in nearby Tin Pan Alley. It turned out to be less of a gig and more of an aural attack, an interrupted concert that lasted, roughly, the length of a hockey period or a couple Meatloaf songs stitched together. After 20 minutes, the plug was pulled and the Pistols were never invited back to Saint Martins. Over the intervening years the school’s hatred of the band has mellowed somehow, and turned into a perverse pride. So tonight an invite-only roomful celebrates the inauspicious beginnings of the Pistols. After all, “…the Sex Pistols ended the way they began,” lead singer John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten) writes in his biography. “In utter disaster.”

They might not have been the most talented, most organized, hardest working, best looking, or most original punk band — but it’s hard from this gulf of three decades to even conceive what a profound effect the band had on English culture. Guitarist Steve Jones said the “f” word on a small London news show in 1976 and the country, it seemed, broke into a rash of moral panic. “She ain’t no human being,” Rotten sang of his Queen in 1977 and the nation seemed to teeter a bit more.

Tonight the seventh-floor room at Saint Martins is decorated with old gig posters but the crowd is not exactly awash with Pistols. Thanks to reality TV and nature programs, John Lydon is now a minor television celeb promoting his new five-part historical series. Drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones are nowhere to be found. A few in the crowd have his hairstyle but bassist Sid Vicious has yet to turn up, which might be because of his death by heroin overdose in 1979. Instead, roaming the room is original bassist Glen Matlock, who was kicked out of the Pistols in 1977, allegedly for the most egregious of punk offences — always washing his feet. “That made all of us happy,” writes Lydon of Matlock’s departure. “Things improved no end the minute he exited.” Still, Matlock is as authentically punk as it’s going to get, and he’s been given the duty of unveiling a fake blue heritage plaque designed by a Saint Martins student and meant to signify this location as one of historical interest.

The suitably punkish music blares on, interrupted once by the DJ who has to apologize for playing something, “from this decade.” In the crowded room, the old paunchy punk rockers are mixing, getting phone numbers from compatriots they last drank with before the advent of the cell phone. They tend to be concerned less about societal injustice and more about the four-pound-an-hour parking fees nearby. Tony Barber, bassist for the legendary punk band the Buzzcocks, is dressed beautifully for the event in a crisp white shirt and white tie. Barber wasn’t at the Pistols’ first gig, though its shockwaves had a major effect on his young life. At the time he was taking part in another cultural milestone: “What was I doing when the Pistols first played?” he asks himself over the roar of the room. “I was too busy watching…” He trails off. Perhaps some early incarnation of the Clash? The 101ers? “No, I would have been watching Kojak on the telly. Or maybe it was Columbo.”

Next to him is Paul Davis, who is now a manager at a construction company. In 1975 he was a disaffected 15-year-old from a council estate housing project in north London. On that year's Nov. 6 he was boozing at a local pub, dressed up like his glam heroes, Marc Bolan and David Bowie. His friends convinced him to come up to Saint Martins to see this new band. Witnessing the Sex Pistols was the beginning of the end for his glam haircut and, more important, the limited spectrum of the career opportunities he had been fed to that point in his young life. “I never seen anything like it,” Davis recalls with more than a touch of wonder. “It was working class people doing something for themselves. After that I couldn’t listen to anything else.” He says he’s heavier now. His hair is styled up slightly more punk than he would wear normally in the office. “Back then if you were young and working class you basically had four options for your life: the factory, the warehouse, jail or national service. Punk taught us there was more to life.”

Davis left the Sex Pistols gig and went back, energized, to his squat in the Seven Sisters neighbourhood of London. Punk didn’t just provide new life choices, it was also a great way to get with the posh girls who were soon slumming it at the punk shows that sprouted up in the months that followed the Pistols debut. “I remember going to these posh houses in Hampstead,” Davis says. “The only way we would have been there before is if we were robbing them.”

Not everyone in the room is infused with this rosy nostalgia. In an act of terrible transgression a girl named Kim, dancing nearby, says loudly that she would rather be hearing something by the Carpenters. A stylist in the crowd named Coimhe thinks the whole evening is a little bit sad, really, seeing all these old punkers. Her arguments are buttressed by the less-than-spectacular bands that have been gathered to play a live set. The headliners, the Paddingtons, attempt the sort of ferociousness the Pistols might have stirred up. They even bring Matlock onto the stage but the whole act feels deflated, calculated. Someone nearby pleads to cut them off after 20 minutes. This is not a crowd that will take any ideas of social change away from the evening. There is, however, polite applause and free Portuguese beer.

Glen Matlock (centre), the original bassist for the Sex Pistols, performs on stage with the Paddingtons. Photo Dave Etheridge-Barnes/Getty Images.

Anyone searching for the punk rock spirit would find it, fittingly, outside the establishment. On the pavement in front of Saint Martins is a young woman named Anna B-K (“Like Burger King, you know? The Flaming Whopper?”). Anna works at a nearby gallery, but is handing out flyers to tonight's party guests as a representative of a shady organization called the Friends of the Enemies of Success in the Music Industry. The pamphlet is entitled: “ST MARTINS SCHOOL OF ART IS NOT PUNK (it’s s---).” Anna’s determined to show that the school does not, as the press release claims, have a rich history of nurturing musical talent. Saint Martins banned live music in their hall from 1977. (“Pretty s---ty nurturing” notes the pamphlet). Unsurprisingly, Friends of the Enemies of the Music Industry are not happy with the blue plaque. Instead, their pamphlet says, “we suggest they should have a s--- plaque for true s---tyness.” “It’s pretty punk,” says a security guard, after asking her to move away from the door.

Upstairs, the supply of Portuguese beer continues. It may not be punk rock, or even a worthwhile facsimile, and the whole ceremony smacks of self-congratulation. Still, it’s much better than celebrating the Flock of Seagulls’ first gig. Matlock keeps circling the room, accosted by the young and the old. When asked how it felt to unveil the plaque he gives a wide grin and reveals a poky, unreconstructed mouthful of crooked punk rock teeth. “It felt real good,” he says. “Real good.”

Craig Taylor is a feature writer for the Guardian in London, England.