ABSTRACT

Simon Reynolds writes in Totally Wired, his collection of post-punk interviews that “London has long been a place where people go to shed their past and invent a fantastical future self. Small-town mists and arty weirdos of all sorts have ocked to the capital, leaving behind one community (conformist, constraining) and looking to nd another kind: a fellowship of freaks”.1 Reynolds’ words held particularly true in 1975 and the years that followed, when London was the epicenter of British punk and post-punk scenes. The London punk scene was put on the map by the Sex Pistols: a band who in their two and a half years of existence inspired a whole generation to cross the line from audience to stage. Singer John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock2 formed the band’s original line-up, under the tutelage of clothes designer, boutique owner and impresario Malcolm McLaren. The impact that the group had on aspirant musicians in London is difcult to over-estimate, but is well described by Viv Albertine, who would later join all-female post-punk group The Slits. Albertine remembers attending a Sex Pistols gig at Chelsea School of Art in 1975, as a life-altering moment and wrote in her autobiography, Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys (2014) about how impressed and inspired she was by John Lydon’s self-condence.