In our second to last day of punk week here at The Captain's Vintage, we visit with the godfathers of british Punk, The Sex Pistols.
Founded in 1977, the Sex Pistols were a punk rock boy band, put together and managed by Malcom McLaren. Operating out of his boutique in London called SEX, McLaren was selling bondage gear and other clothing to the punks all over London at the time.
By putting together this group, the Sex Pistols became one of the most offensive, well known bands in the entire world. Their first album, Never Mind the Bollocks was listed with a blank item title in Britain, as was their first single God Save the Queen. Here is them performing at Winterland in San Francisco, in what would become their final show ever.
After the breakup of the band Sid Vicious, noted heroine addict, made his way to New York, where he was living with his girlfriend at the time Nancy Spungen. One night, after getting high, Nancy was stabbed and bled to death in their hotel room. Sid was arrested for her murder, and released on bail. Whether he killed her or not is still a matter of some debate, but he didn't last too much longer after that.
We recently acquired a very rare shirt, a colorized image of Sid Vicious' mug shot from the famous punk boutique Boy in London. Boy was one of the most famous punk shops of all time, and can famously be seen in the movie Punk Rock Movie being shut down by the cops for having a lewd window display. It is hard to hear what they are saying, but I believe it was a swastika made out of pubic hair in a glass cube.
When Sid was arrested for Murder in NYC, his mug shot went viral. As you can see above his piercing eyes stare through the camera; it is very creepy. Boy took this image and colorized it, screening a very limited number of shirts, and selling them at the time.
This shirt that we obtained was purchased at Boy in 1979, and is in remarkably good condition for being over 35 years old! This is a super rare piece of punk rock history!
It is very hard to summarize the Sex Pistols in any one article. Anyone growing up in the 1980s or 90s was at some point introduced to the Sex Pistols, and it was the gateway to Punk music for so many people. They were a hot mess, but it was an amazing hot mess that completely shook up the world of Rock Music in the UK and the rest of the world.
Join us tomorrow as we conclude punk week with one more legendary band, and check out our special Vintage Punk Rock t-shirt collection!