EMI and the Grundy incident
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On 8 October 1976, the major record label EMI signed the Sex Pistols to a two-year contract.[72] In short order, the band was in the studio recording a full-dress session with Dave Goodman. As later described by Matlock, "The idea was to get the spirit of the live performance. We were pressurized to make it faster and faster."[73] The riotous results were rejected. Chris Thomas, who had produced Roxy Music and mixed Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, was brought in to produce.[74] The band's first single, "Anarchy in the U.K.", was released on 26 November 1976.[73] John Robb—soon to be a cofounder of The Membranes and later a music journalist—described the record's impact: "From Steve Jones' opening salvo of descending chords, to Johnny Rotten's fantastic sneering vocals, this song is the perfect statement...a stunningly powerful piece of punk politics...a lifestyle choice, a manifesto that heralds a new era".[75] Colin Newman, who had just cofounded the band Wire, heard it as "the clarion call of a generation."[76]
"Anarchy in the U.K." was not the first British punk single, pipped by The Damned's "New Rose". "We Vibrate" had also appeared from The Vibrators, a pub rock band formed early in 1976 that had become associated with punk—though, according to Jon Savage "with their long hair and mildly risqué name, the Vibrators were passers-by as far as punk taste-makers were concerned."[77] Unlike those songs, whose lyrical content was comfortably within rock 'n' roll traditions, "Anarchy in the U.K." linked punk to a newly politicized attitude—the Pistols' stance was aggrieved, euphoric and nihilistic, all at the same time. Rotten's howls of "I am an anti-christ" and "Destroy!" repurposed rock as an ideological weapon.[78] The single's packaging and visual promotion also broke new ground. Reid and McLaren came up with the notion of selling the record in a completely wordless, featureless black sleeve.[79] The primary image associated with the single was Reid's "anarchy flag" poster: a Union Flag ripped up and partly safety-pinned back together, with the song and band names clipped along the edges of a gaping hole in the middle. This and other images created by Reid for the Sex Pistols quickly became punk icons.[80]
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The Sex Pistols' behaviour, as much as their music, brought them national attention. On 1 December 1976, the band and members of the Bromley Contingent created a storm of publicity by swearing during an early evening live broadcast of Thames Television's Today programme. Appearing as last-minute replacements for fellow EMI artists Queen, the band and their entourage were offered drinks as they waited to go on air. During the interview, Jones said the band had "fucking spent" its label advance and Rotten used the word "shit". Host Bill Grundy, who had earlier claimed to be drunk, engaged in repartee with Siouxsie Sioux, who declared that she had "always wanted to meet" him. Grundy responded, "Did you really? We'll meet afterwards, shall we?" This prompted the following exchange between Jones and the host:
- Jones: You dirty sod. You dirty old man.
- Grundy: Well keep going chief, keep going. Go on. You've got another five seconds. Say something outrageous.
- Jones: You dirty bastard.
- Grundy: Go on, again.
- Jones: You dirty fucker.
- Grundy: What a clever boy.
- Jones: What a fucking rotter.[81]
Although the programme was broadcast only in the London region, the ensuing furore occupied the tabloid newspapers for days. The Daily Mirror famously ran the headline "The Filth and the Fury!";[82] other papers such as the Daily Express ("Fury at Filthy TV Chat") and the Daily Telegraph ("4-Letter Words Rock TV") followed suit.[83] Thames Television suspended Grundy, and though he was later reinstated, the interview effectively ended his career.[84]
The episode made the band household names throughout the country and brought punk into mainstream awareness. The Pistols set out on the Anarchy Tour of the UK, supported by The Clash and Johnny Thunders' band The Heartbreakers, over from New York. The Damned were briefly part of the tour, before McLaren kicked them off. Media coverage was intense, and many of the concerts were cancelled by organizers or local authorities; of approximately twenty scheduled gigs, only about seven actually took place.[85] Following a campaign waged in the south Wales press, a crowd including carol singers and a Pentecostal preacher protested against the group outside a show in Caerphilly.[86] Packers at the EMI plant refused to handle the band's single.[87] London councillor Bernard Brook Partridge declared, "Most of these groups would be vastly improved by sudden death. The worst of the punk rock groups I suppose currently are the Sex Pistols. They are unbelievably nauseating. They are the antithesis of humankind. I would like to see somebody dig a very, very large, exceedingly deep hole and drop the whole bloody lot down it."[88]
Following the end of the tour in late December, three concerts were arranged in Holland for January 1977. The band, hungover, boarded a plane at London Heathrow Airport early on 4 January; a few hours later, the Evening News was reporting that the band had "vomited and spat their way" to the flight.[89] Despite categorical denials by the EMI representative who accompanied the group, the label, which was under political pressure, released the band from their contract.[90] As McLaren fielded offers from other labels, the band went into the studio for a round of recordings with Goodman, their last with either him or Matlock.[91]
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