Never Mind the Bollocks
Main article: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
 | "Holidays in the Sun", the Sex Pistols' fourth single, is the lead track on Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols |
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Since the spring of 1977, the three senior Sex Pistols had been returning to the studio periodically with Chris Thomas to lay down the tracks for the band's debut album. Initially to be called God Save Sex Pistols, it became known during the summer as Never Mind the Bollocks.[125] According to Jones, "Sid wanted to come down and play on the album, and we tried as hard as possible not to let him anywhere near the studio. Luckily he had hepatitis at the time."[126] Cook later described how many of the instrumental tracks were built up from drum and guitar parts, rather than the usual drum and bass.[127]
Given Vicious's incompetence, Matlock had been invited to record as a session musician. In his autobiography, Matlock says he agreed to "help out", but then suggests that he cut all ties after McLaren issued the 28 February NME telegram announcing Matlock had been fired for liking the Beatles.[128] In fact, Matlock did play as a hired hand on 3 March, for what Jon Savage describes as an "audition session".[129] In his autobiography, Lydon claims that Matlock's work-for-hire for his ex-band was extensive—much more so than any other source reports—seemingly to amplify a putdown: "I think I'd rather die than do something like that."[130] Music historian David Howard states unambiguously that Matlock did not perform on any of the Never Mind the Bollocks recording sessions.[131] It was Jones who ultimately played most of the bass parts during the Bollocks recordings; Howard calls his rudimentary, rumbling approach the "explosive missing ingredient" of the Sex Pistols' sound.[131] Vicious's bass is reportedly present on one track that appeared on the original album release, "Bodies". Jones recalls, "He played his farty old bass part and we just let him do it. When he left I dubbed another part on, leaving Sid's down low. I think it might be barely audible on the track."[132] Following "God Save the Queen", two more singles were released from these sessions, "Pretty Vacant" (largely written by Matlock) on 1 July[133] and "Holidays in the Sun" on 14 October.[134] Each was a Top Ten hit.[135]
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (which includes "Anarchy in the U.K." and another earlier recording, "No Feelings") was released on 28 October 1977.[136] Rolling Stone praised the album as "just about the most exciting rock & roll record of the Seventies", applauding the band for playing "with an energy and conviction that is positively transcendent in its madness and fever".[137] Some critics, disappointed that the album contained all four previously released singles, dismissed it as little more than a "greatest hits" record.[138] Containing both "Bodies"—in which Rotten utters "fuck" six times—and the previously censored "God Save the Queen" and featuring the word bollocks (popular slang for testicles) in its title, the album was banned by Boots, W. H. Smith and Woolworth's.[139] The Conservative shadow minister for education condemned it as "a symptom of the way society is declining" and both the Independent Television Companies' Association and the Association of Independent Radio Contractors banned its advertisements.[140] Nonetheless, advance sales were sufficient to make it an undeniable number one on the album chart.[139]
The album title led to a legal case that attracted considerable attention: a Virgin Records store in Nottingham that put the album in its window was threatened with prosecution for displaying "indecent printed matter". The case was thrown out when defending QC John Mortimer produced an expert witness who established that bollocks was an Old English term for a small ball, that it appeared in place names without causing local communities erotic disturbance, and that in the nineteenth century it had been used as a nickname for clergymen: "Clergymen are known to talk a good deal of rubbish and so the word later developed the meaning of nonsense."[141] In the context of the Pistols' album title, the term does in fact primarily signify "nonsense". Steve Jones off-handedly came up with the title as the band debated what to call the album. An exasperated Jones said, "Oh, fuck it, never mind the bollocks of it all."[142]
After playing a few dates in Holland—the beginning of a planned multinational tour—the band set out on a Never Mind the Bans tour of Britain in December 1977. Of eight scheduled dates, four were cancelled due to illness or political pressure. On Christmas Day, the Sex Pistols played two shows at Ivanhoe's in Huddersfield. Before a regular evening concert, the band performed a benefit matinee for the children of "striking firemen, laid-off workers and one-parent families."[143] These would turn out to be the band's final UK performances.[144]
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