Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol
Written and Narrated By: Steve Jones
Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
Honest, soooo honest, totally honest, BRUTALLY honest… LOVED it…
I was but yea-high to an ant as I lay uponst m’ parents’ bed and saw the news on television: The Sex Pistols were being greeted by jeers and careening beer bottles in a dive in Texas… Warily, oh so fearfully, I asked my Mom: They’re not coming here, are they?
Little did I know that within a few years I’d be all pissed and angry, sporting a Mohawk and a bloody spiked jean jacket, and I’d be playing The Sex Pistols over and over and over on my sister’s turntable, driving my poor Mom nuts, no doubt. Yessss, they’d become MY scene.
So I dunno how I’d been a member of Audible for yeeeears, an avid watcher of New Releases, and I missed out on Lonely Boy when it came out. But HUZZAH! Just found it!!! And I couldn’t be more thrilled, tho’ I must admit that my favorite Sex Pistol was Sid Vicious (NATurally!). It has been the most WONderful trip down memory lane EVER. Fraught with sex, drugs, not your average rock ‘n’ roll, and piping hot with the lowdown on what London was like in the 1970s whenst the youth was angry… and image conscious…
Author and founding member Steve Jones begins his tale with his grossly dysfunctional family unit, how he oooooonce lived with a loving extended family but was dragged off by his single mum when she married his disgusting stepdad. Ignored, neglected, sexually abused, emotionally tormented, he couldn't have possibly grown up to be what he turned out to be sans the uncaring environment. An addict of all things, kleptomania was his first game, drugs and sex came later. Within these precious 9 1/2 hours are the skinny on shagging Chrissie Hynde and damned neeeeeear shagging Siouxsie of Siouxsie and the Banshees fame (A romantic overnight jaunt to look at lights ended when he realized DUDE, had he done too much booze and coke, or what?). It’s all pretty hilarious because at no point does the man try to come off as honorable. He tells it exACTly like it was, never prettying up a down and dirty tale of wayward youthful shenanigans (i.e. Illegal, illegal, no point to life, ilLEGal!).
Also, Malcolm McLaren sounds awful, but Jones doesn’t add to the pile-on of hatred and loathing that has besmirched the man’s legacy… I’d have some sympathy for him were it not for my Internal Angst Ridden Teen decrying the notion that the man bilked the boys for a goodly sum and exploited them. But to hear Jones, those boys took McLaren for a bumpy ride, one of his making. Jones posits that McLaren played them off each other, harnessing their mistrust and animosity to produce a raw and untutored sound and style and ethos. This, and their loud mouths during aired and print interviews, made them a band to die for, and brought them more sex, drugs, and notoriety than kids could handle. Jones doesn’t blame him for becoming an addict of all ilks; no he was already doing stints in British juvie and was ungovernable. Still, he does wax a wee bit maudlin when he contemplates Sid Vicious, saying that the mixed up guy was just living up to his name. Would anybody named Sid Gentle have cracked a drunk cowboy on the head with his guitar?
It’s not all Sex Pistols, and that’s what takes it from nice li’l Listen to intriguing and pathos-laden journey. Jones was and continues to be a damaged man, albeit sober for over two decades and feeling creaking joints now. But his tell-all about his mum and stepdad is harrowing, and it’s no wonder they don’t communicate at all (Tho’ I dunno if she’s still alive as of 2021, and I couldn't find her via Googling m’ brains out…). Plus, despite his DEFinite psycho-pathologies, the man has lived as charmed a life as any drug addict, sex addict, alcoholic, kleptomaniac, could. He’s played with the likes of Iggy Pop for Jiminy H. Cricket’s sake!
Still, for me the verrrry best part was the discussion of the roots of Punk, and prior to that Skinheads. Americans co-opted them and turned them into angry and/or racist things when all along it was just a bit of tough as nails fun and thuggery, with a LOT of fashion thrown in. That Jones and drummer Cook were avid listeners of Roxy Music? Coulda knocked me over with a feather; but Jones liked the look, the sound, tho’ he never got into lyrics, even when his own band was creating them (Can thank Johnny Rotten for those, but Jones most adamantly does NOT—no love for Rotten even tho’ they all did reunion stuff and even tho’ he does, and it’s almost grudgingly done, give the man kudos for flipping off those wanting to honor the Pistols for their contribution to various other rock breeds).
A most deLIGHTful excursion taken with a man who views Life with a jaundiced eye but who is as witty and wry as can be about his own. It almost made me wish I had m’ old BooBooKiss jean jacket back, bloodied handprints faded to rust. Alas, I gifted it to my niece.
Because Old Punks Never Die… they just write memoirs… or audiobook reviews….
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