When the Sex Pistols were booked as last minute guests for early evening local TV show Today, and drunken host Bill Grundy goaded guitarist Steve Jones into calling him a "fucking rotter", then according to legend, punk rock moved from small time cult to mainstream sensation overnight. With the tabloids going into outraged overdrive, punk in general and the Pistols in particular became Britain's bête noire – public enemy number one. And so it was. But the band was about to head out on its first UK tour, taking punk to the masses, and the controversy effectively killed that plan entirely.

Mick O'Shea's book is a detailed study of that tour, and the events leading up to it, which would see all but a handful of gigs cancelled, the band hounded from venue to venue and facing rioting football hooligans and praying Christians outside the few venues they actually managed to perform at. With upstarts The Clash, bitter rivals The Damned and US junkie rock 'n' roll veterans The Heartbreakers in tow (with Buzzcocks making a brief guest appearance in Manchester), the band travelled up and down the country throughout December 1976, running out of money and energy, while miscreant manager Malcolm McClaren stoked the fires of outrage and made a bad situation worse with recording label EMI, who finally washed their hands of the whole affair a month later.

Taking quotes from both contemporary and recent interviews with all the major players, O'Shea paints a picture that is perhaps less glamorous than the myth would have you feel. Sure, this outrage was the making of punk as a national phenomenon, but the story that unfolds here is one of utter misery and frustration. At the end of the day, the Pistols were a rock band who wanted to play, and the anger, bitterness and sense of despair they felt at this ridiculous state of affairs comes across in this book. It also exposes the rivalries that split the early punk bands apart – The Damned were kicked off the tour after one gig, which in retrospect was probably the best thing that could have happened to them – and the genuine chaos of a tour where the money was rapidly running out.
It's also a book about the British tabloids – as foul then as they are now, and willing both to stoke public outrage (nothing makes the press feel ore important than when they are playing the public like a fiddle) and print outright lies when the truth isn't sensational enough. The tabloid sensationalism on display here is thoroughly depressing, if not exactly revelatory. The music press come out of it a little better, though there are enough tales of opportunist hacks and bandwagon followers to remind you of how dreadful the likes of the NME were at the time.

What is really at the heart of the book, however, is just what a different world Britain was in 1976. While anyone saying 'fuck' on TV at 6.30 in the evening now might still cause censure from OFCOM and an angry Daily Mail report, it's hard to understand the sense of panic and outrage that greeted the Pistols. Certainly, you wouldn't expect local councils to impose blanket bans on certain bands – or certain music genres – now, and the hysteria that resulted from a few rude words – everything from prayer vigils to death threats – seems bizarre to modern minds. But then we think about how the press can still stoke moral outrage now, and how ignorant politicians can still demand the outlawing of films, books, games etc. that they haven't even seen. We probably haven't moved on as far as we'd like to think.

O'Shea's book is a cracking read, and nicely designed in a colourful, photo-packed format, complete with artfully created ink spills, coffee cup stains and blotches to liven up the pages. And while the story of the Sex Pistols has been told many times, this detailed study of a month in their lives still feels like a fresh and insightful study of 'the filth and the fury'.

DAVID FLINT

BUY IT NOW (UK)

BUY IT NOW (USA)