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Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs
"I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die..." -- John Lydon Punk has been romanticized and embalmed in various media. An English class revolt that became a worldwide fashion statement, punk's idols were the Sex Pistols, and its sneering hero was Johnny Rotten. Seventeen years later, John Lydon looks back at himself, the Sex Pistols, and the "no future" disaffection of the time. Much more than just a music book, Rotten is an oral history of angry, witty, honest, poignant, crackling with energy. Malcolm McLaren, Sid Vicious, Chrissie Hynde, Billy Idol, London and England in the late 1970s, the Pistols' creation and collapse...all are here, in perhaps the best book ever written about music and youth culture, by one of its most notorious figures.
352 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1994
About the author
John Lydon
16 books160 followersJohn Lydon is best known by his former stage name Johnny Rotten who was the lead singer of the 1970’s punk rock group the Sex Pistols. He is the lead singer of the punk band Public Image Ltd (PiL) which he founded. Lydon is also a visual artist.
In 1995, Lydon published his autobiography Rotten - No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, which dealt with his early life and career in the Sex Pistols. His second autobiography Anger Is an Energy covers the PiL years.
In 1995, Lydon published his autobiography Rotten - No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, which dealt with his early life and career in the Sex Pistols. His second autobiography Anger Is an Energy covers the PiL years.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 231 reviews
September 18, 2018
You can argue that punk began in America, but you’d be wrong. Punk didn’t even begin with the Sex Pistols. It began with John Lydon. It maybe ended with Lydon, before punk even became a scene, too.
First off, let’s get what I didn’t like about this autobiography out of the way. This book is called ‘Rotten’, so obviously it’s about Johnny’s time as a Sex Pistol, rather than about Lydon himself and his other ventures; although there is a lot of information about his upbringing and so on, as you’d expect. But I still wanted a lot more of the man, more than the Pistol. I wanted to get to know Johnny better and I felt like I didn’t learn a huge amount more about him than I already knew, but that’s not to say there’s not a lot of insightful stuff along the way. A lot of the time though, it didn’t feel like this was Johnny’s book. It’s co-authored with two writers, and much of the time it felt like they had just transcribed what Lydon had said on tape, rather than it being written by the man himself. The book also has a hell of a lot of other contributors, including Paul Cook, Chrissie Hynde, Julian Temple, Steve Severin and Johnny’s dad. The idea of breaking up John’s prose with segments from these people who were there at the time works in its intention: it helps to give a different side of the same story. But, for me, it just broke up the prose too much – especially when there are whole chapters written by these guys. It’s supposed to be an autobiography, after all.
All that aside, if you want to read about the Sex Pistols story, you probably won’t get better than this book. And even though much of the information was covering old territory that every punk fan knows, it was all delivered in a raw way that brought to life that exciting time in the mid-seventies when, led by Lydon, kids started “doing it for themselves”.
Lydon’s full of contradictions: he wanted to inspire anyone to pick up a guitar and join a band, as a backlash to broken Britain and the Rick Wakeman type music and post-Beatles fandom of the time, but he never wanted to create a scene. It was about doing your own thing, not following the crowd; or following Lydon. John’s therefore rather dismissive of such great bands as The Clash. But you can’t want to start a revolution of inspiring kids to be in a band and speak their own truth and at the same time hate the scene that you’ve helped to create, ‘cos that’s an oxy(they made you a )moron. Without the Pistols, there wouldn’t have been Sham 69, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Undertones etc. And I know I play those bands a lot more than I do the Pistols.
Being a part of the indie author scene, I was noticing some parallels between Lydon’s rebellious Do It Yourself approach and the books by indie authors who are doing the same, (Where else do you see people denouncing the monarchy in this modern age of royal-love from the media?) such as (my good friends) Rupert Dreyfus and Andy Carrington. Twenty-first century Britain mirrors the mid-seventies in a lot of ways, with cuts being made ‘cos of austerity and the poor getting poorer, and mainstream media ignoring No Future grassroots scenes. It feels like some indie authors are rebelling, by using the tools that the digital age has given us, in exactly the same way as the likes of Lydon did, with other tools, back in the day. Punk never went away, even if it changed over time to become just another music scene. Greats like Tim Armstrong and Green Day (not to mention non-punk-with-punk-attitudes bands like Rage Against The Machine and Public Enemy) have kept it alive over the years. However, the true spirit of punk, that was the Sex Pistols, has never quite happened in the same way again – but with the advent of the internet, perhaps we’re seeing a new form of punk that we haven’t actually named yet (and maybe we shouldn’t name it anyway). The new punk incorporates new independent media outlets like The Canary, the Twitter crowd of lefties and us lot of rebellious indie authors.
Punk has always been misunderstood by the mainstream media and your average middle-class Joneses too. When they think of punk, they think of spitting, hard-nut youths with green hair that hate everyone and everything. Nothing could be further from the truth. Punk gave more women the opportunity of being in a band, punk helped to create equality between the black and white youths of segregated Britain, punk helped to bring straight and gay people together (which developed into the New Romantic scene), punk was about loving one another. “What the fuck, Harry? Punk was about love? You sure about that?” Yeah, I am. I’ve never known more of a loving group in my life than the punk-hearted people I’ve known. Uniting. That’s what punk was about (“If the kids are united…”).
PiL were better than the Pistols (and more punk than the punk bands that were emerging at the time in the aftermath of the Pistols’ demise) and I want to get to know John Lydon better, so I’m gonna get around to reading his other book ‘Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored’, where hopefully I’ll get to know more about the philosophy and politics of Lydon. That’s what I wanted more of in ‘Rotten’, but this book is still a great read.
They couldn’t sing. They couldn’t play. (Once Glen Matlock had been ousted anyway – poor ol’ Glen. I once saw him playing a short acoustic set in Borders bookshop to a crowd of about only fifteen people.) But boy, did the Pistols shake things up and produce one of the most classic albums of all time. The world wouldn’t be the same if the Pistols had never formed.
God Save John Lydon.
First off, let’s get what I didn’t like about this autobiography out of the way. This book is called ‘Rotten’, so obviously it’s about Johnny’s time as a Sex Pistol, rather than about Lydon himself and his other ventures; although there is a lot of information about his upbringing and so on, as you’d expect. But I still wanted a lot more of the man, more than the Pistol. I wanted to get to know Johnny better and I felt like I didn’t learn a huge amount more about him than I already knew, but that’s not to say there’s not a lot of insightful stuff along the way. A lot of the time though, it didn’t feel like this was Johnny’s book. It’s co-authored with two writers, and much of the time it felt like they had just transcribed what Lydon had said on tape, rather than it being written by the man himself. The book also has a hell of a lot of other contributors, including Paul Cook, Chrissie Hynde, Julian Temple, Steve Severin and Johnny’s dad. The idea of breaking up John’s prose with segments from these people who were there at the time works in its intention: it helps to give a different side of the same story. But, for me, it just broke up the prose too much – especially when there are whole chapters written by these guys. It’s supposed to be an autobiography, after all.
All that aside, if you want to read about the Sex Pistols story, you probably won’t get better than this book. And even though much of the information was covering old territory that every punk fan knows, it was all delivered in a raw way that brought to life that exciting time in the mid-seventies when, led by Lydon, kids started “doing it for themselves”.
Lydon’s full of contradictions: he wanted to inspire anyone to pick up a guitar and join a band, as a backlash to broken Britain and the Rick Wakeman type music and post-Beatles fandom of the time, but he never wanted to create a scene. It was about doing your own thing, not following the crowd; or following Lydon. John’s therefore rather dismissive of such great bands as The Clash. But you can’t want to start a revolution of inspiring kids to be in a band and speak their own truth and at the same time hate the scene that you’ve helped to create, ‘cos that’s an oxy(they made you a )moron. Without the Pistols, there wouldn’t have been Sham 69, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Undertones etc. And I know I play those bands a lot more than I do the Pistols.
Being a part of the indie author scene, I was noticing some parallels between Lydon’s rebellious Do It Yourself approach and the books by indie authors who are doing the same, (Where else do you see people denouncing the monarchy in this modern age of royal-love from the media?) such as (my good friends) Rupert Dreyfus and Andy Carrington. Twenty-first century Britain mirrors the mid-seventies in a lot of ways, with cuts being made ‘cos of austerity and the poor getting poorer, and mainstream media ignoring No Future grassroots scenes. It feels like some indie authors are rebelling, by using the tools that the digital age has given us, in exactly the same way as the likes of Lydon did, with other tools, back in the day. Punk never went away, even if it changed over time to become just another music scene. Greats like Tim Armstrong and Green Day (not to mention non-punk-with-punk-attitudes bands like Rage Against The Machine and Public Enemy) have kept it alive over the years. However, the true spirit of punk, that was the Sex Pistols, has never quite happened in the same way again – but with the advent of the internet, perhaps we’re seeing a new form of punk that we haven’t actually named yet (and maybe we shouldn’t name it anyway). The new punk incorporates new independent media outlets like The Canary, the Twitter crowd of lefties and us lot of rebellious indie authors.
Punk has always been misunderstood by the mainstream media and your average middle-class Joneses too. When they think of punk, they think of spitting, hard-nut youths with green hair that hate everyone and everything. Nothing could be further from the truth. Punk gave more women the opportunity of being in a band, punk helped to create equality between the black and white youths of segregated Britain, punk helped to bring straight and gay people together (which developed into the New Romantic scene), punk was about loving one another. “What the fuck, Harry? Punk was about love? You sure about that?” Yeah, I am. I’ve never known more of a loving group in my life than the punk-hearted people I’ve known. Uniting. That’s what punk was about (“If the kids are united…”).
PiL were better than the Pistols (and more punk than the punk bands that were emerging at the time in the aftermath of the Pistols’ demise) and I want to get to know John Lydon better, so I’m gonna get around to reading his other book ‘Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored’, where hopefully I’ll get to know more about the philosophy and politics of Lydon. That’s what I wanted more of in ‘Rotten’, but this book is still a great read.
They couldn’t sing. They couldn’t play. (Once Glen Matlock had been ousted anyway – poor ol’ Glen. I once saw him playing a short acoustic set in Borders bookshop to a crowd of about only fifteen people.) But boy, did the Pistols shake things up and produce one of the most classic albums of all time. The world wouldn’t be the same if the Pistols had never formed.
God Save John Lydon.
February 4, 2012
Any Old Way You Like It
There are three musicians (with respect to whom).. sorry, I'll start again..
John Lennon, John Lydon, Noel Gallagher... I would listen to everything they ever said and read everything they ever wrote, if only I could get my hands on it.
My, What a Big Sex Pistol You Have
People were scared of the Sex Pistols and terrified of what they might do to the music industry.
This is Rotten to the core.
More, Please
We need something like this to put the wind up us again.
We need more people this savvy in the music industry.
No we don't, we need more people like this making and distributing their own music.
October 24, 2011
There are three musicians (with respect to whom).. sorry, I'll start again..
John Lennon, John Lydon, Noel Gallagher... I would listen to everything they ever said and read everything they ever wrote, if only I could get my hands on it.
My, What a Big Sex Pistol You Have
People were scared of the Sex Pistols and terrified of what they might do to the music industry.
This is Rotten to the core.
More, Please
We need something like this to put the wind up us again.
We need more people this savvy in the music industry.
No we don't, we need more people like this making and distributing their own music.
October 24, 2011
August 2, 2012
This book is utterly fantastic.
I read this when I was 15 and was obsessed, not with the Sex Pistols but John Lydon as a person, his views and how he lives his life.
With the help of many of his musician friends (NAMELY Chrissy Hynde who was everywhere from 1970-1990), he tells his life story from growing up in Finsbury Park to PIL, up to it's publishing in 1994.
I think the main point to make is that this is not another "totez punk" autobiography, John Lydon is far more intelligent and anarchic than anyone will ever give him credit for.
This is a truly insightful read.
I read this when I was 15 and was obsessed, not with the Sex Pistols but John Lydon as a person, his views and how he lives his life.
With the help of many of his musician friends (NAMELY Chrissy Hynde who was everywhere from 1970-1990), he tells his life story from growing up in Finsbury Park to PIL, up to it's publishing in 1994.
I think the main point to make is that this is not another "totez punk" autobiography, John Lydon is far more intelligent and anarchic than anyone will ever give him credit for.
This is a truly insightful read.
April 1, 2010
I bought this about 6 years ago when I was a young impressionable 15 year old. I read it like the bible. I was never really into the punk scene, but it FASCINATED me. I began to show up my punker friends with my Sex Pistol knowledge. And it really helped me figure out a lot of things. I began to carry this book wherever I went. It had notes upon notes in it, underlines, circles, everything! I studied this book more than any of my textbooks. Unfortunately I gave it to a friend to read and her mother found it at a very inopurtune time and discarded it. The thing is I am Mormon, raised Mormon, and love being Mormon. So was my friend, but she was fighting it. She didn't believe and that's totally fine with me, but her parents had issues and felt that it was inappropriate. See the thing with reading a book like this when you're 15 is your maturity level. I saw the terrible things that happened in that book as a result of drugs and though "Oh okay, bad, don't do that". Others saw it as "OOOOh! Let's try that! Sid Vicious did it!". So I think I am going to rebuy this book because it's really important to me to own this book. I love music, I love people and it hit me at a really influential time in my life.
March 13, 2010
on Friday, November 28, 2008 I wrote about this book:
Well I am very disappointed with it. The main problem was Johnny Rotten himself. He is constantly bragging about himself and thinks he is God or something. Nobody else does any good except for him. All the band members were bad, all the other bands sucked. (yawn) Plus he is also constantly contradicting himself. lol. Can't take this serious.
Another annoying thing, the story repeats itself also every time because everybody gets a say. And even though I lived the same kind of life as he and his friends did, I thought it was boring.
End conclusion. What a boring book. I've lived this life, lived in a squad with other punks , visited the gigs of all the bands he is talking about, but Rotten is too annoying, every band sucks according to him. Plus it was very repetitious.
Well I am very disappointed with it. The main problem was Johnny Rotten himself. He is constantly bragging about himself and thinks he is God or something. Nobody else does any good except for him. All the band members were bad, all the other bands sucked. (yawn) Plus he is also constantly contradicting himself. lol. Can't take this serious.
Another annoying thing, the story repeats itself also every time because everybody gets a say. And even though I lived the same kind of life as he and his friends did, I thought it was boring.
End conclusion. What a boring book. I've lived this life, lived in a squad with other punks , visited the gigs of all the bands he is talking about, but Rotten is too annoying, every band sucks according to him. Plus it was very repetitious.
August 16, 2018
First off, I have to admit that Lydon is right at the top of the list of people who have influenced me and who I hold in the highest regard.
This book is entertaining, intelligent, and honest. Lydon is a guy who can laugh at himself. He is also a good storyteller; he has the classic Celtic style courtesy of his Irish roots.
So many artists from this era are dead and gone, if only one could survive to be the official voice of the first punk wave, I am glad it is John Lydon.
Funny how a very small thing can influence a person many years later.....I am pushing 50 and still refuse to vacation in the Caribbean because of "Holidays in the Sun"......I don't want to holiday in other people's misery. (the fact that I am not a fan of sun, sand and surf might also have something to do with it)
I would be interested in reading anything else he might publish, and hope he writes another book sometime soon.
This book is entertaining, intelligent, and honest. Lydon is a guy who can laugh at himself. He is also a good storyteller; he has the classic Celtic style courtesy of his Irish roots.
So many artists from this era are dead and gone, if only one could survive to be the official voice of the first punk wave, I am glad it is John Lydon.
Funny how a very small thing can influence a person many years later.....I am pushing 50 and still refuse to vacation in the Caribbean because of "Holidays in the Sun"......I don't want to holiday in other people's misery. (the fact that I am not a fan of sun, sand and surf might also have something to do with it)
I would be interested in reading anything else he might publish, and hope he writes another book sometime soon.
June 26, 2015
“Any kind of history you read is basically the winning side telling you the others were bad.”
If that doesn't perfectly describe this book, I don't know what does.
I am of two frames of mind thinking about this book. One is that I found John Lydon's stance on the entire punk scene to be outstanding, and one that I agree with also, so I'm biased. When the punk scene started it was something completely different than what it evolved into and a lot of punks now don't seem to realize that. The fact that it is a scene now is the greatest indicator of that. Punk's origin wasn't about looking and thinking the same to fit in with a group. I respect Lydon for recognizing that and harping on it so much throughout the book.
What wasn't interesting was how repetitive and bitter he still was about the Pistols. I won't fault Lydon for his bitterness, I'd be bitter as hell too, but 200 pages of incessant whining about it is more than my patience can take. The book starts to lose it's emphasis on the contribution of the Pistols and turns into a giant manifesto on why Malcolm McLaren is the worst person on the planet. But hey, he doesn't harbor any feelings of hatred toward him. Ha. I guess you should expect no less from Johnny Rotten though.
Despite the overabundance of bitterness, I still enjoyed this read. It's written like John Lydon talks: brash, nihilistic, narcisstic and incredibly entertaining. It talks about the British punk scene like no other artist would be able to do in the same way. I may not agree with a lot of Lydon's "truths", but you can't deny that he was a major player in the punk world. This book is worth a read just for that aspect alone.
If that doesn't perfectly describe this book, I don't know what does.
I am of two frames of mind thinking about this book. One is that I found John Lydon's stance on the entire punk scene to be outstanding, and one that I agree with also, so I'm biased. When the punk scene started it was something completely different than what it evolved into and a lot of punks now don't seem to realize that. The fact that it is a scene now is the greatest indicator of that. Punk's origin wasn't about looking and thinking the same to fit in with a group. I respect Lydon for recognizing that and harping on it so much throughout the book.
What wasn't interesting was how repetitive and bitter he still was about the Pistols. I won't fault Lydon for his bitterness, I'd be bitter as hell too, but 200 pages of incessant whining about it is more than my patience can take. The book starts to lose it's emphasis on the contribution of the Pistols and turns into a giant manifesto on why Malcolm McLaren is the worst person on the planet. But hey, he doesn't harbor any feelings of hatred toward him. Ha. I guess you should expect no less from Johnny Rotten though.
Despite the overabundance of bitterness, I still enjoyed this read. It's written like John Lydon talks: brash, nihilistic, narcisstic and incredibly entertaining. It talks about the British punk scene like no other artist would be able to do in the same way. I may not agree with a lot of Lydon's "truths", but you can't deny that he was a major player in the punk world. This book is worth a read just for that aspect alone.
May 14, 2019
I saw John Lydon on the Conan O'Brian show and was impressed with his thoughtful intelligence. He was also promoting this book, so I bought it.
It is difficult to say whether I gained any insight to the Punk movement of the late seventies. After reading this book I conclude that everyone involved was a bunch of illiterate reprobates who were anti-everything, including each other. The Sex Pistols glorified in their disgusting shenanigans on stage, got lots of trash thrown at them while they were performing and, unsurprisingly imploded without hope of recovery only a couple of years after they began.
Most people who are remotely interested in this genre are familiar with Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungeon and their fast track to perdition, but this book only speaks of them peripherally. I did find it ironic that they all hated Nancy so much because of her aggressive, abrasive and immoral character. Uh, isn't that the embodiment of the Punk movement?
But they also hated her for getting Sid hooked on heroin. I personally think his mother, a heroin addict, and Sid's supplier, had something to do with that, although no doubt, Nancy accelerated Sid's race toward destruction, but the reality is, no one takes you where you don't want to go.
The book is narrated by many people, not just Mr. Lydon, and I will give him credit that he does not censor anyone's commentary, even if it does not put him in a good light.
Finally, I have to say I got tired of reading it, because regardless of what middle schoolers and emotionally immature adults think, dropping the F-bomb every other sentence and describing how you trashed people's houses or how many women you were with, is actually a banal read. I started racing through the last quarter just to finish it.
I have already bought Lydon's second book, Anger is an Energy. He was older when he wrote it. Let's hope he's grown up a little as well.
It is difficult to say whether I gained any insight to the Punk movement of the late seventies. After reading this book I conclude that everyone involved was a bunch of illiterate reprobates who were anti-everything, including each other. The Sex Pistols glorified in their disgusting shenanigans on stage, got lots of trash thrown at them while they were performing and, unsurprisingly imploded without hope of recovery only a couple of years after they began.
Most people who are remotely interested in this genre are familiar with Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungeon and their fast track to perdition, but this book only speaks of them peripherally. I did find it ironic that they all hated Nancy so much because of her aggressive, abrasive and immoral character. Uh, isn't that the embodiment of the Punk movement?
But they also hated her for getting Sid hooked on heroin. I personally think his mother, a heroin addict, and Sid's supplier, had something to do with that, although no doubt, Nancy accelerated Sid's race toward destruction, but the reality is, no one takes you where you don't want to go.
The book is narrated by many people, not just Mr. Lydon, and I will give him credit that he does not censor anyone's commentary, even if it does not put him in a good light.
Finally, I have to say I got tired of reading it, because regardless of what middle schoolers and emotionally immature adults think, dropping the F-bomb every other sentence and describing how you trashed people's houses or how many women you were with, is actually a banal read. I started racing through the last quarter just to finish it.
I have already bought Lydon's second book, Anger is an Energy. He was older when he wrote it. Let's hope he's grown up a little as well.
November 20, 2011
If you looked up the word wanker in the dictionary, there would be a picture of John Lydon there. This book was saved from one star by being kind of funny from time to time and having tidbits of information about 70s London punk I didn't know before. Sure, I mean, he's been in involved with 4 or 5 classic records, but reading the rantings of an egomaniac is never a good time.
December 25, 2008
This is as honest as you'll get from John Lydon, no conning, no overdone punk rock grandstanding. Lydon talks about his spinal meningitis, his friends aka gang "The Johns" (incl. John "Sid Vicious" Richie) and Siouxie Sioux's delight in owning home appliances. Funny and sad and honest all the way.
April 30, 2012
Who knew Lydon was such a good writer?
-Anyone who´s listened to his songs.
I have a few questions; how can the difference between holding individuality as the highest goal fit with the seemingly contradictory purpose of making music and fashion that is understandable to everyone, spanning through the range of economic and social classes?
And all the music that does that, these days anyway, is Pop or Top 20 Hip-Hop, boasting individual stars as benign as flowers, and challenging the status-quo about as much. And the individuality that is presented is marketed, bought and sold, and replicated for society by top-dog execs. with profits on the mind, not social change or personal rebellions. And this is the music that spans economic and social classes.
I don´t like that.
-Anyone who´s listened to his songs.
I have a few questions; how can the difference between holding individuality as the highest goal fit with the seemingly contradictory purpose of making music and fashion that is understandable to everyone, spanning through the range of economic and social classes?
And all the music that does that, these days anyway, is Pop or Top 20 Hip-Hop, boasting individual stars as benign as flowers, and challenging the status-quo about as much. And the individuality that is presented is marketed, bought and sold, and replicated for society by top-dog execs. with profits on the mind, not social change or personal rebellions. And this is the music that spans economic and social classes.
I don´t like that.
March 2, 2009
Wow, Johnny Rotten is a bitter little monkey. Only about the first half of the book is actually about the Sex Pistols, and it was really more about the punk scene than about Rotten's experience as a Pistol. The last half of the book was about how much he hates Malcolm McLaren. You won the court case, Johnny, get over it already.
He's a solid writer and an intelligent man - I'm disappointed because this book could've been so much more.
He's a solid writer and an intelligent man - I'm disappointed because this book could've been so much more.
April 12, 2023
One of the best music autobiographies I've read so far. Very eye opening. Whatever you think of the man himself or the legends that surround him, he comes across as humble (despite the bragging) intelligent and every bit as chaotic as you might imagine. Whip smart and with a fantastic sense of humour and the absurd. It's even worth reading just to get to the final line. One of the best ways to end on a high note (of sorts) ever!
November 15, 2013
A very entertaining biography from one of the men who made punk happen. John Lydon writes exactly like he speaks, and you get the feeling he's sitting in your living room, talking to you when he tells his story. You might not like some of it, you might not agree with some of it, but this is John Lydon, warts and all, telling his story as it happened. Authentic, funny, honest.
February 26, 2018
Recuerdo comprar este libro un viernes a la tarde recién levantado y de resaka en el año 2008.
Diez años después, en el año 2018 lo pusimos en wallapop por 10 euros. Lo compraron el mismo día.
¿El punk era algo parecido a esto, verdad?
Review:
1 - el libro se deja leer,
2 - Johnny Rotten es un gilipollas,
3 - Tu también eras más punki hace diez años.
Diez años después, en el año 2018 lo pusimos en wallapop por 10 euros. Lo compraron el mismo día.
¿El punk era algo parecido a esto, verdad?
Review:
1 - el libro se deja leer,
2 - Johnny Rotten es un gilipollas,
3 - Tu también eras más punki hace diez años.
January 19, 2013
My initial introduction to The Sex Pistols came about by way of a Rolling Stone TV special on rock music. I must have heard The Sex Pistols previously, but there was something about seeing them perform “Anarchy In The U. K.” that cemented this band as something I desperately needed to check out. It was late but I convinced my folks to take me to the record store so I could buy Never Mind The Bollocks.
Oddly enough, I also purchased the first Montrose LP on that trip. I guess the sound of a guitar imitating a bad motor scooter was as intriguing at the time as free, fierce, revolutionary rock ‘n’ roll.
Because The Pistols weren’t “punk” in my mind when I took the cellophane of that copy of Bollocks and set it spinning on my turntable. I wasn't really aware of “punk” at the time. Vaguely, perhaps, but all that would come later when I was old enough to hang out with my miscreant friends outside the house. At the time, The Pistols were just another band and I experienced them accordingly. Did I like this album? Yes? Did it speak to me? Yes. The guitars sounded incredible and that voice! What the hell was that? Loved it. I thought Bollocks was the greatest thing I’d heard in a long time and it has become, in my mind, one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll records ever made.
John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten was the spitting, writhing, angry mouth of The Sex Pistols. As a kid, he elicited no small amount of hero worship in me. I thought he was just perfect. He spoke his mind, he didn’t do what he was expected or told to do, he was brutally honest about the world as he saw it and he made no apologies for his outspoken behavior. Perfect! That ain’t a bad role model! If I rationalized or even ignored some of his nastier moments in tearing people down or making interviewers remarkably uncomfortable, it was because we forgive the transgressions of our heroes, often too quickly and easily. Besides, taken on the whole, what were a few rude words?
I’ve never quite understood the backlash Lydon has received. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at a club or party and had to listen to someone go off about Johnny Rotten, the sellout, or what a poseur he is or whatever. Personal attacks on a stranger. Nonsense. Out of all of the punk old guard, who sold out less than Lydon? Who did what they wanted to do, regardless of fans desires or record label expectations?
For that matter, who never tried to be part of any sort of movement (“punk” or otherwise) when all the rest of the bands in England were banding together like cattle and having a go at this punk thing? I’ll never understand the criticisms of Lydon. He can be in all the butter commercials he wants, as far as I’m concerned. He’s still one of the best and brightest to come out of the “entertainment industry” in my lifetime.
Rotten is, to me, an incredibly insightful journey into the time that was The Sex Pistols era. All the mountains of books that have been written about The Sex Pistols have amounted to a lot of hearsay, massive amounts of revisionist history and no clear picture of the people or their motivations. Hell, with McClaren in the mix, “truth” becomes as questionable a term as “punk.” Not much meaning there. What this book does is at least clear the waters as to what motivated The Pistols and what roles were really played. Because, whatever horrible things Lydon might be, he’s not a liar. You sense a very deep resentment and indignation over having his life and history manipulated by so many. In much the way The Filth And The Fury wiped clean the messy slate left by The Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Swindle, Rotten brings some much needed levity to the void left by the hoards of Sex Pistols books. I’m not saying all the books are bad, just that this one was made necessary by their existence.
Perhaps the second great function of Rotten is to reveal a very human side of Lydon’s character, one he rarely let the public see in PiL interviews. Reading about his childhood, his meningitis, his youth, gives you a far more complete understanding of John Lydon, the human being. Seeing his vitriol and righteous anger tempered by his human needs and emotions paints a far more revealing picture.
And, lest we judge Lydon for hogging the spotlight in this project, input from a dozen people who were there at the time gives the reader a wider perspective.
I’ve read Rotten a handful of times since it was published in 1994 and different things strike me as important each time. This time around, I picked up on a lot of what Lydon has to say about the early scene he and The Pistols were part of, how it wasn’t called “punk” until much later and that, by then, it was more or less a mainstream phenomenon. Those are my words, not Lydon’s. He talks about the ten or twenty people who made up the initial “movement,” before it could ever be called a movement. Then everyone and their mother found out about it and wanted to be punk so it progressed to the clubs filling up with clones in uniforms. And, though he doesn’t say much about it in the book, you have to figure he sees “punks” walking around today and is likely equal parts disgusted and amused. I think he’d say something like, “Get your own movement, make your own scene, don’t do what everyone else is doing, do what you want to do.”
Lydon recalls learning in college that putting Shakespeare in modern language would cause the writing to “lose its point and purpose.”
“It’s the same logic as to why you can’t live out a seventies punk rock environment today in the nineties. It’s not valid now and it doesn’t connect to anything around it.” That’s one of the most perfect and accurate comparisons I’ve heard regarding “punk.”
After finishing the book, I got on youtube and watched a few hours worth of interviews with Lydon. I like the older Lydon. He's more well rounded, not so angry, not so antagonistic. Some of those early PiL interviews are so uncomfortable, if often funny. He seemed to turn a corner in his thirties where he let go of a lot of the venom in favor of getting his point across. I think it suits him. Regardless, I remain impressed and enthralled with this man all these years later.
The best interview footage I found was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C0Pr...
Ricky Lake just giggles through the entire thing. It's hilarious.
This is the worst one I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4spFiI...
Puts forth a lot of nonsense, as narrated by Kiefer Sutherland. They should have given Kiefer some accurate notes...
Rotten is an incredibly interesting read. A little social commentary, a look into the English class system, some fine historic perspective and lots of good stories. Some great photos, too, that weren’t published before this book came out. And through it all, the voice of Lydon, the not so omnipotent narrator. I think it’s an absolute treat and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Oddly enough, I also purchased the first Montrose LP on that trip. I guess the sound of a guitar imitating a bad motor scooter was as intriguing at the time as free, fierce, revolutionary rock ‘n’ roll.
Because The Pistols weren’t “punk” in my mind when I took the cellophane of that copy of Bollocks and set it spinning on my turntable. I wasn't really aware of “punk” at the time. Vaguely, perhaps, but all that would come later when I was old enough to hang out with my miscreant friends outside the house. At the time, The Pistols were just another band and I experienced them accordingly. Did I like this album? Yes? Did it speak to me? Yes. The guitars sounded incredible and that voice! What the hell was that? Loved it. I thought Bollocks was the greatest thing I’d heard in a long time and it has become, in my mind, one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll records ever made.
John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten was the spitting, writhing, angry mouth of The Sex Pistols. As a kid, he elicited no small amount of hero worship in me. I thought he was just perfect. He spoke his mind, he didn’t do what he was expected or told to do, he was brutally honest about the world as he saw it and he made no apologies for his outspoken behavior. Perfect! That ain’t a bad role model! If I rationalized or even ignored some of his nastier moments in tearing people down or making interviewers remarkably uncomfortable, it was because we forgive the transgressions of our heroes, often too quickly and easily. Besides, taken on the whole, what were a few rude words?
I’ve never quite understood the backlash Lydon has received. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at a club or party and had to listen to someone go off about Johnny Rotten, the sellout, or what a poseur he is or whatever. Personal attacks on a stranger. Nonsense. Out of all of the punk old guard, who sold out less than Lydon? Who did what they wanted to do, regardless of fans desires or record label expectations?
For that matter, who never tried to be part of any sort of movement (“punk” or otherwise) when all the rest of the bands in England were banding together like cattle and having a go at this punk thing? I’ll never understand the criticisms of Lydon. He can be in all the butter commercials he wants, as far as I’m concerned. He’s still one of the best and brightest to come out of the “entertainment industry” in my lifetime.
Rotten is, to me, an incredibly insightful journey into the time that was The Sex Pistols era. All the mountains of books that have been written about The Sex Pistols have amounted to a lot of hearsay, massive amounts of revisionist history and no clear picture of the people or their motivations. Hell, with McClaren in the mix, “truth” becomes as questionable a term as “punk.” Not much meaning there. What this book does is at least clear the waters as to what motivated The Pistols and what roles were really played. Because, whatever horrible things Lydon might be, he’s not a liar. You sense a very deep resentment and indignation over having his life and history manipulated by so many. In much the way The Filth And The Fury wiped clean the messy slate left by The Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Swindle, Rotten brings some much needed levity to the void left by the hoards of Sex Pistols books. I’m not saying all the books are bad, just that this one was made necessary by their existence.
Perhaps the second great function of Rotten is to reveal a very human side of Lydon’s character, one he rarely let the public see in PiL interviews. Reading about his childhood, his meningitis, his youth, gives you a far more complete understanding of John Lydon, the human being. Seeing his vitriol and righteous anger tempered by his human needs and emotions paints a far more revealing picture.
And, lest we judge Lydon for hogging the spotlight in this project, input from a dozen people who were there at the time gives the reader a wider perspective.
I’ve read Rotten a handful of times since it was published in 1994 and different things strike me as important each time. This time around, I picked up on a lot of what Lydon has to say about the early scene he and The Pistols were part of, how it wasn’t called “punk” until much later and that, by then, it was more or less a mainstream phenomenon. Those are my words, not Lydon’s. He talks about the ten or twenty people who made up the initial “movement,” before it could ever be called a movement. Then everyone and their mother found out about it and wanted to be punk so it progressed to the clubs filling up with clones in uniforms. And, though he doesn’t say much about it in the book, you have to figure he sees “punks” walking around today and is likely equal parts disgusted and amused. I think he’d say something like, “Get your own movement, make your own scene, don’t do what everyone else is doing, do what you want to do.”
Lydon recalls learning in college that putting Shakespeare in modern language would cause the writing to “lose its point and purpose.”
“It’s the same logic as to why you can’t live out a seventies punk rock environment today in the nineties. It’s not valid now and it doesn’t connect to anything around it.” That’s one of the most perfect and accurate comparisons I’ve heard regarding “punk.”
After finishing the book, I got on youtube and watched a few hours worth of interviews with Lydon. I like the older Lydon. He's more well rounded, not so angry, not so antagonistic. Some of those early PiL interviews are so uncomfortable, if often funny. He seemed to turn a corner in his thirties where he let go of a lot of the venom in favor of getting his point across. I think it suits him. Regardless, I remain impressed and enthralled with this man all these years later.
The best interview footage I found was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C0Pr...
Ricky Lake just giggles through the entire thing. It's hilarious.
This is the worst one I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4spFiI...
Puts forth a lot of nonsense, as narrated by Kiefer Sutherland. They should have given Kiefer some accurate notes...
Rotten is an incredibly interesting read. A little social commentary, a look into the English class system, some fine historic perspective and lots of good stories. Some great photos, too, that weren’t published before this book came out. And through it all, the voice of Lydon, the not so omnipotent narrator. I think it’s an absolute treat and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
August 29, 2022
3.5 stars.
November 24, 2014
Enjoyable yes, noteworthy no. I wasn't expecting previously untold revelations or learning lots I didn't already know but besides detailing his childhood and what everyone was wearing there's not a whole lot of information here. I did discover that a chain was Sid's weapon of choice. We all know the Sex Pistols didn't get along. It takes all of about 5 pages before John throws Glen Matlock under the tour bus for his opinion on what the group should be like. Had this book spent as much time on the group's antics it would have been more entertaining. The only stories that stuck with me were when Sid sees a Hasidic Jew dressed in traditional garb and he thinks it would look great on him so he goes to the store where the guy bought the outfit. The owner wisely refuses to sell him the clothes. The other was when John gets arrested and gives his name as Dave Vanian, the lead singer of the Damned. Better to have included stories like the day the Sex Pistols were signed to A&M which for me was the quintessential day in the life of the group. On the way over an argument ensues over who's got the best punk attitude. In the process Sid gets his shoes thrown out the window. On the way in he cuts his foot. Once inside, anarchy ensues. Sid none too pleasantly hollers for a bandage. John decides the décor can be improved by spray painting the walls. Paul plays frisbee with the company's record collection and Steve walks into the wrong loo and starts to have a go with the woman inside. To top it off the gang finds and makes short work of the booze meant for those covering the event. A&M figures it's best to cut their losses and drops them a few weeks later. Incidentally, the title refers to a sign John saw in a flat that was renting rooms.
November 29, 2014
What a great insight on the music industry of 70's. I recently got into Sex Pistols and when I saw this book on the book fair I just had to have it. It was a really fun and genuine book to read.
Never realised that John Lydon could be such a good writer. I mean, he writes amazing songs but I never thought he could actually write a book. Very judgmental of me, but yeah... I guess I am judgmental after all....
The only thing I didn't like is that in basically 200 or so pages different people talk about the same thing. It's really great knowing how different people from different sides viewed certain events, but really, those parts were kinda the same, only having slight differences from person to person. My favorite part of the book was the part after the Sex Pistols. Reading about Sid's death, about the break up, his relationship with Malcolm after all this time and how John formed Public Image Ltd. It's sad how a lot of people in that world is very hypocritical and basically don't care about the music and artists, just money.
I love this book and am grateful for having the opportunity to read it. Things they did for music culture was very influential, though you can't find a band like them these days. There won't be anything like them ever again.
Never realised that John Lydon could be such a good writer. I mean, he writes amazing songs but I never thought he could actually write a book. Very judgmental of me, but yeah... I guess I am judgmental after all....
The only thing I didn't like is that in basically 200 or so pages different people talk about the same thing. It's really great knowing how different people from different sides viewed certain events, but really, those parts were kinda the same, only having slight differences from person to person. My favorite part of the book was the part after the Sex Pistols. Reading about Sid's death, about the break up, his relationship with Malcolm after all this time and how John formed Public Image Ltd. It's sad how a lot of people in that world is very hypocritical and basically don't care about the music and artists, just money.
I love this book and am grateful for having the opportunity to read it. Things they did for music culture was very influential, though you can't find a band like them these days. There won't be anything like them ever again.
November 22, 2020
"You should never, ever be understood completely" (3)
Perhaps this is why Lydon never considers his own contradictions or hypocrisies or sexism or self-indulgence as problematic. This is too similar to Steven Tyler's 2011 autobiography, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?, to which most readers summarily answered a resounding and collective, "Yes!"
No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, however, was written in 1994 and must be assessed on its own merit. For a person who doesn't know (or care) much about early British punk (except for Souxsie and the Banshees, who are pretty amazing and who Lydon talks massive shit about), this was an interesting and meandering narrative. I appreciated the various voices interwoven throughout the book, from bandmates to Chrissie Hynde, because it saves us from his tiresome and constant rehashing of his fashion choices and bitterness about people's emulation of said fashion choices, and then contradictory assertion that he joined the band to be famous. Overall, the book was fine but kind of annoying.
Perhaps this is why Lydon never considers his own contradictions or hypocrisies or sexism or self-indulgence as problematic. This is too similar to Steven Tyler's 2011 autobiography, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?, to which most readers summarily answered a resounding and collective, "Yes!"
No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, however, was written in 1994 and must be assessed on its own merit. For a person who doesn't know (or care) much about early British punk (except for Souxsie and the Banshees, who are pretty amazing and who Lydon talks massive shit about), this was an interesting and meandering narrative. I appreciated the various voices interwoven throughout the book, from bandmates to Chrissie Hynde, because it saves us from his tiresome and constant rehashing of his fashion choices and bitterness about people's emulation of said fashion choices, and then contradictory assertion that he joined the band to be famous. Overall, the book was fine but kind of annoying.
October 24, 2012
Near the end of the book Lydon writes the following line, "We're The Flowers In Your Dust Bin." If there is a better summation of the art of the Sex Pistols. I am unaware of it. I love this book. I love his revisionism. I love his unapologetic contempt. I love the style of his writing though I could do without some of the unnecessary repetition but I can live with it. Pair this up with England's Dreaming and I think you can know all the most important stuff about the original wave of UK Punk Rock. The Pistols caused a tidal wave in pop culture and rock music. There was a tremendous price to be paid by all the participants. You'll get a good look at what that was and how much it cost all of them. Wonderful wonderful book. Full of antagonism, contempt, joy and thoughtfulness. If you have any interest in punk rock at all this is on your must read list.
December 14, 2014
I wouldn't say John Lydon wrote this book; I'd say he spoke into a tape recorder at some length and had someone transcribe his ramblings and condense them into a sort-of memoir. The best sections are those in which others who were on the scene add their thoughts, recollections, and analysis -- Chrissie Hynde, unsurprisingly, is especially insightful (and what I wouldn't give to read her memoirs of her career and what she witnessed at the creation of punk). Lydon's parts involve a great deal of score-settling (Malcolm and Vivienne were dumb credit-stealers -- there, I've saved you hours of slogging) and blame-shifting. Peter Hook's memoir Unknown Pleasures is a far superior book.
February 18, 2010
That despite liking some of his music, i would not like to sit down over a pint of Guinness with John Lydon. That there is no end to the amount of fictional embellishment possible in an autobiography.
SOUNDTRACK: Metal Box by Public Image Ltd
SOUNDTRACK: Metal Box by Public Image Ltd
December 13, 2007
Read this many years ago, I remember it as being a true account of the punk scene, 1977 and all that, as opposed to the glossed up media view of Punk.
November 12, 2008
I'm sorry, but Rotten can't write.
January 4, 2009
John Lydon is typically egotistical and self-righteous in his re-telling.
Interesting but not enough to forgive the aforementioned.
Interesting but not enough to forgive the aforementioned.
April 11, 2010
Horribly written and tedious.
September 24, 2012
I Love this book. It is wonderful blunt writing at it's best. Johnny would be an interesting joy for most to spend some time with. I would love another(book) from him.
December 22, 2013
Meh. Repetitive and somewhat self-aggrandizing. That last shouldn't be surprising, I suppose.
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