Wild Bill wrote
....the stupid nobs that in the 70's were proclaiming The Bay city rollers as the new Beatles
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I do, in fact know someone who would entirely agree with this appraisal of the Rollers.(Probably the hardest and most Rock n Roll 'boyband ' ever.)
As for the Pistols influencing an entire subversive counter culture.
I’d say that they lit the fuse and after that their influence was minimal.
It was everyone else who came after who created the counter culture, those that took advantage of the zeitgeist, Buzzcocks, Banshees , Magazine, Slits, X-Ray Spex, Don Letts, Skids, etc, etc
Apart from opening the floodgates (for which McClaren,(love him or loathe him) and Vivienne Westwood should get a lot of credit) no mean feat in itself., I don’t think they have left any direct influence themselves apart from the stupid, stupid, cult of Sid.
PIL is Lydon’s legacy and much more subversive than the Pistols.
Any subversion that Punk may have brought disappeared as soon as Joe Strummer started banging on about wanting his own White Riot and you started getting hassled by crazy coloured Mohawks in Carnaby Street on a Saturday afternoon, ‘for 10p mate’.
The Pistols were a pub rock band with a fine tunesmith (Matlock) who happened to get lucky timing wise and also by finding a fantastically twisted and intelligent frontman. Unfortunately they spoilt it all and popped their aura by getting back together.
I agree that the punk effect can still be felt 'in art literature and fashion today' and the world is a better place for it.
But I still think the Pistols were the powder keg that started a chain reaction, opened the doors for people yes, but it was those who ran through the doors with them that built and directed the legacy, not the Pistols as a band.
So really much the same as Guns and Roses, Appetite was a cherry bomb amongst the hairspray, shook up the US rock scene and others took up the baton whilst G n R fought each other in the playground and lost the plot..
Never Mind The Bollocks and Appetite for Destruction, great albums, great tunes ….
But really a case of, Release the pin , blow the doors and let’s sod off down the pub whilst the others do the real work…………
( Anyway, really it was Queen who invented punk, now if they hadn’t cancelled their ‘Bill Grundy’ appearance……………..)
'I have reason to believe' he said, 'that one of you has been going out at night!'