The Filth And The Fury

WITH JULIAN Temple's film going a long way towards restoring the legend the Pistols themselves did their damnedest to defile on the reunion tour of '96, it's inevitable that we'd get the soundtrack of the repackaging of the resurrection. And if that's a somewhat jaded intro, let me qualify it by saying that any excuse to hear endless permutations of the Never Mind The Bollocks sessions is alright with this recruit.

So, The Filth And The Fury is an unevenly sequenced smorgasbord of diamond-hard Pistols classics ('God Save The Queen', 'Anarchy In The UK' etc.), rehearsal tapes, out-takes and cheerfully inept but spirited cover versions, including Jonathan Richman's 'Road Runner', The Stooges' 'No Fun' and The Who's 'Substitute'.

So far so good. Where this collection falls down is in its attempt to juxtapose those ramshackle larks with the popular hits of the day, be they good (Bowie, Roxy, Alice Cooper, NY Dolls) bad (Sailor, The Bay City Rollers) or bubbly (Simaryp's 'Skinhead Moonstomp', Tappa Zukie's 'Way Over (In Dub)' and The Creation's psycho-derelict nugget 'Through My Eyes'). These elements, although intergral to the film, merely confuse the album's flow. And in attempting to establish the Pistols place in the scream of things, the omission of Richard Hell is unforgivable.

But as for the rest of the record, well, you don't need me to break it down for you: The Sex Pistols were a fucking electrifying rock 'n' roll band. Even today, at the age of two teenagers, your reviewer has to suppress the urge to Fuck Shit Up when the goon-squad stomp of 'Holidays In The Sun' or the snot-brat surge of 'Pretty Vacant' come pounding out of the speakers. The Pistols may have been the ultimate Situationist scam, but by the same token, they were never going to be Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Steve Jones' (or was it Chris Spedding's?) Chuck Berry-on-PCP rhythm guitar was too corrosive, Lydon's aboriginal whine too insolent.

Reviewing this music almost a quarter of a century after the fact, one imagines the impact Bollocks had on the music industry was akin to that crab-like thing clamping itself to the unfortunate astronaut's face in Alien. Titles like 'EMI', 'Bodies' and 'Seventeen' ("I'm a lazy sod," sneers the boy Johnny, like Harry Enfield's dirty old uncle) were a dollop of cancer-black anti-matter in the mid-70s champers.

Temple and Alex Cox's dirtwerks notwithstanding, The Pistols' tale was a Dickens yarn scripted by Alex Droog and shot by David Cronenberg.

Even now, you can still hear Lydon having the last cackle.