This book relates a sequence of events in chronological order stitched together from contemporary sources, live performance tapes and after-the-event interviews. It covers the genesis of the Sex Pistols themselves, their gigs, early recording, their management, friends, enemies, fans and hangers-on. Other bands and musicians of the time do form a part of the wider chronology (as do other sometimes self-appointed movers and shakers of the time).

Some of the sources seem anything but reliable: occasionally they are acknowledged as such. 1970s music journalists for example, were constantly opining in a sometimes feverish way, often desperate to cultivate a personal style, were busy trying to make or break bands, and weren't known for their objectivity. The after-the-event accounts to me seem to fall under the category of "unreliable memoirs". They may not be intentionally be misleading, but human memory's a funny old thing, particularly if you fervently want to claim "I was there".

While it doesn't apply to this book itself, the oft-quoted example of this is the number of people claiming to have attended a specific Manchester Sex pistols gig, now revered as a defining moment in the development of British punk and New Wave or indie music. The small number of people who actually attended doesn't seem to tally with the numbers who have later claimed to have been there.

For a music scene that thrived on the moment, and was often all about provocation, "attitude" and reaction, it gives an impression and flavour of an intense period that may have meant a lot to a very small group of people. However, I was sometimes left wondering if I really cared that much about what "really" happened - or how some of the people quoted were to claim it did happen after the event.

In the end, I think it falls into the category of music book that can be summarised as "Everything you never knew you to wanted to know about.... and definitely didn't in some cases" - a quality it shares with Everett True's book on the Ramones. ( )