Young Flesh Required: Growing Up With The Sex Pistols - Softcover

Parker, Alan G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0956642012 ISBN 13: 9780956642011

Publisher: Soundcheck Books LLP, 2011

Synopsis

When the late great Sean Body, founder of Helter Skelter, commissioned this book he wanted the style to be that of 'two mates having a chat over a pint'. Parker, with O'Shea, has captured that brief brilliantly in a book that features many unique anecdotes about the Sex Pistols from inception to (numerous) comeback gigs. Parker's close relationship to Malcolm McLaren, Glenn Matlock and Anne Ritchie gives him a privileged inside view of the band and both authors have grown up the Sex Pistols providing the soundtrack to their lives.

The book has to cover the obvious ground, such as the infamous Grundy interview or the death of Sid Vicious in New York, but it is the new anecdotes that will appeal to fans - anecdotes supplied by people who were there, such as the roadie Roadent who quit working for the Clash for the Pistols and therefore is well placed to comment on the feud between the two bands. The many re-formations are also covered.
Soundcheck Books is proud to have licensed this never before published work from Helter Skelter. First mooted in 2005, Parker's stock has since risen by his film work - particularly as the director of Who Killed Nancy. He has fully updated the work, including a touching tribute to McLaren who died in 2010. There hasn't really been much of note written about the band since Jon Savage's England's Dreaming, making Young Flesh Required timely and relevant.

The book has an 8 page plate section of colour and b/w images as well as 35 b/w images of memorabilia in with the text - many have never been seen in a book before.

About this title

About the Author

Alan G. Parker has written 17 books including 3 on Sid Vicious (the best known being Sid Vicious: No One Is Innocent for Orion,2007), as well as bands as diverse as Slade and The Who. He is now a documentary director, including Almost the Truth about Monty Python and Who Killed Nancy (which won him BBC Radio 6's Best Director of the Year for 2009)

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Whilst John was on his way to New York with Joe Stevens, and Steve and Paul were accompanying Malcolm and Boogie to Los Angeles, Sid had been left behind in San Francisco to recuperate from his latest heroin overdose. Having returned to the Haight Ashbury shooting gallery where he severed the last strand of his five year friendship with John, Sid had cooked up another Chinese rock and gone in search of the fabled dragon. There he may well have remained for all eternity had one of his distraught female fan club not put in a frantic call to the Miyako. Boogie and Steve headed round to the Haight Ashbury address and found the bassist lying lifeless on a grubby mattress surrounded by assorted San Franciscan low lifes. Having managed to revive Sid to a point where he was able to travel, the two then headed over the Golden Gate Bridge to an alternative doctor in Marin County who administered acupuncture to alleviate Sid's chronic withdrawal symptoms. But with Boogie having accompanied Malcolm, Steve and Paul to Los Angeles, the task of collecting Sid the following morning fell to Sophie. Her instructions were to bring Sid to Los Angeles, but as she didn't know where Malcolm and the others were staying, she was forced to play wet nurse for another twenty-four hours before Boogie appeared like an angel of mercy to escort the bassist back to London.

By this time, of course, the acupuncture's anaesthetising effects had long since worn off. Sid couldn't face spending ten hours or so on an aeroplane with nothing to numb the pain; so before heading for LAX, Boogie first had to scour Los Angeles in search of a doctor with questionable ethics, who'd be willing to supply Sid with enough methadone tablets to last him until he was back in the UK. Unbeknownst to Boogie, however, Sid also had a stash of Valium secreted on his person and he slipped a few in with the methadone thinking the mix might help further ease the pain. As a result he overdosed again, and with his spindly frame no longer able to cope with the constant bombardment, he slipped into a drug-induced coma.

By the time the plane landed at JFK in New York his condition was so poorly that the airport's medical staff refused to allow him to make the connecting flight to London and rushed him to the nearby Jamaica Hospital in Queens, where he was kept in for observation.

About this edition

• Publisher: Soundcheck Books LLP
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0956642012
• ISBN 13: 9780956642011
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320