LONELY BOY- TALES FROM A SEX PISTOL by Steve Jones

Finished Sa 2/15/2020

After listening to JONESY'S JUKEBOX for months I decided to order his memoir. I ordered it from Amazon and got a mint hardcover.

NOTES:

Born 1955 in Shepherd's Bush, West London.
Sexual abuse was a big issue in the memoir.
He stole band equipment from Bowie's farewell concert.
He's still an active member of AA and tries to do all of the steps.
He practices Transcendental Meditation.
Lifelong friends with Paul Cook, the Sex Pistols drummer. Cook still lives only two doors down from his childhood home in West London.

From his page at Wikipedia:

"Jones was born in Shepherd's Bush,[9] London, where he grew up with his young mother, who worked as a hairdresser, and his grandparents. He first moved to Benbow Road in Shepherd's Bush and then to Nine Elms in Battersea. He was an only child and his father, Don Jarvis, a professional boxer, left when he was two years old. He revealed in his 2016 autobiography Lonely Boy that he was sexually abused by his stepfather, Ron Dambagella, which he blamed for his later sex addiction and inability to form lasting relationships.[10] He also revealed that he was functionally illiterate until he was in his 40s.[11] With 14 criminal convictions, he was the subject of a council-care order and spent a year in a remand centre, which he said was more enjoyable than being at home. Jones has also said that the Sex Pistols saved him from a life of crime."

From the book's page at Amazon:

"Steve Jones's modern Dickensian tale began in the street of Hammersmith and Shepherd's Bush, West London, where as a lonely, neglected boy living off his wits and petty thievery he was given purpose by the glam art rock of David Bowie and Roxy Music. He became one of the first generation of ragamuffin punks taken under the wings of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood.

In Lonely Boy, Steve describes the sadness of never having known his real dad, the abuse he suffered at the hands of his stepfather, and how his interest in music and fashion saved him from a potential life of crime spent in remand centers and prisons. He takes readers on his journey from the Kings Road of the early '70s through the years of the Sex Pistols, punk rock, and the recording of "Anarchy in the UK" and Never Mind the Bollocks. He recounts his infamous confrontation on Bill Grundy's Today program--the interview that ushered in the "Filth and the Fury" headlines that catapulted punk into the national consciousness. And he delves into the details of his self-imposed exile in New York and Los Angeles, where he battled alcohol, heroin, and sex addiction but eventually emerged to gain fresh acclaim as an actor and radio host.

Lonely Boy is the story of an unlikely guitar hero who, with the Sex Pistols, transformed twentieth-century culture and kick-started a social revolution."

This is one of the better rock bios that I've read.