Sex Pistols - Spunk



A wonderful Sex Pistols rarity that everyone really must have in their collection as a companion piece to "Never Mind The Bollocks..." As always, wiki has a great story on it. And here it is...


"Several parties, including some members of the British music press, immediately suspected that the group's manager, Malcolm McLaren, was responsible for the original Spunk bootleg. This would have been in breach of the band's record contract with Virgin, which was itself planning the release of Never Mind the Bollocks when Spunk appeared. An October 1977 Sounds article by Chas de Whalley discussed Spunk and made reference to this conveniently coincidental timing.
The evidence for McLaren's involvement is speculative, although it can be noted that his company, Glitterbest, retained the rights to the demo recordings as well as the master tapes — and the demos appearing on Spunk were presented in excellent quality. Also, as evidenced by the original album's "LYN-" matrix number prefix, the record had clearly been pressed in the UK by Lintone, a legitimate independent pressing plant that would presumably not handle anything that appeared to be a bootleg, and would certainly allow the bootlegger in question to be traced if enquiries had ever been made by the genuine copyright owner. McLaren has always publicly denied responsibility for Spunk, but has stated that he prefers the record to Never Mind the Bollocks.
Some Sex Pistols fans concur with McLaren – and producer Goodman – that the raw versions of the songs on Spunk are superior to the officially released ones, particularly since Spunk approximates a faithful reproduction of the original Sex Pistols line-up's live sound. The album also features the bass-lines of Glen Matlock, which were not reproduced when guitarist Steve Jones took over bass duties for the recording of Never Mind the Bollocks.
Spunk is therefore often cited as the Sex Pistols' de facto alternative debut album. Certainly a tape of part or all of Spunk had been played to Tony Parsons as early as March 1977, and became the subject of his NME article, "Blank Nuggets in the UK", which described the recordings as if they represented an imminent debut album release."


"Lazy Sod" ("Seventeen") – 2:08
"Satellite" – 4:10
"Feelings" ("No Feelings") – 2:51
"Just Me" ("I Wanna Be Me") – 3:11
"Submission" – 4:17
"Nookie" ("Anarchy in the UK") – 4:07
Tracks 1-5 recorded at the group's Denmark Street rehearsal room (mixed & overdubbed at Riverside/Decibel Studios), London, 13-30 July 1976.
Track 6 recorded at Lansdowne/Wessex Studios, London, 10-12 October 1976.
"No Future" ("God Save the Queen") – 3:37
"Problems" – 4:19
"Lots of Fun" ("Pretty Vacant") – 3:09
"Liar" – 2:44
"Who Was It" ("EMI") – 3:15
"New York (Looking for a Kiss)" ("New York") – 3:08
All tracks recorded at Gooseberry/Eden Studios, London, 17-28 January 1977.

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