No Future, and Plenty of Past

On December 1, 1976, the Sex Pistols appeared on British channel Thames Television’s program as a last-minute replacement. During the interview, host Bill Grundy provoked the band’s Johnny Rotten and Steve Jones into swearing live on air. By the next morning, the press had already fixed its verdict: punk was a subculture of “foul mouthed yobs” with colored hair and safety pins, and the moral panic spread accordingly. Gigs were canceled within days, and a scene until then confined to a small…