Johnny Rotten Signs the Autographs

John Lydon Signs The Checks As 'Chief Executioner' of Public Image Ltd.

The Sex Pistols have been trending all month because this month has been the 44th anniversary of the Sex Pistols' brief and ramshackle American tour in January, 1978. Why would the 44th garner so much attention? Already, the collective consciousness is filling with false memories. A few years ago, in an Atlanta Magazine feature called "19 Things You Didn't Know About Atlanta's Past," one of the items was accurately, "The Sex Pistols Made Their American Debut in a Piedmont Road Shopping Center." I was at the concert, at the Great Southeast Music Hall, January 5, 1978. I stayed where the band stayed, at the Peachtree Plaza Hotel, where I rode an atrium elevator with Sid Vicious and a Warner Brothers publicist. The PR man, a gentleman I had known for some time, tried to introduce us. Did he think Sid would reach out his hand and say, "Hi Wayne, nice to meet ya?" Sid could only sneer: "I hate your trousers." I said, "Why?" He said, "They're flares." I didn't know they had a name: They wer…