jonesy went out and borrowed a les paul custom which at that time was the finest instrument in the world rather than play the piece of cr@p he had lying around because he didn't care about tone,he just wanted to look cool I guess.And besides a marshall fender amps had the best punk tone at that time so he wasn't really slouching there either.Also I'd bet never mind the bullocks was not recorded with a fender.The record co. got him whatever he wanted which I bet was a marshall jcm 800 or a hi-watt by the sounds of it.
i tend to agree. alot of that "don't give a $%&#" punk attitude has in recent years been shown to be more or less a front for image/publicity reasons.
watched recently the bbc documentary about making of 'never mind the bollox' and steve jones seemed to care about his playing, writing decent songs and having a tight band.
but yeah, i'm sure he just got the best gear available to him and used that, i also don't see him being a gearhead. in one story it is claimed they stole the original les paul from Mick Ronson. but that story has a waft of bullshiteeee about it, since it is elsewhere acknowledged it came from a New York Dolls guitarist.
Yes, he really cared about playing, as most did. But, he was
given the LP custom by Mclaren who promised to sell it for NYD guitarist in exchange for a ticket to London, so he could be a new group (SP) he was forming. Which he didn't of course. So Jonesy didn't 'go out' and borrow his Lp custom in his quest for tone, it was given to him, along with the slot in the Sex pistols. I watched loads of punk groups live, many before they were famous, and the attitude and huge energy was real on stage. On telly and in papers mclaren of course was full of anarchy bullshitee. Check out old footage, see how many punk bands had the finest guitars in the world. Not many. These were off the street guitarists, not college boys with daddys credit card.
