I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol

The original bass player for the Sex Pistols, Glen Matlock, was fired in 1977 and replaced by the barely competent Sid Vicious. I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol is the founding history of the leading punk band where Matlock traces the Pistols' early influences — the Who, the Small Faces, and, remarkably, David Bowie — and describes the squabbles that hampered their four-year career. ''The Sex Pistols were a total failure,'' says Matlock, who was more interested in playing music than making history, and who later formed the Rich Kids. ''It was like a case of premature ejaculation. Over in a flash, and deeply unsatisfying.'' As the first band-member's view of the group that rescued rock from the foolishness of the mid-'70s, this is an engaging if erratic memoir. B