Since 2004, former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones has been holding court on LA radio as the host of Jonesy’s Jukebox, a delightful free-for-all that finds him spinning beloved tunes and having rambling conversations with various pop culture figures. But the show is often at its best when Jones is left to be his thorny and brutally honest self, telling stories or letting stray thoughts tumble out, all in his thick London accent.
That same feeling is what gives Jones’ new memoir, Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol, its moxie and its significance. Written with British journalist Ben Thompson, the book, like few other rock chronicles of recent vintage, actually reads the way its subject thinks. It’s arranged chronologically, but wanders off on assorted tangents and silly anecdotes. And it’s all written in an unaffected patois peppered with cockney slang and coarse language.