There are plenty of books by embittered old rock stars and sorry has-beens. But in an industry where backbiting and cheap shots are a pitiful, if entertaining, by-product of lost opportunity and thwarted ambition, few books are quite so scathing as The Boy Looked At Johnny, written by NME journalists Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons.
Published in 1978 and subtitled The Obituary Of Rock And Roll, the book is a venomous rant against the failed promise of punk. Its 79 pages poured bile on almost anyone and anything that dared crawl from CBGB, the 100 Club or The Roxy. The young authors said The Clash’s Mick Jones merely “chanted stray battle-cries like a harassed housewife”, and the Sex Pistols-affiliated Bromley contingent were just “a posse of unrepentant poseurs” committed to attaining fame despite their paucity of talent.
