British Punk History February 1976

February 12th: The Sex Pistols play the Marquee club in Soho ,London WC1. They are supporting Eddie and the Hot Rods and get a mention in the NME. Steve Jones is quoted as saying "Actually we're not into music we're into Chaos". Some reports say that they were banned following Rotten throwing chairs about and trying to smash the Hotrods equipment. The Pistols were booked as support to the Hotrods for their UK tour but were dropped immediately as a result of the damage to the PA system. Vic Goddard was inspired to form the Subway Sect after this gig and Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley contacted McLaren about the Pistols after reading the review in NME.

February 14th: The Sex Pistols play at Andrew Logan's party at Butlers' Wharf in London SE1. This gig featured Jordan, former Sex shop assistant and McLaren's aide being stripped on-stage by Rotten. Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill describe the event in their now deleted book "The Boy Looked at Johnny"as follows:
In February 1976 an ugly but affluent figure from McLaren's arty past raised it's head. It was Andrew Logan, sculpting socialite with a penchant for surrounding himself with the most expensive and extensive collection of human trash-cans currently reflecting the capital's fashionable malaise. His annual celebrations of decay have included a Miss World parody in which a horde of transsexuals tout their trophies, a favourite with all the other freaks. But for this year's entertainment, drag queens were ditched in favour of vital young yobbos. Between greedily guzzling the buckshee booze and attempting to steal Logan's pricey pretty pictures, The Pistols played a trio of sets comprising their patented noise for napalming the psyche of a nation, blowing the jaded cocaine set menagerie out of their boredom chic. It could have been a comic strip - Studied Decadence meets Social Disease. Prior to the Sex Pistols party piece, Logan's gormless gourmets had experienced everything twice and been bored to death the first time - the very reason why McLaren had chosen them as the Lazarus guinea pigs to Rotten's Anti- Christ. Shocked back to life they scurried off to their grapevines to spread the faith. The Sex Pistols' fate was sealed. Logan's set may have kidded themselves into believing they had developed cold blooded indifference into a fine art, but they merely reflected the apathy prevalent throughout every stratum of class, age and wealth in the dulled sensibilities of the entire nation. Which made them just as vulnerable to the real rage of the Sex Pistols as 'Appalled of Cheam'
Julie Burchill & Tony Parsons

February 19th: The Sex pistols play the Hertfordshire College of Art, St Albans for the first time. This was also the first gig photographed by Ray Stevenson ,who captured many early images of the band.

February 20th: The Sex Pistols play the Valentines Dance at the College of Art in High Wycombe. Although they weren't booked , they arrived claiming to be the support band for Screaming Lord Sutch. A fight developed between the Pistols and the PA company after the equipment failed and Rotten began smashing it up. Watching them was Ron Watts, the manager of the 100 club in London who was so impressed by them that he contacted Malcolm McLaren in order to book the band. Also in the audience were Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto

(founders of the Buzzcocks) who had read the review of the previous weeks gig at the Marquee club in the New Musical Express and contacted them to find out about about any forth coming dates.Through the NME they tracked down Malcolm McLaren who told them about this gig. Devoto and Shelley borrowed a car and, collecting their future manager Richard Boon from Reading University, drove down to High Wycombe. Not really knowing what to expect, Devoto later said "The audience included the Bromley Contingent - Malcolm, Jordan, Nils Stevenson, Helen Wellington-Lloyd. In their own ways they almost looked more interesting than the band, except that Lydon was so charismatic. We thought they were great, the look, the attitude and the music. I was catching bits of John's lyrics; we secretly taped it." The Mancunians discovered that the Pistols were playing the next night in Welwyn Garden.

February 21st: The Pistols round off the weekend playing in Welwyn Garden City. After the gig, Devoto approached Malcolm McLaren to get the Sex Pistols to play at his college, The Bolton Institute of Technology.This was to lead to the Pistols northern debut in June. Devoto and Shelley had recently formed a band and were playing Stooges and Velvet Underground material.They found the name Buzzcocks while looking through Time out magazine, a London Listings paper. This weekend was just the catalyst the pair needed to kickstart the punk scene outside of London. They returned to Manchester full of new ideas and immediately adopted a punk look and began rehearsing in earnest.