Famous Guitar
by Patricia Januszkiewicz
Title
Famous Guitar
Artist
Patricia Januszkiewicz
Medium
Photograph - Photo Art
Description
Photo taken at the Hard Rock Cafe, Cleveland, Ohio......
Guitar once belonging to Steve Jones ....
The words written by Steve Jones on his guitar consist of his name and "safe sex" and "love me" ....
Stephen Philip "Steve" Jones (born 3 September 1955) is an English rock guitarist, singer and actor, best known as guitarist and founding member of punk rock band, the Sex Pistols.
Jones was born in Hammersmith, London, where he grew up with his young mother, who worked as a hairdresser, and his grandparents. He then moved to Benbow Road in Shepherd's Bush, with his fourteen criminal convictions and was the subject of a council care-order. He was an only child and his father, Don Jarvis, an amateur boxer, left when he was two years old. He spent a year in a remand centre, which he says was more enjoyable than being at home, and has said that the Sex Pistols saved him from a life of crime.
His early influences were Iggy & The Stooges, and glam rock icons like Roxy Music and David Bowie.
Jones co-founded The Strand (named after a Roxy Music song) with Paul Cook and Wally Nightingale in the early 1970s. The Strand were a precursor to the Sex Pistols, and is where Jones first learned to play guitar. After dropping Wally Nightingale in the mid 1970s, the band was known as The Swankers.
In 1975, Jones went on to co-found the Sex Pistols with Paul Cook, Glen Matlock, and later, John Lydon. Jones is a self-taught guitar player, primarily playing Gibson Les Paul electric guitars in his early years. His usual guitar was a cream coloured Gibson Les Paul Custom which, according to Filth and the Fury, he had stolen from Mick Ronson at a David Bowie concert, when he and his fellow Sex Pistols members posed as road crew members, stealing amplifers and other equipment. Bill Price, the engineer on Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols called Jones one of the tightest guitar players he has ever worked with, this is due to his "chuggy" playing in the studio as Price had described it with very little sustain and echo, which required overdubs to hide.
While with the Sex Pistols Jones mostly played two Gibson Les Paul Customs,a black one and a white one (with the pin-up girls on it) that formerly belonged to Sylvain Sylvain of the New York Dolls.
In the late 90's, Jones was offered free Burny Les Paul Customs, straps, picks and cables if he played their guitar. They made 2 models for him which he used on the 2002-2003 North American Piss Off Tour. At around 2005 he went back to using Gibsons, but has still been seen playing his Burny. Gibson finally put out a "Steve Jones Inspired Les Paul Model" to the exact specs of his original White Les Paul Custom.
While Jones typically played through Marshall stacks, he used a silverface Fender Twin Reverb (reportedly stolen from Bob Marley at the Hammersmith Apollo) with Gauss speakers to record Never Mind The Bollocks.
Uploaded
April 13th, 2013
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