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Dangerous Minds interviews John Lydon: Forty years of Public Image Ltd.
10.05.2018
07:24 am
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Photo by Paul Heartfield, courtesy Abramorama
 
Whatever else you can say about the dread year 2018, it is a sumptuous buffet for the PiL fan. The Public Image Is Rotten, the first officially sanctioned documentary on the group, tells its story with the help of Jah Wobble, Keith Levene, Donut, Martin Atkins, Bruce Smith, Lu Edmonds, John Rambo Stevens, Big Youth(!), Thurston Moore, Ad-Rock, Flea, Don Letts, and numerous other members of the band, its circle and its audience; the new box set The Public Image Is Rotten: Songs From The Heart collects singles, B-sides, 12-inch mixes, outtakes, alternate versions, videos, and TV appearances from four decades of high adventure; and PiL will embark on the U.S. leg of its ongoing tour next week, starting in New Orleans on October 9. I spoke with John Lydon on the phone one morning during the brief interval between PiL’s European and American dates.

How are you?

Not as mentally ill as Tom Arnold, but doing alright! I watched his show the night before. Two episodes. It’s hilarious! I highly recommend it, but by God, is he just out there. Oh, space cadet! But highly entertaining, highly entertaining. And I suppose that was the point of it anyway, I mean, what do you expect from a comedian but comedy? Alright, anyway, that’s an aside; I don’t know why I brought it up, but ignore me!

How was the European tour?

Oh, very, very demanding. That was something like 39 gigs in nearly as many days, with two weeks in the middle to attempt recording our third album, here, since our reformation. So a lot of hard work, and a lot of promo for the documentary, y’know, the film that’s gonna be doing the rounds, and various like press things that have to be done in advance of gigs. Very, very demanding, really exhausting, and not at all the happy holiday we were expecting. Harder than usual times three or four. And any one of the issues we’re involved with, really, should be a full-time job. But there you go, that’s PiL for you! Moments of relaxation in an intense industry!

Where are you recording?

We went back to the Cotswolds in England. A studio we like, ‘cause we like grabbing that on-the-road, live vibe.

I saw the movie last night. At the end, Lu Edmonds says this thing—he’s talking about the band with [Magazine/Siouxsie/PiL guitarist] John McGeoch, and how things have changed, and he says you’re different now than you were then. And he puts it down to [manager/lifelong friend John] Rambo [Stevens’] influence.

How very sweet of him! Doesn’t anybody ever give me credit? [Laughter] Well, that’s Lu’s opinion; you’d have to ask Lu. Everybody was given an opportunity—I mean everybody, friend and foe alike—to say what they felt, and there it is, and that’s the combination of all those juxtapositions. Of course the band’s very different from when McGeoch was in it. We were again, at that time, enduring record company pressure, which is never an easy thing to put up with, which is what created so much instability in us. The rumor-mongering, all of it, you know, and just the sense of chaos, and trying to maintain any grasp of control, was extremely difficult. And Lu should know that, ‘cause he was one of those difficult people at the time! [Laughter] But through all of that, these are my friends, and we argue all the time about everything. But now look at us: we have a stability, we’re into the making of the third album. Fantastic. And it’s all without record company pressure, or them controlling the purse strings, which is what leads to arguments in the first place.

Well, one thing about the movie, seeing so much time compressed into an hour and a half—

I know, it could quite easily have ended up like War and Peace, but what’d be the point of that?

You could do a whole movie just on the drummers that have gone through PiL. Tony Williams—

[Laughs] It’s a lot of members!

I don’t know if it’s because of the precarious money situation or not, but maybe that made it possible for an amazing group of people to pass through the band.

Yeah, and some of them sorely missed, others glad to be rid of, and then of course there were the blackmailers: “Oh, if you don’t pay me extra, I’m not going to go on tour.” Y’know, that brigade. Very, very difficult times when I look back at it now. It’s like, Jeezus, how did I have the perseverance? ‘Cause there were definite times in PiL history where I thought, I just couldn’t take much more of it. The continual ugly pressure of having to maintain some kind of sense of stability in all this, it does wear you down.

By the time I got to, say, making the album Album, and a very young band I was with, put together quite a lot of the songs on Album with, they just could not cope with the studio, and I couldn’t cope with the budget we had, so I couldn’t afford to keep them in New York until they… got up to par, shall we say. And so put out phone calls, really, not expecting anyone to be too eager, really take anything that said yes, and just absolutely stunned and shocked with the quality of people that were more than willing to help on this album, and no squeak about money or anything like that. I tell you, that really changed my mind, it was like an affirmation that I absolutely needed at that point in my life, and I hope that comes across in the documentary. I’m not sure it does too well.
 

Still from ‘The Public Image Is Rotten’
 
Well, then there’s that story about McGeoch getting hit in the face with a bottle—

Oh, all that stuff! That’s nothing to do what I’ve just said, is it?

Well, the adversity you were facing.

Yeah, the adversity I’m particularly pointing out is inter-band-members, right? Some being ridiculously spiteful for no reason, and just continuing a negative approach in the ranks, and spreading all manner of, like, stupid lies. That kind of adversity. I had that in the Pistols, and I did sort of presume that that’s just the way all bands were. Well, I’m finding out in the making of this third and the previous two albums that’s not the case at all. We’re very, very, very good friends with each other. We have a sense of empathy. And that was always missing in the past. It’s always what I was seeking. But I suppose you can’t have a major record label in there, interfering. Interfering in the thought processes and the purse strings. ‘Cause adversity and animosity is what you end up with.

This is the longest stable lineup of the band, right?

Yeah! Yeah. Very noted. The second we were able to declare independence from any label, we set up our own outlet, and here we are now today. Stable! Financially risky, but bloody hell, is it enjoyable to wake up and know that you’re responsible for your own downfall, and not somebody else. A reward.

Can you tell me about the set you’re playing?

It’s one mostly the band picked, numbers that they enjoy doing, so there it is. And they flow well with each other, they jump all over the place time-wise, career-wise, but that’s fine. They connect somehow. There’s a flow in them. There are lines that interconnect. The thought process is there; it’s really just about trying to understand emotions. And that’s what Public Image do: try to understand. Try to understand each other, y’know? And make a bloody good effort at the rest of the human race. And I don’t suppose there’s any other way but through music to share those experiences and learn from them. One of the greatest things about this tour is the small venues we picked, because I can see eye to eye with just about everybody in the building, and that really helps formulate and solidify the songs into the emotions that they’re trying to express. It’s very, very, very rewarding. You can see it in people’s eyes when you’re hitting the right tones emotionally with them. It’s not like—we don’t do cruise ships or bar mitzvahs, I’m not standing there waiting for requests. It’s done on an emotional level. It’s fantastic. And all shyness, gone. I feel so confident with the people I work with now. There’s no sense of the temporary about it, and that’s a wonderful sounding board. Three albums, now, it will be, when this one’s done. That’s an amazing achievement for PiL! ‘Cause rightly or wrongly, earned the reputation there of never the same people twice. Not through choice.

I know the gigs are selling out. You had to change venues in Los Angeles.

You have to up it when it sells out too much, but there’s a limit to us. We won’t go into the ten thousands or the five thousands, not really interested in that, because you lose that emotional response. Or you can, but it’s like a harder struggle, and this is a struggle enough! And if we want to be celebrating our year, this is the way we want to do it. As I say, up close and personal.
 

 
So this box looks really wonderful—

Yeah, very proud of that. Yeah.

I’ve always been especially fond of your singles and 12-inches; I feel like you put a lot of care into those.

A lot. A lot. And using the highest quality recording we can, and also the highest quality materials we can, and to try and keep the price down. It’s a thing of love. That’s 40 years of work, there. I don’t want it to go out in a brown paper bag. Although I could the novelty in that too! [Laughter]

But I meant specifically your singles, all along it seems like you’ve put a lot of work into the singles and preparing special mixes for the 12-inches—

Yeah. Well, listen, pop music is my centrifugal force. I’ve always loved pop music, always will. Sharp simplicity, straight to the point. Sometimes songs I do can be longer than a single would need to be, and involve a hell of a lot more words, because you’re involving yourself in a hell of a lot deeper way, but both ways work for me fine. I do like the simplicity of pop a lot. And always those are the singles, they’re made for that. Not specifically structured as a single, but they happen, chance, in the way we record. There’s no rule book with us. If we’re involving ourselves in an emotion, we’ll involve ourselves fully, and that’s what each song is about, really. Trying to understand ourselves as human beings, and thereby, like I said, deal with the rest.

And there’s a proper version of “Kashmir” on there, too.

Yeah, which I was supposed to sing live! But I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t. I thought it would be sacrilege! Go to all the effort of recording it… which is a glorious tune, it really is, and Led Zeppelin I adore! Physical Graffiti is one of my favorite albums, and “Kashmir” is one of my favorite songs, and I didn’t want to bugger it up. We were gonna start live sets with that, but I thought I’d be letting it down somehow. I really don’t need to be competing with Robert Plant, there, I think he did an excellent piece of work, and there you go. All accolades to.

There’s a few unheard things, too, on this box set, and a lot of film footage.

Yeah, the TV stuff, all the TV appearances.

Yeah, which I thought would be nice for people to have, in one lump sum. And forever; not down to the whims of YouTube.

And better quality.

Oh, by miles, I hope!
 

Photo by Duncan Bryceland, courtesy PiL Official
 
That reminds me of something else. Watching the documentary last night, I’d heard there was video shot of the famous Ritz show—

[signal breaks up] because we were in charge of the cameras. That show was supposed to be us experimenting with their new camera technology, and, hello, one thing led to another, and before you know it, the world’s best soft riot took place! [Laughter]

So no video survived?

Well, there’s bits and pieces, but nothing that would make any sense.

Oh, ‘cause it’s all from your points of view.

Yeah, you know, from where we are, we’re behind the canvas. So you just see a canvas ruffle. There’s not much you can make from that. Another one of those Public Image moments where fiasco becomes something adorable and memorable. You know, a negative becomes a positive. Just the way it is, I suppose; we’re brave enough to take the situation on, and thank you all for noticing.

Yeah, the American Bandstand appearance is one of those moments.

Oh, yeah. My God, asking us to mime! Ha ha! To a song we improvised in recording, it’s like, wow, where do we begin with that? So we just ran wild, and it worked out to the benefit of everybody. Made for a better TV show.

Oh, it’s wonderful TV.

Even Dick Clark said so!

He did? He knew good TV, right?

Oh yeah, he had a list of all-time greats, and we’re up there. We’re well up there. Of all-time greats on his show. Lovely. Us and a bunch of mime artists! Ah, ha, ha.

Is it true, John, that “Annalisa,” a song that’s as relevant today as it ever was—is it true you saw that on a TV show?

Yeah, it was a real story about a young girl, in her coming-of-age early teens, and the parents, like, being far too religious for their own good, assuming she was possessed by the devil. And so in came the exorcist, and the end result was she was starved to death, really. It’s a really, really sad story, a true story. They put a film out of it a couple of years back, you know; I was a bit annoyed they didn’t approach us, ‘cause it would’ve been a wonderful theme for it.

Like a dramatic movie, with actors?

Yeah, like a proper film release, it was quite astounding. And horrific! When I watched it, it just brought tears to my eyes. You could see that this girl just didn’t stand a chance with that zealotry. Cold, indifferent parents, much more into their crucifixes than they were the life of their own daughter.

Sexuality is a strange thing to the religious. For my making [?], that’s what the root core of the problem was.

I imagine you’ve been following the Catholic abuse story with interest.

Ha, ha! All my life! [Laughter] Spent most of my life deliberately avoiding priests. Right up to day one in the Pistols, never even considered singing! I just thought, “No no no, that’ll get me back closer to the priests. It’s not what I want.”

Wasn’t “Religion”—

In fact, wrote “Religion,” a PiL song, while I was in the Pistols, but I knew they couldn’t handle it. Just another reason, really, to have to move on. But PiL was well-adapted to that sort of focus.
 

 
What can we expect in the near future? How far are you on this new record?

Well, we’re quite a few tracks in, but have yet to put vocals on any of them. There are many issues going on that are slowing down the work, one of them being a domestic issue that’s really, really challenging and frightening to handle for me at the moment. And it is coming right in the middle of all of this workload, so it’s, like, it’s taking its toll on me. It’s 24/7 having to be alert, and I’m having to find ways of stopping that. It’s very, very, very punishing, that’s all I can tell you. The second half, the American half, I’ll have to do that alone.

Continues after the jump….

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Posted by Oliver Hall
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10.05.2018
07:24 am
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Members of Crass, the Pop Group, Killing Joke, PiL, and Current 93 are the New Banalists Orchestra


 
Mark Stewart titled the 2012 solo album he made with Kenneth Anger, Richard Hell, Tessa Pollitt, Keith Levene, Gina Birch, Factory Floor, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Youth, et al. The Politics of Envy. A proper dialectician, he prepared the way by singing about the “Envy of Politics” on 2011’s Mammon, a six-track digital album by London’s New Banalists Orchestra.

The orchestra appears to be the musical component of the New Banalists group founded by Stewart and the artist Rupert Goldsworthy. The Bandcamp page says only that the New Banalists “formed an orchestra to proclaim [their] manifesto”—which is refreshingly concise, as manifestos go, and seems to be slightly different in each iteration:

TASTE IS A FORM OF PERSONAL CENSORSHIP.
DENY THE POLITICS OF ENVY
TECHNIQUE IS A REFUGE OF THE INSECURE
SHADOW WAR

 

Rupert Goldsworthy and Mark Stewart’s beautiful logo for the New Banalists
 
On Mammon, Penny Rimbaud and Eve Libertine of Crass, John Sinclair of the White Panther Party and the MC5’s management, David Tibet of Current 93, and Zodiac Mindwarp (“The trick is to tough it out, sailor”) of the Love Reaction espouse a bohemian, psychedelic anticapitalism over music by Youth of Killing Joke and Michael Rendall, some of which will sound familiar to fans of Hypnopazūzu. Ex-PiL guitarist Keith Levene and the late cannabis kingpin Howard “Mr. Nice” Marks are on there, too.

After the jump, watch the ad for Mammon and then stream the whole thing…

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Posted by Oliver Hall
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02.03.2017
08:40 am
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Public Image Ltd met with Martin Scorsese about doing the ‘Raging Bull’ soundtrack


Public Image Ltd live at the Palladium, NYC, April 20, 1980 (photo by Rob Pistella via Fodderstompf)
 
I confess that I haven’t yet read Jah Wobble’s autobiography, Memoirs of a Geezer, though it’s been sitting on my desk for a month. If I’m apprehensive, it’s only because the last book I read with as promising a title was I, Shithead, and that turned out to be a disappointment because Joey Shithead only has nice things to say about people.

But Martin Scorsese’s name did jump out as I was turning the pages of Wobble’s book, trying to figure out why some paragraphs are set in italics (as below). I didn’t solve that mystery, but I did learn that Scorsese met with Lydon and Wobble about recording the soundtrack to Raging Bull. One can only begin to imagine what a different movie Raging Bull would have been with a soundtrack by Metal Box-era PiL in place of the one Robbie Robertson produced.

Wobble says Scorsese was in the audience at Public Image Ltd’s first New York show, the start of a two-night engagement at the Palladium in April of 1980. And suddenly they were having a showbiz meeting in Marty’s penthouse, and Marty was giving a manic reading of Harry Lime’s famous monologue from The Third Man:

Martin Scorsese was making a film, Raging Bull, and he wanted to have a meet in regard to us doing the soundtrack. I went to meet him with John. We ended up sitting in a penthouse apartment with Scorsese; because of the combination of my first-ever jet lag, speed comedown, booze and general tour weirdness, I was very spaced out (I think I must have had a puff as well). My memory is a bit hazy, but I seem to remember that John left soon after we arrived with some biggish geezer who worked for Scorsese. I don’t know where they went. They may well have explained where they were going, but in the state I was I in I probably just grinned inanely at them. So anyway, I was left in the apartment with Scorsese. I was very happy because the bloke was an absolute hero to me. Taxi Driver, as far as I was concerned, was a masterpiece. Paul Schrader wrote the incredible screenplay. Apparently, Schrader was brought up in a strictly Calvinist household, and didn’t see a movie until he was eighteen; he’s a very interesting bloke. The soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann is also something I never tire of.

Scorsese was a like a cat on a hot tin roof, just couldn’t sit still. He was jabbering away like crazy. I recall him beckoning me to the window. He pointed down at the people milling around on Broadway. (We were several floors up in a skyscraper.) He asked me if I would care if ‘one of those little “dots” suddenly stopped moving’. I immediately knew what he was on about; he was reciting Orson Welles’ speech from Carol Reed’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s The Third Man, the one where Orson is on the Ferris wheel and goes on about ‘the Renaissance’, ‘cuckoo clocks’, ‘the Borgias’ and ‘Switzerland’. Basically Scorsese did a performance. He was very wired and his delivery was far more urgent and imploring than Orson’s. His face was no more than two feet from mine.

I certainly wasn’t disappointed with Scorsese, he more than lived up to any expectations that I had. To tell the truth I don’t like all his films but when I do I love them; Taxi Driver, GoodFellas, Casino, Last Temptation and Kundun are the ones for me.

I can’t remember how the encounter ended, but eventually John came back. I dimly remember Raging Bull being discussed, the storyline and all that. I don’t think they showed us scenes from the film or anything. I vaguely remember thinking that they weren’t really serious. Anyway, we never did the soundtrack for Raging Bull.

More after the jump…

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Posted by Oliver Hall
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11.04.2016
08:56 am
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‘Copkiller’: Johnny Rotten plays a psychotic cat & mouse game with Harvey Keitel in 80s thriller
09.23.2016
12:24 pm
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John Lydon’s fans have probably heard that he co-starred opposite Harvey Keitel in a 1983 film—variously titled Copkiller, The Order of Death, Corrupt, or as it was later renamed Corrupt Lieutenant (to capitalize on Bad Lieutenant, of course), but they have probably never seen the film.

No surprise few have ever seen it as the movie hardly saw any release in any form other than a VHS that came out in the mid-80s and a newer crop of bootleg DVDs you can buy at the 99 Cents Only discount stores. The version you can find there—and yes for 99 cents—has a cover that looks like it wasn’t even made on a computer, but by hand, with scissors, tape and magic markers, that’s how schlocky it is. It’s sourced from the same VHS that came out in the 80s. It’s for sale on Amazon, too, often for as low as a penny with $3.99 postage and handling.
 

 
Under whatever title, this film is not, by any method of accounting, what you could call a “good” movie, but it does have one very good thing to recommend it and that is the then 24-year-old Lydon’s performance as Leo Smith, a wealthy headcase who falsely(?) confesses to the murders of several dirty narcotics cops to a cop he (and the audience) knows is crooked, played by Keitel. His performance is so strange and riveting (and utterly unhinged/psychotic) that you just can’t take your eyes off him. In many ways he was just doing his standard John Lydon shtick (and wearing his own clothes!), but it’s simply amazing to me that he wasn’t routinely hired for more psycho and “bad guy” roles after this. What a waste. What a Joker he’d have made!
 

 
The film was shot in Rome—standing in for New York City—and a few sleazy Gotham exterior shots aside, the producers didn’t really seem to care that much if this was obvious. It’s got a decent, nerve-wracking Ennio Morricone soundtrack, but other than Lydon’s charismatic performance, Copkiller, AKA The Order of Death, AKA Corrupt is pretty sub-par, and at times, a rather tedious affair. Still, I confess that I have watched it at least three times all the way through just for Lydon’s scenes. Sylvia Sidney (Beetlejuice) is also in the film.
 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.23.2016
12:24 pm
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The single greatest Public Image Ltd. bootleg, ever: The original band, live in New York, 1980
04.29.2016
07:02 pm
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In the 80s and 90s heyday of the “VHS tape trading underground”—from whence oozed choice fare like Jeff Krulik and John Heyn’s “Heavy Metal Parking Lot,” Todd Haynes‘ unorthodox Karen Carpenter bio Superstar and Apocalypse Pooh—the territory was covered in every major city and college town by a small cast of characters—often marginally employed losers who gained a certain amount of notoriety and geek pecking order prestige by the scarcity of their video treasure chests.

These social outcasts and otaku misfits usually kept tight reins on what they had. The less uptight of these guys would trade a full two hour tape for another full two hour tape, whereas others would demand two tapes for every one they traded you. Many were real pricks and would only trade for something they wanted, not something that you wanted. (The sort who might say “Sorry man, but rules are rules.” You know the type.) In this way, back then bootleggers and tape traders were the clutch point between collectors and what they coveted most. It wasn’t unusual for bootleg VHS tapes to sell for $50. “Deals” would be brokered between two assholes, one with a pristine 2nd generation of the demented TV movie Bad Ronald, the other frantically bargaining with him because, of course, acquiring a copy of a shitty movie like Bad Ronald was a matter of extreme importance. With Bittorrent, and before that eBay, this vibrant—albeit somewhat stunted and idiotic—fanboy culture eventually evaporated.

I cannot tell you how many of these dumb “negotiations” I was involved in myself, often with some pretty petty Gollum-like characters. Luckily I had several good “trading cards” in my hand to play, so I always got what I wanted. Three “top traders” that I will admit to back then were Robert Frank’s rarely seen Rolling Stones documentary Cocksucker Blues that I got via a guy I worked with who had himself transferred the film to tape under Robert Frank’s personal supervision; another was the oddball black and white latenight TV commercial for Captain Beefheart’s Lick My Decals Off, Baby album (dubbed by me from an ancient 2” videotape master possessed by an MTV producer who told me to make a copy for myself) and a sharp, first generation dub of an off air recording of Public Image Limited on American Bandstand.

I bring up the PiL clip in particular just to mention that the version that was used on a well-circulated bootleg PiL DVD anthology—one which Amazon used to sell like it was a legit release—that came out about 15 years ago was a grandchild (at least) of my Bandstand clip. I could tell this—definitively—because of the split-second of what preceded it, an outtake of the same Cramps set that was shot for Urgh! A Music War. The clip had been trading around for maybe fifteen years at that point and now it had come full circle. (As for Cocksucker Blues, if you see a brief videotape warble just as the title card fades out...)
 

 
But that’s how those things used to get around. They were quite literally copied one at a time and spread from hand to hand. Which brings me to the topic of this post, another PiL performance—unquestionably the greatest live PiL performance on video—director/editor Paul Dougherty‘s short document of PiL performing at the Great Gildersleeves, a low rent heavy metal bar in NYC, on April 22, 1980 that was bootlegged on this very same DVD. When I bought my copy—at the Pasadena Flea Market—as I scanned the contents and saw that this was on it, I thought I’d hit bootleg PiL paydirt. Sadly it was poor quality.

Now I know Paul. I actually met him at a screening of the PiL Tape, his video for Suicide’s “Frankie Teardrop” and his classic clip for Pulsallama’s “The Devil Lives in My Husband’s Body” when he was showing them at the ICA in London. Many times over the years I’ve asked him for a copy of the PiL Tape—he knows that I’m a complete PiL freak—and every time he just firmly said “No.”

He gave an interview to the The Filth and the Fury fanzine about the so-called PiL Tape in 1999:

Have you any idea how the bootleg videos of your film surfaced? The amazing thing is that until a couple of years ago no one even knew PiL had played the gig, let alone knew that it was filmed!

Paul Dougherty: I have a strong hunch how it leaked but I’m not certain. Because I know all too well how easy it is to copy videos, I was able to keep it bottled up for over 15 years.

Keep reading after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.29.2016
07:02 pm
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Sweet old-school pins featuring PiL, DEVO, Iggy Pop (and MORE!) from 70s and 80s
10.02.2015
10:56 am
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Vintage 70s Devo flicker/flasher pin
Vintage 70s DEVO flicker/flasher pin
 
Of the many random things I remember about my youth, one of them was the excitement of visiting the merch table at a live show. Honestly, I’ve never really grown out of that pursuit, and seldom leave a gig empty-handed.

Like a lot of 70s and 80s kids, I was a HUGE fan of covering my trashy Levis or Baracuta jacket with badges, pins and patches. So I nearly lost my mind when I happened upon the vintage 70s DEVO “Flicker” pin (sometimes called a ” flasher” pin), above.
 
Nixon campaign flicker/flasher pin, late 1960s
Nixon campaign flicker/flasher pin, late 1960s
 
Flicker pins were big during the 60s - for instance, politicians running for office used flicker pins (see our pal, Tricky Dick above) to display not only an image of themselves, but also their message. Because when you tilt the pin, the image changes. So naturally, curiosity got the better of me and off I went in search of pins and badges from 40 years ago. Because, why not? And my search unearthed some pretty cool and fairly rare old-school swag.
 
Elvis Costello vintage mirror badge, 70s
Elvis Costello mirror badge, late 70s, early 80s
 
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop New Values  mirror badge style tour pin, 1979
 
In addition to the flicker pins, mirror badges were sort of like the crowning jewel when it came to pins (much like the enamel “clubman” style pins you probably remember ogling at Tower Records, or Spencer’s Gifts at the mall that put a giant hole in your clothes). Mirror badges were usually large and actually had a piece of glass placed on top of the image which made them rather heavy.

Vintage mirror badges are really hard to come by these days and believe it or not, sell for a good bit of cash. As do any vintage flicker pins or promotional buttons/badges/pins that were sold at live shows. Would you pay $54 bucks for a vintage 70s promotional flicker pin that was sold at a performance Alice Cooper did in Las Vegas at the Aladdin Hotel when he recorded his 1977 live album The Alice Cooper Show?
 
Alice Cooper 1977 promotional flicker/flasher pin
Alice Cooper 1977 promotional flicker/flasher pin
 
I know I’m not alone when I say, yes. Yes, I probably would. In case that seventeen-year-old kid inside you just said yes, too, pretty much everything in this post is out there somewhere for sale. Tons of images follow. I also included some vintage enamel clubman pins because I couldn’t help myself.
 
Public Image mirror badge, early 80s
Public Image mirror badge, late 70s, early 80s
 
Lene Lovich mirror badge, 80s
Lene Lovich mirror badge, 80s
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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10.02.2015
10:56 am
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‘Lou Reed part 2’: Little-known Public Image Ltd. footage from 1982
04.10.2014
02:55 pm
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When I was a kid, more than any other group, Public Image Ltd. were my band. As a teenager, I was a major acidhead who hated religion and PiL suited that state of mind better than just about anything. They were demented dada geniuses, doing more to move music away from the three chord blues-based rock and roll that had dominated popular music since the days of Chuck Berry than anyone else. It wasn’t as if John Lydon’s previous outfit had done much to musically challenge the status quo. The Sex Pistols may have shown that the prevailing rock acts of the day were all “dinosaurs,” but their music really wasn’t anything all that “new” was it?

Who would say that about Public Image Ltd.? With their second album, Metal Box, they changed the state of modern music the way Picasso and Georges Braque had changed the act of perception itself with the advent of Cubism some seventy years earlier. After PiL, everything was different and nothing was too weird. A hundred years from now those first three PiL albums will still be revered the same way they are today, except that by then they’ll considered classical music or something…

I was lucky enough to see PiL in 1983. I’d run away from home and PiL were playing a few days later on Staten Island at the horrible, decrepit and just downright shitty Paramount Theater (a venue that should have required a tetanus shot to enter). Jah Wobble had already been kicked out of the band, but that didn’t bother me (I’m probably just slightly more partial to The Flowers of Romance than I am the first two albums) and this was a few months before Keith Levene and Lydon had their famous falling out.

Without Wobble you still had PiL, but as Lydon would soon prove beyond all argument, he was only as good (or as bad) as his collaborators. When Keith Levene fucked off, forget it, after that it was Public Image Ltd. in name only. Not that Levene did much of anything—for years decades—without Lydon anyway, but Lydon without Levene was hopeless, a fucking joke from 1983 onwards if you ask most fans of the original group.

I’ve mentioned on the blog before that I have a pretty decent collection of PiL bootlegs on vinyl. Truly “oldschool” boots produced over thirty years ago, most of them pretty primitive pressings. When I got rid of most of my records ten years ago (keeping collectibles and signed pieces, plus my Jeannie C. Riley albums) I still retained them and as a percentage, they comprise a good bit of what’s left of a once ridiculously huge record collection. One of them is a boot of the actual show I saw called “Where Are We?” taped on March 26th, at the Paramount Theater.

The title comes from a song PiL had been playing in their sets around that time that was originally called “Lou Reed Part 2” and then later rechristened “Where Are You?” (the spiteful lyrics are about departed PiL video maker Jeanette Lee). It came out on both Lydon’s “official” This is What You Want, This is What You Get album and Levene’s less official version on the Commercial Zone bootleg.

This 1982 report from Canadian television about PiL’s first performance in the country, at Toronto’s Masonic Temple Concert Hall, features a short excerpted performance of “Lou Reed Part 2/Where Are You?” and during it someone spits right in Lydon’s face. He’s not happy. At the end of the piece there’s a bigger chunk of a live “Public Image.” With so little decent footage of PiL around—I’ve seen very little video of the post Wobble group—this is a real treat. Lydon’s sporting a hospital gown and looks, as he often did in his youth, like an escaped mental patient.

I don’t know exactly what he means by this, but if you click over to Keith Levene’s website, he’s trying to raise the funds to “finish” Commercial Zone 2014. For a guy who was so, er, quiet, throughout most of the past three decades, for the past few years, Levene seems intent on making up for lost time, recording and gigging with Jah Wobble, releasing solo material and writing his life story, the nicely titled, This is not an Autobiography: The Diary of a non-Punk Rocker, available soon as an e-book.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.10.2014
02:55 pm
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This Is Not A Tutorial: Keith Levene teaches you how to play PiL songs on guitar
04.05.2013
02:48 pm
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You have to love it when a budding guitar player can email a master like PiL and Clash co-founder Keith Levene—the Hendrix of the post-punk era—asking “how do you do that?” and get a reply like this one!

In 2010, Levene gave “Justin” advice on how to play “Annalisa” and “Poptones” by recording himself and uploading it to YouTube.

Keith Levene’s new release Search4AbsoluteZero is available now for download through his Murder Global website.

Follow Keith Levene on Twitter.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.05.2013
02:48 pm
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Siouxsie and The Banshees: In Concert Amsterdam, 1982

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‘New band, new mistakes,’ said Siouxsie Sioux in an after-show interview from this concert of The Banshees at De Meervaart Theater, Amsterdam in 1982.

Siouxsie was describing changes to The Banshees line-up over the previous 4 years, which had seen the arrival of drummer Budgie, and guitarist John McGeoch, joining Siouxsie and 1st Banshee Steven Severin.

As McGeoch explained it was the core dynamic of Severin and Siouxsie that made The Banshees work.

The Banshees were one of the most important and influential bands of the past 30 years, and while so many other bands from the sixties, seventies and eighties are getting back together and taking to the road again, it would be good to see The Banshees regroup, to take their rightful place at the top of the tree.

Sadly, any reunion would be without McGeoch, who died in 2004. McGeoch was classed as a Punk Jimmy Page, and had successful career with Magazine, Visage, The Banshees, and Public Image Ltd. I’ll leave it to McGeoch to describe performing with The Banshees in concert at De Meervaart:

‘It was great, because I felt like I was a teenager again, which was at least 20 years ago - and it’s nice to have memories like that.’

 

And o, what memories.

Track Listing

01. “Israel”
02. “Painted Bird”
03. “Arabian Knights”
04. “Spellbound”
05. Interview with band
06. “Switch”
07. “Happy House”
08. “Head Cut”
09. Interview Steven & Siouxsie
10. “Voodoo Dolly”
11. “But Not Them”
12. “Sin in My Heart”
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Happy Birthday Siouxsie


 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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01.18.2013
07:22 pm
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Public Image Ltd., live on Boxing Day, 1978
12.26.2012
01:03 pm
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On Christmas Day, 1978, and on the following day (what Brits call “Boxing Day”) Public Image Ltd. played two legendary gigs at the Rainbow Theater in London. Their live debut had occurred just five days prior, in Brussels, Belgium.

Here’s a run-down of what happened by someone who was there at the Christmas show, as published on the PiL fansite, Fodderstompf:

When PiL announced the Christmas 1978 concerts I couldn’t get tickets fast enough. This was what it was all supposed to be about. The Pistols were over, punk was over, long live the new flesh. Who wanted to be associated with people with mohicans and ‘The Clash’ written on their biker jackets? Not me, strictly pegs and shirts, the new way…

A band playing a gig on Xmas day (and Boxing Day) was a big thing back then, no one ever played gigs at Xmas, there was never anything to do, I knew it was going to be special, the fact that it was PiL’s first UK gig and that Lydon hadn’t played London for so long added to the event as well. PiL, along with punk chancer (and later Pistols cash-in merchant) Jock McDonald, decided to promote the gig themselves which was another unusual step at the time. One thing was for sure, PiL were going to be different, this was the new way…

The Rainbow in Finsbury Park was normally seated, but if I remember rightly there had been trouble at a Clash gig a few weeks before so they decided to take the seats out and also brought in loads of extra security, in all I reckon it held about 1,000 people that night. There was no public transport , but me and my mate G-Man had sorted transport out. We loaded up with lager and copious amounts of illegal substances and off we went, leaving South London to travel to the wilds of Finsbury Park. By the time we got there we were half pissed. We polished the other half off, chatting to the various faces outside, then it was in…

Don Letts had a DJ box towards the back of the stalls and was belting out some earth moving Dub, so far so good… We sorted out a vantage point and waited. An early incarnation of Basement 5 without Dennis Morris were supporting, and I thought I remembered The Slits playing too, but apparently it was another all girl group called The Lous, I can’t remember them at all. Linton Johnstone also did some poetry, and all in all it was a good package, though I think it was lost on most of the senile animals who had turned up to see Johnny Rotten…

Eventually the place went black, Wobble’s bass shook the earth and the band launched into ‘Theme’ . They were on, and that’s when the shit really happened! Out strode Rotten/Lydon lagered up, fights started almost on cue. One side of the stage were Arsenal Skins, the other side West Ham, and in the middle the punks. Football chants were heard, the skins kicked fuck out of the punks, then each other. There were waves of people just steaming into each other. Rotten got involved verbally, then people started gobbing and canning stage.

All I can really remember was that the whole stage was decked out in green and black and that PiL looked fucking great. Wobble sitting on a chair throughout, dressed all in black with his bandit hat. Levene wired(?) for sound. Rotten in his checked suit strutting about the stage, slagging the punks off, but at the same time handing out beer. The band had to stop several times while all the mayhem erupted over and over again; it was getting scary.

They played fucking brilliant, I thought it was better than the album, which I loved anyway (and still do). They played the whole album, minus ‘Fodderstompf’. I remember that they never played any Sex Pistols songs, but that said, I know they played ‘Belsen’ the next night, so I could be wrong. I think not playing Pistols songs helped all the trouble erupt, lots of punks kept asking for them. Rotten slagged them for it, then they got battered by the thugs (Merry Xmas!).

One quote from Lydon I definitely remember while all the rucks were going off was, “You always use your fists in the wrong direction, you should take them down to Parliament”. I’m not sure if he meant the group or the place (only joking). We didn’t go back for the Boxing Day show, but I’ve heard the bootleg and I reckon it was basically the same set, though it certainly seemed a lot less eventful. Rotten eventually left the stage but the band still played on, he came back on and they encored with ‘Public Image’, then it was all over…

The fights continued on the way out and outside. I bumped into a mate who’d had his nose broken and was covered in blood. He wanted revenge, I just wanted to go home, he got his pals together and went off looking for vengeance. Me and my mate got a lift home from his big brother…

It was the best fucking Christmas I ever had!

George X

Another fan has a somewhat different memory than George X, but having seen PiL live myself back in the day, I’m inclined to go with George’s account: it was one of the most violent (and utterly mind-blowing) shows that I have ever witnessed (When they played “Attack,” my nearly brand new shoes were destroyed, even as they were on my feet. It was at this same concert that I decided to to go to college).

Here’s the audio of the entire 1978 Boxing Day gig.

1 Theme
2 Low Life
3 Belsen Was A Gas
4 Annalisa
5 Public Image
6 Religion
7 Attack
8 Public Image II
 

 
A clip of the group doing “Careering” on the Old Grey Whistle Test about a year later:
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.26.2012
01:03 pm
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‘One Drop’: The first new Public Image Ltd. song in 20 years

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DJ Steve Lamacq premiered the new PIL song earlier today on BBC 6.
Our John may have lost his upper register, but it is nice to hear him strain at it in such a raw way over the type of back-to-basics reggae-rock bed that’s screaming for a remix/dub-out…

According to the alt-‘80s blog Slicing Up Eyeballs:

The song will be released on a vinyl EP as part of Record Store Day on April 21 in advance of the release of the full-length This Is PiL in May or June.

Enjoy…
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
PiL : Design
Public Image Ltd: The infamous riot at the Ritz gig

Posted by Ron Nachmann
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02.14.2012
09:53 am
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PiL: Design
02.02.2012
07:29 pm
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I am still rather taken with the design for Public Image Limited’s 1986 Album. Yes, I know Generic Flipper did it first, but Lydon and co. did it better.
 
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PiL Single and Label, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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02.02.2012
07:29 pm
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Johnny Rotten on ‘Jukebox Jury,’ 1979
08.26.2011
01:30 pm
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In 1979, John Lydon made an unexpected appearance on the goofy Jukebox Jury television panel show. His fellow panelists included Joan Collins and Elaine Paige!

(The expression on his face, above, sums up perfectly, I feel, what most Brits probably think about Noel Edmonds, the host of Jukebox Jury ....)
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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08.26.2011
01:30 pm
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John Lydon’s top of the pops roots Reggae picks
01.24.2011
01:58 pm
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Johnny Lydon meets Big Youth, photo by Dennis Morris
 
It’s well-known that John Lydon has been a lifelong and very knowledgeable fan of reggae music and dub. In 1978, after the demise of the Sex Pistols, Lydon traveled to Jamaica with filmmaker/DJ Don Letts, photographer Dennis Morris (who designed the PiL logo and Metal Box) and journalist Vivien Goldman on the dime of Richard Branson’s Virgin Records to scout and sign reggae talent.

From an interview at Punk77 with Don Letts:

Some have conjectured that Lydon formed the embryo of the idea of the bass heavy structures in PIL from his trip to Jamaica, and the sound system dances they attended together there. Don is not so convinced that the trip to JA was as formative an influence on Public Image as some have presumed.

Don Letts: No, John already had that spaciousness, that blueprint in his mind long before we went to Jamaica. As long as I knew John, he had always listened to sparse avant-garde music, stuff like Can , and he really knew his reggae, I have to emphasise that, him and Joe Strummer, Paul Simonon, Jah Wobble, they understood dub, deeply, they had a lot of music I didn’t have you know. Lydon, Wobble and the others, they were turning me on to tunes I never had, it wasn’t always the other way round. We went to a lot of sound system sessions here in London too, people like Jah Shaka, Coxsonne, Moa Ambessa, so really, his experiences in Jamaica were an extension of what had already been in his mind for years, back in North London. Isn’t that just so obvious when you listen to those early PiL tunes, the stuff he was making with Wobble and Keith just after he left the Pistols.

Branson had financed the whole journey, as a chance for Lydon to “cool off”, and at the same time he was to act as a talent scout, signing up emerging reggae stars for the new Frontline roots label. Whilst in Jamaica, Letts and Lydon had met all their “heroes” on the roots and culture scene of that time: rebels, visionaries, chanters and mavericks, microphone chanters like Prince Far I, Big Youth and I Roy and deeply spiritual singers like The Congos, musicians who had produced some of the greatest spiritual masterpieces of their time.

Don Letts: You know, sometimes me and John just had to pinch ourselves to remind ourselves that we weren’t dreaming all this! It was great for us to be meeting and working with these guys, guys whose music we really admired and loved!

What did the Rastas make of Johnny Rotten? I had heard numerous stories and reports of John Rotten, dressed entirely in black from head to toe, clad in heavy black motorbike boots, black hat and heavy black woollen overcoat, walking through fruit markets in the heat of a full Jamaican summer! So was this fanciful rumour?

Don Letts: Yeah, it’s not rumour, that’s true! You know why he did that? John didn’t want to go back to London with a tan! Respect to you John!

So what did the Rasta’s make of John then?

Don Letts: The Rastas loved John! To them he was “THE punk rock Don from London” they were aware of all the trouble he had stirred up in London, and yeah, they were into what he stood for and his stance, and they dug it… We smoked a chalice together with U Roy for breakfast, and then went out to one of his dances, miles out in the countryside, quite a long journey by car. I remember the dreads stringing up this sound, and kicking off with some earthquake dubs. Now let me tell you this sound system was LOUD, and me and John both of us, literally passed out! I remember hours later some dreads shaking us awake, it was like, “Wake up man, dance done, dance finish now man!” Yeah, it was pretty wild for me and John out in Jamaica. We loved it. John just had a vibe you know, people were drawn to him. It was the same in London; it was the same in Kingston. John is Irish, and there is a definite affinity between Jamaicans and Irish! We’ve all heard the saying “no Irish , no blacks, no dogs”, which used to appear in pub and lodging windows and well, there must have been a reason for that, that ethnic grouping together, that ethnic rejection ! Jamaicans and Irish people have always got on together in England, though I can’t say for sure why. A similar attitude to life perhaps? Who knows why they should tune in to each others psyches so well…Is it that both are oppressed peoples, or that both have a natural rebelliousness of spirit? Someone should do a study of it!

Although there have been several interviews where Lydon has spoken about what Jamaican sounds he was listening to and radio shows where he’d play some of his favorite reggae tracks, an undated letter that Lydon sent a PiL fan (on embossed PiL stationary, to boot!) who asked where to start with the genre is the most complete listing of the reggae that Lydon was skankin to in the 1970s. What a list it is! Still great advice!
 
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British punk and reggae examined:
 

 
Via Fodderstompf, Vicious Riff and Punk77

Previously on Dangerous Minds
Johnny Rotten plays his own records on Capital Radio 1977

Big Youth:Natty Universal Dread

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.24.2011
01:58 pm
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Post-Pistols, pre PiL: John Lydon interview, 1978
01.17.2011
01:44 pm
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In 1978, at a time after the end of the Sex Pistols, but before Public Image Ltd. was formed, John Lydon gave an actual friendly interview to Janet Street-Porter. Cheerful, not at all rotten Mr. Lydon—seen here looking even more Dickensian than usual in a top hat he says he purchased at Disneyland—discusses how he’d like to see Malcolm McClaren dead, how he made no money whatsoever from the Sex Pistols and he touches ever so briefly on his recent trip to Jamaica, where he’d been scouting reggae talent (and meeting some musical heroes) for Richard Branson’s Virgin Records.

Lydon also reminds us that tickets for the USA Sex Pistols tour cost two bucks!
 

 
Via Flaming Pablum/Glen E. Friedman

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.17.2011
01:44 pm
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