Public Image

[I. Spaceman]

I want to encourage some talk about the most underrated band of the 80's.

This is a review of Metal Box by Lester Bangs I posted in another thread:

from Notes on PiL’s Metal Box"
by Lester Bangs (published in Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, Greil Marcus, ed.)

 
Buried deep in the Sex Pistols’ The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle, one of the greatest albums ever made, is Johnny Rotten singing to San Francisco: "Belsen was a gas I heard the other day / In the open graves where the Jews all lay / Life is fun and I wish you were here / They wrote on postcards to those held dear." At the end of the song he begins to shriek: "We don’t mind! Belsen was a gas! Kill someone! Kill yourself! We don’t mind! Please someone! Kill someone! Kill yourself! We don’t mind! Please someone! Kill someone! Kill yourself!" Then there is a moment of silence and the crowd screams. It’s one of the most frightening things I’ve ever heard. You wonder exactly what you might be affirming by listening to this over and over again. On one level Johnny Rotten / Lydon is an insect buzzing atop the massed ruins of a civilization leveled by itself, which I suppose justifies him right there, on another level he’s just another trafficker in cheap nihilism with all that it includes—cheap racism, sexism, etc. I’m still not comfortable with "Bodies." But then I never was, which may be the point. But then I wonder if he is. After which I cease to wonder at anything beyond the power of this music.

In life things never do what they should. In rock ’n’ roll things always do what they should. That’s why it’s fascist.

I am surrounded by psychotics. Often I suspect I am one. Then certain records come out and I know I am not alone.

Man on radio: "I’m not here to teach you to think."

Neither am I. What I am here for is to con you into buying anything by PiL.

I would not presume to say the audience in San Francisco wanted to die, but dying takes no courage now. That may be why John Lydon / Rotten quit the Sex Pistols immediately after that night. There are only so many times you can tell somebody something in plain English till you realize they don’t get the irony even in that; they don’t hear the words. All they see is a reflection of a spurious notion of the self and a spurious passion too, so you stop attempting to communicate. If people want to think Belsen was a cheap joke, that’s their problem. So Rotten / Lydon retreated to England, where he formed Public Image Ltd., which people on both sides of the pond have not been shy in telling me they think is also a joke.

But then most people don’t listen to music, as the Sex Pistols proved conclusively.

I don’t give a foda about John Lydon. I suspect him to be a pompous little putz. Let him blab in NME. Still, I think he knows what he’s doing, and PiL is the proof. Because The Metal Box is one of the strongest records I’ve heard in years. PiL’s first was just a big foda you to all the people who bought the Pistols on sight and never heard a word and this album continues that tradition from its film-can packaging to its music—but even the first album contained "Theme," one of the best arguments for not committing suicide I know.

The first words in this new album are "Slow motion." Like Jean Malaquais: "Please do not understand me too quickly." I think that could be Lydon’s motto. This group never tours—the result is that they spend all their time working in the studio on this stuff, shown by the fact that there are three different versions of "Death Disco," their second single, and two radically different versions of "Memories," their third. One, the twelve-inch, is a fairly straightforward indictment, no, rant against nostalgia culture. I read in NME that is was directed at the "Mod Revival" in England but then I don’t believe anything I read in NME anymore. Whether or not it applies to "Happy Days," Grease, all the proliferating falsifications of what I and everyone I know experienced once in what it is now so convenient to call "the fifties" or "the sixties," as if life was really measured or lived in arbitrary decades, when the history books are sold like comix I for one will still be listening to Lydon: "You make me feel ashamed / Enacting attitudes / Remember ridicule? / It should be clear by now / Your words are useless, full of excuses, false confidence / Someone has used you well / Used you well."

Then, on the album version, the whole sound shifts, into a new and hotter realm. It’s something I have never in my life heard anyone do in the middle of a track, and as the grooves begin to burn themselves away he resumes: "I could be wrong / It could be hate / As far as I can see clinging desperately / No personality dragging on and on and on and on / I think you’re slightly late / Slightly late..."

There aren’t many pieces of music that (his next lines: "This person’s had enough of useless memories") express completely how I feel as a human citizen of this—whatever you want to call it. I don’t mean to glorify such a feeling, it’s just that it’s lonely and there are I suppose only a few people who’s alienation matches anyone else’s. Maybe someone else finds it somewhere else. For me, I’ll stake ten years of writing about this merda on Blank Generation and The Metal Box. And On the Corner and Get Up with It by Miles Davis, which got kudos from jazz critics who never listened to them again and were rejected by the fans. The reason is the same: this is negative music, in all cases this is bleak music, this is the music from the other side of something I feel but I don’t want to cross, but if you feel the same then perhaps at least you can affirm this music, which knows that there is nothing that can be affirmed till almost (and that’s my word, not theirs) everything has been denied. Or you can laugh hysterically at it, like a friend of mine who has actually attempted suicide a couple of times. When I played him "Theme" and said "Can you relate to that" he laughed harder. "Sure," he said, "Who couldn’t?"



Chris D. said he disagreed and I am interested in some more detailed thoughts.
Let's all talk PiL.

[Chris D.]

My response from the Pitchfork thread:

I don't think PiL is bleak.  Not on Metal Box.  Flowers of Romance, maybe.  And I don't think that rock music always works out.  Isn't part of its appeal that its wild and imperfect?  Granted, those can be faked.  I guess that's a really loaded statement.  Say a band puts out an imperfect take think it's right.  Does it then become perfect?  Maybe.  I agree with him that PiL is worth obsessing over, but not necessarily for the same reasons.  I don't think Lydon is just joking with people either.  I think inside he's always fighting himself for being really insincere and feeling ashamed when people don't get him.  Then he tries to laugh at them, to laugh it off.  But I don't think he mostly operates by putting people on.  I think he acknowledges nihilism as one way to face life, and maybe the best way, but wants something more.  Maybe Lydon has troule finding it.  I don't think PiL is cheap nihilism though, and neither were the Sex Pistols.

What do you think?

Great thread idea, Ian.  Thanks for getting this started from the Lester Bangs thread.  PiL are, as you say, very underrated.  A lot of people I talk to like the Sex Pistols a little and have no desire to hear PiL.  A lot of this 80s revivalism comes from them, though, even if it's very indirect.  Aren't Joy Division like PiL played by Kraftwerk?  PiL without the (feigned?) sloppiness, very rigid and exact.

I wonder how Lydon will be remembered when he's dead.  He never wants to be fully understood, which I get, but I think he's barely been understood at all.  People will be analyzing his performances, interviews, and recordings the same way they look at Shakespeare.  Lydon's a guy who has made a lot of great music and managed to take apart a lot of accepted ideas about performance and recording.  If Elvis set a template for what a rock star is, Lydon took it apart; but you need both of them there.

My only complaint with PiL has been that the original group never did enough.  I think they (he?) did great music afterward -- "Warrior" and "Rise" are some great singles, and I like how Lydon could blend in with poppier stuff after making himself look like the opposite for years.  But when Levene was in the band the two of them were almost all talk, and it's a shame.  Lydon should have really used the Pistols reputation to push even more of his ideas over onto the public.  Maybe I should respect him more for not doing that, though.

[I. Spaceman]

Wow, a lot to chew on and think about. I'll do that tonight and report back tomorrow.
For now, I'll say this:
PiL made the only dance music that I don't feel foolish and self-conscious dancing to.

[Chris D.]

Great dance music.  Great artwork.  Great marketing.  They really should have followed through on the whole Commercial Zone concept, it would have been brilliant.  If they would have done all those shows behind the white screen, that would be unstoppable.

I really disagree with Steve Jones, too -- Lydon's best lyrics were in PiL (don't know if they could have taken "Religion" or "Public Image" to the edge).  He has some amazing stuff in the Pistols, but you can tell he's still learning a little.  But his phrasing and imagery in PiL is expert.  He's a very intelligent guy who has studied a lot of British literature, and it shows.  He was obsessed with Vampire Lestat, too, and wanted to save all his money to make a movie out of it.  Anyway...good guy!  Even Collins liked him.

I look forward to your response, Ian.

Also, any songwriter who writes about death and tragedy or how rough their life is should be forced to listen to "Death Disco."

[cabinessence]

PiL made the only dance music that I don't feel foolish and self-conscious dancing to.

I can't speak for you, and 'dance music' is stretching it a little (as it is too for PIL), but certain tracks of The Fall and Yoko's "Why" come to mind as more music along the same lines.

[Chance]

Here's the famous American Bandstand appearance from May '80 where Lydon makes no attempt to lip synch. Give Dick Clark major credit for having them on, he knew damn well they weren't your average mainstream pop group, I think he had integrity to allow the Bandstand format to be stretched a little for the sake of showing his audience something a little different. The band do Poptones and Careering, but alas it's just the studio recordings piped in, as usual for AB. I hadn't seen this in 25 years before stumbling onto this link earlier in the week. When it originally aired, I just happened to catch it, didn't know they were on, and I've always remembered it fondly, wishing I could see it again. It's a pretty cool little bit of audience interaction.

Funny, I've never gotten the impression of them being underrated, sad to hear this may be the case in some places. I guess maybe it's a generational thing, most of the folks I know rate 'em quite high, they were so obviously stretching boundaries, although, I admit, I didn't get it at all at first. The first album I got was "Second Edition," and I remember being disgusted. I was expecting more of the Pistols - who I loved beyond all reason - and this just seemed to be lousy, tuneless music, intentionally played and sung badly to annoy people. Which made sense, really, considering who Lydon was, but I felt had, and at the price of a double album. Sure, Poptones was irresistable, because it's the closest they come to "normal" pop, but the rest of it just seemed like sh*t. I put it aside and went back to my ever-spinning copy of Bollocks. Throughout that time, though, I kept seeing the influence of this band all over the place in the underground. You'd go to New York on a record hunt and come across all these bands that seemed to be following suit, making "inside out" music. Bauhaus, The Fall, and my new loves, Joy Division. And the press kept raving, I remember Rolling Stone or the Village Voice saying that the record was trying very hard to be a milestone, and that, although it only half succeeded (to them), it was still a brave and important new direction. So I dug it out again, and, heeding one reviewers comment that it was kind of like jazz performed in a rock context, I listened a little more openly, letting the music come to me without preconcieved expectations, and it started to gel for me. I really love the Levine-Wobble combination, what at first sounded so random and tossed off is in fact totally structured and synchronized, just in ways that you'd never heard before. I think Metal Box/Second Edition is THE major album of the first half of the decade. It WAS a milestone, where tracks like "Tusk" and "Emotional Rescue" at the time did seem to be stretching the limits of what could get on the radio, PiL went miles beyond them; for me a quarter of a century of familiarity has erased whatever limitations the record seemed to have at the time, because it's been so assimilated into the language of rock. Time has caught up with it. It's one of the most innovative records I've ever heard. I kind of dropped out of the PiL universe when that live Japanese set came out, they seemed to have stopped pushing themselves, but those early records are all unique and incredible, they make no concessions beyond thier own internal, intrinsic logic. A great, great band. In terms of brains and innovation, better than the Pistols, who I still love beyond all reason.

[cabinessence]

Flowers of Romance is also great, I think (but I love most of the records gathered under the PIL name), the 'Muezzhin cries to Allah' deal on the title track especially with all the rhythmic stop-starts and Johnny doing his usual punk retchings wobbily resolving into place over the course of the track as yes-nihilistic-punk-but also-throwing up your soul to heaven-desert-prayer, no trite snarky snideness involved. Lydon and company got to this point a dozen years earlier than Robert Plante (doing something like it less successfully) in his recent incarnations (albeit with some Led Zep reminiscences poking former Rotten's god-fearing butt along in the general right direction to start with, or so I hear it)

[Chris D.]

Funny, I've never gotten the impression of them being underrated, sad to hear this may be the case in some places.

I think they are underrated in that a lot of people don't know them.  They know all the bands who rip off PiL, but not PiL.  More than that, they're still really misunderstood.  People love raving about the Levene stuff, but won't go beyond it.  If you read any quotes from professional musicians, at best they try to sound open to most of PiL, but then quickly focus on Metal Box and how much that metallic reggae blew their minds.  And Metal Box is brilliant, but it gets old reading the same sh*t over and over.  You know they only like that album because it's the PiL album you're "supposed" to like, and no one's going to argue with them about it if they drop it in an interview.  I admit I need the later albums.  I just have a compilation with most of that stuff, and then the Levene stuff except the first LP.  But there are great later songs that are much poppier than "Poptones."  And I think overall that may be the one thing that makes PiL such a great band.  At the time, Pistols fans like you couldn't accept Lydon's new direction.  Not it seems old hat.  By starting out rough and going into straight pop music, he made the straight pop stuff sound really weird.  Most fans can't accept that, and it's supposed to be the easiest music to accept as a listener.  That's fucking perverse and really intelligent.  And I think it shoots down the myth that all Lydon wants to do is piss people off.  That's just an act.  The beauty of his music (not that he wrote everything in PiL) speaks for itself.

[Chris D.]

Bump

[I. Spaceman]

Listening to the first 3 now.

[Chris D.]

Whore.

[Nick T.]

I got the 7" of Death Disco and the live Paris Au Printemps because of this thread.  Before that only knew Seattle, the video with the exploding watermelons.  Not put off by it and in fact listening more and more. 

I know the band Unrest was very into not "Metal Box" but PiL's concept.  Which I thought of as being in a collective and not just in an "everyone in the band contributing to the music" theme but also producing films and printed materials as well--all sorts of media.  Am I off on thinking this is what PiL did--don't know that much, just starting out.  Interested that Lydon could go from one groundbreaking band to the next which is some sort of accomplishment.

Chance--thanks for the link!

[Chris D.]

When Levene was in the band PiL were into talking about doing a lot of media projects, but nothing really came out of that.  It is a cool concept -- remember, they were a corporation, not a band.  Too bad they never really developed it.  The Residents really did the same thing and were doing it years earlier.

[Nick T.]

That is a shame since they seemed to have the advantage of being in the spotlight moreso than The Residents.  Could have reached more people with the concept.  Didn't know they failed to develop it--gotta read up some.  Were they legally a corporation?

[Chris D.]

I don't think so.  Check out www.fodderstompf.com

[zelilgirlI1cenu]

Great thread.

[Chance]

Hey Chris, you know that London debut recording we were PM'ing about (12/26/78)? Daniele was at that show.

Tell us your impressions of the gig, Dani. The tickets must have been pretty difficult to get, I would imagine. Was this before the first album was out? I think the single was out by then, at least. Had you heard much of them beforehand? What was your impression of the direction he was taking, quite a departure from the Pistols.

BTW, great avatar! That pic has been hanging over my desk at work for about six months now.

[zelilgirlI1cenu]

Hey Chris, you know that London debut recording we were PM'ing about (12/26/78)? Daniele was at that show.

Tell us your impressions of the gig, Dani. The tickets must have been pretty difficult to get, I would imagine. Was this before the first album was out? I think the single was out by then, at least. Had you heard much of them beforehand? What was your impression of the direction he was taking, quite a departure from the Pistols.

BTW, great avatar! That pic has been hanging over my desk at work for about six months now.

You got me to think again about these times. I think Chris identified that I was at the second concert rather than the first night. The ticket were not hard to find, because I think there was a general air of dubiousness at the time about PIL. Yes dubiousness. Why? Because remember that J. Lydon had acquired the image of a con man. So what was this intellectual sh*t about? "I'll walked right off the fucling stage, if you dont spittin!". Had he become a pretentious git? This was the feeling AT THE TIME. Of course what he did with PIL was ahead of its time and of its time, because it pointed out the conceptual nature of punk rock. In a way, punk rock was dead, but the real achievement of PIL was to give it its new birth by cutting out to some extent the "visual/fun" aspects of punk rock and exploring its musical potential. Was he doing a Brian Eno? Yes, by bringing out PIL, he showed the underlying conceptual validity of the whole movement at a point where the movement was being recuperated by the industry. It believe it is also thanks to PIL, that we also see the conceptual/musical validity of bands such as Joy Division. So yes, PIL, in my mind, helped validate the musciality of a movement which had doomed itself to perdition from day one.