RhoDeo 1220 Aetix

Hello, Aetix again, bit later today so without further ado, the angry man of the Aetix..

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Following the Sex Pistols' breakup in 1978, Lydon approached Jah Wobble ( John Wardle) about forming a band together. The pair had been friends since attending the same school in the early 1970s, and had sometimes played music together during the final days of the Sex Pistols. Both had similarly broad musical tastes, and were avid fans of reggae and world music. Lydon also approached guitarist Keith Levene, with whom he had toured in mid-1976, while Levene was a member of The Clash. Jim Walker, a Canadian student newly arrived in the UK, was recruited on drums, after answering an ad placed in Melody Maker.

PiL began rehearsing together in May 1978, although the band was still unnamed. In July 1978, Lydon officially named the band "Public Image" (the "Ltd." was added several months later). PiL debuted in October 1978 with "Public Image", a song written while Lydon was still a member of Sex Pistols. The single was well received and reached number 9 on the UK charts. In preparing their debut album, Public Image, the band spent their recording budget well before the record was completed. As a result, the final album comprised eight tracks of varying sound quality, half of which were written and recorded in a rush after the money had run out.  The album was considered groundbreaking on its release in December 1978. Grounded in heavy dub reggae, Wobble's bass tone was called "impossibly deep" by contemporary reviews. Levene's sharp guitar sound, played on an aluminium Veleno guitar, was to become widely imitated.

The album Metal Box (1979) was a more focused effort. In addition to the drugs and disorganization that were the normal condition of the band, Jim Walker had quit from general disillusionment, making way for a series of drummers. Metal Box was originally released as three untitled 12-inch records packaged in a metal film canister (later reissued as 2LP set, Second Edition), and features the band's trademark hypnotic dub reggae bass lines, glassy, arpeggiated guitar, and bleak, paranoid, stream of consciousness vocals.

The third album, not released in the U.S., was the live Paris au Printemps (1980). Lydon and Levene, plus hired musicians, made up the group by that time.  Martin Atkins, who had initially joined at the tail end of the Metal Box sessions was re-recruited to drum on Flowers of Romance, an album considered much stranger and more difficult than the already strange Metal Box. Levene had by then largely abandoned guitar in favour of synthesizer. Levene being incapacitated on heroin much of the time -- had to leave. The aborted fourth album recorded in 1982, was later released by Levene as Commercial Zone. Lydon and Atkins claim Levene stole the master tapes.  In 1983, PiL scored its biggest U.K. hit, when "This Is Not a Love Song" , by this time, PIL was a vehicle for John Lydon. Atkins stayed on through a live album, Live in Tokyo -- in which PiL consisted of him, Lydon, and a band of session musicians -- and left in 1984, following the release of This Is What You Want, This Is What You Get.

Anyone's first thousand guesses as to who Lydon would work with next couldn't possibly come close, as the unlisted credits for Album read as a motley crew of established musicians who literally have no business being anywhere near Lydon, let alone in a studio with him or with one another. Well, maybe that made perfect sense, given Lydon's ability to baffle. Bill Laswell--whom he worked with in Time Zone the year before--produced and played bass, which isn't too much of a stretch. But Steve Vai, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Ginger Baker ? With its emphasis on big guitars and big drums, Album was written off by some as PiL going stadium rock, but others remarked that Lydon's confrontational lyrics and caterwaul vocals, and the abundance of Eastern-style melodies, helped steer this album away from the realm of conventional 80s metal. The album is rife with surprising and very effective musical flourishes: never is this more evident than on the closing "Ease," a beautiful, monumental mood/rock piece with synth, sitar, didgeridoo and a Steve Vai guitar solo.

In the liner notes of PiL's Plastic Box compilation (1999), John Lydon remarked that "In some ways  . Obviously the most important person was Bill Laswell. But it was during the recording of this album in New York that Miles Davis came into the studio while I was singing, stood behind me and started playing. Later he said that I sang like he played the trumpet, which is still the best thing anyone's ever said to me. To be complimented by the likes of him was special. Funnily enough we didn't use him..."

PiL released Happy? in 1987, and during the spring of 1988 performed throughout the United States as part of the INXS Kick tour. The album was less well received by critics than its immediate predecessor, but still produced the classic single "Seattle" In 1989, PiL toured with New Order and The Sugarcubes as "The Monsters of Alternative Rock". PiL's ninth album, 9, appeared earlier that year. The album was produced by Stephen Hague, Eric "ET" Thorngren, the band, and not as planned by Vigin, Bill Laswell. In 1990, PiL released the compilation album The Greatest Hits, So Far. The band's last album to date, 1991's That What Is Not, saw Atkins also returning to play on the recorded album, but did not remain for the subsequent tour. Lydon disbanded the group a year later after Virgin records refused to pay for the tour supporting the album, and Lydon had to pay for it out of his own pocket. After completing his memoirs in late 1993, Lydon decided to put an end to PiL and pursue a solo career. In 1997 he released a solo album, Psycho's Path.

In September 2009 it was announced that PiL would reform for five UK shows, their first live appearance in 17 years.[19] Lydon financed the reunion using money he earned doing a UK TV commercial for Country Life butter. On 15 October 2009, Lydon registered the private limited company PIL Twin Limited as his new music publishing company in the UK. The new line-up (consisting of Lydon, earlier members Bruce Smith and Lu Edmonds, plus multi-instrumentalist Scott Firth) played to generally positive reviews in late 2009. The tour also spawned a live album release, ALiFE 2009. In April 2010, PiL began an extensive North American tour, including a sub-headlining appearance at the Coachella Festival. In an interview for BBC Radio 6 on 13 February 2012, Lydon revealed that PiL will release the vinyl only EP One Drop on 21 April, followed by the new 12-track studio album This is PiL on 28 May. It will be the band's first studio album in twenty years.

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Like it or not, Public Image Limited's First Issue (aka Public Image) was an album that helped set the pace for what eventually became known as post-punk. Disheartened  and disgusted by the punk scene in general, Lydon was determined to create something that was neither punk nor even really rock as it was known in 1978. Working with ex-Clash guitarist Keith Levene, first-time bassist Jah Wobble, and Canadian drummer Jim Walker, Public Image Limited produced an album that represented the punk sound after it had shot itself in the head and became another entity entirely. Embracing elements of dub, progressive rock, noise, and atonality and driven by Lydon's lyrical egoism and predilection towards doom, death, and horror, First Issue was among a select few 1978 albums that had something lasting to say about the future of rock music. And not everyone in 1978 wanted to hear it; contemporary critical notices for First Issue were almost uniformly negative in the extreme.

Public Image Limited's debut single, "Public Image," was also included on First Issue, and Keith Levene's guitar part, with its tasty suspensions and held-over-the-bar syncopation, was an important departure from standard punk guitar language absorbed so quickly by others (the Pretenders, U2, the Smiths) that listeners and musicians alike forgot the source of the sound. First Issue's opener, "Theme," was a force to be reckoned with, a grindingly slow dirge with wild, almost Hendrix-like figurations on the guitar and Wobble's floor-splitting foundation. This was punk with the power of Led Zeppelin, but none of the pretension. Lydon's anguished mantra in "Theme," "...and I just wanna die," was the exact reflection of what his generation was thinking about in the wake of the collapse of classic punk. "Annalisa" is the hardest-kicking rocker on the album, with nosebleed-strength guitar from Levene; it is so good that Nirvana in all practical purposes purloined the whole number, with minor alterations, as "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" on In Utero.

But even with all of the calculated controversy seemingly built into the various cuts on First Issue, none attracted quite so much attention as "Fodderstompf." Public Image Limited decided to conclude the project with a track consisting of no more than a disco beat, chattering synthesizers, a bassline, and Jah Wobble singing, shouting, and screaming the phrase "we only wanted to be loved" in a joke voice. Rock critics savaged the song as a deliberate attempt to rip off the public, but it became hugely popular at the Studio 54 disco in New York; the drag queens and hipsters sang and screamed right along with Wobble out loud on the dancefloor . If you will a precursor to the acid house and techno that began to evolve in the mid-'80s.

Public Image Limited - First Issue ( flac 281mb)

01 Theme 9:05
02 Religion I 1:40
03 Religion II 5:40
04 Annalisa 6:00
05 Public Image 2:58
06 Low Life 3:35
07 Attack 2:55
08 Fodderstompf 7:40

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After guitarist Keith Levene and bassist Pete Jones left Public Image Limited due to major concerns about the direction John Lydon wanted to take the band, Lydon and drummer Martin Atkins reformed the group with members of a New Jersey outfit, Westside Frankie and the Inglewood Jerks, who knew the Sex Pistols' catalog by heart. The band toured Japan in the summer of 1983, and were offered the chance to record two shows on rare Japanese digital recording equipment while in Tokyo. Atkins would later say the resulting album was released not because of the quality of the show itself, but because of the opportunity to record a live album digitally. Comprising of material from throughout the group's history, Live in Tokyo was originally released as two 12" 45's, in keeping with the style of the earlier Metal Box. However, unlike that seminal album, the performances by this version of Public Image Limited were resoundingly faceless. Gone is any semblance of Jah Wobble's deep bass, Levene's brash guitars, or even Lydon's apocalyptic screaming. Instead it is all replaced by bland competence. Only one track, "Religion," comes across as adding something to the original version, with a new organ introduction and an astonishingly biting performance from Lydon. Ironically enough, because the group recorded with such sophisticated equipment, the sound is phenomenal, capturing the band in crisp, rich tones.

Public Image Limited - Live In Tokyo ( flac 281mb)

01 Annalisa 5:22
02 Religion 5:47
03 Low Life 2:45
04 Solitaire 3:59
05 Flowers Of Romance 4:44
06 (This Is Not A) Love Song 6:12
07 Death Disco 5:08
08 Bad Life 4:44
09 Banging The Door 4:53
10 Under The House 1:56

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PiL's  previous 'Album" had been a mercanairy affair under the guidance of Bill Laswell in support of Lydon. Happy however showed an impressive lineup, Keyboardist Lu Edmonds (the Damned and 3 Mustaphas 3), guitarist John McGeoch (Magazine and Siouxsie & the Banshees), drummer Bruce Smith (the Pop Group and Rip Rig & Panic), and muscular Yank bassist Allan Dias, a solid unit, forming something of a post-punk supergroup. Happy? is increasingly entrenched in dancefloor-type fare. Lydon isn't his full-blown postal self, but he's still continents away from being rosy. Lydon's riffing on unplanned pregnancy ("The Body"), sheep mentality ("Angry"), and false national pride ("Hard Times") still holds together lyrically. McGeoch and Edmonds' sparkling work comes a little too close to stadium-bound for comfort (paging Mr. Edge...). Just when the band sounds as if it's approaching standard issue 1987 chart fare, it fiddles with the arrangements and structures enough to make sure the songs don't qualify as such. If PiL was trying to remain accessible and challenging at the same time, the band fell just short of its goal; given the conspirators involved, Happy? is not quite as distinct as it should have been. But as far as PiL outings are considered, it was Lydon's best in years.

Public Image Limited – Happy ? (flac 206mb)

01 Seattle 3:40
02 Rules And Regulations 4:31
03 The Body 3:12
04 Save Me 4:47
05 Hard Times 3:41
06 Open And Revolving 4:01
07 Angry 4:14
08 Fat Chance Hotel 7:00

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elsewhere earlier....
http://rho-xs.blogspot.nl/2007/10/eight-x-2.html
Public Image Ltd - The Flowers Of Romance (now in Flac 291mb)
http://rho-xs.blogspot.nl/2008/07/eight-x-39.html
Public Image Ltd. - Compact Disc (now in flac  258mb)
http://rho-xs.blogspot.nl/2011/03/rhodeo-1110-aetix.html
Public Image Ltd. - Metal Box (now in flac  363mb)


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