Just read a great article on Expletive Undeleted eulogizing the merits of Jah Wobble's finest moments with PiL's Metal Box. Also contains my favourite quote of the month "No Wobble - no point". I concur: Expletive Undeleted
Reminds me, I must buy a copy of Wobble's Memoirs of a Geezer.
I found Expletive Undeleted via the ever excellent Uncarved.org whose latest post features articles from a 1987 edition of the NME on the subject of stealing music in the then newly emerging sample age. It's interesting looking back on a time when bands such as That Petrol Emotion were lambasted by narrow minded journalists for using a drum machine! John Eden, Uncarved's author, talks about how this issue of NME opened his mind to what the possibilities of music could be. Read it here: Uncarved
For me, it was Steinski and The Mass Media's 'And The Motorcade Sped On' that blew me away and opened my mind to future possibilities. It was given away free on a 4 track EP by NME in the same year:
5 comments:
I'd forgotten about that Steinski track, pretty good stuff, of course the same year was this which was huge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZElWBsoyvUo
and as with many things Grandmaster did it first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU30dyTX0hc
I once read somewhere, might have been Reynolds but I gave away my copy of Rip it Up so can't verify, that when the Pistols split Lydon auditioned as vocalist for Can, which draws an interesting comparison between PiL and Can, or PiL as John's Can, PiL is obviously Krautrock influenced and both combined long form experimentalism with driving rhythm and free form vocals. Also is the title Metal Box a reference to this?
Word. Both still sound fresh.
Not sure about the MB title. Didn't read all of Rip It Up, just the bits I was interested in. I read the PiL bits and don't remember that.
Having said that about 'No Wobble - no point', I still rate much of Flowers of Romance (although haven't listened to it in about 20 years [now logging onto Spotify]) and both This Is Not A Love Song & Rise were excellent singles although the LPs were patchy to say the least.
Yup, Flowers of Romance still sounds good.
I think you're right, it wasn't Reynolds, I think it was an interview with one of the members of Can itself
Thanks very much for the mention. I would've picked up on it sooner but I've just moved my blog to a new url and missed it in the confusion.
As it happens, a fair few people I know went to the PIL gigs and said they were a lot of fun. I can't really argue with that. I still think they would have been a lot more fun if they'd done new material though.
Memoirs of a Geezer is one of my favourite recent biogs. A fantastic read. I'm looking forward to hearing the Japanese dub stuff Wobble has just recorded. Can't say I'm looking forward to any new stuff from Lydon.
I'm redirecting people from the old url but click on my signature if you want to go there direct.
Cheers!
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