What was really unique about PiL, was that they were one of the very few pop groups who had the opportunity to unleash uncompromising and challenging music to a mass audience.Very few pop stars have had the intelligence and power,or the guts, to use their position to unfurl such a monster of avant rock as Public Image Limited. We've had the "Tomorrow Never Knows" era Beatles, maybe bits of Bob Dylan, but nothing really matched PiL performing "Death Disco" on Top of The Pops. A cacophonous scream of anguish and grief beamed into 12million living rooms at dinner time; this will never happen again.
Another thing I loved about this band is that they never looked like they wanted to be in any kind of group,or even be here at all.An admirable bad attitude,probably the worst attitude in pop history.No intelligent human being should ever want to be the public's performing monkeys......something John Lydon is now very good at;but we can forgive him that for he burnt so brightly,that his star burnt out completely around 1982.
This performance was the second set of the day from PiL's first ever live appearance,and one of only four the original line-up did,so god knows what the audience were expecting to see?Most of them wanted The Sex Pistols mark 2,but for the most part seem relatively appreciative.
We also get to hear two attempts at "The Cowboy Song" ,which quickly disappeared from the set after this.
Tracklist:
1-Soundcheck 1
2-Soundcheck 2
3-Theme
4-Belsen was a Gas
5-Low Life
6-Sod In Heaven
7-Attack
8-Cowboy Song 1
9-Cowboy Song 2
10-Public Image(instrumental)
DOWNLOAD some aural pharmaceuticals HERE!
11 comments:
fixed us up a treat
It's do good to have you back - I missed your wonderful way with words.
Jonny,
Apparently I was sending messages to a sys.no-response address,
so my apologies.
All my best wishes for your very speedy recovery. You're having
a 厄年 of the worst kind; things can only get better from now on.
If that doesn't show up in your software, it's "yakudoshi", which
a Google search termed as "âges malchanceux", but which to me is a
total untranslatable.
If I can proffer anything to cheer you up, it might be Sundays And
Cybele (シベールの日曜日), another recent Japanese trouvaille.
Steve
I am so glad to learn you're out of hospital - The one place to encounter viruses and drug-resistant bacteria that you can't find anywhere else in town! I hope you'll enjoy the cleaner air and post as you see fit!
Yep, Death Disco on TOTP is forever seared into my brain next to The Ruts, The Specials and Killing Joke. I must have been 11 or 12 when it was on and it had such a profound effect on me.
1979 was also the year I was first exposed to Feeding Of The 5000 and though I listened fervently to my friends' older brothers and sisters punk records and had a few of my own - the usual suspects like Sham 69, UK Subs, Dickies, Stranglers et al - I just knew intuitively that like Crass, there was something so Other about PiL - the sound, the dropping of the Rotten moniker, Jah Wobble's inked out teeth and just the whole presentation made everything I had previously heard seem like kiddies stuff and though I could not articulate it at the time - I just sensed that this was the real deal - that there were ideas behind the music, an entire new way of looking at the world.
Just found a clip of the PiL TOTP performance that includes a segment of the act before, Rickie Lee Jone's 'spell-binding' performance of Chuck E's In Love and the utterly banal Mike Reid intro as it really illustrates its utter alien nature:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjiDCMQYY1M
Oh my God, Death Disco!I sat there,heart beating fast,with me dad(he was always there for my Epiphanal TV rock moments....never complaining.....except when the Sweet were on around 1973 when he was heard to mutter "Blooody 'ell!" The sex Pistols,however, left him unmoved.) Killing Joke, their influence still haunts me.....i realised that my last group sounded like Killing Joke,after we split up....my fault...again.
Thinking about the genius of PiL,almost brings me to tears. Why is there no equivalent today?.......its basically because we are in the post second Renaissance slump,which will last a good hundred years at least.
I was at the first set that night, PiL's first ever live performance. I would give my right nut to hear a tape of that.
I'm sure there is a bootleg of the first set,and i don't think you need to donate your right nut to find it somewhere? Or if someone out there has a copy,you know what to do?
Oh nice one. I was on the hunt for an 86 gig but this looks better. Thank you.
Nice one and new to me. Thank you.
An 86 gig!!!????....nothing PiL worth listening to after 1981.....it was just Rotten and a backing band.Awful.
Post a Comment