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<\/p>\n\u201cEver get the feeling you\u2019ve been cheated?\u201d<\/p>\n
With that question posed to an audience at San Francisco\u2019s Winterland on January 14, 1978, visibly unhappy vocalist Johnny Rotten (ne\u00e9 Lydon) ended his tenure with the Sex Pistols. Not counting relatively brief reunions in 1996 and 2007, that gig marked the effective end of the band, though the three remaining members (guitarist Steve Jones, bassist Sid Vicious and drummer Paul Cook) would continue for awhile without Rotten, taking part in a largely ill-advised film venture that yielded The Great Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Swindle<\/i>.<\/p>\n
None of the Sex Pistols was known as anything like an instrumental virtuoso; the most talented musician in or around the group at the time was original bassist Glen Matlock; as the story went at the time he was sacked after admitting an affection for the music of the Beatles. (That tale, like most others coming from the Pistols\u2019 cynical, self-styled svengali Malcolm McLaren, was a fabrication.)<\/p>\n
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After the implosion of the Sex Pistols, few expected great things from any of its former members. So it was quite unexpected when the member of the group who \u2013 it seemed \u2013 didn\u2019t even play an instrument surfaced with a new band. That group \u2013 Public Image Limited, often abbreviated as PiL \u2013 would go on to release eight studio albums and two live albums. With constantly shifting personnel, and Lydon as the sole constant, PiL was active from 1978 to 1992. The band went inactive for 17 years, returning in 2009.<\/p>\n
Since coming back together, the group has released two more albums (This is PiL<\/i> in 2012 and 2015\u2019s What the World Needs Now…<\/i>) and has enjoyed a stable lineup. Backing Lydon are guitarist\/keyboardist Lu Edmonds, bassist Scott Firth and drummer Bruce Smith. Both Edmonds and Smith had been in pre-hiatus lineups of PiL as well. 2018 sees the release of a documentary film and six-CD career retrospective, both titled The Public Image is Rotten. <\/i>In October, the post-punk group embarks on a North American tour. An October 10 date at Atlanta\u2019s Variety Playhouse was the second show in an 18-city run.<\/p>\n
Public Image Limited\u2019s 1978 debut album was abrasive and unfamiliar-sounding; it didn\u2019t follow on from the sound of the Sex Pistols. Lydon\u2019s caterwauling seemed anything but commercial; still, the single \u201cPublic Image\u201d reached #9 on the UK charts. But Warner Brothers Records decided Public Image: First Issue<\/i> was indeed too uncommercial for American audiences, and canceled a Stateside release.<\/p>\n
Today the album retains much of its power, but \u2013 like Never Mind the Bollocks, Here\u2019s the Sex Pistols<\/i> \u2013 it sounds a bit less revolutionary. That may be explained by the fact that many other groups took influence from PiL and recast it in a more commercially palatable form.<\/p>\n
Lydon would agree. \u201cEverything I’ve done has been copied two or three years later, watered down, filtered, put through a wringer and then became acceptable,\u201d he says. \u201cIf that’s what people like, then that’s fine. At least I’m influencing music in a positive way, even though to me the results from lesser bands are negative.\u201d He grudgingly admits that those \u201clesser bands\u201d nonetheless represented a step in the right direction, \u201cexplor[ing] the possibilities of sound and not limiting it to categories.\u201d He calls that musical pigeonholing \u201cthe biggest shaming, damning factor of modern pop music. It’s accepted as manifesto, but it’s not their creation and we shouldn’t adhere to it. It’s like politics: ignore the lot of them and we\u2019ll be a lot better off.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there are clear antecedents to the music of early (and even later) PiL, some of them are found in reggae. Lydon bristles at any suggestion idea that Public Image Limited is a reggae group. \u201cThat [idea] was masterminded by idiots in the British press,\u201d he hisses. \u201cThey’re responsible for some of the most inaccurate statements ever made in music. The British music media is astounding in its ignorance.\u201d But Lydon freely and proudly admits to reggae\u2019s influence, as well as other inspirations like pop music and even Jimi Hendrix.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was brought up in reggae,\u201d he says. \u201cIt’s a natural background to me. The place I grew up in, Finsbury Park, is a melting pot; there are so many different cultures there. Greek, Turkish, Irish, Jamaican, African, Muslim … English, even.\u201d He\u2019s adamant that PiL\u2019s embracing of reggae textures \u2013 most obviously in original bassist Jah Wobble\u2019s dub approach to his instrument \u2013 is not cultural appropriation. \u201cReggae as much belongs to me in my childhood as anybody else. And maybe that’s a lucky mixed bag of affairs.\u201d He does warn against others doing it, though. \u201cIf you don’t come from an area like that, then don’t try to dabble with it. <\/b>You have to have a cultural rooting in it really to be able to understand it au naturel<\/i>,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Lydon says that the musical distance between the Sex Pistols and Public Image Limited isn\u2019t something he consciously set out to create. \u201cThat’s just the way it twisted and unfolded,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I formed PiL, nobody was really expert at anything. But what we wanted to do was have our own voice, and the very first song that we came up with in rehearsal \u2013 which was quite an amazing feat I think \u2013 was the \u2018Public Image\u2019 song.\u201d<\/p>\n
From there, the group realized it could, in Lydon\u2019s words, \u201ctake the bass to different places, study rhythm guitar to an exciting conclusion, and I could shape-shift my voice.\u201d That last item came as surprise to the man who had previously vocalized tunes like \u201cGod Save the Queen\u201d and \u201cAnarchy in the U.K.\u201d \u201cI thought I was fairly limited to a Sex Pistols\/Mr. Rotten thing,\u201d he says, adding pointedly that the style of singing is one \u201cthat Oasis has so fondly explored.\u201d<\/p>\n
The original PiL lineup fell apart quickly. \u201cIt’s a shame I couldn’t keep them together as a band,\u201d he says, with a touch of wistfulness in his voice. \u201cI think the best music comes from people who haven’t over-studied it and are not lost in the manuals.\u201d Lydon blames the record company \u201cand resentment of unknown entities that I was working with. That was a continual problem, and has been ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n