PEOPLE say that Public
Image Ltd. should play live more -often. People say that PiL aren't
interested in their (or any) audience, that they're selfish and irresponsible,
that they abuse their privileges, that they only want to' alienate.
People say too much and think too little.
So PiL prefer to spend their
time in studios rather than on stages, so the PiL creative process and
ensuing recorded noise have no cozy accommodating antecedents, so PiL
are not what they were expected to be - s0 what? Did you really expect
a repeat performance? Do you really want John Lydon's head on a plate?
I didn't and I don't. But even as we drift towards the bitter end of
1979 and the 1970s, pundit persons are compiling retrospectives of the
dying decade like there was no today, let alone no Friday week. Maybe
Doomsday is ahead of schedule, but they're welcome to their insights,
hindsights and overviews, the huffing old windbags.
Past is passed, and I feel
moved to say about matters punk and post-punk is that I'm glad John
Lydon is no longer Johnny Rotten, that he's somehow managed to crawl
from the pathetic wreckage of the Pistols with his dignity if not his
self-respect intact, and that I admire the man for displaying a sight
more sheer bloody minded integrity during the whole pitiful parade than
almost any of his peers or partners in iconoclastic crime.
Just what is the problem
with PiL though? I can't see it myself. Lydon never promised anyone
an easy ring around the rose garden. You can take PiL or leave them
- just don't say they haven't given fair warning. If you haven't enjoyed
the story so far, then you won't even want to glance at these chapter
headings. . Mind you, I always found the Pistols unbearable except in
tiny doses, but then there's no accounting for my taste. The PiL noise
is certainly 'different', but hardly 'difficult'. Such flags are subjective
and relative, of course, but try and keep the mounting preconceptions
arms' length, OK? It might help.
The PiL noise is John Lydon
(vocals), Keith Levene (guitar, drums) and Wobble (bass, drums), everybody
trebling on electronics, effects and synthesizers.
The PiL noise is a three-way
street, a most democratic a co-operative animal that uses the studio
as it sees fit, as an additional instrument mostly, that assesses where
the limits of the recording technology lie and tends to break beyond
them."
PiL produce the most aggressively – and sometimes oppressively
– physical sound on record since Can made 'Monster Movie' or 'Tago
Mago'. Drawing rigid, restrictive parallels between the two bands is
probably pointless, but it's interesting to compare their respective
attitudes to music-making.
Part of the point about early
Can sound was that it was enthusiastically, guilelessly manufactured
by five men whose collective experience of rock was at best minimal.
The object of the exercise was simply to proceed with open ears, to
somehow un-learn and then learn afresh. Can were playing at being primitivists,
scratching the skin off every bone, and they got away with it, only
letting their various, very formal musical pasts (Stockhausen, etc.)
intrude at odd; unexpected angles.
The resuIts - those two albums
in the main - were extraordinary. And yet it all seemed so natural,
so uncontrived, so naked, so absolute - PiL seem equally reluctant to
make correct, polite gestures, to make music that does all the right
things in all the right places. Beginnings and endings seem pretty arbitrary
throughout 'The Metal Box'; shapes and sizes seem pretty optional.
The gist of the PiL drift
is, I suspect, extremely Cannish. The band are forgetting things, mislaying
things, stumbling with things, stumbling on things and then, abruptly,
it all clicks, clicks, holds. Don't matter a tawny owl's hoot whether
any of this album is accidental or intentional; such distinctions are
much too 'nice' to survive in these territories.' Flotsam and jetsam
of past endeavours and enthusiasms (Wobble's fondness for the work of
producers Lee Perry and Dennis Bovell, for instance) surface from time
to time, but they're small fry; sub-atomic particles in a huge, accelerating
whole. And yet it all seems so natural, so instinctive, so honest, so
absolute.
But time is tight and 'The
Metal Box' is the second PiL 'album'. It comes in a plain silver can
with the PiL logo stamped in relief on its lid. It's a tracklist and
60 minutes 34 seconds of sound pressed with enviable clarity onto three
12-inch 45s slipped. between four white paper discs (PiL wanted more
protective inner packaging, but Virgin said no. It retails at £7.45,
a sum that's not nearly as extortionate as it first seems.
And 'The Metal Box' goes
like this…
'Albatross': Wobble's mega
bass rumbles massively in the mix. Levene's guitar stutters into earshot,
a crabbed neural scratch. Rhythm and drums are relentless. Lydon drawls
lugubriously about "Slow motion / Slow motion / Getting rid of
the albatross / Sowing the seeds of discontent.” (for complete
lyrics of 'Box', refer pronto to page 39; they're all there*). The syllables
are dragged out; Rotten slurs, seems to move through the songlike a
deep-sea diver. The final, manic shriek of "Only the lonely"
is chilling. A doom dance about responsibility, accounting and atoning
(but to or for what or whom?).
'Memories': an electric glide
in grey, remixed, bass frequencies diminished and then suddenly pushed
right into the red. Levene's guitar is a gliding scale, at times a doppelganger
for Michael Karoli of Can's. Another public or private address from,
Lydon: "It could be worse / You're losing all the time / I let
you stay too long / I could be wrong / It could be worse". It Could?
And just who is "you"? The question begs on empty.
'Swanlake': 'Death Disco'
remixed. A maelstrom, Levene's Tchaikovsky chords more prominent, more
perverse than before. Lydon is almost hysterical: "Watch her slowly
die / Saw it in her eyes / Choking on a bed / Flowers rotting dead".
I hope this is an exorcism, but can't help but find it unnervingly guilt-ridden.
"Words cannot express the vocal trails away, helplessly. The jump
on the fade is deliberate.
'Poptones': PiL in King Crimson's
clothing, looser and slacker than Crimson's 'Red' album, Lyrics? Check
'em out in your own time. They seem to run very scared; Lydon's vocal,
especially the "I don't like hiding in this foliage and peat...
" verse,is droll to say the least. Lydon as haunted, hunted fool?
Other memories for a man with too much on his mind.'
'Careering': extreme; Discotic,
washed with malevolent synthesizing and shattered by electronic gunfire.
Lydon's voice constantly mixes sense, sound and metaphor: A face is
raining / Across the border / The pride of history / The same as murder..."
The references to "the border”, "both' sides of the
river” and the “military” all suggests " Northern
lreland as the song's locale. Later, Lydon identifies with the central
character, whose role escapes, me utterly: a gunman, a soldier, a civilian
or what? I wouldn't know. Despairing depths, these, mirrored remorselessly
by their soundtrack. X-traordinary.
'No Birds': another alternative
mix or take.
Guitars are everywhere, scrawling
mayhem, vicious graffiti, as Lydon squirms through a tunnel of sound:
a full-frontal assault on surburban standards.
'Graveyard': a spooky, scratchy
instrumental. Mercifully brief. Levene's chords clamber up a metal ladder
to the moon. '
'The Suit': Wobble's bass hum-drums over a spartan rhythm track. Lydon's
put-down of a "society boy on social security" is bitter as
myrrh. Sheer spleen. Blackest bile. Hope he never hears it.
'Bad Baby': the PiL engine
idling nervously. New drummer Martin Atkins hits a hi-hat, does well
for himself.
Lydon, almost cracking into falsetto, tells a tale of the times: "Someone
left a baby / In the car park / Never any reason... Ignore it and it
will go away". Inner city anxieties. Anti-social comment.
'Socialist': Telex and /
or Kraftwerk spin-dried. Stuttering drums gibbering mini-moogs. The
title's significance (if any) eludes me.
‘Chant': roughshod
and raucous. I think the chant ,goes like this "mob... war…
feel... hate". Lydon affects a petulant whine - "It’s
not important / It's not worth a mention in The Guardian"- but
again he's playing hard to get, attitude-dancing as coyly as ever. An
ironic idiots' anthem, yes?
'Radio 4': a soft, deep-piled
rug of neo-classical synth orchestration. A groaning parody of BBC boredom.
Levene's idea apparently, and funny as in ha, ha. Very.
Conclusions: 'The Metal Box'
is more complete, more convincing than the first album. As indicated
above, Lydon is still the crustacean, all pink and squiggling flesh
beneath the outer shell. But for one obvious reason and another, that's
his prerogative – for the time being at least. Nerves and tendons
and frayed and twisted more often too; Lydon, Levene and Wobble all
seem more ... concerned, confident. In terms of impact and effect, 'The
Metal Box' is pulverising; incredibly exactly. All this forward flow
in twelve months - it's almost frightening. PiL are miles out and miles
ahead. Follow with care. |