After three years of virtual
inactivity while ensconced communally in a huge loft in NYC, Public
Image offers these two records, one a 12-inch 45 rpm, the other a superbly
recorded live concert in Tokyo. Both are full of puzzling twists in
the characteristic musical direction of P.i.L., and the focus and intent
seem to be the results of an aesthetic cabin fever and an attempt to
get their careers back on track more than sheerly musical inspiration.
No doubt that they were haunted
by their own earlier successes, placing them at the helm of the trans-avant
garde bands of the ’80s, with a rhythm section that hit upon the
power of funk to give the music an earthy rock bottom—the perfect
foundation for John Lydon’s non-stop lyrics and Keith Levene’s
layers of synthesized guitar treatments. Levene’s uncanny manipulations
of the guitar’s sonic possibilities forced listeners to cease waiting
for anything approaching a conventional rock guitar—instead one
experienced a wash of anguished electricity slithering in and out of
P.i.L.’s heterodoxical stance. In a sense, Lydon’s inability
to edit himself was the locus of Levene’s most significant contribution:
his solos, in effect, stretched the entire length of the songs, and
the resolution their tension was often in the last few seconds of each
piece.
Shortly after they released
their studio double album LP Second Edition (reviewed db,
7/80) Jah Wobble and his rubbery bass lines were given walking
papers. David Crowe, never acknowledged as a full-fledged member, was
replaced by Martin Atkins’ pan-African drumming, and Lydon and
Levene began composing pseudo-Arabic melodies with inter-modal harmonies.
The result, Flowers Of Romance, was a musical and critical success
but it’s intellectualism and umber colorations left P.i.L.’s
audience examining their own musical inclinations. Today, a plethora
of bands white and black fuse funk and rock, plying a vein that P.i.L.
first mined. This approach continues to be the conceptual motherlode
of the decade.
After leaving England for
the United States, the band found themselves in a financial squeeze,
unable to afford studio costs without an advance from their record company.
For their part, Virgin/Warner Bros. were hesitant to release any loot
unless P.i.L. had finished tapes ready. Without a manager, a secure
record contract, and armed with a distrust of the record business, Lydon
& Co. began pointing suspicious fingers at one another for the situation
they were in. Which brings us to the music at hand.
In early 1983 the band finally
entered a N.Y. studio to cut a 12-inch disc centered around a single
tune, "This Is Not A Love Song"—perhaps the closest thing
to straight rock P.i.L. has ever recorded. Lydon sings a verse, then
Levene plays a short chorus, back and forth trading leads, each time
testing the emotional edges of their parts. The band is in top form,
at ease in turning the simplest format into a series of searing climaxes
that grow to an aching intensity. Also recorded was "Blue Water"—for
P.i.L. the usual unusual, a cryptic dirge of vague suicidal inclinations.
It was during the remixing that Lydon was offered a 10-stop tour of
Japan—sans Levene. Lydon met the promoter of the tour in
L.A., who then introduced him to a group of session musicians who had
the Sex Pistols and P.i.L. repertoire down pat. Following rehearsals,
Lydon, Atkins, and the newcomers became the newly reconstructed Public
Image and began appearing in L.A. venues. Lydon, returning to the persona
of carrot-topped Johnny Rotten, baited his audiences with taunts and
snarls. The band, with their blow-dried hair and matching outfits, hardly
epitomized anything other than a lounge outfit from New Jersey—which
in an earlier time they were.
Off to Japan went this unseemly
aggregation. To say that the vinyl spawn of this visit is sad is an
understatement. The material on these concert recordings covers the
gamut of P.i.L.’s history, focusing upon the earlier recordings.
Lydon goes through the set in the most perfunctory manner. Atkins plays
as if he’s unfamiliar with his own tempos and cues, and the band—what
they hey—they aren’t bad ... though they aren’t convincing.
But at the very end, the last song, "Religion," something
happens to get everyone up, and this version is more than the equal
of its original. John sings in a full voice with a venom that matches
the heretical lyrics, enveloped in an aural intensity found nowhere
else on the four sides.
As a postscript, I should
add that Levene is readying an album of his own. And, in spite of this
poor showing, one cannot rule out the potential of anything John Lydon
becomes involved in. |