Pete Jones:
Twisted

Pete Jones is probably one of PiL’s least known bass players, he was only in the band less than a year, circa 1982-83. I have to admit outside his work with PiL and Brian Brain I knew virtually nothing about him, or his recent activities. Last year I stumbled upon his web site, and I had hoped to approach him to set up an interview, then quite unexpectedly he contacted me to say he had saw the F&F site, and that he had a new CD coming out...

I really had no idea how it would sound, I suppose I half expected it to be crap but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised! Pete plays everything on the album himself, he produces and mixes, does all the artwork, and it’s only available via his web site. It’s very much done as he wants it, on his own terms and I genuinely believe he couldn’t give a fuck if it sells or not. However, it deserves to sell, it’s a very good record. Loads of different sounds and influences.

The first track ‘Guitar Jones’ would work well on a soundtrack. A moody atmospheric track based mainly on guitar, with a little background synths thrown in. ‘Fat Man, Thin World’ (a take on the title of the Brian Brain track, ‘Black Man, White World’) and the title track ‘Twisted’ are poppy, almost New Order like, dance/disco tracks. ‘Corruption’ & ‘Shave’ aren’t a million miles away from PiL. Massive plodding low-end bass, with all sort of samples and synths on top. In fact, on ‘Shave’ he even samples Lydon from ‘Religion II’ (“of a bitch”). Most tracks are instrumentals, ‘Guitar Jones’ and the aforementioned ‘Shave’ use sampled spoken word vox. However, on tracks like ‘Corruption’, ‘Blue Water’ & ‘Fat Man’ Pete does the vox himself. None of his vocals sound similar, he’s used a variety of effects to mess around with them. He can sound like anything from Mark Burgess (Chameleons) to even Mark E Smith (Fall) on some tracks (he wasn’t best pleased when I suggested this!!).

I was surprised when I saw he had ‘covered’ PiL’s ‘Blue Water’, it’s a brave man who takes on a track like that, however, I think he does it justice. It starts with some splashing of water and weird synths like the original but it’s a sort of modern update of the track with drum machines, and a completely different guitar style. The only thing I wasn’t over keen on were the vocals, but that’s the story with any PiL cover version, there’s only one John Lydon.

As I say in the interview with covering ‘Blue Water’, and sampling Lydon it could look like he’s using PiL to sell the record, but it works well and although I do admit it’s a risky thing to do ‘Twisted’ is anything but a rip off. I’m not saying it’s a masterpiece but I honestly don’t think there’s a bad track on the album, with ‘Shave’, Corruption’ & ‘Twisted’ being particularly strong. The album has a good mixture of styles, and it’s always horrible to label stuff, but if I had to call it anything I’d say it was a weird and wonderful mixture of PiL, New Order and maybe even a little ‘Psycho’s Path’, that’s a good fucking mixture as far as I’m concerned.... As I said, when I first got this CD I thought I was going to have to review it just to get the interview, but I’ve been listening to it a lot, and I’d definitely recommend it. Between this and the Damage Manual it proves there is life after John Lydon and PiL...