Pirate
Cat Radio (San Francisco & Los
Angeles) aired a 2 hour special to celebrate
the 30th Anniversary of 'Metal Box'
last Sunday, March 1st.
The show played
the album in full – sourced from
an original vinyl copy –
together with new specially recorded interviews
with Jah Wobble, Richard Dudanski and Martin
Atkins. Full tracklisting info etc can be
found via host Mike
Routhier's MySpace page.
The
previously mentioned film 'Waltz
with Bashir' -
which features 'This Is Not A Love Song -
has been nominated for an Oscar in
the Best Foreign Film category; it has already
won a Golden Globe Award. The animated Israeli
film directed and written by Ari Folman tells
the story of a young soldier during the nightmares
of the 1982 Lebanon war. You can watch the
trailer via YouTube; which
also includes the PiL track.
The 30 minute show - narrated by Wobble
- features interviews with Sid's teenage
friends Vince Bracken (aka The Steel Leg),
Billy Dolan and Terry Penton. Expect to
hear a few stories you've never heard elsewhere
as Wobble seeks to shed more light on the
pre-Sex Pistols Sid.
'In Search of Sid'
also includes interviews with Marco Pirroni
and Viv Albertine; as well as archive interviews
between Anne Beverley and Jon Savage, and
Roberta Bayley and Sid.
Wobble's Chinese
Dub album receives its official release
this Monday, January 19th (see News November
8th for more info). Fodderstompf review
coming soon, in the meantime check out
these press articles and reviews. Also
see 30
Hertz and "The
List" for updates…
Update:
Wobble was interviewed on BBC
Radio London, DJ Ritu Show on Saturday,
January 17th regarding Chinese Dub. The
same night he also appeared on Radio
4 Loose Ends speaking
of the 'In Search of Sid' documentary.
Both shows are available for 7 days via
the BBC website or iPlayer service.
November
8th 2008
Jah
Wobble 'Chinese
Dub' is now available via the 30
Hertz online
shop. The album will be availalble in
all major records shops and online records
retailors from January 19th 2009. Digital
Download are availalbe from December
1st 2008.
Chinese Dub (30hzcd30)
Space / Silence
/ Walking The Horse / Solitude / L1 Dub
/ Happy Tibetan Girl / Kang Ding Love Song
/ Dragon And Phoenix / Dragon And Phoenix
Dub / L1 Horse Mountain Song / Yellow Mountain
/ Yellow Mountain Prototype
30 Hertz Press Release
For me, the highlight was Jah Wobble...
just extraordinary. It was musical genius
as far as I was concerned
Lopa Kothari, BBC Radio 3’s World
on 3 (WOMAD)
Nobody could deny that Jah Wobble's Chinese
Dub performance was knockout entertainment.
Veteran punk and bass virtuoso Wobble has
fruitfully married classical Chinese instrumentation
(including his wife, Zi Lan Liao on Chinese
zither) to heavy dub rhythms - the music
was scintillatingly catchy.
Arwa Haider, Metro (WOMAD)
Jah Wobble gave the performance of
the festival. His new project, Chinese
Dub, started as a relatively modest commission
for Liverpool 08, marking the city’s
year as European capital of culture, and
grew into a tour and an album. Dub and
Chinese music proved a perfect mixture.
The earnest folk melodies leavened the
dub’s conceptual self-importance;
the dub hardened the Chinese music against
kitsch
David Honigmann, Financial Times (WOMAD)
This valiant attempted fusion of east
and west could fall flat on its face, but
it proves a remarkable success. This is
partly due to Wobble's wife, Zi Lan Liao,
who picks out pizzicato patterns on a zither-like
guzheng as accompaniment to Mongolian singer
Gu Ying Ji and crystalline female vocalist
Wanq Jingqi. In the midst of this exoticism,
Wobble is a trilby-sporting East End geezer,
underpinning the eclectic extravagance
with his dub-bass rumble
Ian Gittins, The Guardian (Bush Hall, London)
Throughout July and August 2008, Jah Wobble,
legendary bass player and contemporary
renaissance man, toured the UK with his
new project, Chinese Dub, a 22-piece Anglo-Chinese
aural and visual spectacular. Combining
his trademark dub with Chinese melodies
and instrumentation, the maverick music-maker
successfully married East and West sensibilities,
proving once again that his creative adventurousness
is far removed from others’ world
music dilettantism. The tour culminated
in an appearance on the BBC Radio 3 stage
at WOMAD in what was, for many media commentators
and punters alike, the highlight of the
festival.
Chinese Dub, a studio album produced by
Jah Wobble, includes singers Mongolian/Tibetan
Gu Ying Ji and Wang Jingqi, from the Mao
ethnic minority of China, part of Yunnan
Province (both handpicked by Jah Wobble
on a visit to China in 2007), internationally
acclaimed guzheng player Zi Lan Liao, flautist
Clive Bell, and Wobble himself; the Pagoda
Chinese Youth Orchestra also features.
This album is now available
from 30 Hertz Records website only. It
will be availalble in all major records
shops and online records retailors from
19th January 2009. Digital Download will
be availalbe from 1st December 2008.
October
6th 2008
You
can watch John Lydon's Country
Life Butter ads via
the Country
Life website.
"It's not about Great Britain,
it's about Great British Butter!"
Tim
Simenon (Bomb The Bass) recently picked 'Public
Image' as his top track for a 'On my iPod'
mix for The
Metro Newspaper.
Public Image by PIL
The bassline on this really caught me.
It's got the usual Johnny Rotten rant
but I think he nailed it so well on this.
It was the first time I had heard bass
player Jah Wobble. I worked with him
years later but couldn't bring myself
to mention that I think he's a god.
August
30th 2008
The
October issue of Uncut Magazine includes
a 'Making Of…' feature on PiL's debut single
'Public Image' and the formation
of the band.
John Lydon, Jah Wobble,
and engineer Bill Price were interviewed
for the article.
August
21st 2008
Newly
launched music video streaming website MUZU
TV have signed a deal with ITN Source
which sees 80,000 hours of archive footage
becoming freely available
online.
Included amongst the archive
is John Lydon's post-Pistols pre-PiL interview
with Janet Street Porter on the 'London
Weekend Show', and the infamous
1979 PiL 'Check It Out' appearance.
Unfortunately 'Check It
Out' misses the first half of the interview,
but the remainder is complete; as is the
'London Weekend Show'. You can view the
videos FREE using the links above or via
the MUZU
TV website. (Flash required).
August 25th: Brighton,
Beachdown Festival, UK
August 30th: Rhythm
Festival, Clapham,
UK
August 31st: The Electric
Picnic Festival,
Ireland
September 28th: Elefest, London,
The Coronet Theatre, UK
August
12th 2008
John
Lydons’s
recent – taking liberties not taken
easily – interview on BBC1,
The One Show has been added to
the JohnLydon.Com
YouTube channel ‘RottenTube’.
Definitely not be to missed...
July
18th 2008
Jah
Wobble's Chinese Dub tour
ended earlier this week to rave reviews
everywhere. Something of an experimental
cross-cultural extravaganza the show fused
Wobble's music with traditional Eastern
melodies and singers; together with theatre
and opera including the ancient Chinese
art of mask changing. Wobble and wife Zi
Lan Liao certainly know how to put on a
show!
Below is a round-up of
various reviews and interviews etc.
A taster of the forthcoming
album is still available FREE as a MP3
stream via the 30
Hertz website. 7 tracks are currently
available.
Sign up to "The
List" for regular updates and
to hear Wobble's own thoughts on the
tour; which he eloquently describes as "the
proverbial dog's bollocks"…
After
recent comments by John Lydon in The
SunKeith Levene has
apparently stated he would not be interested
in any PiL reunion if it was ever to
happen – (should he be invited).
Keith is currently playing
with Peter Ashby and Barry Lamb as "Ashby
Lamb Levene". The trio have
a website under construction at www.dynamitevision.com,
and have also launched a MySpace page on
behalf of Keith. He
is also said to be working on new solo material. www.myspace.com/keithlevene
July
6th 2008
John
Lydon was interviewed for The
Sun this week regarding the release
of the Sex Pistols 'There’ll
Always Be An England' DVD – and
when directly asked – commented
that at some point he'd like to "revisit"
PiL. However, it seems highly
unlikely this would be any time soon…
“We were like a symphony
orchestra with machine guns. It would be
great to revisit.”
Jah
Wobble's Chinese Dub made
its live debut last night (July 5th) at
Liverpool, Carling Academy. They play London,
Bush Hall tonight and embark on a short UK
tour (see News
May 8th for full dates).
Prior to the Liverpool
show Wobble appeared on BBC Leeds Radio
(June 25th) and was interviewed for Liverpool
Confidential.Com and Sheffield
Telegraph. The Sheffield
Telegraph sheds new light on the Karl
Burns myth… !
Wobble is interviewed in
today's Independent
on Sunday 'How
We Met' section together with Jim
McCarthy. In
the late 70s Jim answered an ad in the
music press to audition drums for PiL;
the audition was eventually cancelled but
the pair later met up in very different
circumstances. Read the full interview
via the Independent
on Sunday…
Jim has just published
a graphic novel on the
Sex Pistols – see Sex Pistols fansite 'God
Save the Sex Pistols' for a full review.
Tom
Zvoncheck – who
played live with PiL in 1983 – has
just digitally re-issued his 2001 album
'ZKG',
now including two bonus tracks.
'Rain In Florida' features Jon Anderson
of Yes. See CD
Baby for
full info… Thanks to Tom Zvoncheck
June
22nd 2008
With the
Sex Pistols 'Combine Harvester
Tour 2008' now in
full swing John Lydon has
been interviewed in various publications,
most notably Mojo
Magazine where he appears on the
front cover (sporting
a very smart PiL badge). Regularly check JohnLydon.Com for updates and TV appearances
etc.
The
Sex Pistols have also launched
their first ever official
website. Visit www.sexpistolsofficial.com for
the latest confirmed 'Combine Harvester
2008 tour dates, a preview of the forthcoming 'There'll
Always Be An England' DVD, plus official
Sex Pistols merchandise…
Jah
Wobble will
be releasing his Chinese Dub project on CD
in the near future. A taster of the
album is still available
FREE as a MP3 stream via the 30
Hertz website. 7 tracks are currently
available.
Chinese
Dub will make its live debut
on July 5th at the Liverpool,
Carling Academy, and will be followed
by a short UK Tour (see News May 8th for
dates). Wobble also plays Beachdown
Festival,
Brighton and Rhythm
Festival, Clapham in
August. See
30 Hertz for full info…
'Car
Ad Music' the 2004 download-only
album will finally be getting a limited
release via 30 hertz.
It is now looking likely
that Wobble's book, which was due to
be published in July, will not come out
until next year.
Apologies, we overlooked
to mention Wobble played Bradford,
Mela Festival on June 15th. He also appeared on Manchester Online
Radio on May 20th. Sign up to "The
List" for regular updates…
Misc
PiL Related Info…
Allan Dias DJ'd
at the New York, Tatler Club on May 16th.
Martin Atkins Invisible
Records celebrated its 20th Birthday
on June 18th 2008.
A Pete Jones remix of
'Dead Man's Disco' appears on the new full
length CD release by Media Whore (aka
Mikee Plastik), released via Toxic Shock
Records in May. Mikee and Pete are in the
process of jointly remixing a track for
Matt Schultz of Lab Report. http://www.myspace.com/mediawhoremusic
Jebin Bruni appears
on the new Aimee Man CD entitled '@#%& Smilers'.
Danish
pop band Alphabeat cover
'Public Image' on their new album 'This
is Alphabeat'.
This link to Kill
Your Pet Puppy website offers new information
on the rumoured (alledged) John Lydon
/ Killing Joke / Honey Bane recording
sessions…
Animated film 'Waltz
with Bashir' –
which recently appeared at the Cannes Film
Festival - features 'This Is Not A Love
Song'. Watch the trailer at YouTube.
