ts: the pistols vs. public image ltd

But at least Sex Pistols and PIL were better then this album...

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc900/c949/c9491303430.jpg

its a tie here.

I've been thinking lately about "Roadrunner" (either Modern Lovers or solo version), about how the best thing about it (aside from its being perfect) is its momentum, the way the combination of band/singer uses dynamics to keep the track building and building til by the end you can barly stand it. Very few things in rock work exactly this way, but the Pistols are definitely one. So many of those tracks -- "Holidays," "Anarchy," "EMI," "New York," more -- build steam til they just explode. "God Save the Queen" still makes my heart race.

Has anyone seen the BBC Classic Albums documentary on Never Mind the Bollocks? It's great, the best Pistols documentary I've seen.

Yet, at the same time, continually champions both Alice Cooper and Steve Jones' blistering guitar work.

I cannot believe no one has championed First Edition on this thread. It doesn't hold up as an album, but you have to give it up for Religion I, PIL, Low Life, and Fodderstompf. PIL and Low Life were probably the only two rocking songs that they ever did that were good.

That being said, I still take The Pistols over PIL because The Pistols actually executed the idea well and had songs that dripped with velocity. I hate to say this, but I think people who like PIL over The Pistols are too busy listening with their eyes and not listening with their hips.

The _idea_ of PIL is great, and if Lydon had a backing group that was worth a shit and could actually work a groove they would have been ten times better than The Pistols. Metal Box would have been great if the band could actually get it together and make the idea work. Ok, lets do punk dub, but with a drummer whose playing is sophomoric at best, a guitarist who had interesting ideas but no way to connect with anything else in the musical picture, and a bassist who had decent riffs (even if his fill were almost non-existent.) Metal Box is a record you listen to rip-off because a good idea is there; they just fucked it up really bad and tricked hipsters into liking it. Careering, Albatross, and The Suit are good, but they never explode the way a good Pistols track did.

With all this being said, I think the first three Wire albums blow the doors off the Pistols and PIL combined.

I just can't even work up the desire to put in Never Mind the Bollocks these days.

but I think people who like PIL over The Pistols are too busy listening with their eyes and not listening with their hips.

that would make pistols fans the hipsters, though. surely?

about the "listening with your eyes and not your hips" comment: metal box ("memories," "swan lake," "careering," "bad baby," and "chant" in particular) is clearly more hip shaking than anything the pistols ever recorded.

...and if Lydon had a backing group that was worth a shit and could actually work a groove they would have been ten times better than The Pistols...

Did you forget about Album/Cassette/Cutout? If you haven't heard it, get it now -- those guys could play! If the songs are too slow, just set it at 45.

Mike, I'd be happy to lend you a bunch of the Chic, Slave, Musique and other Prelude records I have. You can just turn the bass all the way up and scream loud enough to drown out the singers. (I think there are some instrumental versions, which would obviously come in very handy in your situation.) Some of those bass lines are kinda dubby, after all.

Metal Box is a record you listen to rip-off because a good idea is there; they just fucked it up really bad and tricked hipsters into liking it.

So why is that, 24 years after the fact, no one has capitalized on PiL's mistakes?

SEX PISTOLS and PUBLIC IMAGE LTD frontman JOHN LYDON is to be the subject of a career-spanning compilation from EMI. 'The Best Of British £1 Notes' comes in a standard single CD, and a special edition 2CD set which includes a bonus disc containing 12" mixes and additional tracks, and will be released on October 3rd.

TRACKLISTING - CD1 Anarchy In The UK, Public Image, This Is Not A Love Song, Open Up, Rise, Don't Ask Me, Seattle, Holidays In The Sun, Death Disco, Flowers Of Romance, World Destruction, Warrior, Disappointed, Sun, Bad Life, Home, The Body, Cruel, God Save the Queen, The Rabbit Song

CD2 Death Disco (12" Mix), Poptones, Careering, Religion, Banging The Door, The Pardon, Rise (12" Mix), Disappointed (12" Mix), Warrior (12" Mix), Acid Drops, Open Up (Full Vocal Mix), God Save The Queen (Dance Mix)

Remember the 80's - click News

(nothing more found about this at the moment, except a Japanese prerelease preorder page )

"Anarchy In The UK", "Holidays In The Sun" and "God Save the Queen" but no "Pretty Vacant"?

"World Destruction" apparently as a 7" mix (I didn't even know there was such a thing) rather than the full 12"?

Personally I think it's bloody brilliant - 'though a major part of the joy is in it's expansiveness and I can't imagine it working particularly well slashed down to 3 minutes or something....

http://s38226.sites38.storefront-hosting.com/images/pil%20dvd%20box.jpg

 
PiL DVD BOX 3 DVD SET

DVD 1 - 60 Minutes

Live Rockpalast Zeche, Bochum 31.10.83

1. Public Image
2. Annalisa
3. Religion
4. Memories
5. Flowers of Romance
6. Solitaire
7. Chant
8. Anarchy In The UK
9. This Is Not A Love Song
10. Low Life
11. Under The House
12. Bad Life
13. Public Image

DVD 2 - 150 Minutes

TV Appearances, Live Footage, Interviews, & Videos

1. Public Image promo video September '78
2. Chant live + interview attempt 2 July '79
3. Death Disco promo video July '79
4. Poptones, Careering 5 Feb '80 Old Grey Whistle Test
5. Careering, Public Image, Another, Low Life, Bad Baby 22 April '80 Great Gildersleeves, NYC
6. Press Conference, 10 May '80 San Francisco
7. Poptones, Careering 17 May '80 American Bandstand
8. John & Keith interview 25 June '80 Tomorrow w/ Tom Snyder
9. Flowers of Romance 9 April '81 Top of the Pops
10. Interview w/ John & rehearsal clip September '82 NYC
11. Radio 1990 Keith leaves the band clip June '83
12. This Is Not A Love Song 28 October '83 Top of the Pops
13. Radio 1990 Interview about '81 Ritz "riot" show June '84
14. Bad Life, Public Image, Low Life, Bodies, Annalisa, 15 November '84 Pasadena, California
15. Robert Williams v. John Lydon, Judge Judy 1998

BONUS VIDEOS

* Bad Life
* Rise
* Disappointed
* Bodies
* Seattle

DVD 3 - 90 Minutes

Live at the Capital Theatre, Port Chester, NYC 4.10.89

1. Warrior
2. Happy
3. This Is Not A Love Song
4. Home
5. Brave New World
6. Seattle-Open & Revolving
7. Bags
8. Round
9. The Body
10. Same Old Story
11. Rise
12. Disappointed
13. Worry
14. Public Image

REGION 0

It would still have been shorter than Disc 2.

thank goodness its going be available on dvd! why would anyone want anything other than the 2 disc?

Disc 1 = essential (PIL in 83 = essential, so this show is too), I never got the feeling he was bored or lacklustre or anything. Not as good as Live In Tokyo, but still very good.

Disc 2 = varied (I'm not sure if I want to see some VHS quality interview more than once, but I'll have to every time I watch these DVD's, because the chapter points suck and you're never sure where the "next" button will take you.) But when they're good they're brilliant, and that's in (I'd say) about 2/3rds of these performances/clips.

Disc 3 = oh god, why? the white boy funk pop multicoloured clothes years... weird camera angle (from a balcony, you see the whole stage, and everyone's hair, but no audience.). The band are all into it, Lydon isn't bad either, but the contemporary songs are soooooo dated... (but then I've always been more of an 78-83 PIL fan)

Menu's: crap.
Price: reasonably low, so I shouldn't be complaining, really. But it's still a very home made amateur effort that shouldn't be allowed to carry any official logo whatsoever.

PIL playing uk dates in December apparently. No Wobble though :-(

I was expecting this. If they do a perfect end-to-end performance of 'Metal Box', will ILM have to decide Lydon is OK after all?

Nowadays PiL is Lydon and whatever backing musicians he can scrape together. I'd love for the original group to reform (one of the few reunions that would interest me) but it will never happen. I doubt Wobble's that interested and everyone despises Levene.

Levene is in apparently

Hating somebody's never been a barrier to Lydon working with them, glad to say.

didn't know about that dvd box. i want

That's good if Levene's involved, but the cynic in me wonders if this will ever come off.

I've understood one funny situation, where figurated 'Sex Pistols'. Beeing in all-Rossia child's center 'Ocean' (sort of boyscout camp) I painted insolent-looked young punk boy with irokez smoring cigarette. There were two slogans on this picture - 'ANARCHY WORLD WIDE' and 'SEX PISTOLS'. I and my friends were laughting for week or two after replica of our tutor (young girl) when she had looked at punker: 'The picture is hot so interestind, but (she confosed slightly) what's that got to do with 'SEX'?'

Sex? Because she look interestind.

Didn't see that Box Set of DVDs before, and it's not on MAtkins' site anymore. "surprise"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/sep/06/john-lydon-public-image-limited

basically, no levene or wob.

fair enough, I say...

..

apparently these dates are also to celebrate 30 years of metal box....
so even though its lydon and a bunch of randoms that fact makes me more interested in this

Well, I wish I could care about this but since Lydon hasn't been relevant since before I was born...I don't think anyone will give a shit in the long run. It's basically his good self looking like Bart Simpson's gay uncle doing his usual act but under the PiL name, innit? Just like how he's done that under the Sex Pistols name. With some randoms trying to get through Metal Box.

I'd have been more interested if Levene had been resuscitated I admit.

relevancy is overrated

that too...