It's been a month. And although I've more or less fallen off the side of earth in terms of this blog, I do hope there will be people still reading this, although that's a bit of a push as I realise that I've made many promises in terms of how often I'll write this. But after typing the first few sentences, I've remembered that I do actually like this a lot. So even if my followers have tutted in disgust and bit the dust weeks ago, I'm going to try and keep this up, if only to pleasure myself. Kinky. As to where I've been for the past month, I've actually had to do work for university (STUDENTS doing WORK, I know, I know) so after panicking over miscellaneous pieces of coursework at the last minute and answering ambiguous exam questions completely wrong, I'm free.
For my web design coursework I had decided to do a website for a musician called Jah Wobble. And after readjusting his face hundreds of times to fit a website background, and after cutting, editing, pasting, snipping, and adjusting his biography multiple times, I'm pretty well versed about his work as a bassist. And despite the fact that he has worked on almost 50 albums during his career, I'm going to discuss a band he was in for only 2 years - Public Image Ltd.
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Wearing a motorbike helmet in sunny weather was
a pretty cool thing to do in 1978 |
Now, picture the scene. It's 1978 and it's the hangover of punk. John Lydon has had a bitter split from the infamous Sex Pistols. It now of course, seemed likely that John 'Johnny Rotten' Lydon, would have faded away after his 5 minutes of fame as a controversial front man for a controversial band. This, however, was not to be the case. Forming a band with guitarist Keith Levene, bassist Jah Wobble, and drummer Jim Walker, the group recorded 'Public Image', an attack on Lydon's former boss Malcolm McLaren which hit the top ten in the charts. For anyone that doubts the bass guitar's role in a band, I urge you to listen to this song with decent speakers/headphones. Wobble lives up to his name instantly. The hard-hitting and incredibly simple bass line grabs you and aims straight for the head. Far from being the most approachable band, with it's bowel moving bass-lines, jagged guitar, hypnotic, repetitive drumming, and ear splitting wails, the band still managed to clock up hits such as the ode to Lydon's dying mother 'Death Disco'. With Lydon being the only member that remained throughout the band's career, the musicians that came and went constantly changed the material the band produced. It was sometimes mainstream, it was sometimes avant-garde, but it was always extremely interesting, pushing the boundaries of music at the time and influencing countless muscians and bands.
Recommending listening;
Public Image,
Annalisa,
Death Disco,
Careering,
Radio 4,
Flower of Romance,
Rise. I also have a
last fm account once again, so feel free to judge me. Thanks for reading!
