Rise !

          There are times when you know that many of the things you believed about yourself are quite honestly wrong, it can be quite a shock or it can be a brilliant revelation. I had this latter experience on Saturday night.

           Prior to that I’d have said I was indifferent to Public Image Limited in general and John Lydon in particular. I thought that the days when he mattered had been swept away with him selling real estate in the US, doing lightweight reality TV, flogging Country Life and all the other distractions from what had once been a powerful presence. Age doesn’t just wither people it makes you, and sometimes them, forget what they were here for in the first place. Yes, prior to Saturday I was definitely at that point with Lydon.

          And as for PiL – well, I hadn’t bought a track by them since the first single, Public Image, in its wraparound newspaper sleeve, back when I so wrongly  thought they might be a continuation of the Pistols. Then they fell into that category of bands that I was glad existed but who weren’t going to figure in my personal listening. The sort that you’re glad to know still keep playing and who you’ll tune into when you hear them at random, on the radio or ‘round a friends, a bit like The Fall or  Test Department (granted you won’t hear them on the radio often….). I had trouble describing PiL to those who knew I was going to see them and I think that they were quite bewildered as to why I was even bothering.

           But………

           Well, from the moment they walked on stage, no pomp, no ceremony, a bunch of people out there to do a serious job of work, and that familiar hectoring sneer of a voice announced “We’re Public Image Limited, my name is John, but you can call me whatever you like” they had me. They ground into This Is Not a Love Song with a force and a commitment that defied you to be distracted from the first dark beat. I won’t review every song, it seems a bit pointless, but what amazed and rather thrilled me was that there wasn’t a single one I didn’t know…its not like they did a greatest hits set (that in itself would be fairly hard to pull off anyway) but that I knew and yes, loved, their songs almost by osmosis – over the years they must have crept in the cracks and fractures of my mind and embedded themselves there without me even knowing it. Plus I’d just forgotten how fucking danceable they are – possibly the best dance music I’ve heard in years.

           Lydon didn’t do charismatic front man so much as resemble some kind of benevolent (possibly…) dictator – haranguing the crowd not from a desire to wind them up but from a genuine need to get a reaction to what he was doing. Resplendent in black and still with the trademark hair he was electrifying. He was in control and he knew it. Later I was talking about the power this man could have if he’d ever gone into politics – but that the power he has comes from everyone knowing that he never would – not in any conventional sense anyway. Sometimes you have to hand it to Malcolm McLaren for spotting him – although John was never going to be anyone else’s puppet. There is indeed something special about him.

          And lest you think that all of this is fuelled by nostalgia and other less powerful intoxicants then I can only say that this was absolutely no trip back in time. It was completely and definitely a ‘now’ moment. The eldest Tin, now 20, completely got the music and, in that warped way that you get your anchorage in shifting musical waters, said to me afterwards “oh yeah, I knew This is Not A Love Song – Nouvelle Vague did it after all…..”. She also knew the closing track – a bit of a surprise for me since I didn’t expect PiL to do it. Open Up, originally the collaboration between Lydon and Leftfield, suited the mood perfectly and I went away with “You Lied, You Cheated !” ringing round my head – four words that Lydon will not let the rest of the world forget whilst he still draws breath,

           Its not like Lydon never made a wrong move or lied and cheated himself – but you do get the feeling that this is a man who is completely confident in what he says and does at any given time. He might contradict himself but that has never mattered. When he says something you know that at that exact point in time he means it. Maan.

           And by way of a strange tribute I’m not posting any PiL. You’ll know that the Friday before three members  of Pussy Riot were jailed in Moscow. Do whatever you can to object to this. If you want to see musical bravery then this is it. This is real punk and it scares the hell out of Putin and his crew in the church, which is why they should be supported. Without John it’s pretty inconceivable that Pussy Riot would have existed – and that their approach and their words so obviously bother the establishment is inspirational and surely what was intended back in the day – this is no jubilee cruise up the Thames, this is the real thing. I've read a lot of stuff over the last few days about how their approach is designed to get them publicity, that they are amateurish, childish and so on - but do you know what, fuck them ! I'd love to see these reactionary writers do something that they believed in strongly enough to risk a Russian prison for a few years. Grab a guitar and get down to the Russian Embassy, put on a pink balaclava and book a flight to St Petersburg, at very least make your voice heard on this one because Pussy Riot did. And you know, it’s not just about faraway Russia – it’s about all of us too.

Start by going here and signing

then take your own stance !

Zigzag Wanderer

          In a box on a shelf in the dusty recesses of  the Tin Towers I’ve got a stack of old fanzines, magazines and assorted paraphernalia that I never knew what to do with but which I somehow didn’t throw out. They’ve lain undisturbed for a very long while until quite recently and now I know why I kept them. You see I grew up with a father who was very proud of his RAF days during WWII and he hung on to odd things like battle dressings (bandages to you and me), a tin of tobacco (which he never smoked), magazines produced whilst he was in Burma, odd stuff like that. I was in awe of this time capsule as a pre teen and then dismissed it as old junk once I hit the rebellious years. Now, well into the age he would have been while I was still in awe of it I realise that it was a mixture of memories, confirmation that these events really had happened to him and some sort of validation that what he did was worthwhile.

          And it’s the same for me – no-one is ever going to ask me ‘What did you do in the war daddy ?’ and my youth seems in contrast to his to have been frivolous, material, hedonistic and relatively threat free – I mean I might have dreaded the all too frequent run ins with local skinheads but it was always unlikely that they would end up throwing a hand grenade at me (which is what finished off my dad’s Burma campaign). So in lieu of a stock of war stories, some true and some no doubt exaggerated over time – ok, actually all of them got exaggerated over time until it got to the point where my sisters and I could recite the variations to each other and anticipate the next variation with barely a thought – I fall back on tales of gigs and all-nighters, meetings with my then heroes and nights spent on station platforms after missing the last train home – its hardly All Quiet on The Western Front but its as close to the truth of what is rapidly becoming as arcane and obscure an era as the second world war was to me as a kid. When I get to claiming I was at the 100 Club for the Pistols or participated in the Jesus and Mary Chain riots then I’ll know I’ll be as far gone as he was and hopefully my kids will stop listening (although they may have done that years ago anyway…..).

          So anyway – in amongst the fanzines there are a stack of copies of Zigzag magazine. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it straddled the strange line between fanzine and legit magazine and, whilst it came out of the spirit of late sixties/early seventies love of the ‘underground’ it mutated into the champion of pub rock and then suddenly captivated by punk it became the only thing worth reading from ‘77 onwards. In my small home town there were only two of us in the know about this bible of half articulated anger and enthusiasm – I know this because my mum worked in the newsagents and (quite separately) it was only me and my best mate of the time who had it on order !

          The writing is patchy, the printing sometimes a bit too messy to read but it had access to a good field of bands and performers and, looking back, it’s like a printed version of a John Peel show.  I’ll save some of the interviews and pics for a later date but for now I thought I’d share a flavour of their (and to some extent my) obsessions from a copy published mid way through 1979 – their annual poll which reads like a repetitive list of most of the bands you’d ever want to see from the era (OK maybe not the UK Subs but they seem to have had a strange thing about them around this time). Plus my attention was caught by a small ad which sums up everything that was going wrong with punk – this was ’79 after all and the emergence of the bondage trouser wearing brigade in provincial towns like mine was reaching its tacky height.

          Sixteen again ? No thanks. But this is where I’d choose to be if I was.

          .

 And for added atmosphere try this - the Vice Creems were pretty much the house band of Zigzag on account of them featuring Kris Needs, one of ZZs main writers. A prime example of powerpop punk. Shamelessly self promoted, they never got anywhere except in Zigzag polls....