Public Image Ltd.

Public Image Ltd (PiL) is a band formed in 1978 by John Lydon, formerly and later Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. PiL is often cited as one of the most challenging and innovative bands of the post punk period.

First album

Heartened, the band relaxed and rolled a collective spliff: In preparing the album, First Issue, they ran through their recording budget well before finishing (drugs were a significant expense), and ended up with eight tracks of varying sound quality, half of which were written and recorded in a last-minute fire drill. Wobble had also beaten up producer Bill Price's assistant engineer (Price, with John Leckie, had secured the tight sound of the "Public Image" single), inciting Price to ban the group from their preferred Wessex Studios, and forcing them to scramble for another venue and soundman as deadlines loomed and passed.

Related Topics:
Spliff - Bill Price - John Leckie

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The album, however, was groundbreaking: scabrous and dirge-like, but lyrical by turn, 'Gothic' before the term was coined, and grounded in heavy dub reggae. Wobble's bass tone was called "impossibly deep" by contemporary reviews, and Levene's uniquely sharp guitar sound (Levene played an all-aluminum Veleno guitar, and a mostly-aluminum Travis Bean Wedge) was widely imitated, most notably by The Edge of the then-fledgling U2 and Geordie of Killing Joke. Lydon's vocals were more tuneless and incantatory than in the Sex Pistols, gesturing toward the avant-garde territory of such artists as Yoko Ono. The album was, however, fairly easy for rock audiences to get a handle on. It sold well in the UK and in Europe.

Related Topics:
Gothic - Dub reggae - Veleno - Travis Bean - U2 - Killing Joke - Yoko Ono

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