Metal Box -- does anyone hate this as much as me?

I remember making cookies once when I first heard and went crazy over Jane's Addiction "Mountain Song".

All gone!

Woah!

the 'albatross' version has phasing all over the drums and what might be a slowed-down melodica. it also has lydon squawking "i am an albatross!" in parts. an... acquired taste.

WOW! Hooray! one of my favourite tracks of all time is now 10 minutes long! It's a little off the 'perfect hi-fi experience' but it's well worth getting and THANKS! for telling me about it.

Mind you, that 'remix' of Albatross is as I said above. It has an 'augustus pablo' style melodica, and someone squawking as per "fodderstompf" over the top. Whatever they are saying you can't tell as it's all drowned out by the melodica. And, suspiciously, the track fades out at exactly the same point as the album track. Is it a fake? Well, if it had been mixed better, it might have been interesting. But then it might have showed up the fakery, if it is such.

American Bandstand - "Poptones"

It seems both tracks have been nicked from the "Best of British £1 notes" DVD of John Lydon.

Apparently, it has three 'monitor mixes' of MB tracks. So, go there.

I've got an audio recording of the Ritz riot in '81, too.
http://www.furious.com/Perfect/pil.html

Ah, those were the days!

*coughs, totters away on cane*

listening to this for first time in six or seven years: ye gods. what kind of mood do you have to be in to enjoy this?

A challopy one.

j/k I like this album

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/0510/Public_Image_Ltd_-_American_Bandstand_-_800517.mpg

In addition to a lot of this being about Malcolm McLaren, just as much or more is about his mum dying, which i don't think got mentioned

"what kind of mood do you have to be in to enjoy this?"

UK release 1979. Mood music.

I'm not sure I can define the mood, but I spent a lot of time in it when I was in my early twenties, certainly.

"Stoned and angry" might come close?

It's a lot more mellow than it's sometimes prtrayed though.

Sorry, anything that has Poptones and Death Disco/Swan Lake on it is never going to be mellow in my book.

it does have other tracks on it

Yes, but those rather dominate the mood.

(YMMV, of course. But woah, I'm never coming round your gaff to chill out.)

Despair and anger. Very big in 1979 - see also Joy Division.

This album is fun.

Despair and anger. Very big in 1979 - see also Joy Division.

and Fear of Music...and...

WTF I can't believe you haters

That clip is making me rethink life in a good way.

Boy, Dick Clark sure yanked down that American Bandstand clip in a hurry. Bummer.

How much of the Lydon bio deals with the PIL era? Because the idea of reading yet another history of the Pistols or about anything after Flowers of Romance hardly seems worth the effort.

Speaking of, Metal Box is kinda screaming for the 33 1/3 treatement, no?

That clip is making me rethink life in a good way.

― Pete Scholtes, Saturday, 16 May 2009 17:51 (4 hours ago) Bookmark

I agree, but I can't believe it's not butter

i read lydon's book a long time ago and IIRC he doesn't discuss the PIL era at all.

Typical. There's a book about PIL but it's not available in the states. Maybe one of these days I'll splurge and buy it at the import price.

NO BLACKS, NO IRISH, NO DOGS does not cover the PIL era.

I shouldn't still get wound up about people hating the Pistols, because the records were meant to be hated, but face it, no Pistols, no PIL. No Punk, no post-punk. I've recently been bingeing on the various Mark E. Smith bios, and one of them describes him listening to "Holidays in the Sun" obsessively. But Mark is just another "Tuneless, rhythmless wanker who clearly makes no effort to sing anything that even remotely relates to what the musicians are doing".

Yes. I need to hear that sometimes.

OK, this thread then.

I was running through the PIL album pages on Wikip, and noticed that when recording one track for Metal Box, the thought went round "yeah, it sounds like The Doors, dunnit?" to general approval.

So, officially, "Albatross" is their sort-of take on "Riders on the Storm"

Metal Box is hard to love, but then PiL never really wanted anyone to send flowers. Can't agree with this general slagging of Levene, however. The guitar on the first changed something fundamental about how guitars sounded, distorted but also shiny and clean. It was something genuinely new and exciting. Loads of people ripped it off, or went trad in opposition to the trend. You could make similar arguments for Poptones.

should read "guitar on the first single changed somehthing etc.."

Nobody is slagging Levene on the basis of his Guitar playing.

Still, now I have to sing it:

Riders on the storm
riders on the storm
getting riid of the al-ba-trossssss