* Public Image Ltd’s debut album, First Issue, was never officially released in the United States, on any format, until Light in the Attic put together their 2013 archival release. (Light in the Attic)

* It wasn’t supposed to turn out that way (Trouser Press via Fodderstompf)

* Jah Wobble never played bass before being invited to join PIL by Johnny Lydon (Wikipedia)

* Are you fucking kidding me?

* Jah Wobble also beat up the assistant engineer of the album. Consequently the band was banned from Wessex Studios (Wikipedia)

* Edge ripped off the guitar sound of Public Image Ltd’s Keith Levene. Does Edge know this? (Wikipedia)

I’ve had questions asked of me as direct as ‘What do you think of the fact that The Edge ripped off your sound?’ and I just say ‘Good luck to him’. Some people say ‘A lot of people use your sound. Do you resent their position as opposed to yours?’ Actually I don’t, I put it down to good taste

* One maybe two songs were directed at former Sex Pistols manager, Malcolm McLaren (Wikipedia)

The single “Public Image” was widely seen as diatribe against Malcolm McLaren and his perceived manipulation of Lydon during his career with the Sex Pistols. The track “Low Life” (with its accusatory lyrics of “Egomaniac traitor”, “You fell in love with your ego” and “Bourgeoisie anarchist”) has also been regarded as an attack on McLaren, although Lydon has stated that the lyrics refer to Sid Vicious.

* Album closer/album filler, “Fodderstompf, “became an unlikely dance hit at Studio 54. (Allmusic)

But even with all of the calculated controversy seemingly built into the various cuts on First Issue, none attracted quite so much attention as “Fodderstompf.” Faced with a serious shortage of material to fill out the album and with its release date looming, Public Image Limited decided to conclude the project with a track 12:55 in length, consisting of no more than a disco beat, chattering synthesizers, a bassline, and Jah Wobble singing, shouting, and screaming the phrase “we only wanted to be loved” in a joke voice. Rock critics savaged the song as a deliberate attempt to rip off the public, but it became hugely popular at the Studio 54 disco in New York; the drag queens and hipsters sang and screamed right along with Wobble out loud on the dancefloor — nothing like that had ever happened at Studio 54. As it is perhaps the earliest extended dance mix that has little to do with disco or dub, it is apparent that “Fodderstompf” is an obvious precursor to the acid house and techno that began to evolve in the mid-’80s, although it is seldom accredited that distinction.

* Let’s not shit ourselves. Out of the entirety of First Issue, Fodderstompf is the least essential, and unfortunately, the longest cut.

* Although fighting money woes at the time, the video for “Public Image” was self-financed by the band. (Trouser Press via Fodderstompf)

* Did you see those clothes? The band’s sartorial choices also became a point of contention. (Trouser Press via Fodderstompf)

* Early reviews weren’t kind. To the single, or the album. From NME on “Public Image:”

It’s a shame, but Rotten will probably end up around I988 like Iggy Pop, being touted around by some businessman on the strength of the outrageous band he used to be with, making offbeat records that impress a certain section of art-groupies and trying to play it straight to young audiences who were too young to be touched when he was good and now just want to see him hurt himself with cigarettes. Never mind, thanks for the memories

Pete Silverton, writing for Sounds liked the album cover, and that’s it.

* Speaking of getting ripped off, the Allmusic review also pointed out similarities between First Issue’s “Annalisa” and Nirvana’s “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter.”

* Considering the troubles Lydon was having with the industry at the time of First Issue (the band were managing and booking themselves, while Lydon was suing McLaren), and considering the stress Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain was under during the recording of his second album, the similarities between the two may not be a coincidence.

* 2013 is a much better year for First Issue. Not only is it finally getting issued in the United States, but the band’s blend of dub, punk, and noise rock, so off-putting to critics and the record-buying public in 1978, sounds right today. Wobble plays his bass with the force of a Miami Bass Machine, but his lines are nimble, too. Lydon, is unpredictable, of course, and, a little indulgent. Levene’s guitar work, meanwhile, should be cited as influential, whether Edge ripped him off or not, as most would not come to recognize his racket as music until the hip kids in NYC picked up on it in the ’80s.

Who here remembers the Crystal Method. They were kinda a big deal back in the days when EDM was called electronica. Does this jog your memory? What about this one?

I ask this question because Fuck Button’s new jam, “The Red Wing,” plays out like a big beat slow jam from the days when The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, and, yes, The Crystal Method were the big boys of Electronica here in the states.

“The Red Wing,” is a far cry from when this duo of Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power would manufacture obscure sounds from folding tables covered in electronic junk. When one gets their music featured during the opening ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympic Games, as was the case with Fuck Buttons, however, such a move to a cleaner, more polished sound can’t be a complete surprise. Did you really think they spent their licensing money from those Olympic Games on a new Mr. Microphone? Fuck Buttons new album, Slow Focus, will be released July 23rd on ATP Recordings.

—

The music of NYC noise-makers Pop. 1280 fills a very definite need in today’s society: Someone has to make music for the oncoming age of total electronic control. The NSA can’t soundtrack themselves as they’re sniffing every packet of data coming across the internet. Their servers are taxed enough already. Plus, they don’t care about living in an age where every movement is monitored. They are the monitors.

Enter, Pop. 1280, who are more than happy to channel our age’s understandable paranoia into dirty, creepy blasts of cyber-punk. They did so on their 2011 release, The Horror, and listening to “Lights Out,” from the forthcoming album, Imps of Perversion (August 6th on Sacred Bones), they aren’t about to stop chronicling the seedy side of modern, electronic life any time soon.

Holy fucking cow! The Replacements will be playing Riot Fest in Chicago (9.13-15), Toronto (8.24-25), and Denver (9.21-22) and it’s like jetpacks, time machines, peace in the Middle East, free coffee for life, and a balanced federal budget all in one announcement. When I calm down I’ll come up with more extraordinary events that’ll never happen in my lifetime. Until then, here’s where you get tickets.

Queens of the Stone Age
…Like Clockwork
Matador Records

There was a time, let’s say every day between the day I received a promo MP3 copy of Queens of the Stone Age’s …Like Clockwork and the day I picked up my double deluxe, 180 gram at 45 RPM copy version at Cleveland’s Music Saves, where I doubted the wisdom of splurging close to $40 for this thing.

The album sounded flat and uninspired. There were too many ballads. Josh Homme sounded like Doug Downer. There was no “Feel Good Hit of the Summer,” in the literal or figurative sense. And the guest musicians, don’t get me started on the guest musicians – Trent Reznor, Mark Lanegan, Dave Grohl, Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys), Elton John and about a half a dozen others added nothing. Ok, they did reinforce what we already knew, namely, Homme has friends in the biz. But I’ll be damned if I could pick out any one of them other than Reznor. He has a slithery scream that if you hear it once, you’ll always be able to pick it out of a group chorus.

At least the marketing scheme was slick. A fifteen minute short film was produced to boost excitement and boost it did. By releasing it three minutes at a time, each three minutes featuring a different album track, the band assured themselves they’d be on the front page of every music zine for a week straight.

Then, something happened. I brought that heavy, double deluxe, 180 gram at 45 RPM version of …Like Clockwork home and put it on my turntable. The music came alive.

Now, I was hearing a clean, crisp and deep, dynamic, nuanced and detailed album, the same type of recording critics gushed over when Daft Punk released Random Access Memory a few weeks back, except, this was a rock album. When was the last time you put a rock album on your turntable and marveled at the sound? Not the songs, mind you, but the actual sound.

Listen to the bright, bulbous keyboards of “Vampyre of Time and Memory” and one can literally smell the stank weed and patchouli stew clouding your view of a vintage lava lamp and black light Black Sabbath poster on this interpretation of everyone’s going stark, freaking mad era Pink Floyd.

Sleek, sexy and slightly funky during the verse and all big burly man in the chorus, “If Had a Tail” would have been the single if “My God Is the Sun” hadn’t claimed the spot first. It’s the audio accompaniment to every Josh Homme photo ever snapped.

And, my god, “My God is the Sun.” Initially weak-kneed and wobbly, like a sailor on an extended bender who only rights himself for fistfights, the chorus arrives with hammer blows of snare and hi-hat. The guitars ratchet at spitfire speed. Then comes the biggest hammer blow of them all, as each and every amp is set strip the guts straight from your stomach with a deafening rumble.

Even “Smooth Sailing,” a track I had placed in the reject pile early on has its moments. The rhythm section is Zeppelin-esque in every sense of the cliche with undertones of “Immigrant Song” distinctly audible in the bass and drums. No, John Paul Jones wasn’t one of the guests, but it sure sounds like Homme, Jones, and Grohl brought Their side-project Them Crooked Vultures back for this one. Later, the screechy guitar scales make one think of another someone who did guest on the album, Trent Reznor, who like Jones didn’t actually contribute to this track.

Still, as I’ve learned to appreciate …Like Clockwork for what it is: the best sounding rock album to come across these ears in years, some elements of my initial take down remain — There are still too many ballads, there isn’t one real “Feel Good Hit of the Summer,” and I still can’t tell what the hell Elton John did in the studio besides sign his name on the guest list. I don’t, however, regret spending those 40 bones. …Like Clockwork will be part of my collection for years to come.

At first, listening to The Julie Ruin’s new single, “Oh Come On,” felt like homework. It’s Kathleen Hanna’s new band. Of Bikini Kill…The woman practically invented riot girl rock. And, being someone who likes to think he knows something about rock, I should give this a listen, right?. Sure, the guitars are crunchy. Hanna’s snarls test the limits of microphone tech. It’s still there. However, I wasn’t sold until the background singers came in with the least uninspired, “Oh Come On,” ever. It’s like they shot for vintage girl group and got teenage daughters who didn’t want to do their homework instead. The juxtaposition of just that little bit is brilliant and leads me to believe Hanna has more, much more to say. “Oh Come On” will be on The Julie Ruin’s new album, Run Fast, due out September 3rd on TJR Records.

Who out there expected Neko Case’s the first track to be released from Neko Case’s first album since 2009′s Middle Cyclone to be an uptempo rocker with feedback and solos? I’m not complaining one bit. We all know the woman can sing, but it’s nice to hear that big, blustery voice of hers used to drop F bombs instead of the usual, albeit usual as in stunning, way she sings those sweeping ballads. Case’s latest, entitled, The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You, will be released September 3rd on Anti- Records.

Superchunk’s “FOH” is power pop played at a pogo tempo. Superchunk have been doing songs like “FOH” for years with the same slithering guitars, the same bursts of static-charged feedback, the same bursting vein on vocalist Mac McCaughan’s forehead as every word is a strain, and, honestly, at this stage in their careers, I’m fine with Superchunk being reliable like that. Superchunk’s 10th studio album, I Hate Music, will be released August 20th on Merge Records and I’m buying.

Also coming due out in the coming months on Merge (9.3), is Idle No More, the new album by the garage rock, show-band, supreme, King Khan and the Shrines. We’ve already heard a surprisingly sweet turn at British Invasion pop with “Bite My Tongue,” and now we have something entirely different to get our ears around — the ’60s San Francisco hippie scene on speed (and with soul) sound of “Born to Die.” This man is on(to) something. I’m quite sure of it.

A banger, a burner, a stormer, a stomper, a top jam — Call it whatever you want, but the back to square one approach the LA duo, No Age, has taken for their forthcoming album, An Object (8.20 on Sub Pop) has resulted in a vital, top jam ca;;ed “C’mon Stimmung.”

It was in an interview with Spin where Dead Sprunt explained how they worked to unlearn their past six years of experience and get back to that Weirdo Rippers vibe where they were just learning how to be No Age and the songs were movements and pieces, not necessarily songs.

One can certainly hear what they were getting at in that interview on “C’mon Stimmung.” The track begins with shifting, electronic movements of unknown provenance, and quickly pivots into a punk stomper. However, unlike those early recordings which made up Weirdo Rippers, the obscure sounds are not contained to intros, outtros and segues. It’s a permanent, persistent, and very much welcome, weirdness, one which announces in no uncertain terms, No Age is gonna rip again.

Kylesa
Ultraviolet
Seasons of Mist

First things first, Kylesa have a sound others in the metal underground would quite literally kill for. With guitar riffs alternating between longhaired doom to pedal-stomping shoegaze, two drummers to keep the rhythms ominous and ominpresent, and two vocalists, the male of the pair (Phillip Cope), haggard and angered, with the female half, Laura Pleasants, lighter and airy, there are times I’m convinced these Savannah heavies could rule rock radio, even in the year 2013. At the very least, they’ll have you head-banging so much you’ll be left in the unenviable position of convincing your HR department that your wretched neck is in fact a work-related malady and not a bangover from last night’s show.

Unfortunately, sounding like the best band in all of the known Viking lands can only get one so far. At some point the songwriting has to kick in, and that’s where Ultraviolet comes up short. Side A of the record plays like one attempt after another after another to make the most crushing anthem the band can possibly make, and in the process, usher in a new dark age of human existence. Is the sky not black yet? More chug. More thump, More wail. Is the ocean still blue? More chug. More thump. More wail. Do flowers still bloom in bright reds and yellows? You know the answer. Let’s try again.

Perfectionism isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some of modern music’s classics have been made by stubborn perfectionists (My Bloody Valentine immediately comes to mind). However, there’s only so much one can take before headbanging becomes wall-banging and that trip to HR is now followed by a call to the landlord to explain the new noggin sized hole in the wall.

Thankfully, variation arrives with the second side of the record. Songs like “Steady Breakdown,” a doom metal dream starring Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks with one elegant breakdown and a second, thrashing one, and “Low Tide,” a mid-tempo, electronic rock number which somehow manages to maintain a sense of ambiance with its heavy rhythm track, show Kylesa capable of so much more than Southern metal stomp. As impressive as those numbers are, “Vulture’s Landing,” may be the best of the B-side. Here Pleasents sings her melody more like a pop-diva than a metal girl, while the backing is a voluminous and brutal as ever.

Side A was intended for the long time fans. Side B was meant to draw in new ears. That’s pretty clear. However, better sequencing would have made Ultraviolet a more satisfying record for all. And even better, the band could have shown a little more trust in their own abilities. At this point in their career, Kylesa should be making a similar leap from the metal crowd to the broader hard rock audience, just as their neighbors Baroness did with their 2012 release, Yellow and Green. They have the talent. They have the sound. They just need to stop recording the same damn song.

What’s a music tech company to do once they launch their music service? Create a recommendation engine, of course. Being able to recommend an artist or track based on a user’s existing playback data is the holy grail of both streaming and download services, and Spotify is but the latest to think they’ve done music recommendation right.

I’m glad these groups are trying. However, try as they might, for a heavy music consumers like myself, the recommendations never extend past the things I’ve already heard and things I never want to hear again. That truth holds for Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, Pandora, and everyone else.

I’m skeptical any music tech company will ever get it right without tapping into the NSA’s data stream. Music recommendation isn’t as simple as like A then you’ll like B.

For me, the best recommendations still come from curators. A curator can be a label, a friend, or another music writer. In the case of His Electro Blue Voice, the curator who made this recommendation was Sub Pop Records, via their Sub Pop 1000 compilation released this past Record Store Day.

Who knew in 2013 I’d fall for an Italian trio of thrashing and shoegazing, industrial, post-punk? Sub Pop that’s who. Spotify would rather I listen to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The Gories, The Breeders, and Animal Collective.

Anyone who really knew me would find that last recommendation especially laughable. I’d rather make fun of Animal Collective and their fans than listen to that band. No, I’ll stick to my human recommendations, thank you.

Sub Pop will be releasing His Electro Blue Voice’s debut LP on August 20th. Based on this one track alone, a track that didn’t even make the record, I highly recommend it. For a preview of what actually did make out the record, play the teaser video below.

King Tuff
King Tuff Was Dead
Burger Records

T Rex’s Marc Bolan never had a glass of red dumped on his head. But if he did, he would have never written a song about it like Kyle Thomas of King Tuff did on 2006′s King Tuff Was Dead. When Bolan wasn’t singing about boogie and babes he was riding a fucking tiger, man. As for Thomas, one gets the impression when he’s not playing the unlikely role of rock star, he’s unwinding with a couple joints in the parking lot behind the soul-sucking lunch counter where he earns enough bread to keep his thin frame fed, trying to forget the last time he got shorted.

Unlikely would be one way to describe 2006′s King Tuff was dead. Thomas embraces the underdog role. He’s a slacker and not too concerned about his lack of ambition. His voice is like that of one-time teen-idol Davey Jones, if Jones had a broken nose. Or for the younger crowd, think of Tuffy like Beiber with a smashed face, tool used to smash that face and severity of the smashed face of your own choice.

He sings high and whiny, like every word is a taunt, except it’s not, for no one realized his talent at the time — Not the women he meets who ultimately find something or someone better to do; not his mother and grandmother who wish he’d discard those tattered rags he wears; and not the record buying public who largely ignored Was Dead upon its initial release. There’s a CD promo of the initial release in my apartment in a box, in a closet, although I’m not sure which box or which closet.

The other word to describe King Tuff Was Dead would be impressive. Few songwriters have a such a complete grasp of Rock ‘N’ Roll history — From teenie bop to power pop, Beatles to the Stones, garage rock to glam — and more importantly, combine that knowledge with a style, so natural and free, that every song becomes an insatiably likable, instant hit.

There’s the sunshine boogie of lead track, “Dancing On You,” and the lovelorn power pop of “Connection;” The costumed arena rock of “Lazerbeam,” and numbers salvaged from old episodes of Top of the Pops, like “Lady;” a blistering, blazing, bottom shaking, southern rock jam called “Ruthie Ruthie,”and even a turn as an urban poet, in the vein of Jim Carrol or Lou Reed, albeit a highly self-deprecating one, with “Kind of Guy.” There’s a Bolan number sung in Bolan’s language (“Stone Fox”) and the album closer, ”So Desperate.” is straight up, ’70s power pop (complete with a showy guitar solo.) Though it all you’ll be bopping, hopping and dancing along.

You may wonder how you missed King Tuff the first time around. You may even feel obliged to send a personal thank you letter and a fruit basket to Burger Records for reissuing/resurrecting King Tuff Was Dead. Don’t worry, Tuffy isn’t the type to hold grunges, and, besides, he’s got a home on Sub Pop now, meaning for the near future his name will fill the screens of Pitchfork, Stereogum and Spin every time there’s even a hint of something approaching news in the King Tuff camp.

The days of King Tuff being an unknown to the indie rock crowd are over, but man, what a time it was — The stories, the parties, the jams, the shows where not a whole lot of people showed up, and especially the jams, all of them collected on King Tuff Was Dead. Those jams were timeless.

Dirty Beaches
Drifters/Love is the Devil
Zoo Music

Once the music starts, the scene practically writes itself.

A lone traveler in an exotic land. It could be Central America, South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, or South Asia. The exact locale isn’t important. What is important is that our traveler is hot, sweat dripping on top of sweat hot. He’s agitated — flight delays, lost baggage, lost hotel reservation, agitated. The hotel room where he now finds himself, located on the outskirts of the city, is a bare bones affair with bed, dresser, night stand, one window without a screen, and no air conditioning. It has no television or internet connection, either. The only entertainment is a clock radio, which right now is only capable of two things: reminding the traveler how late it is and broadcasting thickly accented static. Another stiff drink is the only hope for sleep. Our traveler desperately needs sleep.

Suddenly, there’s a break in the static. A pirate radio station has claimed the airwaves and from those small, tinny speakers the most sublime sound emerges. The dance rhythms are vaguely native and the melodies sound like long forgotten cinematic scores. A man’s voice can be heard talking, grunting, sometimes singing. Is that English? Is that French? He’s a tense man, nonetheless, and he obviously wants his message and his music to be heard. Why won’t he properly annunciate his words? “I must know what he’s saying!” Stress does funny things to a man’s mind.

The traveler sits upright and pours some mostly melted ice into his mostly empty glass of whiskey. This bond must last. So must the whiskey.

The traveler reclines and for the next 30 minutes he finds an ally in this madman’s ravings. “He gets it.” The traveler says to no one in particular. The airline doesn’t get it. That clerk at the front desk who pretended not to know English? He didn’t get it, either. The traveler screams, “There are two parts to a reservation: taking the reservation and keeping the reservation!” He continues to rave, “This country is backass, backwards, but this man on the radio knows the score. He can jam.”

Exhaustion. The traveler drifts in and out of consciousness, not sure if that last bit of whiskey did the trick, no longer sure if the sound coming from the clock radio is real or a manifestation of his own exhaustion.

There are visions, too. Sweaty discos. Street drugs. Men with rifles strapped to their backs. Helicopters. Revolution in the street. The calm. The storm.

The music plays on, gradually decreasing in intensity. The man on the clock radio has stopped talking. He has stopped grunting. The beats have receded, too. “We were in this together!” the traveler exclaims, now acutely awake.

If the second half of the broadcast was meant to comfort listeners, it’s having the opposite effect on the traveler. He feels abandoned by the one man who understood his frustration with this strange land.

The traveler removes the warm towel from his forehead and gets up from his moist, sagging bed, shorts sticking to his backside like an old bandage. Outside the window, city lights flicker in the distance. Otherwise not a face can be seen, not a sound can be heard, and the heat, it’s like pressing your face up to a cast-iron frying pan fresh from the stove.

He retreats. He paces as the man on the clock radio becomes fascinated by the sound of his own guitar. Once again, sleep is but a worthy goal, an abstract notion in this hot hell called nowhere worth visiting. If only it lasted, then maybe his mind wouldn’t be racing. Maybe, he wouldn’t be staring at 2 AM. And, maybe, he wouldn’t be rifling through his suitcase. The city must have a late night disco.

Dirty Beaches’ double album, Drifters/Love is the Devil is like that — One part feverish dream and one part come down that’s more of a disappointment than a proper come down because it only will only leave you missing those fever dreams.