Oxymoron (band)

He was playing on the following tour through Europe ("Spirit of the Streets" - with Pistol Grip and the Beltones) as well, which was to be the last one so far.
. Davey, actually the driver, offered to do the job and saved the day. He considers PiL "on hiatus," and plans a book on his years with the group. But the guitarist who was finally found there left again while the "Chaos across the Nation" US-Tour was going on, leaving the band stranded overseas.. Lydon released a solo album, Psycho's Path in 1997. In the meantime the headquarters had been moved to Berlin, where everybody lived now. Notable exploding members of the later PiL include world-music multi-instrumentalist (and former Damned guitarist) Lu Edmonds, and Cream bassist and drummer Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker.

Unfortunately Martin, an original member, had left the band having offspring, and so Chrissy once again stepped in temporarily. Their final lineup consisted of Lydon, Ted Chau (guitar, keyboards), Mike Joyce of The Smiths (drums), John McGeoch (guitar), and Russel Webb (bass). Europe- and especially Germany - was recently toured as well, with a different line-up though. PiL kept going as a Lydon project until 1993, when Lydon disbanded the group. Six weeks on the road from coast to coast, this "Pure Punk" tour was played side by side with Dead Empty, The Boils and The Forgotten. Flipper retaliated by naming their next album, Public Flipper Limited. So they withdrew for a couple of months in order to work on it, and recorded what was going to be called "Feed the breed" in the summer of 2001 (which is available in Europe since november already and will be out on GMM Records in the USA this april), just before returning to the States again. Controversy reared its hoary glower again with claims that the album cover and title concept had been stolen from the San Francisco noise/punk band, Flipper, contemporaries of PiL, whose album, Album, featured a similarly unadorned sleeve.

But the time was also right for the OXY's to put out a "real" new album as well. Produced by Bill Laswell (despite Lydon-fuelled faction and disunion) and with many of his usual rotating cast of musicians, it also featured guitar solos by Steve Vai, considered by Vai as some of his best work. In the fall of 2000 the compilation "Best before 2000" was released by Knock Out Records (and Cyclone Records in the States) because of the demand for the sold out 7"es and rare material - including all the singles and stuff from various comps. PiL's 1986 release was simply entitled CD, Tape, or Album, depending on the format. Chrissy left the band after the tour to have more time for his own project and fortunately Morpheus showed up. Atkins stayed on through a disatrous live album, Live in Tokyo -- in which PiL consisted of him, Lydon, and a band of New Jersey wedding musicians -- and left in 1985, following the album, This Is What You Want, This Is What You Get. The band was moving, or perhaps hurtling, toward a more commercial pop music and dance music direction, and while many new fans had found PiL, little of their original audience (or sound) remained. This seven weeks coast-to-coast affair in the company of the Dropkick Murphys (with whom another split-single had been done) and the Ducky Boys turned out to be a great success and should become one of the best things they had done so far. Recollections, as usual, differ widely on the particulars, and the album, while considered far superior to the official one that later appeared, has never been legally reissued.

As a four-piece again the Oxy's set out in '99 on a full scale attack on various countries of Europe, playing more gigs than ever before as well as touring the whole USA. Lydon and Atkins claim that he stole the tapes, while Levene's claim is, in effect, that posession is nine-tenths of the law. So without further ado Chrissy stepped in, who temporarily had been a second guitarist and used to play bass on the first US tour already. An aborted fourth album, from 1982, was later released by Levene as Commercial Zone. And last but not least Arne left the band just weeks before the recording sessions for the "Westworld" mini-album were supposed to be. Atkins was, like Levene and Lydon, a control freak in ways, but Levene had the disadvantage of having repeatedly fired Atkins over apparent trifles, and of being zonked on junk much of the time -- so when conflict arose again, Levene was the one to go. Besides Sucker had to go to hospital for a while due to a nervous damage and everything slowed down. (Collins admits the deed; Bush went an extra step in buying some of Wobble's 'impossibly deep' Metal Box-era bass equipment [the secret is a 1970s or equivalent Fender Jazz Bass through all-tube Ampeg SVT amplifier, speakers faced toward a solid wall, with mikes arranged to pick up the ambient sound]).

1998 didn't mean it good with the Oxy's and they had to take few blows, because some tours planned for a long time were cancelled just weeks before or had be called off for some reasons. Julian Cope, however, expresses the current majority view, saying that Flowers was "the last great PIL album." [2] (http://www.juliancope.com/unsung/reviews/index.php?review_id=984) Its drum sound was widely copied, notably by Phil Collins and Kate Bush. The most exciting tour however was to come in summer of '97, when they had the chance to play in Japan for almost three weeks (along with the Discocks), and certainly went for it. The record consists mostly of drums, vocals, and tape loops, with only gestures toward bass (played by Levene) and keyboards. Roughly one year later their second long-player "The Pack is back" was consequently released by Knock Out, and it smoothed the way for the band when they hit the road in various countries of Europe again. Atkins' populsive marching band-style drumming and Lydon's increasing lyrical abstraction made this LP a difficult listen for rock fans: contemporary reviews expressed great confusion. Mosch from Knock Out Records had become an ever-present companion of the band, who was running his label for some years already and had done much good for the streetpunk scene with his publications, so they decided to sign to him. Levene had by then largely abandoned guitar in favor of synthesizer, picking up a technique that was nearly unique, although owing a debt, perhaps, to Allen Ravenstine of Pere Ubu.

This was a chaotic two odd weeks affair along the East Coast together with Braindance and the Casualties, which went down very well for them after all. Atkins, who had initially joined at the tail end of the Metal Box sessions (most tracks on that album were played by Richard Dudanski), was re-recruited to drum on The Flowers of Romance, an album considered much stranger and more difficult than the already strange Metal Box. In the spring of 1996 the "Crisis Identity" single was released on Arne's and his wife's short-lived label Rough Beat Records, followed by the band's first trip to the USA. The band soon regrouped, after a fashion, back in London. Thus they played a lot at the Oi! festivals that were taking place again more and more often in the meantime, with the likes of Cock Sparrer, Angelic Upstarts, Major Accident, Test Tube Babies etc. An appearance a short time later on NBC's Tom Snyder show had Lydon and Snyder insulting each other on-air. Since OXYMORON always were a mixed band and stood for unity between the tribes both punks and skins attended their shows from the very beginning. The 18-inch model of Stonehenge had descended.

With their pal Arne joining in a few weeks later and taking over the bass, they seized the opportunity and started gigging abroad, too, as well as in Germany, where they had been touring twice in the company of Braindance (with whom a split-single was released at the same time, named "Mohican Melodies"). The promoters cleared the hall and cancelled the next night's show, and a local media furore ignited in New York. The response and reviews Oxymoron received for this album were more than anyone ever had expected and lots of fanzines and indie music mags became attentive all over the place. Lydon taunted the audience, who expected to hear familiar material (or at least see the band), and a melee erupted in which the audience pelted the stage with bottles and pulled on a tarp spread under the band, toppling equipment. The band paid the studio from their own money that they somehow managed to raise, but it was well worth it. (Drummer Sam Ulamo had been recruited for the gig from a bar -- the 60-year-old jazz player had never heard the band before.) While something reminiscent of, but clearly different from PiL improvised behind the screen, PiL records were played simultaneously through the PA. "Fuck the Nineties - Here's our Noize", as it was eventually called, had to be recorded as a three-piece because Filzlaus left after one tour and couldn't be replaced immediately. The band appeared at the Ritz playing from behind a projection screen.

This single finally came out in early '94 and was subsequently reissued by Bob Burridge from Helen Of Oi! Records, who had picked it up and apparently liked it since he offered the band a record deal for a full-length album as well. For the Ritz gig however, Levene decided that PiL would reorganize as an improvisational multimedia troupe -- working, as usual, without planning or rehearsals. Practising in a mouldy former beer cellar which they called the Oxyfactory the time was right in the summer of '93 for recording their debut-ep "Beware, poisonous!" which they produced and released off their own bat (on the provisional "Oxyfactory Records" label, that never put out any further records). Orridge out of Britain in the early '90s.) Levene had also begun to get big ideas about PiL's formerly-ironic claims to be a 'corporation' and an 'art collective': While friends of the band including filmmaker Jeanette Lee had long been 'full members' of PiL (original drummer Jim Walker was only 'voted off the board' in 1980), no creative works besides the records had ever ensued. After this show they got offered some gigs as support for more established acts all over Germany. (A similar campaign would chase Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV frontman Genesis P. Originally coming from Erlangen / Nuernberg - Germany their first real appearance was at the annual punk festival in their home town along with other local bands. The band's musical core had by then been stripped down to Lydon and Levene (drummer Martin Atkins had recently exploded), and PiL had begun to relocate to New York, partly because the MI5 was conducting a harassment campaign -- later admitted -- against the band's headquarters, the London apartment that Lydon bought with his Sex Pistols royalties.

Mostly influenced by early Eighties' punk and Oi! stuff it was quite obvious what it would sound like in general, but it was a long way until they finally made it on stage. A show at the Ritz, in New York, signaled a turning point. The main intention behind it all was to have a laugh and to get the kind of music across they were into, and since the early Nineties didn't seem to have a lot of punk let alone skinhead bands being around anymore they felt an urge to get out and do it themselves to keep it going. Upon Wobble's departure, the band continued not-playing as a bassless trio. Formed by Sucker and his drumming cousin Bjoern and completed by their mates Martin on the guitar and Filzlaus on the bass the original line-up needed a couple of years and various efforts to see the light of the day under the name OXYMORON. When Levene found out, it provided fuel for a grudge; and while claims differ as to whether Wobble quit or was fired, the split was decisive.
Oxymoron was called into being in late 1992 actually, although the roots of the band go back further to the fall of 1989. While working on his first solo album, he began using PiL basslines as backing tracks, on the premise that nobody else in the band seemed likely to mind.

Please format this article according to the guidelines laid out at Wikipedia:How to edit a page, then remove this notice. Wobble had been releasing solo singles since 1978, and had long been unhappy with the band's relaxed sense of time and lack of ambition. This music article needs to be wikified. With that as a ground aesthetic, it's easy to see how an ambitious musician could be frustrated. For help, see How to Edit a Page and the Style and How-to Directory. He'd never bothered to come up before. After the article has been cleaned up, you may remove this message. One evening, moments after a phone exchange, he was astonished to see Levene walk in the door: The guitarist had been living the whole time in the apartment downstairs.

This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of article quality. (One exec called PiL "a well-oiled machine that burns money and generates pot smoke and excuses.") When Jim Walker joined, he started hanging out at Lydon's apartment, and noticed that Levene would often call from wherever Levene lived -- presumably miles away, since he never saw him. PiL's elusiveness lent it a thick mystique, but to those behind the curtain it was known as "the laziest band in the world" -- never rehearsing, rarely gigging (the original band only played five UK shows), and recording only when forced to by frantic record execs. Oddly, it was Wobble. Something had to break, and it was clear that it couldn't be Lydon.

Levene was a very small, skinny person, of the sort that one thinks of as 'runty.' Jah Wobble, for his part, was among the rarest of sensitive art-musicians and world-music aficionados in that his habits included assault and battery, setting people on fire, and hurling televisions out of hotel windows. Lydon had always been a difficult character to work with, but Levene had begun to challenge his crown, by many reports acting increasingly grandiose and delusional, and by all reports sinking ever-deeper into heroin. A US tour led to several cancelled dates and (more of the usual) chaos, this time between the band and their US label, Warner Brothers (PiL was on Virgin in the UK). Clark, in later years, would refer to the appearance as "One of the ten best American Bandstand episodes of all time.".

The studio audience made a valiant, but futile attempt to dance and stay in character, ruined by Lydon's good-humored incitements to storm the stage. General chaos broke out, and the show ended with the audience dancing with band members, band members goofing on their instruments, and Lydon chatting with fans while "Careering" blared on. The band mimed to the bleak soundscapes of "Poptones" and "Careering," from Metal Box, with Lydon haranguing the cameramen and making no effort to conceal that he was lip-synching. PiL's booking there revealed a latent fiendish streak in host Dick Clark. The teenage dance show American Bandstand was, circa 1980, entirely innocent of such things, with a history beginning with the likes of Frankie Avalon and extending to the mild end of '70s pop-rock.

Hallmarks of the genre include minimalism, classically-inspired ambient or atonal leanings, via Stockhausen, and an abandonment of traditional song form in favor of long, slowly-unfolding compositions. In fact, although radically different from other British and American rock groups, PiL was heavily influenced by German experimental rock, or Krautrock, especially by Can, Neu!, and the sonic aesthetic of producer Conny Plank. One critic wrote, "they sounded nothing like the Pistols or anyone else at the time." [1] (http://users2.ev1.net/~dlimon/firecracker/firecracker8/pil.htm). But with Metal Box, PiL was no longer operating as a standard rock band, but was entering a different territory altogether.

It is now widely regarded as a classic record, both for its music and its sheer tonality (the 45rpm 12" format added depth and fidelity to what was already a highly tactile, spacious sound), and it sold quite well upon release, and for years afterward. Metal Box is starker than First Issue, more spread out and uncompromising, and scattered with bits of musique concrete and ambient synthesizer. Metal Box was originally released as three 45rpm 12-inch records packaged in a metal film canister (it was later reissued as a double LP set, Second Edition), and features the band's trademark hypnotic dub reggae bass lines, glassy, arpeggiated guitar, and bleak, paranoid, stream of consciousness vocals. Sessions took place in which a star-struck young drummer would show up for an 'audition' and be stunned to discover himself in the middle of a recording date with the tape rolling.

In addition to the drugs and disorganization that were the normal condition of the band, Jim Walker had quit from general disillusionment, making way for a series of exploding drummers -- in one case literally, when Wobble set fire to the aptly-named Karl Burns. 1979's Metal Box was a more focused effort, although created, like First Issue, under notably unfocused circumstances. It sold well in the UK and in Europe. The album was, however, fairly easy for rock audiences to get a handle on.

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. 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. 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 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.

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, studio fees an unwatched clock), and ended up with eight tracks of varying sound quality, half of which were written and recorded in a last-minute fire drill. The single did splendidly in the UK, and surprisingly well as an import in the US, where the mainstream rock culture of the time was strongly resistant to edginess or innovation. PiL is often cited as one of the most challenging and innovative bands of the post punk period. PiL debuted with "Public Image," a single not far from Sex Pistols territory, but quickly became a far more experimental project.

The original drummer was Jim Walker (né Donat Walker), a Canadian student newly arrived in the UK, who answered an ad in a weekly music magazine. Lydon's friends eventually ran into Levene on the street, and he quickly signed on. Lydon and Levene had both considered themselves outsiders even within their own bands. Lydon also launched an effort to locate guitarist Keith Levene (né Julian Levene), whom he had met on tour in mid-1976 while Levene was a member of The Clash.

While that had proven a fatal assumption with Vicious (Lydon cites his inability to play as a prime reason for the Pistols' breakup), Wobble would prove to be a natural talent. Following the Pistols' breakup, and after a three-week trip to Jamaica with Virgin Records head Richard Branson, in which Lydon helped scout for new reggae artists, Lydon approached Wobble to start a new band, thinking that they were both diehard fans of reggae, and of what would later be called world music; and assuming, much as with Sid Vicious, that Wobble could learn the bass as he went. Lydon and Jah Wobble (né John Wardle) had been friends since the early 1970s, and had casually played music together during the last days of the Sex Pistols.
Public Image Ltd (PiL) is a band formed in 1978 by John Lydon, formerly and later Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols.

Public Image/Second Edition (two-in-one), 2003. Plastic Box (box set), 1999. That What Is Not, 1992. Box (box set), 1990.

The Greatest Hits, So Far (compilation), 1990. 9, 1989. Happy?, 1987. Album / Compact Disc / Cassette, 1986.

This Is What You Get, 1984. This Is What You Want.. Live In Tokyo (live album), 1983. The Flowers of Romance, 1981.