Coming soon: DiS meets John Lydon
As Public Image Ltd. prepare for their first UK live dates of 2013, DiS spoke to frontman, founder, musical icon and cultural anti-hero John Lydon.»
Articles
romanisbetter has written the following articles:
DiS meets John Lydon - Part 1: The Man
In his first public address, in the opening seconds of the Sex Pistols' debut single, Johnny Rotten declared himself an antichrist. John Lydon, on the other hand, introduced himself to the record-buying public by saying "Hello". On 'Public Image', Public Image Ltd's debut single, Lydon was starting a new conversation about who he really is. "You never listened to a word that I said / You only seen me for the clothes that I wear", he spat, brilliantly reasserting control over his own public image. This was Lydon ditching the antichrist persona, bringing an end to anarchy in the UK and saying, loudly and clearly, "This is who I really am". The thing is, that was 35 years ago, and unless you're the man himself, the issue of who John Lydon really is remains a matter of opinion.»
Drowned In Sheffield #13
When the first Tramlines festival was held in 2009, I didn’t go. I was on holiday in Europe, desperately trying to find ATMs that still had cash in them. You see, this was at the start of the biggest worldwide financial crisis since the Great Depression, and the banks had run out of money. Now when I think about that, and think about the fact that back home, Sheffield’s music community had decided to organise a giant free music festival on the eve of the biggest age of austerity any of us have ever experienced, it’s tempting to ask whether they might have timed it better.»
A Hawk And A Hacksaw - You Have Already Gone to the Other World
If Gogol Bordello are the Goldie Lookin’ Chain of Eastern European folk, A Hawk and a Hacksaw are its Public Enemy, and You Have Already Gone To the Other Wold is their most legitimate love-letter to the region’s music yet.»
Drowned In Sheffield #12
When it comes to writing this column, we spend an awful lot of time goofing around researching on the internet. Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud and Bandcamp – that’s how we find all the bands we feature here. It also where we learned the sad news recently that several of those bands – Standard Fare, Likes Lions and Les Oeuf Pourri – have called it a day. It’s where we found this surprising video of Lewis from Best Friends being dead good at skateboarding. It’s where we saw whoever runs the Tye Die Tapes Twitter account be a bit rude about another band, and a member of said band not take it that well. It’s where Tye Die Tapes have, hilariously, turned the accusation that they’re hipsters into a very funny bit of DIY branding. And it’s where Offbeat was resurrected.»
"We’ve been alienating millions of people the whole time" - DiS meets Dutch Uncles
Marple’s Dutch Uncles have a quality to them that’s rarer than you'd think – for a guitar band at least. Like Wild Beasts, Menomena, and only a few others doing the rounds at the moment, you can take one of their songs and listen to it ten, fifty, a hundred times, and unless you’re a musician yourself (and a pretty highly-trained one at that) you still won’t be able to fathom how it works.»
Foals return - DiS' Robert Cooke on their comeback gig in Sheffield
There are a few who clearly didn’t get what they expected tonight. After all, this is a small tour of intimate venues (the bingo hall of a working men’s club in this case) ahead of a new album release. The point is to road test new material, right? Not just play four new songs, two of which you can find easily enough on YouTube?»
Drowned In Sheffield #11
It’s always nice to get an award, isn’t it? It’s particularly nice for the Leadmill, which has been awarded at the Live Music Business Awards for the second year running, winning its Best Venue Teamwork category. In fact, Sheffield did rather well at this year’s bash, as the City Hall won the Best Venue Teamwork category for theatres and concert halls. »
Hey Sholay - ((o))
There’s an optimism in Hey Sholay’s music that never comes close to getting on your nerves.»
Deerhoof - Breakup Song
There’s so much fun to be had with Breakup Song, it doesn’t matter a bit that Deerhoof aren’t the pop group they claim to be.»
Drowned In Sheffield #10
A funny thing happened the other night. DIY label Tye Die Tapes were putting on a gig at their recording studio, and after great sets from Pet Rock and Avida Dollars, Cardiff’s Joanna Gruesome were doing their thing. Unfortunately their set was cut short when the noise police showed up, and we can obviously have a debate about whether or not TDT should be putting on gigs when it pisses off the neighbours, but something pretty great happened as a result.»
Wooderson - Let the Man Speak
What Let The Man Speak isn’t is an album of unwieldy aggression bundled together in the name of keeping the DIY punk spirit alive. It’s far more sophisticated than that, with its cleverly overlapping vocals and riffs far sharper and smarter than your bog-standard three-chord punk.»
Holograms - Holograms
An album of razor-sharp irreverence, infectious energy and, beneath its surface, genuinely intelligent songwriting. »
Drowned In Sheffield #9
Welcome to the ninth instalment of Drowned In Sheffield - the unexpectedly bumper-sized summer edition. Hooray!»
2:54 - 2:54
Easy to enjoy, if not adore. Next time, we’d just like a little less 2:54-by-numbers.»
Ghosting Season - The Very Last Of The Saints
An album with overwhelming potential, which often aches with sadness, but which is ultimately uplifting, and sometimes that’s just what you need to make it through the night.»
Cate Le Bon - CYRK
A songwriter this unique and talented shouldn’t be standing in anyone’s shadow.»
Drowned In Sheffield #8
For some people, the biggest event in Sheffield’s social calendar starts this week, when the World Snooker Championship begins another year at the Crucible Theatre. For the rest of us though, there’s Tramlines. The first bands for this year’s festival have been announced and the list, as ever, includes tons of DiS-friendly acts.»
Maps & Atlases - Beware and be Grateful
There’s undoubtedly some clever stuff going on under Beware and be Grateful's surface, but when it makes you feel nothing you have to wonder, what’s the point?»
The Futureheads - Rant
A timely reminder of what it was that set The Futureheads apart from their peers back in 2004.»
"No one wants to spend fifty minutes with an album if it’s all just misery" - DiS meets Aidan Moffat
For a lad who got kicked out of school with no qualifications, Aidan Moffat has an impressive CV. He started out shaping the future of Scottish indie with Arab Strap, and last year he and Bill Wells released the remarkable album Everything’s Getting Older, to what seemed like unanimous acclaim.»
Soap&Skin - Narrow
Prepare to bow down to the new Queen of Singing Sad Piano-Based Songs.»
Straylings - Entertainment on Foreign Grounds
Entertainment On Foreign Grounds, the debut album by London duo Straylings, sadly, is only half-decent. You’ll listen to it. You won’t turn it off. At times you’ll even like it. But you won’t love it.»
"People expect some Eastern European cliché dance party" - DiS meets A Hawk And A Hacksaw
Jeremy Barnes has nothing to prove. Not only did he play drums in one of the most significant indie bands ever – Neutral Milk Hotel – forging close links to the highly influential Elephant 6 collective, more recently he’s made a name for himself with A Hawk And A Hacksaw, his rigorously studied and richly authentic celebration of Eastern European music.»
Drowned In Sheffield #7
Local readers will no doubt already be aware of the devastating blow that MuseumSheffield has been dealt by the Arts Council’s decision to turn down its £1.4m funding application. While not strictly linked to the city’s music scene, MuseumSheffield is still a vital cog in the South Yorkshire’s wider cultural machinery, and you have to wonder what the knock-on effect will be for other venues and institutions when there’s simply a lot less money around.»
Tennis - Young & Old
With Young & Old, Tennis have built on the default indiepop repertoire they performed on Cape Dory, exploring more soulful, sassier sounds to give their songs much-needed colour and energy.»
We Have Band - Ternion
We Have Band are at their best when they give their songs the arrangements that they’re worth, instead of piling extra melodies and samples on top.»
First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar
What’s clear from The Lion’s Roar, is that not only do Johanna and Klara Söderberg know their banjos from their bagpipes, but they have a strong set of songs which makes them more than your average, all-purpose folk duo for hire.»
Boy & Bear - Moonfire
Boy & Bear sound more like a personality-free replica of a radio-friendly sub-genre of the folk tradition, and fall way short of convincing us that they’re the real deal. »
Trailer Trash Tracys - Ester
The fact that it’s possible to compare the same Trailer Trash Tracys song to both Animal Collective and Van Halen says a lot about the amount of ground the band cover on Ester, in spite of the sonic limits they’ve set.»
Drowned in Manchester #15 – May 2013
armchair dancefloor 39: Mount Kimbie interview, Bobby Browser, Powell, Move D, Leon Vynehall...
DiS meets John Lydon - Part 1: The Man
DiS Does Singles 20.05.13: Paramore, Laura Marling, The Replacements
DiS joins the Music Alliance Pact + May 2013's global MAP compilation
Drowned in Bristol #12
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