Johnny Rotten, aka John Lydon, is such a colourful, controversial and out-spoken character that it’s not surprising that so much has been written about him. But nine times out of ten what’s written about him completely ignores, or even seems to deny, the fact that, underneath all the media hype and silliness - admittedly often created by Lydon himself - there lays an underrated genuine musical genius. How else can you explain the fact that Lydon was a key character in four - count ‘em - of the most remarkable albums of the past 50 years?

Everyone of course, is aware of ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ by the Sex Pistols. But what is often over-looked is that after he left the Pistols, he produced with his new band, Public Image Limited (PIL), another three phenomenal and phenomenally influential albums, ‘Public Image’, ‘Metal Box’ and ‘Flowers Of Romance’ between 1978 and 1981.

PIL was quite a different outfit to the Pistols.

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Dub of the late ’70′s variety. By when Dub had evolved in many different directions. Lee Perry and King Perry were still evolving dub (which they’d effectively invented earlier in the ’70′s) into what I suppose could be called ‘classic’ dub – percussion and bass-heavy with a focus on hypnotic grooves (see ABON 0014). Meanwhile producers like Joe Gibbs (with his engineer and mixer Errol Thompson) and Scientist were creating a different dub style. Maybe best described as Dub-with-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink-thrown-in.

With far less emphasis on the bass and rhythm it left room for a more tuneful sound with bucketfuls of sound effects and samples thrown in – from strange blips and burps to doorbells, phones and computer game soundtracks to cowbells, animals and toy instruments.

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We’ll be talking about late ’70′s Punk quite a lot on ABON and featuring many Punk recordings (can’t wait I hear you say). But what I want to talk about here is the revolutionary effect Punk had on what had previously been the music world’s accepted ‘norms’. And in particular the catalytic effect it had on the music that followed in its immediate wake.

Forget the tartan clothes and the mohicans for a moment – they were never really what early punk was all about anyway. The most important aspect of early Punk – in ’76 and ’77 – was that it liberated the performing and recording music scene. Punk broke down a lot of what had become accepted wisdom and introduced the concept that it was perfectly legit to perform and record music even if you weren’t a particularly experienced or even competent musician.

As a result there were hundreds of singles (often on independent labels) released in ’77 and ’78 by completely new bands. Many of these experiments died after one, sometimes appalling, 7inch, but some went on to inspire totally unexpected new sub-genres which as a whole became known as Post Punk. Angular-guitar funk-punk angst-ridden agit-rock being just one of these sub-genres – as more or less invented in 1978 by the wonderful Gang Of Four.

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So here’s another unlikely collaboration. Von Südenfed is Mouse On Mars on instruments joined by one of the greatest living Englishman, Mark E. Smith leader of The Fall, on vocals.

Unlikely because Mouse On Mars are a duo from Düsseldorf whose trademark is sophisticated, well polished, often minimalist, left field electronica. Mark E. Smith meanwhile comes from Salford, sings or talks or shouts like a drunken Mancunian ranting in a bar and is…er…never even remotely polished. At all.

But on ‘Flooded’ these very same contrasts seem to have been the catalyst for a piece of music that has more life and originality in it than either acts were producing on anything like a regular basis immediately before the collaboration. And it’s one of the most infectious and funky pieces of music of the last five years.

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The first of many reggae tracks from the golden period of Jamaican reggae, the 1970′s, that will appear on ABON.
By 1978 Culture had already recorded one of the most influential reggae albums of all time, 1976′s ‘Two Sevens Clash’. That album inspired the reggae loving Clash to name themselves, er, The Clash. It was also one of those very rare events in the 1970′s Britain – a genuine Jamaican-produced roots reggae album that sold in numbers to a white audience. Admittedly most were Punks who took the lead from the Clash or John Peel, but it was also because of the sublime harmonies and wonderful tunes.
It was in some ways a weird success story. Punk was championing unpolished rawer sounds in rock and ridiculing over-production. Culture’s first album was layered with production, was highly polished and very glossy. In particular, the heavy rhythms of the best Jamaican reggae – with the bass featuring more as a physical phenomenon rather than just a musical instrument – was missing from the Joe Gibbs-produced ‘Two Sevens Clash’. It was – God forbid – quite trebly. Punks didn’t seem to mind, although when DJ Don Letts played ‘Two Sevens Clash’ at the punk venue The Roxy, as far as I can tell he always seemed to play it through a graphic equaliser with the bass turned to max.

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