|
Unsung Forum » METAL BOX IN A METAL BOX |
Log In to post a reply
|
|
|
|
| Topic View: Flat | Threaded | |
Markoid 1621 posts |
Feb 27, 2015, 23:37
|
||
Quite simply astounding. I think PiL got lost in the psych mix somewhere?
|
|||
Monganaut 2375 posts |
Edited Feb 28, 2015, 17:07
Feb 28, 2015, 16:58
|
||
|
They did a CD re-release of Metal Box in a metal box for a while, they may still do I guess. Worked in an old second hand record store in Manchester (Pandemonium Records) many years ago, on Oxford Road. The guy who owned it had so many copies of the original Metal Box in the film cannister it was unreal, most sadly slightly rusty. Even though George (he was the owner) had so many, he was always reluctant to sell one on. Seem to recall I was forever re-sorting the stock room out back. The guy was sitting on a goldmine of rare shit. He used to record stuff onto cassette for you for a few quid if you couldn't afford his madly overpriced stock. His biggest seller in that dept was bloody whale songs. Used to record em' by the dozen. Found a couple of pieces about the shop. http://www.britishrecordshoparchive.org/pandemonium-records.html http://akoustikanarkhy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/500000-records-counting-north.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iIhpmApTN4#t=13
|
|||
Stevo 6664 posts |
Feb 28, 2015, 17:17
|
||
|
I got the 3cd in a tin can set a few years ago. It might be easier to get a 1cd 2nd Edition which is the same material and the way I had it on vinyl. Think it was done for the U.S. market a 33rpm 2lp version of the 45rpm 3 12" original. I assume the 45rpm 12" thing was done for sound quality? Not something that's really in play in the cd medium. I'd rather have it all in one place. Though I don't know if I'd want it all in one sitting so later tracks might get neglected. Not sure what is where on that. Mainly hear it as random tracks on a walkman at the moment anyway.
|
|||
|
Monganaut 2375 posts |
Edited Feb 28, 2015, 22:07
Feb 28, 2015, 22:06
|
||
|
Yeah, the 3 x 12" edition was for sound quality purposes. Cost a pretty packet to produce too, think they had to give back 1/3 of their original advance to cover pressing and packaging costs. I read that the bass was cut so deep on those original 12" single versions that not a lot of stereos could handle it without jumping or skipping. Though dunno if that's one of those apocryphal ditties that came about after the fact. Few interesting quotes on wiki about making the album. "Albatross": John Lydon (1980/2004): "Things like 'Albatross' are done live. I'd free-form, I just free-formed, we all did, and that's how it should be when the mood is right. Keith Levene (2001): "We got it off in one take, it happened as you hear it [...] I didn't know John had these words. I made up that tune as I went along, Wobble made up what he did as he went along [...] We all looked at each other, and I said 'We've got this, haven't we? Sounds like The Doors, doesn't it? Let's keep it!' David Humphrey (drummer, 2004): "It was straight down The Manor in Oxfordshire and straight into recording. I remember doing a lot of stuff, stuff from the original PIL album, and also some additional tracks like 'Death Disco' or 'Swan Lake' as it was known at the time–and 'Albatross' "Memories": Keith Levene (2001): "There's this normal Spanish guitar thing that goes dun-da-da-dun da-da-dun. That's what I'm playing, it's one of the first things I learned to play on guitar, very simple. I was very fond of that. I totally knew what the fuck John was singing about [...] All I'm doing when I'm playing those notes over the top: I just had the guitar going through an Electric Mistress. "Swan Lake"/"Death Disco": Keith Levene (2001): "We booked a place in Brixton which was just an empty hall just to test this three-bass sound system, that was a turbo rig that I wanted to use at the Rainbow. Because we were in sound system situations, we were making up new tunes – that's when 'Death Disco' was emerging [...] One tune we definitely had was 'Death Disco', cause we worked that with Jim but we didn't record him [...] I didn't know what he was singing about at the time [...] I realised that this tune that I was bastardising by mistake was 'Swan Lake', so I started playing it on purpose but I was doing it from memory. You can hear that I'm not playing it exactly right. It just worked [...] There's a few versions of that. The one on 'Metal Box' is version two, which is very different from the simpler, original [12-inch] version. "Poptones": Keith Levene (2001/02/04): "I think 'Poptones' was one of the first things we recorded [...] That's our second attempt at that [...] Basically, for me, the track goes on too fucking long."[11] "I was playing 'Starship Trooper' the other day and I thought fuck me, that is exactly what I'm doing in 'Poptones'! "[The guitar part] is totally ripped off from 'Starship Trooper', but I didn't do it on purpose. Jah Wobble (2004/09): “I still see that tune as the jewel in the PIL crown [...] That line is as symmetrical as a snowflake. To give him his due Levene went mental for it. In the end Levene put the drums down on that track, his drums are a bit loose, but that is actually a good thing [...] "Careering": Jah Wobble (1980/2009): “It was at Townhouse that we did 'Careering', which is my second favourite track from 'Metal Box' and probably my favourite John Lydon vocal performance. If you listen to the drum rhythm it is very similar to the sort of rhythm a drum and fife band would create By now Keith had got hold of a Prophet synth, he used that on 'Careering'."It was a session where I really took control. I've done the drum track and I'm laying the bassline down, and Keith has his synth and is making textures, and John was really up for it that night. That was a quick night. "No Birds"/"No Birds Do Sing": John Lydon (1999): "'No Birds Do Sing' is a line from a poem by Keats. I just borrowed a bit of it because it suited this particular rant about suburbia. Keith Levene (2001/02): "One of my favourite tunes on 'Metal Box'. "All that it is is me playing the guitar part and duplicating it, but feeding the second one through this effect I'd set up on the harmoniser. Meanwhile John is lying under the piano and singing that weird feedback voice, while twinkling the keys at the same time, just to be annoying. You can hear the piano on the record." Jah Wobble (2009): "[Richard Dudanski] made extensive and imaginative use of the toms, which really suited compositions like 'No Birds' and 'Socialist'." "Graveyard"/"Another": Jah Wobble (1980): “It's a perfect rhythm. You can put anything over it and mix it in so many different ways. Keith Levene (2001): "[The guitar part] was made up on the spot. I was in a very Clint Eastwood mood. I didn't know what I was going to play. Wobble's playing the bassline and drums are playing so I had to do something. The way it worked was, there wasn't a vocal on it at first. The version on 'Metal Box' doesn't have vocals but there's a version of it that does and called something else ['Another']. "The Suit": John Lydon (1980): "People of low origins trying to be posh. Keith Levene (2001/04): "It was never one of my favourite pieces because of what it was really about [...] There was this guy that was an old mate of John's who lived in this apartment. At some point John decided he hated his guts. He just wrote this really nasty, finger-pointing, over-exaggerated, ripping parody of what the guy was – 'Society boy' "Bad Baby": Martin Atkins (drummer, 2001/02/07): "I went to the Townhouse, I think Genesis and Queen were there during the day, and PIL were recording at night. I spoke to Jeannette for a while, John said hello, probably 'Fuck off, you Northern git', and someone said 'There's the drums over there', and I just went and did 'Bad Baby' then and there [...] We wrote it together, that was my audition."[33] "Studio A at the Townhouse to someone who was 19 looked big like a basketball court, with a mixing desk at the other end. They said 'Oh, here's that Northener', you know, and then they said 'There's the drum kit, go and do something.' I just sat down and did it, played 'Bad Baby', with Jah Wobble playing along. “I walked in to comments like 'Here’s that Northern git' and we wrote 'Bad Baby'. Then I went back to my job working for the government as a clerical officer in St Martin’s Place. Jah Wobble (2009): "I love his vocal melody line on that track, Augustus Pablo would have loved that melody. Anyway, Martin Atkins had checked a lot of disco out and that resulted in him having a good hi-hat technique and okay timekeeping. My bass playing on 'Bad Baby' was inspired by the style of a bass player called Cecil McBee. "Socialist": Keith Levene (2004): “I remember doing 'Socialist' – I'd just bought these cheap synths, so me and Wobble were really having fun fucking around with these things, whilst submerged in the mix was this huge soaring sound, rising upwards from the drum and the bass, like a whale's cry [...] Later on I dubbed up the cymbals, so you have that spiralling metallic sound. Dubwise! "Chant": John Lydon (1980): "Yes, 'Chant' is great, it's like an old English ditty with a string synthesiser. "Radio 4": Keith Levene (2001): "[Wobble] didn't do the bassline in 'Radio 4'. I played it as if it was Wobble playing [...] We ended up in another studio, Advision, and I recorded this track with Ken Lockie from Cowboys International. Originally it had me on drums. Ken laid down the dun-dun-dun on piano, he could play these great chords with his big hands where I used synths to put something across. We didn't like the studio and John didn't like Ken, so that was his brief appearance as a possible PIL candidate. Ken did this one session, with just me there. So I was at another studio and we put this on. I had a Yamaha String Ensemble where you could make it sound like so many things, but it wasn't huge. I was using this thing and I start building it up, all I'm doing is taking different sounds from this thing and layering it. When I heard it, I pulled the drums out. I got on the idea of trying to make it sound orchestrated with the long chords played shorter. To get round the other stuff, I just used what was at hand. I played bass like I imagined Wobble would play bass to it, I wanted a Wobble feel to it. But basically, it's all me – that's when I realised I can completely do everything. You just hear the drums at the end [...] I called it 'Radio 4' because in England, you got Radio One, Two, Three, Radio One played pop tunes. Before that, the BBC was so boring! It took until about 1985 before we had FM radio."[11] "With 'Radio 4', I was just alone in the studio one night, and I was overwhelmed with the sense of space. I just took everything out of the studio, moved the drum kit out and played everything myself, reproducing this sense of cold spaciousness I felt around me. That was me playing the bass, I played what I thought people would identify as a Wobble bassline. But it was my pattern. Reception[edit] Always loved the Whistle Test performance of Careering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rtwiMFDWa0
|
|||
garerama 1111 posts |
Feb 28, 2015, 23:21
|
||
A very special album to me. I started to get into music in 1979 and the three 12" canister was my x-mas pressie. As a naive 12 year old I took it for granted and loved it even though the bass was lost on the mono record player of the time ... Only in later years did I realise just how special it was when I started exploring krautrock and dub more. How out of time it was and how it was to help shape the "post-punk" spree that followed. I still have such a high regard for the album as a whole.
|
|||
|
Popel Vooje 5373 posts |
Mar 01, 2015, 00:22
|
||
|
Monganaut wrote: Yeah, the 3 x 12" edition was for sound quality purposes. Cost a pretty packet to produce too, think they had to give back 1/3 of their original advance to cover pressing and packaging costs. I read that the bass was cut so deep on those original 12" single versions that not a lot of stereos could handle it without jumping or skipping. Though dunno if that's one of those apocryphal ditties that came about after the fact. I suspect it's true - my stereo couldn't even handle the "Second Edition" re-issue. I never heard that album without skips until I bought the CD. There seems to be a confusing array of different CD versions on the market - I have a 1-disc edition in a tin can.
|
|||
flatboxertwin 369 posts |
Mar 01, 2015, 01:20
|
||
|
garerama wrote: How out of time it was and how it was to help shape the "post-punk" spree that followed. 154 by Wire pre-dated it by 2 months. While it maybe doesn't display the overt Kraut and dub influences that course and pulsate through MB's veins, I think it was just as great a milestone of Punk's transition into adulthood.
|
|||
|
Monganaut 2375 posts |
Mar 01, 2015, 15:08
|
||
|
Yeah, the one disc tin can version's the one I have as well. Though I only replaced my tape a few years ago, seems to be the release from 1990? I suppose that could just be the CD, and the tin package came later. Never took to Metal Box in its own right originally, I bought it retospectively after loving the live (not live) 'Paris Au Pretemps' LP. Mind you, my gateway LP to Pil was Flowers Of Romance which I loved as a gawky teen. My pal Charlie always swears that its a a weird place to start for Pil, but there you go. Remember buying 'Flowers of Romance' single alongside Human Leagues 'Sound Of The Crowd' and Talking Heads 'Once In A Lifetme' on a pocket money spree in Woolworths. 1981 wasn't a bad year for singles. http://www.uk-charts.top-source.info/top-100-1981.shtml HAd discovered John Peel in early 1980, so what he played probably influenced some of my buying for 81' Certainly dicovered a major crush for Bauhaus in that year. http://peel.wikia.com/wiki/1981_Festive_Fifty
|
|||
thesweetcheat 6214 posts |
Mar 01, 2015, 15:24
|
||
|
flatboxertwin wrote: garerama wrote: How out of time it was and how it was to help shape the "post-punk" spree that followed. 154 by Wire pre-dated it by 2 months. While it maybe doesn't display the overt Kraut and dub influences that course and pulsate through MB's veins, I think it was just as great a milestone of Punk's transition into adulthood. Unknown Pleasures came out in August 1979, The Slits' Cut and Gang of Four's Entertainment! were both September. And Magazine's Real Life came out back in 1978, along with Chairs Missing and The Scream. Great period for records, Metal Box was almost at the end of that first flush of post-punk albums.
|
|||
Fitter Stoke 2611 posts |
Mar 01, 2015, 21:38
|
||
Absolutely. And don't forget 'Live At The Witch Trials', 'A Different Kind Of Tension', 'Dirk Wears White Sox', 'Secondhand Daylight', 'Mix Up' and 'A Trip To Marineville', all fabulous 1979 post-punk gems that preceded the wonderful 'Metal Box'. I'm sure there are loads more.
|
| Pages: 2 – [ 1 2 | Next ] | Add a reply to this topic |
|
|
|
| Unsung Forum Index | |
