Keith Levene Interview (Part 2 of 2) [Listen 37:11] – Doing An Event With But Never Getting Hired by Keith Levene S03 Ep08
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S03 Ep08 (Part2 of 2) - Doing An Event With But Never Getting Hired By Keith Levene
Special Guest: Keith Levene is a punk rock icon. He started off his career as one of the founding members of the Clash – helping write some of the bands early songs like "What's My Name", only to leave before they recorded their first album. His next project was another short lived but significant band, The Flowers of Romance, which consisted of Sid Vicious (pre Sex Pistols days) as well as Palmolive and Viv Albertine just before they formed the Slits. But Keith Levene is probably most famous for his unique guitar style and his powerful song writing skills in the band, Public Image Limited, which included the lead singer of the recently defunct Sex Pistols, Johnny Rotten, a.k.a. John Lydon as well as a then unknown bass player by the name of Jah Wobble. PiL as they became to be known changed the direction of punk for good taking it away from the pre-packaged punk music created by people like Malcolm McLaren and veering into completely uncharted territories with albums like First Edition, The Flowers of Romance, and their landmark album Metal Box (or known in the states as Second Edition). Keith Levene recently teamed up with his old bandmate, Jah Wobble, and have a new album titled Yin and Yang out on Cherry Red Records.
In this Podcast Keith Levene and I talk about The Clash and what early Clash songs he contributed to, we discuss what Johnny Lydon was/is really like, the band PiL and the behind the scenes band politics, his friend Sid Vicous and what he was like behind all the hype. I ask him about Bernie Rhodes and Malcolm McLaren, the time he started playing with Fishbone, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, how flea inspired him to play again, and what the future holds for Jah Wobble and Keith Levene.
Enough Is Enough
It has been proven. Now is a time when pop music is becoming the same. The same to each other, and the same in itself. The same to each other, that is, that there is less differentiation from one pop song to the next, and same in itself as in there's less changes, less of a dynamic range in pop songs these days. One can follow this progression through to the point where all pop songs will become a constant drone with a steady beat of 120 bpm and an autotuned vocal track that wavers only between two pitches of a short range. Ok, actually, that sounds strangely interesting to me, and I'm reducing the problem to the absurd, but the problem is legitimate. Pop music is becoming too much the same.
The point I want to make, is that music is losing something. It's losing it's flavour, the personality. 
While some may say that pop music never had that much substance to begin with, and that's not it's particular aim, a quick introduction into the history of pop music will show that there was much more there in the early days of the 20'th century. Love and loss, the subjects weren't that broad or deep, but the personality of the performers shone through. And now there's a homogenization taking place, and it's going on under the noses of people perhaps too pacified already to take notice and speak out for their own benefit.
The unfortunate thing is that the music is being packaged and sold in pretty, glittery packages that dazzle the eye of the consumers. The rate of exchange comes so quick that there isn't enough time to discover the ruse before the public is dazzled by the next latest offering. It's more about production and advertizing. Much like the days that punk emerged. Punk emerged out of an era of over-produced music. Music that had gotten outside of itself and into the hands of heavy-handed producers and laden glitter and dazzle. It became less about the music and more about the show. I'm afraid that this is the result when music becomes too much an industry and follows a formula, and too far removed as an art form.
In the late seventies, this was, by large, what you had to choose form: music that had lost sight of itself. It's true that there was always music of integrity, if you had the paitience and dedication to search for it, but what was being marketed was filler. Punk was the anti-movement, the reaction. Then, of course, the terrible inevitable happened. Punk became too big and itself became manipulated, watered down and over produced with an eye for marketing and turning a buck. The answer: Post-punk. Steering the reins away from the managers and advertisers once again and making music for music's sake. For the joy of music. The need to make a sound. A tribal gathering, not an event just to fill a stadium and line pockets.
This is what's missing today; the reaction. The backlash. The anti-movement to the mind-numbing consumer fad and conformity.
How it'll come, I don't know, perhaps the seeds are sprouting right now. But I believe it will, and it'll have the impact that punk had on the scene in the late seventies. The blank canvas is prepared. It'll come, and I'm waiting for it in anticipation. Most likely, once again, it'll come on the heels of the disaffected youth sick of the pablum they've been force fed for so long. Keith Levene might be the best one to ask, he was on the punk & post-punk scene, in nearly every scene that mattered. He never seemed to carve his place in one particular band, not in those turbulent and visionary times, but he was the journeyman, coming in and seeding his influence then kicked out or moved on to the next scene.
Keep in mind, as Benjamin Franklin said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.” There is at some point when someone realizes that and decides to act against conformity and produces a profound and worthwhile change fueled with exuberance and exhilaration. Every great epoch of music is hinged on it. I'm waiting.
-- Guthrie Alan Corwin
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jul/27/pop-music-sounds-same-survey-reveals