I've just finished reading Jah Wobble's autobiography -Memoirs of a Geezer.
It is funny and entertaining in places with some amusing anecdotes - my favourite being when he met Natacha Atlas' mum and went to shake hands with her and she bit him on the arm!
However in places he doesn't come across as a particularly pleasant person.
He portrays himself as a bit of an East End hard man come jack-the-lad (or geezer if you will) handy with his fists and single minded and not prepared to take any bullshit from anyone.
How much of this is genuine and how much is in there to help the book sell I'm not sure.
I particularly dislike how he is condescending and down right nasty about many of the folk he has worked with over the years.
He is particularly disparaging about Keith Levine, for instance, and yet is back working with him a couple of years after the book is published.
I am only really familiar with his work with PIL and his two hit albums with the Invaders of the Heart; Rising above Bedlam (1991) and Take Me to God (1994) from which these tracks are taken.
I am aware that he has released loads more albums since and I may get around to checking some of them out sometime although after reading this book I would be less inclined to than before.
The music of his that I have is very good though and the concert I saw him play at Glasgow's Garage on 15th August 1994 remains one of the best I have ever seen
Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart - Visions of You
Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart - I Love Everybody
The dynamic between Wobble and Levine has always been kinda perplexing. In those early, heady days of PiL, there wouldn't have been any of the amazing, groundbreaking music if it wasn't for the intertwined brilliance of their bass and guitar attack. They played off each other and created a deep bed of shards for Lydon to lay his lyrics. I've read some of those kinda bitchy comments each has had for the other over the years, but they are permanently enmeshed and should keep making music together.
ReplyDeleteYeah you just wonder how much of the anomosity is actually just posturing and bluster
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