Keith Levine, pioneering guitarist who was one of the founders of Clash and the deeply influential original member of Public Image Ltd, has passed away. , in Norfolk, UK, his former bandmates Martin Atkins and jah wobble on social media. Watchman I said he died for liver cancer. He was 65 years old.
While his career was derailed by drug abuse in the early ’80s, Levine’s work with Public Image — the band Sex Pistols singer John Lydon formed after that group broke up early in 1978 — cast a long shadow on the post-punk music scene. The era: both melodic and quarrelsome, sonorous and violent, its jagged, jagged chords and resonant argus set a pattern that reverberates across countless bands over the years, far from PiL postpunk mileiu; This writer can remember hearing Red Hot Chili Peppers spontaneously from PiL’s 1979 classic Poptones during a 1991 concert, and his voice in the decades-long work can be heard by everyone from Franz Ferdinand to LCD Soundsystem.
Born and raised in London, Levine was a true member of the British punk rock movement, although he was a fan of progressive teenage rock bands, and was even a devoted Yes follower that he walked with the group in the early 1970s. While he admired the prowess of guitarists like Yes’ Steve Howe, he said Furious.com In 2001, “Once I was good enough to know the rules, I didn’t want to be like any other guitarist. I didn’t do my best to be different. I only had an ear for what was wrong. So if I did something wrong, i.e. made a mistake or I did something that wasn’t a key, I was open enough to listen to again.”
He met fellow Clash co-founder Mick Jones in the mid-1970s and formed an early version of that band. It was he and manager Bernard Rhodes who actually convinced singer Joe Stromer to join in. But Levine was unimpressed by the musical skills of the then-nascent band and left, after co-writing the song “What’s My Name”, from the group’s 1977 debut album. He briefly formed a band with Sid Vicious (who left to join the Sex Pistols) Before he reunited with Lydon, drummer Jim Walker and guitarist Jah Wobble on Public Image when the pistols went off.
While many had expected the PiL to be Mark II pistols—and their first single, also called “Public Image,” a delightful blast of sinister energy—they proved to be an even more challenging prospect. Deeply influenced by the experimental “Kraut-Rock” of the early 1970s for groups like Can and Neu, the group’s sound combined Levine’s crisp sound with booming, reggae-influenced bass while Lydon strutted over the top. While 1978’s self-titled album was a deliberately provocative message, 1979’s “Metal Box” (titled “Second Edition” in the US) was a sprawling tour of challenging sounds and patterns. Packaged in the UK in a metal box-like box of films, the album was pressed into three 12-inch singles, making the bass so loud that it might cause turntables to jump out from the vibrations. With songs like “Poptones”, “Careering”, “The Suit” and “Graveyard” (a fragile instrument that, in a distinct way, had a soundtrack the group decided to ignore; the acoustic version was released as a B party titled “Another”), the album set a new standard For what post-punk can go for.
While the group’s sound cannot be categorized as punk, their confrontational stance certainly was: their concerts were popular, as captured on the 1980 live album “Paris au Printempts,” and the group didn’t even pretend to star in a mime in a surreal film performance in The American pop program “American Bandstand”, in which Lydon led the bewildered audience to the floor with the group, danced awkwardly as the band members staggered around the stage.
However, the story pretty much ended there. The band’s line-up has always been smooth and they left Wobble by the time the group released their third LP, the more challenging “Flowers of Romance,” which was largely percussion and whimsical instruments. Levine played guitar on only one song. The group rallied to record a fourth album, but Levine left during the sessions. The resulting album, 1983, “This Is What You Want, This Is What You Get” featured several songs he co-wrote but none of his songs were played, although there is a collection of early recordings of songs featuring him called ” Commercial District” “has been available for a long time. Lydon has continued at PiL as a fairly straightforward business of rock over the years, but the innovation has already taken place.
Levine maintained a low profile in the following period, in large part due to a battle with heroin, but he moved to Los Angeles and joined the music community there. He reappeared again in 1987 with the “Violent Opposition” EP—featuring members of the Chili Peppers and other young Los Angeles bands like Fishbone and Thelonious Monster—and produced demos for the Chili Peppers’ second album, “The Uplift Mofo Party Plan” (ironically, the album The first for that group was produced by Andy Gill of Gang of Four, who played in a style very similar to Levine’s).
Levene went on to work and release a series of solo albums over the following years, including a reunion with Wobble during the 2010s.
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