Sunday 25 December 2011

Early PiL excellent video, featuring a Travis Bean Wedge and an Ampeg Scroll Bass


Er, the title says it all but I can give some extra details: this is Public Image Ltd's first TV, on BBC2's show The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1980, performing Poptones from the Metal Box album. You can see Keith Levene playing a Travis Bean Wedge TB3000 - its quite unique triangle shape is easy to spot! Levene gets his razor-edged tone by using aluminium neck guitar - he's been playing also a TB1000 and an all-alu Veleno guitar. Jah Wobble plays an Ampeg AMB1 bass - aka the Scroll Bass - with its characteristic scroll headstock and body-through f-holes. One could tell than on top of being the brilliant creators of their own hybrid of pop and avant-garde music, these gentlemen had very good taste when it came to music instruments!

Actually while browsing through YouTube this morning I didn't only watched old PiL videos, but also saw a Michael Jackson/Eddie Van Halen one, and I understand that some people still loathe the 1980s for having been shallow and flashy, but that's just because they only look at the mainstream crap. To me it was a time of great and radical music, that I highly enjoyed then and since, and PiL was the herald of it!

Bertram

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