John Lydon has admitted that Public Image Ltd's upcoming tour is only going ahead because of the money he made from starring in a Country Life butter TV advert.

 

The frontman of the recently reformed rockers said that he is "living on the lucky end of a shoestring" until the band receive the funds for their first gig, scheduled to take place in Birmingham on December 15.

 

"The money I got from that advert is the advance on this," he told the Camden New Journal.

 

Lydon went on to defend his appearance in the commercials, saying that people should understand that he agreed to the advert as it allowed him to bankroll the group's jaunt.

 

"Why are they questioning me?" he added. "What manual am I supposed to adopt? I'm promoting a British product which I'm very proud of. Anything I can do to help British industry is fine by me and in return you've got PiL."

 

scource..... digital spy.

 

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cant disagree with him, why shouldnt he have done butter ads? i just hope his underwriting of a PIL reunion will be worth it.

John Lydon has admitted that Public Image Ltd's upcoming tour is only going ahead because of the money he made from starring in a Country Life butter TV advert.

 

The frontman of the recently reformed rockers said that he is "living on the lucky end of a shoestring" until the band receive the funds for their first gig, scheduled to take place in Birmingham on December 15.

 

"The money I got from that advert is the advance on this," he told the Camden New Journal.

 

Lydon went on to defend his appearance in the commercials, saying that people should understand that he agreed to the advert as it allowed him to bankroll the group's jaunt.

 

"Why are they questioning me?" he added. "What manual am I supposed to adopt? I'm promoting a British product which I'm very proud of. Anything I can do to help British industry is fine by me and in return you've got PiL."

 

scource..... digital spy.

 

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cant disagree with him, why shouldnt he have done butter ads? i just hope his underwriting of a PIL reunion will be worth it.

 

Yeah, exactly, now here's hoping that certain people (*cough, cough* Richard *cough*) will quit slagging him off for this, it wasn't as if Johnny actually allowed them to use any of PiL's or Sex Pistol's music on the ads; tours are incredibly expensive things to undertake, and it's not like PiL have a major label backing them... It was clearly done with the best of intentions and not just so John could make a few quid, frankly I always felt that PiL should have reformed rather than the Pistols. I've got my tic for the London show on the 21st and am VERY MUCH looking forward to it....

 

Seems to me that this is a very good reason to buy Country Life butter..... :lol:

 

Yeah, exactly, now here's hoping that certain people (*cough, cough* Richard *cough*) will quit slagging him off for this, it wasn't as if Johnny actually allowed them to use any of PiL's or Sex Pistol's music on the ads; tours are incredibly expensive things to undertake, and it's not like PiL have a major label backing them... It was clearly done with the best of intentions and not just so John could make a few quid, frankly I always felt that PiL should have reformed rather than the Pistols. I've got my tic for the London show on the 21st and am VERY MUCH looking forward to it....

 

Seems to me that this is a very good reason to buy Country Life butter..... :lol:

 

lol.. nah ill stick to my bertoli spread, its healthier!

 

funny how johnny gets stick for doing an ad, but iggy doesnt... after all, i was under the impression that iggy was one of the forerunners of punk ;)

lol.. nah ill stick to my bertoli spread, its healthier!

 

funny how johnny gets stick for doing an ad, but iggy doesnt... after all, i was under the impression that iggy was one of the forerunners of punk ;)

 

 

Yes, and the Igster is advertising FINANCIAL SERVICES as well..... The WHORE!!!!!! :lol: :lol:

 

I dont do "real" butter either anymore mate, I was just kidding... Olivio for me..... ;)

I use Country Life for cooking. I don't think I can buy Lydon's story about the ads funding the PiL reunion - they're not exactly promoting it themselves are they?

I use Country Life for cooking. I don't think I can buy Lydon's story about the ads funding the PiL reunion - they're not exactly promoting it themselves are they?

 

So, you dont buy that Lydon has perhaps had to put up a fair bit of his own cash for this...? Sorry mate, but I think you're wrong... PiL are not the Sex Pistols, you can always find a backer to underwrite a reunion tour of the Pistols, PiL were a much more challenging band, it's a bigger financial risk than the Pistols, and the main reason why Lydon was never able to do a PiL reunion tour before now was mainly due to the fact that he didn't have the money to do it......

 

 

i dont think lydon did the adverts to fund the pil re union, i think the money came in handy because he/they couldnt get backing.... but either way i dont care!

i dont think lydon did the adverts to fund the pil re union, i think the money came in handy because he/they couldnt get backing.... but either way i dont care!

 

Me neither tbh. But if it is true that the money he got from the butter ads have enabled him to get the backing for PiL, then the ends totally justify the means.... And, PiL aren't exactly the 'Licence to Print Money' thing that the Pistols are, so, I can kind of see Johnny having to front at least some dosh for it....

 

The issue with John Lydon, is that this is the same John Lydon who had previously criticised numerous musicians for endorsing commercial products in the 1980s/1990s, hence by doing the advert he lost the moral authority to criticise these acts because he turned himself into a hypocrite.

 

For example in his recent round of interviews he has (rightly) criticised UK's most talentless overhyped act La Roux for their music "if I wanted to revive the 1980s doing a $h!tty Jimmy Somerville impression over crappy Erasure tracks would not be it" and for her attention seeking comments including attacking all urban music, slagging off Take That and praising the music of Gary Glitter as "attention seeking bollocks with as much credibility as her music".

 

Elly Jackson's response: "a bit rich coming from some irrelevent has been who sells butter".

 

There in lies the problem in what he did when he made those adverts, as it arguably makes him little better than Cheryl Cole and those hair adverts; Take That and those Marks & Spencer's adverts; the Saturdays and their body deodorant adverts; Iggy Pop and the Insurance adverts, etc

 

 

 

Still a certain acerbic journalist/writer who admired John Lydon put things far better than I can ......

Saturday, August 02, 2008

The Guardian.co.uk

by Charlie Brooker

 

John Lydon burns the last of his bridges, fills river with petrol, sets it aflame

 

There are many who find it hard to believe that John Lydon could have been involved in a racist scuffle the other week, and who will be looking to their hero to prove that he's not the sort of tiresome old twit who attempts to defend unpleasant reactionary attitudes by pretending he's just so refreshingly anti-PC.

 

He's had his chance, in an interview with the Daily Record.

 

He starts off having a go at Pete Doherty for being a "coward":

 

"Doherty's got trapped in a publicity campaign that has run out of order.

 

"Another fool who is given a golden opportunity to do something wonderful in his life and he'd rather be selfish and cowardly. Drugs are the modus operandi of the coward.

 

"Pete is a fine lad that needs to sort himself out. This is Mister Rotten telling you I waltz on stage sober because no drug in the world is as good as being absolutely 100 percent honest with your audience. Nothing compares to that emotion. People like him and Amy Winehouse are getting it wrong as usual."

 

Given that the Sex Pistols' fame is built, to a large degree, on Sid Vicious and his heroin habit, while Lydon might have a point, you could perhaps fill a couple of sides of an ethics class exam asking if it's more cowardly to be addicted to drugs, or to allow your band to carry on exploiting someone addicted to drugs until they die.

 

Still, a bit of low-grade hypocrisy is only to be expected. Lydon seems to blame Sid's death all on the record company and the stress they put the band through - although didn't Johnny brag to the Star the other week about how he'd never danced to a record label's promotional schedule? - and says that he still misses Sid, so that's alright then.

 

However, having had his thoughts turn to Winehouse, he decides he's got more to say:

"Poor old Amy. Aimless Winehouse would be a better term."

 

Aimless Winehouse! Oh, how amusing.

"I love all kinds of music but the one thing I have never done is imitate black music in her idiotic way."

 

Excuse me?

"I don't like pale imitations and shades of things and I am always wary when people go jazzy because jazz is the best cover up for a lack of talent the world has ever known. It don't wash real with me.

 

"And the cover up for her which is probably the guilt trip is that she requires vast amounts of drugs to hide the fact that she is fake."

 

There's just so many reasons why he's wrong, but let's just take the implicit suggestion that white people shouldn't play jazz, and the explicit statement that jazz (which Lydon identifies as a solely black form of music) is "a cover for a lack of talent." Ghettoising and damning an entire genre just to stack up a weak pun based on Amy Winehouse's name.

 

As if there was any point, he then goes to have a pop at gays as well:

"I felt the same way playing at the Isle Of Wight. It is orchestrated deck chair seating and gay rainbow flag waving. It's very, very absurd."

 

Lydon doesn't explain - and the Record doesn't seem bothered to ask - why waving a gay flag is in some way absurd, or, indeed, if the freedom to wave a flag that reflects your sexuality wasn't meant to be one of things that punk was supposed to have been about in the first place. Lydon doesn't explain if he's uncomfortable with having gays in his audience (although we bet he'd respond that he's got several good-ish gay friends), or merely he thinks that gay pride in itself is absurd. To be honest, I don't much care anymore. I can't wait until the US economy stabilises and he can go back to selling flats to the retirement market or whatever his day job is meant to be, as the news that he has signed up for some more filthy lucre to sell Country Life butter to the masses leaves the world a poorer place.

.... but lydon had long since left the sex pistols a year before sids addiction got the better of him...so that doesnt add up.

 

tbh I find gay pride absurd, why march around saying 'im proud to be gay'... as far as im concerned thats a 'given'.

 

people move on in time, i certainly dont hold the same views i did as a younger person, why should lydon?

tbh I find gay pride absurd, why march around saying 'im proud to be gay'... as far as im concerned thats a 'given'.

 

Yeah but not everyone shares your views unfortunately.

The way I read Lydon's comments is that he finds the METHOD by which many Gay Rights activists are going about things is absurd, and frankly he has a point... Look at Stonewall and how they've been very, very deliberately provocative and have used direct action such as confronting the likes of Robert Mugabe no less..... Tatchell is a hero, what the fukk is waving some stupid flag in comparison to that ffs....? Hardly Malcolm X, Martin Luther King or Huey Newton is it....? Hardly "Punk Rock" is it....? Punk was about being deliberately provocative and confrontational, which is what Stonewall and other Gay Civil rights campaigners such as Harvey Milk most definitely were. "oooh, let's wave flags", yeah, great, to what end exactly guys.....? Yeah, I can really see the likes of Nick Griffin or Robert Mugabe being scared by that..... -_- I just dont see what use parades or flags actually does in the cause of furthering Gay civil liberties, bigots need to be challenged head on, unambiguously and directly....

 

And frankly, the very notion that John is even implying that white people shouldn't play black music is ridiculous... What he's saying is that it shouldn't be done HALF-HEARTEDLY by people who have little understanding of where the music is coming from, PiL themselves are clearly influenced by Reggae music, but you know what, they did it EXTREMELY FUKKIN' WELL and totally "got it", Jah Wobble was just as good at dub as King Tubby or Lee "Scratch" Perry.... Amy Winehouse IS a bit of fake tbh... I've just never taken to her, compare her to Beth Gibbons, Alison Moyet or Tracy Thorne... She's a fukkin' LIGHTWEIGHT, a minor talent at best.... And Lydon is spot on in criticising her for allowing her addictions to overtake her art.... I mean, is Amy Winehouse getting publicity because she's a great songwriter....? No, she's getting publicity primarily because of her drug problems.... And dont try to start comparing her to Ella Fitzgerald or however many other black musicians in the past had drink or drug problems, the very BIG difference between Winehouse and these great artists is simple - Winehouse has let her addictions be detrimental to her art, whereas the addictions of these great musicians actually seemed to work in the opposite manner, it FUELLED their art in a lot of ways....

 

And I feel exactly the same way about Pete Doherty, another talentless fukkin' no mark who's been completely eclipsed by Carl Barat, and others such as Matt Bellamy, Tom Smith (Editors) and Faris Rotter (The Horrors).... There is absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Doherty pished his talent away.... Bill Hicks may have been right about drugs being responsible for great music, but this is only really up to a point, I'm afraid that Doherty and Winehouse tipped over the cliff edge into oblivion just like poor Syd Barrett (well, maybe not quite as spectacularly as him, but you get the point)....

 

As for Elly La Roux, well, she can just fukk right off, that silly fukkin' bint WISHES she could be as important to the legacy of British music as Johnny Rotten, she WISHES she could write songs as good as the Pistols/PiL did, Lydon may be a "has been", but she's a fukkin no talent "NEVER FUKKIN' WILL BE", just another Lily Allen, loudmouth WANNABE <_< .... Her idiotic comments have totally spoiled any possible enjoyment that I could glean out of La Roux's music..... Little Boots and Client absolutely PISH over them, mainly because they actually concentrate on the TUNES as opposed to spouting a load of sh!te on a blog or Myspace.....

The way I read Lydon's comments is that he finds the METHOD by which many Gay Rights activists are going about things is absurd, and frankly he has a point... Look at Stonewall and how they've been very, very deliberately provocative and have used direct action such as confronting the likes of Robert Mugabe no less..... Tatchell is a hero, what the fukk is waving some stupid flag in comparison to that ffs....? Hardly Malcolm X, Martin Luther King or Huey Newton is it....? Hardly "Punk Rock" is it....? Punk was about being deliberately provocative and confrontational, which is what Stonewall and other Gay Civil rights campaigners such as Harvey Milk most definitely were. "oooh, let's wave flags", yeah, great, to what end exactly guys.....? Yeah, I can really see the likes of Nick Griffin or Robert Mugabe being scared by that..... -_- I just dont see what use parades or flags actually does in the cause of furthering Gay civil liberties, bigots need to be challenged head on, unambiguously and directly....

 

And frankly, the very notion that John is even implying that white people shouldn't play black music is ridiculous... What he's saying is that it shouldn't be done HALF-HEARTEDLY by people who have little understanding of where the music is coming from, PiL themselves are clearly influenced by Reggae music, but you know what, they did it EXTREMELY FUKKIN' WELL and totally "got it", Jah Wobble was just as good at dub as King Tubby or Lee "Scratch" Perry.... Amy Winehouse IS a bit of fake tbh... I've just never taken to her, compare her to Beth Gibbons, Alison Moyet or Tracy Thorne... She's a fukkin' LIGHTWEIGHT, a minor talent at best.... And Lydon is spot on in criticising her for allowing her addictions to overtake her art.... I mean, is Amy Winehouse getting publicity because she's a great songwriter....? No, she's getting publicity primarily because of her drug problems.... And dont try to start comparing her to Ella Fitzgerald or however many other black musicians in the past had drink or drug problems, the very BIG difference between Winehouse and these great artists is simple - Winehouse has let her addictions be detrimental to her art, whereas the addictions of these great musicians actually seemed to work in the opposite manner, it FUELLED their art in a lot of ways....

 

And I feel exactly the same way about Pete Doherty, another talentless fukkin' no mark who's been completely eclipsed by Carl Barat, and others such as Matt Bellamy, Tom Smith (Editors) and Faris Rotter (The Horrors).... There is absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Doherty pished his talent away.... Bill Hicks may have been right about drugs being responsible for great music, but this is only really up to a point, I'm afraid that Doherty and Winehouse tipped over the cliff edge into oblivion just like poor Syd Barrett (well, maybe not quite as spectacularly as him, but you get the point)....

 

As for Elly La Roux, well, she can just fukk right off, that silly fukkin' bint WISHES she could be as important to the legacy of British music as Johnny Rotten, she WISHES she could write songs as good as the Pistols/PiL did, Lydon may be a "has been", but she's a fukkin no talent "NEVER FUKKIN' WILL BE", just another Lily Allen, loudmouth WANNABE <_< .... Her idiotic comments have totally spoiled any possible enjoyment that I could glean out of La Roux's music..... Little Boots and Client absolutely PISH over them, mainly because they actually concentrate on the TUNES as opposed to spouting a load of sh!te on a blog or Myspace.....

 

cant disagree with anything you say there scott :)

So, you dont buy that Lydon has perhaps had to put up a fair bit of his own cash for this...? Sorry mate, but I think you're wrong... PiL are not the Sex Pistols, you can always find a backer to underwrite a reunion tour of the Pistols, PiL were a much more challenging band, it's a bigger financial risk than the Pistols, and the main reason why Lydon was never able to do a PiL reunion tour before now was mainly due to the fact that he didn't have the money to do it......

 

Dunno mate, it's Live Nation who are promoting this one...and reunion tours are massive, massive things in these times of nostalgia. I'd also like to think Lydon would have kept the cost of the tickets down - they were ridiculously expensive. So much so that I said "no chance" even when I had a pre-sale link.

Dunno mate, it's Live Nation who are promoting this one...and reunion tours are massive, massive things in these times of nostalgia. I'd also like to think Lydon would have kept the cost of the tickets down - they were ridiculously expensive. So much so that I said "no chance" even when I had a pre-sale link.

 

The pricing is something I sort of have issues with as well tbh, I dunno, maybe he's just considering it a Pension Fund :lol: .... I think it's a bit much to charge £40 for the Electric Ballroom (the venue in Camden where PiL are doing their extra shows on the 22nd and 23rd) considering that it's nowhere near as good as the Brixton Academy, certainly not as big that's for sure.... I'm glad I got a tic for the Brixton show tbh, it's always been one of my favourite London venues....