Lydon pulls no punches
Published June 09, 2003
CMU reports:
In an effort to promote his new book 'Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs',
John Lydon gave a 45 minute press conference in Toronto, before signing copies. Lydon's usually pejorative and objectionable comments seemed to
please everyone.
Re: gigs cancelled in Toronto due to the SARS outbreak: "Who told them not to come? I made my own decisions. Hello, I am a free person. I'm not a number. That's why I'm here and those wankers are not."
Re: who he'd like to play on the big screen: "It would be Jesus Christ. And I'll do the musical too. Jesus Christ, the Canadian version, Jesus Christ SuperSARS."
Re: advice for aspiring bands: "I don't know why I'm here. To help young bands, is it? My best advice is give up. For several reasons. One, I don't
need the competition. And two, you can bet your sweet Fanny Adams none of you are honest. If you're in this business just for the cash, that's a good
enough reason in itself. But then you shouldn't be talking or listening to
the likes of me. I'm the exact opposite of that. Any penny I've earned has
been hard, has been deserved. There's a difference, isn't there? You don't
penny pinch just out of sheer molestation. We broke in. A blind sheer
bloody-minded ignorance, mostly. That's the key to it. There are no rules. I
don't step on anyone and I don't hurt anyone but you get in my way and
you're going to have a serious bad time. Here we are at this record
company-sponsored conference and my best advice is don't trust the record
company. Don't be daft. They're out there to make money... The trouble is
with radio, TV, the whole music industry, it's politically motivated at some
point. Somebody's out there with a preconceived conception about how the
world works according to their safety records. You have to stop that."
Re: downloading: "It's a wonderful con. It's just like how they removed
vinyl and moved it over to compact disc. Hello? Now we find out that compact
discs don't last forever. They deteriorate really rapidly. The whole world
of MP3 is the worst, lowest level of fidelity in sound you could ever
expect. You're being conned and you've got a whole world out there thinking
'Hey, hey, I've got it free'."
Marty's band, Growing Old Disgracefully, can be found at: Disgraceful Music. His Cthulhu tales can be found at Temple of Dagon. 
- Lydon pulls no punches
- Published: June 09, 2003
- Type:
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: News
- Writer: Marty Dodge
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Comments on this articleComments
How is this book considered new? It was released several years ago.
Yeah, Lydon's schtick is WAY old. Even the very book he's pushing was published some 8 years ago. Mindless belligerence does not have a long shelf life- it goes sour long before 8 years, much less the 25 years Lydon has been pushing it.
Lydon is a mindless gutter rat whose whole schtick is arrogance. Enough of him.
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How high a fidelity audio do we need to parse out Lydon's career of screeching?
The whole world of MP3 is the worst, lowest level of fidelity in sound you could ever expect.