First Issue is a post-punk

Post-punk

Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...

 album by Public Image Ltd released in 1978 by Virgin Records

Virgin Records

Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, Culture Club, Lenny...

.

"Public Image"

"Public Image", the debut single, was recorded first. Recording started on a Monday in mid-July 1978 (most probably 10 or 17 July) at Advision Studios with engineer John Leckie

John Leckie

John Leckie is a British music producer, notable for producing many high-profile albums such as The Stone Roses's debut and Radiohead's The Bends...

 and assistant engineer Kenneth Vaughan Thomas. For mixing and overdubs the band then went into Wessex Studios

Wessex Sound Studios

Wessex Sound Studios was a recording studio located in Highbury New Park, London, England. Many renowned popular music artists recorded there, including The Sex Pistols, King Crimson, The Clash, Theatre of Hate, XTC, The Sinceros, Queen, Talk Talk and The Rolling Stones...

 with engineer Bill Price

Bill Price (record producer)

Bill Price is a producer and engineer famed for his work with The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Guns N' Roses, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Nymphs and The Waterboys....

 and assistant engineer Jeremy Green.

• John Leckie (engineer, 2003): “I [...] came down Monday morning from The Manor
  The Manor Studio
  The Manor Studio was a recording studio in the manor house at the village of Shipton-on-Cherwell in Oxfordshire, England, north of the city of Oxford. It was the first residential recording studio in the UK...
  
   after a few hours sleep to Advision Studios, a studio I hadn't worked in before [...] I engineered the session [...] Keith Levene took the multi-track tape home that night and came in the next day having forgotten it and accused me of stealing it! The track was pretty much a live take with Levene's guitar double-tracked. John Lydon
  John Lydon
  John Joseph Lydon , also known by the former stage name Johnny Rotten, is a singer-songwriter and television presenter, best known as the lead singer of punk rock band the Sex Pistols from 1975 until 1978, and again for various revivals during the 1990s and 2000s...
  
   did his vocal through a Space Echo
  Roland RE-201
  The Roland RE-201, commonly known as the Space Echo, is an audio analog delay effects unit produced by the Roland Corporation.A tape echo device records incoming audio to a loop of magnetic tape, then replays the audio over a series of several playback heads before it is erased again by new...
  
  , dub-style. I did a rough mix and went home. The next day the band never showed up and my rough mix was the record. I got no credit but Richard Branson
  Richard Branson
  Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies....
  
   did give me £250! It wasn't stressful, just a lot of fun!”
• Bill Price (engineer, 2008): “They'd recorded it and he wasn't quite happy, so he came to me to mix and do overdubs. Johnny was nominally in charge but he would look over his shoulder and ask Jah
  Jah Wobble
  Jah Wobble is an English bass guitarist, singer, poet and composer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but left the band after two albums...
  
   'Is this the right direction?'”

On Saturday, 22 July 1978 the music press reported that the band had been in the recording studio, the following week Virgin Records announced the release of PIL's debut single for 8 September 1978.

"Theme", "Religion", "Annalisa"

The whole of the first side of the record was then recorded in autumn at Townhouse Studios

Townhouse Studios

Townhouse Studios was a recording studio in west London. Built by Richard Branson in 1978, and managed by Barbara Jeffries as part of the Virgin Studios Group. The Virgin Studios Group was acquired by EMI when Richard sold Virgin Records to EMI in 1992. The Sanctuary Group bought the studio from...

 and The Manor Studio with engineer Mick Glossop.

"Low Life", "Attack", "Fodderstompf"

The last three songs on the second side were recorded at Gooseberry Sound Studios with engineer Mark Lusardi, a cheap reggae studio used because the band had ran out of money. Lydon knew the studio from the recording of Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols

The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...

 demos in January 1977.
By late September 1978 the recording of the album was finished. The band had briefly considered putting an alternative version of "Public Image" with different lyrics on the album, a plan that was finally rejected.
In November or December 1978, Wobble and Levene returned to Gooseberry Sound Studios to record a 12 inch EP Steel Leg V. The Electric Dread with guest vocalists Vince Bracken and Don Letts

Don Letts

Don Letts is a British film director and musician. He is credited as the man who through his DJing at clubs like The Roxy brought together punk and reggae music.-Biography:...

.

Final mix of the album

For the final mix of the album tracks, the band returned to Townhouse Studios

Townhouse Studios

Townhouse Studios was a recording studio in west London. Built by Richard Branson in 1978, and managed by Barbara Jeffries as part of the Virgin Studios Group. The Virgin Studios Group was acquired by EMI when Richard sold Virgin Records to EMI in 1992. The Sanctuary Group bought the studio from...

 with engineer Mick Glossop: “I do remember working on those other three [Gooseberry Studio] tracks, but I can't remember exactly what I did - probably mixing.”

Cancelled American release

On 9 February 1979, Warner Bros. Recording Studios in North Hollywood

North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

North Hollywood is a district in the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California, along the Tujunga Wash. It is bounded on the south by Moorpark Street and the Ventura Freeway, on the southwest by Burbank Blvd...

 manufactured a test pressing of the album for PiL's United States label Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...

. The sound of the record was considered as too uncommercial for an American release and PiL were asked to re-record parts of the album. Although the band recorded new versions of some tracks between March and May 1979, the album was never released in the US. Only in 1980 Warners released the song “Public Image” on the compilation album “Troublemakers”, the only album track released in the USA to this day.

'Public Image' promo video

In August 1978 a promotion video for the upcoming single "Public Image"

Public Image (song)

"Public Image" is a song by Public Image Ltd. It reached number nine on the UK Singles Chart. The song was written when Lydon was in The Sex Pistols. The song addreses John Lydon's feelings of being exploited in The Sex Pistols by Malcolm McLaren and the press...

 was shot by Peter Clifton's

Peter Clifton

Peter Clifton is an Australian film director and producer, perhaps best known for directing the Led Zeppelin concert film The Song Remains the Same ....

 production company Notting Hill Studio Limited, which had just completed The Punk Rock Movie

The Punk Rock Movie

The Punk Rock Movie was assembled from Super 8 camera footage shot by Don Letts, the disc jockey at The Roxy club during the early days of the UK punk rock movement, principally during the 100 days in 1977 in which punk acts were featured at The Roxy club in London.-History:Roxy club disc jockey...

.

• Peter Clifton (video producer, 2006): “They formed Public Image and hired me and Don Letts to shoot their first video clip for Virgin. I hired a theatre in Fulham
  Fulham
  Fulham is an area of southwest London in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, SW6 located south west of Charing Cross. It lies on the left bank of the Thames, between Putney and Chelsea. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London...
  
   and dressed the band up on stage with garbage bags as a backdrop, and Richard Branson, the owner of Virgin, came down to witness the filming. There was a quiet lull in the middle of one of the takes, and Sid Vicious
  Sid Vicious
  Sid Vicious was an English musician best known as the bassist of the influential punk rock group Sex Pistols...
  
   screamed at the top of his voice 'Peter Clifton, where's the 200 quid you own me?'”
• Don Letts (video director, 2007): “Before the PIL promo, I was Don Letts, DJ at The Roxy
  The Roxy
  The Roxy was a fashionable nightclub on Neal Street in London's Covent Garden, known for hosting the flowering British punk music scene in its infancy.-Brief history:...
  
  , dread
  Rastafari movement
  The Rastafari movement or Rasta is a new religious movement that arose in the 1930s in Jamaica, which at the time was a country with a predominantly Christian culture where 98% of the people were the black descendants of slaves. Its adherents worship Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia , as God...
  
   with a camera. All of a sudden I had a film crew and a 16 mm camera
  16 mm film
  16 mm film refers to a popular, economical gauge of film used for motion pictures and non-theatrical film making. 16 mm refers to the width of the film...
  
  . The promo was shot at a studio in Olympia
  Olympia, London
  Olympia is an exhibition centre and conference centre in West Kensington, on the boundary between The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham, London, W14 8UX, England. It opened in the 19th century and was originally known as the National Agricultural Hall.Opened in 1886,...
  
   and I was making the shit up as I went along, having never been to film school. The video suited PIL's mood, being totally anti-celebrity, it showed them playing in a dimly-lit studio. Because it was John's band, I naively decided people just wanted to see him - due to my total inexperience I went for the safe option. It is just John's dynamics that give the video any substance whatsoever. It was a very intense and dark performance [...] I have made near enough 400 promo videos in my time. My first was for PIL. They chose me as they did not want to use boring old farts, and we had a good relationship.”
• John Lydon (1978): “The promotional film was made and paid for by ourselves out of our advance. Virgin weren't interested.”

The promo video was released on 15 September 1978 and shown on British TV two times in October 1978. In December 1986 it was released on VHS, in October 2005 on DVD.

Track listing

1. "Theme" – 9:05
2. "Religion I" – 1:40
3. "Religion II" – 5:40
4. "Annalisa" – 6:00
5. "Public Image
   Public Image (song)
   "Public Image" is a song by Public Image Ltd. It reached number nine on the UK Singles Chart. The song was written when Lydon was in The Sex Pistols. The song addreses John Lydon's feelings of being exploited in The Sex Pistols by Malcolm McLaren and the press...
   
   " – 2:58
6. "Low Life" – 3:35
7. "Attack" – 2:55
8. "Fodderstompf" – 7:40

Track by track commentary by the band

“Theme”:

• John Lydon (1978): “Didn't you ever have that feeling when you get up with a hangover, and you look at the world and think 'Count me out, I'd rather die!'?”
• Keith Levene (2001): “'Theme' came together because Wobble had this bassline and there was Jim
  Jim Walker
  Jim Walker was a founding director as well as the original drummer for the UK music group Public Image Ltd.He first trained as a jazz drummer at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, being taught by Alan Dawson and Joe Hunt....
  
   playing and me doing that, and I fucking got it off on the first go. By the time we recorded it, which was probably the third time we played it, that was where it was at. It went down well in gigs and we loved the tune. John made the lyrics up as he went along or he had them stashed secretly [...] He came up with a lot of stuff just perfectly, like what he did with 'Theme'. He did it the first time and it was perfect.”

“Religion I”:

• Keith Levene (2001): “Putting 'Religion' on the album with just vocals, I just did that as a producer. I thought that this had to be done so I said 'Run it off, John' and I just recorded it. That was a cool idea.”

“Religion II”:

• Sid Vicious (1978): (on new songs) “Yeah, we've got one about God, and it's a real attack. It is a real attack. And it's played to the Death March.”
• John Lydon (1978/89/92/94): “A putdown of what they have made religion into. I started writing that song in the States.” “When I showed Sid, Paul
  Paul Cook
  Paul Thomas Cook is an English drummer and member of the punk rock band Sex Pistols.-Early life and career:...
  
   and Steve
  Steve Jones (musician)
  Stephen Philip "Steve" Jones is an English rock guitarist, singer and actor, best known as guitarist and founding member of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols.-Childhood:...
  
   the lyrics to 'Religion' on the bus, their only response was 'Whoa!' [...] We had a very long wait at the San Antonio gig when we got there very early. I wanted them to listen to what I was doing, but they wouldn't have it under any circumstances. I knew it was over with Steve and Paul
  Paul Cook
  Paul Thomas Cook is an English drummer and member of the punk rock band Sex Pistols.-Early life and career:...
  
   from that point onward.” “There's one picture from America where we're all sitting on the stage, and Sid's got the bass and I'm pointing, and Steve's
  Steve Jones (musician)
  Stephen Philip "Steve" Jones is an English rock guitarist, singer and actor, best known as guitarist and founding member of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols.-Childhood:...
  
   sitting behind. That was 'Religion', and they wouldn't touch it: 'It's vile, can't do that, people won't like us', haha!” “Malcolm
  Malcolm McLaren
  Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren was an English performer, impresario, self-publicist and manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls...
  
   said 'Ooh no, that's bad for the image, can't do things like that!'”
• Joe Stevens (Sex Pistols tour photographer, 2011): “They needed to write some new songs and deliver them to the record label. They had a crack at writing 'Sod In Heaven' but it wasn't happening.”
• Paul Cook (1988): (Q: Did you rehearse 'Religion'?) “No. there was an idea, John wanted to write a song about that but never got round to it.”
• Keith Levene (2001): “With 'Religion', we made up this tune and told him to sing the lyrics over it [...] He had the words but he didn't know how the tune was going to go.”

“Annalisa”:

• John Lydon (1978): “[It's] about these silly fucking parents of this girl
  Anneliese Michel
  Anneliese Michel was a German Catholic woman who was said to be possessed by demons and subsequently underwent an exorcism. Two motion pictures, The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Requiem, are loosely based on Michel's story.-Early life:Anneliese Michel was born on 21 September 1952, in Leiblfing,...
  
   who believed she was possessed by the devil, so they starved her to death.”
• Jim Walker (2007): “At The Manor we wanted a live drum sound, and so we had to use the old billiard room. It was set up so it was just me and Rotten eye to eye, as I drummed and he sang.”

“Public Image”:

• John Lydon (1978): “'Public Image', despite what most of the press seemed to misinterpret it to be, is not about the fans at all, it's a slagging of the group I used to be in. It's what I went through from my own group. They never bothered to listen to what I was fucking singing, they don't even know the words to my songs. They never bothered to listen, it was like 'Here's a tune, write some words to it.' So I did. They never questioned it. I found that offensive, it meant I was literally wasting my time, cos if you ain't working with people that are on the same level then you ain't doing anything. The rest of the band and Malcolm never bothered to find out if I could sing, they just took me as an image. It was as basic as that, they really were as dull as that. After a year of it they were going 'Why don't you have your hair this colour this year?' And I was going 'Oh God, a brick wall, I'm fighting a brick wall!' They don't understand even now.”
• Jah Wobble (2009): “Indeed the first bassline that I ever presented to John and Keith [...] It had been the first song that we had worked on in the rehearsals.”

“Low Life”:

• John Lydon (1978/99): “Malcolm McLaren the bourgeoisie anarchist - that about sums him up!” “'Low Life' is about Sid and how he turned into the worst kind of rock 'n' roll star.”
• Keith Levene (2001/07): “There was this guy that was an old mate of John's (...) This guy, [fashion designer] Kenny MacDonald, made his suit and all of ours, and it made him look good to have the guys from PIL wearing his stuff (...) He wouldn't be his lapdog, and John thought he was a star and wanted that. John named him on our first album on 'Low Life'.” “That song was about Malcolm McLaren in theory, but at one point I think it was about [Lydon's schoolfriend] John Gray. Lydon's usually got the hump with someone, and he usually writes with someone in mind, someone he's not too happy with.”
• Jah Wobble (2009): “It's kind of rock, but with a weird feel.”

“Fodderstompf”:

• John Lydon (1978): “You should've seen Branson's face when he heard that, he was furious!”
• Jim Walker (2001): “Not even a song just a wank, ripping off our fans. It still turns my stomach thinking about it.”
• Tony Dale (roadie, 2004): “It's mostly Wobble on the track, as you probably realise, with his Northern falsetto, wise-cracks, and fire-extinguisher antics. [...] I remember Wobble coming in[to the control room] for the cigarettes. It's the engineer [Mark Lusardi] who's 'Suspicious', not me, I am accused of not realising that 'Love makes the world go around'.”
• Jah Wobble (2005/09): “In its own way, it's as mental as Funkadelic
  Funkadelic
  Funkadelic was an American band most prominent during the 1970s. The band and its sister act Parliament, both led by George Clinton, began the funk music culture of that decade.-History:...
  
  . And it had the perfect funk bassline.” “Keith didn't make it down for the initial recording of that track, so it was just me, John and Jim.”

Related tracks

“The Cowboy Song” (single b-side):

• John Lydon (1978): “You can dance to that song, and it cost us approximately £1 to make. It's just a jolly good disco record and it came about cos we were bored and couldn't think of a b-side.”
• Jim Walker (2001/07): “The thing was, I'd come up with the idea for that song one morning. I was trying to rip off the theme song for Bonanza
  Bonanza
  Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...
  
  .” “We all sat around the mic drunk, did two takes, screaming randomly.”

“You Stupid Person” (unreleased instrumental demo):

• Jah Wobble (1999/2007): “It was an instrumental from when we very first started, when Jim Walker was on drums. That was really good.” “That was a good one, a really strong song.”
• Jim Walker (2001): “Once during a break I stayed on my kit, you know, fooling around, when suddenly Keith jumped up and shouted to me to repeat whatever it was that I'd been playing. It was just some hi-hat
  Hi-hat
  A hi-hat, or hihat, is a type of cymbal and stand used as a typical part of a drum kit by percussionists in R&B, hip-hop, disco, jazz, rock and roll, house, reggae and other forms of contemporary popular music.- Operation :...
  
   thing. I'd always focussed on developing my left hand side, in other words my hi-hat side. Anyway, I repeated it. Wobble instinctively came up with the perfect bassline part. Then Keith, who had heard exactly what he wanted through the thing I'd started, played the most blistering guitar part I think I ever heard him play. That was how PIL wrote: through the subconscious. That song ended up being named 'You Stupid Person'. It was meant to be our second single. [...] It was actually a lot better than 'Public Image'. It would have been impossible to keep from being a number one hit, and probably would have broke us in America all by itself. We managed to demo it, I've still got a copy.”
• John Lydon (2004): “I don't know what he's talking about [...] I don't know what he's quite on about.”

"Steel Leg V. The Electric Dread":

• Jah Wobble (1988/2009): “I also released 'Steel Leg V. The Electric Dread', another 12 inch with Keith Levene on guitars and Vince, a mate from Hackney
  London Borough of Hackney
  The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
  
  , on vocals. He thought he was going to be a millionaire but it was only like a session fee. I gave him a ton which weren't bad money in the late '70s.” “Keith played drums on that. The extra money came in really handy. To be honest it was a pisstake record in the same way that 'Fodderstompf' was a pisstake track, you only have to listen to Vince's side to realise that.”
• Don Letts (guest vocalist, 2007): “Keith Levene and Jah Wobble needed some money, so they ended up making a single for Virgin Records called 'Steel Leg V. The Electric Dread'. They got me down to the studio to work on some vocals, even though I had never sung in my life. I remember sitting on the stairs with a microphone trying to write some words. Eventually I said to them 'Okay guys, I'll go home and work out some lyrics.' I never heard back from them, and the next thing I knew there was a record out. They had used my demo vocals and stuck them on the track! [...] It was a crap record, and I look back and laugh about all this stuff now.” “I didn't even know they were recording me. I went into some basement toilet just to mumble some lyrics into a mic and hear what they sound like [...] Then I'm waiting to get a call to do the record, and the next thing I heard is they've played with my voice a bit, stuck a track under it and put the whole thing out as a finished record. I was a little bit pissed off to tell you the truth, because I thought we'd finish it properly.”

Personnel

• John Lydon
  John Lydon
  John Joseph Lydon , also known by the former stage name Johnny Rotten, is a singer-songwriter and television presenter, best known as the lead singer of punk rock band the Sex Pistols from 1975 until 1978, and again for various revivals during the 1990s and 2000s...
  
   - Vocals
• Keith Levene
  Keith Levene
  Keith Levene is an English songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He was an early member of The Clash, but is best known as being a founding member of Public Image Limited, along with John Lydon....
  
   - Guitar
• Jah Wobble
  Jah Wobble
  Jah Wobble is an English bass guitarist, singer, poet and composer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but left the band after two albums...
  
   - Bass (vocals on "Fodderstompf")
• Jim Walker - Drums (vocals on "Fodderstompf")

UK

• “Public Image - First Issue” entered the UK Albums Chart
  UK Albums Chart
  The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
  
  , where it stayed for 11 weeks and reached #22 on 23 December 1978.
• The single “Public Image” entered the UK Top 75
  UK Singles Chart
  The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
  
  , where it stayed for 8 weeks and reached #9 on 21 October 1978.

Other countries

• In the USA, the album and the single were not released.
• In New Zealand, “Public Image - First Issue” entered the Top 50 Albums Chart
  Recording Industry Association of New Zealand
  The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists who sell music in New Zealand...
  
  , where it stayed for 2 weeks and reached #18 on 25 January 1979.

Trivia

In 1979, the NME reported that a court in Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

had stopped the album being sold because the lyrics of “Religion” offended public morals and decency.