For Jah Wobble driving tube trains was even more thrilling than playing Glastonbury

Jah Wobble - aka John Wardle - wrote ‘Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer’ in 2009. It’s just been reworked, expanded and republished and it’s well worth reading, full of detail about growing up in the East End, unexploded bombs, pickling factories, grim schooldays, record shops and clubs, the bands he saw and his arrival at Kingsway College where he met John Lydon and Sid Vicious and became a cornerstone of the punk rock inner circle. And then two challenging years as the bassist of Public Image Ltd, the time he worked as a train driver and ticket collector for London Transport, a series of collaborations – Brian Eno, Baaba Maal, Holger Czukay, Sinead O’Connor, Chaka Demus – and some bold and original solo albums (you’ll enjoy Island Records' reaction when he pitches an album based on the poems of William Blake). Among this podcast's highlights …

… the Kafkaesque world of working for the London Underground in the days when you could “punch an area manager and not get sacked”.

… why great rhythm sections are like great football players.

… his dad, an El-Alamein survivor, on seeing Mick Jagger on Top of the Pops: “the Rolling Stones should be used for mine clearance.”

… Public Image Ltd – “three of the weirdest people you could ever meet”, the band that kept their cash in a shoebox.

… “you can’t go through life as a tourist”.

… the secret of the perfect bass sound.

… watching the first Sex Pistols’ rehearsal.

… seeing Bob Marley & the Wailers at the Lyceum.

… the record that reversed his dislike of the Beatles.

… why working with Pharoah Sanders was the highlight of his musical life.

… his 2023 album, ‘The Bus Routes of South London’.

… Jim Reeves, Burl Ives and further sounds of the family homestead.

... and a powerful aversion to hippies.

Order John’s memoir here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Luminosity-Memoirs-Geezer-expanded/dp/0571375359\

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