Keith Levene died, the guitarist who shaped the sound of the music that went down in music history as the “post-punk” chapter. Opinions differ as to why he was a founding member of the British punk-Titans the clash Only been there for one summer in 1976, which is why he only had one credit as co-writer of a single song on the first album and Mick Jones played lead guitar. Politics? drugs? Creative disagreements? all that? The man was only 19, the very best Sturm und Drang age, so these things play an all-powerful role, especially when you belong to the spearhead of a new movement.
He was much more important as a co-founder of public image ltd (PIL). That gets lost sometimes because it was a band of the second hour. frontman was John Lydonwho goes by his stage name Johnny Rotten as the singer of Sex Pistols was declared the founding father of British punk. The Clash had often played as a support act for them. Levene had approached him during a concert and they agreed that they would form a band when the Sex Pistols disbanded.
He left his mark on the Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2 and Nick Cave
In 1978 the time had come. They brought in Lydon’s school friend Jah Wobble on bass, and Canadian jazz drummer Jim Walker. It all fitted together much better for Levene, because he had musical standards that were much higher than punk. Actually he was a prog rock fan, admirer of Steve Howe, the guitarist of yes. In 1972, when he was 15, he even worked for them as a roadie. Not particularly efficient. It always took him forever because he noodled around on the instruments after the shows instead of packing them up. Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman then seriously persuaded him not to waste his time as a student assistant and rather become a musician himself.
Lydon, too, had higher standards. For example, he agreed with Levene that his other school friend, John Simon “Sid Vicous” Ritchie, was a really lousy bass player with the Pistols. He had already had a band with Wobble, but as a choleric young man he was only able to work in a team to a limited extent. But now it all worked wonderfully. The first song of the first PIL album with the title “themes” then became the founding manifesto of post-punk. Lydon threw up his whining roar about punk fashion’s empty image machine throughout the nine-minute piece. Jim Walker played some slow-motion mallet drums, Jah Wobble centered the madness with a bass motif that came from somewhere in the depths of reggae. And Levene redefined guitar playing. Sticking with the English pun of rock guitar as an axe, he turned punk’s cleaver into a flex that threw sparks and shards of metal. A firewall of pathos, atonality and berserkism arose along the way. There wasn’t much left of punk’s catchy simplicity.
When PIL then mutated into an easier-to-digest New Wave band in 1984 with the album “This is what you want … this is what you get” and the hit single “This Is Not A Love Song”, Levene was no longer there . In 1985 he moved to Los Angeles, working primarily as a producer. He helped the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who also played on his first solo album. He produced hip-hop with Ice-T and Tone Loc, played here and there. But even if he never reached the zenith of rock history again, he had long since left his mark. You hear them in the angularity of the chili peppers, in the crystal walls of U2’s “The Edge” and in the depths of Nick Caves The Bad Seeds.
On November 11, Keith Levene died of complications from cancer at home in Norfolk, UK. He was 65 years old.