by Allan Kausch
In 1984 I attended an out-of-the-ordinary concert in San Francisco with John (“Johnny Rotten”) Lydon’s Public Image Limited on their “This Is What You Want…This Is What You Get” tour headlining, and various other local bands and organizations exhibiting and performing for the evening’s entertainment. A large yellow poster showing Lydon in white, Pierrot-like pajamas, patterned all over with the PiL logo and mimicking the broad arrows of British prison attire, was sold at the gig and here’s one of the smaller flyers which lists all the exhibitors and bands:
The venue was at Fort Mason, one of the piers on the northern waterfront of San Francisco Bay, in a cavernous WWII-era warehouse formerly used by the military as an embarkation point to the theatre of war in the Pacific. We arrived early and were greeted by bloody “driver’s-ed” films like Red Asphalt being projected on the walls and thundering post-punk music from the DJs on duty. The show was in honor of RE/Search’s latest book, No. 8/9 about J.G. Ballard, with the emphasis on the theme of Crash and recalling, to those in the know, the “Crashed Cars” exhibition in London in 1970, with several crashed cars staged on the dance floor.
Vale, the publisher of RE/Search was selling merch at a table, so I chatted with him about Ballard for a while and I bought the yellow gig poster, even though it meant hanging onto it throughout the evening. It has since become quite rare. A separate merch booth was selling Public Image memorabilia, and I bought a red T-shirt that says “PiL Rubbish Staff” on the breast.
Survival Research Laboratories is a group that builds robots and other monstrous machines, then sets them loose in destructive, sometimes dangerous, usually unauthorized shows. Founder Mark Pauline drove one of his creations (photo below) into the wrecked cars inside the venue, revving the engine way up, then popping the clutch, burning rubber and smashing into the wrecks. Parts went flying every time he crashed the dragster into the damaged autos, and he activated the hydraulic claw arm to grapple the cars, dragging them about and tearing holes in the doors, trunks, and hoods. The faces in the crowd were lit up at the intensity and innovation of the spectacle.
• SRL – Survival Research Labs
• Survival Research Laboratories – Wikipedia
Eventually the opening bands played their industrial noise sets, then there was a long wait for Public Image to take the stage. The highlight of the set was “Poptones” with the opening line “Drive to the forest in a Japanese car…” in what was otherwise a lackluster performance from Lydon, to a tired crowd. The wrecked cars had stolen the show…
Listing (with incorrect date) on SRL’s site:
• This page is part of the New Worlds Annex