Jah Wobble - Dark Luminosity

Jah Wobble (aka John Wardle) was a college contemporary of Sex Pistols Johnny Rotten (aka John Lydon) and Sid Vicious (aka John Ritchie), indeed it was the latter who gave him his stage name.

After the messy end of the Pistols, Lydon asked Wobble to play bass in his new band, Public Image Ltd (PiL), and his bass sound became one of the defining elements of that band’s earliest albums and live shows. Their first single ‘Public Image’ www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIAZ8unRm2c remains one of my favourite singles of that post-punk era, and tracks such as ‘Poptones’ www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8e2CTB9oeQ from the ‘Metal Box’ album (1979) have remained highly influential, and were far-removed from the cartoon image of ‘punk’ music.

Since Wobble departed PiL’s ranks in 1980 he’s ploughed his own furrow musically, often with his band Invaders of the Heart, encompassing dub reggae, ambient, ‘world’, dance and folk styles and worked with artists including Brian Eno, Baaba Maal, Sinead O’Connor, Dolores O’Riordan and members of Can, Killing Joke and Oysterband, amongst countless others.
A recent favourite of mine is his ‘Bus Routes of South London’ album. Here’s ‘345 Towards South Ken’ https://youtu.be/DxlMYnvENAI?si=hmkfH3PRjNJnqYbO

He’s also worked regularly with his wife, Chinese guzheng and harp virtuoso Liao Zi-Lan and, through her, has developed strong links with Liverpool’s Pagoda Chinese Youth Orchestra, of which she is the director.

He was in town tonight as part of WoWFest, to talk about his book ‘Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer’. He’s a diamond geezer for sure, and a great raconteur whose tales tonight encompassed everything from his teenage enthusiasm for yoga, his study of Buddhism, his time working as a driver on the London Underground and his passion for Beethoven to the joys and pitfalls of parenting, clay pigeon shooting and golf. We also learned that his favourite Beatle was George (which is the correct answer, in my opinion) and that one of his earliest musical influences was the theme to ‘Animal Magic’ (also an early favourite of mine) https://youtu.be/JN79RT9bc6c?si=WWITwgXL-lLXbHwL

I’m also including a link to Mr Wobble’s instructional video for travelling with wheeled luggage, just because it makes me laugh https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=367572768390648

It was lovely to meet him.