John Lydon will always be best known as Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, but after the Pistols incredibly short and much hyped rise and fall, Lydon had a much longer (and arguably more interesting) run with Public Image Ltd. Their debut Public Image was a couple years ahead of their new wave soon-to-be contemporaries whose synths and deep basses would flood the airwaves in the 1980s. Compelling second acts are not the most common thing in rock and roll, and Lydon's with PiL makes the short list.
PiL has been on hiatus since 1992, but Lydon is reforming the group for a short UK tour in December. It's difficult to not hold one's nose a little at the sporadic Pistols reunions that have taken place since the mid-nineties. Music so firmly rooted in the attitude of being certain age at a certain time doesn't always seem as authentic thirty years later. PiL's music, happily divorced from youthful abandon, stands to hold up far better. Come to the US, please.
