Battle Of The Bands -- John Lydon Gives Short Shrift To The Other Acts In The Mtv 120 Minutes Tour

"What on earth would I want to sit and watch Big Audio Dynamite for?" John Lydon, leader of Public Image Ltd. (PiL), sounds incredulous. "I might as well be watching `Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.' In fact, I'd rather be watching `Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.' "

If anybody thought Lydon would make a good ambassador for the MTV/120 Minutes tour, which reaches the Paramount on Tuesday, they were clearly mistaken. Fifteen years after Lydon's Sex Pistols and BAD frontman Mick Jones' Clash vied with one another for the crown of British Punk, the mutually dismissive rivalry upon which the two bands thrived is still seething.

"I agreed to do the tour because MTV asked me to. I'd have been stupid to turn it down, wouldn't I? But don't ask me to say anything about the other bands on the bill. What other bands?"

Well, there's Big Audio Dynamite II, for a start. Since the original band shattered in early 1990, Mick Jones has all but reinvented BAD, moving away from the acid-house-funk of their first four albums, into the more diverse - and certainly more commercial - brew which has established their last release, "The Globe," among last year's most successful alternative hits. Two singles -"Rush," and the album's title track - have raised BAD's profile even higher.

And what of Live and Blind Melon? Both are picking up a lot of attention, with Live - the Pennsylvania quartet whose "Mental Jewelry" is one of the hottest things on the racks right now -

probably as eagerly awaited as the headlining bands. They are currently Top 5 in both the Alternative and College charts.

Come on, John, you must have something to say about them.

"No."

Two can play at this game. At least they're doing something new. What about you? Trotting out PiL's greatest hits every night - there's even a sample of "God Save the Queen," the final "No Future" refrain, on the new PiL album, "That What Is Not"!

"That wasn't anything to do with me. Dave (Jerden, PiL's producer) did it while I wasn't around one day, then played it back to me. I hated it at first, but now I think it's really funny. `No Future.' There wasn't, was there? Or if there was, it wasn't the one you expected."

Maybe it wasn't. You're still around, and I would have laid bets that you'd have shuffled off into legend long, long before this.

"Ah, well that's it, isn't it? A lot of people would be a lot happier if I had. The music industry is controlled by five record companies, and between them, they have everything sewn up, everything nicely packaged and sounding the same as everything else. Bands like PiL, which dare to do something different, infuriate them. They're just dying for us to break up and go away, but we're still here, annoying them. And they hate that. They really do. That's why I'm still around."

You could say the same for Big Audio Dynamite.

"Are they still around? I hadn't noticed."

You're supporting them on this tour.

"We are not supporting them. We just go on before them. I wanted it that way. It means I can get home early."

He's probably the only person who will be leaving the theater so quickly. If the British rumor mill is to be believed, this could be the last we'll see of BAD for a while. Inspired by the decade-old "Should I Stay or Should I Go" topping the British chart last spring, a full Clash reunion is said to be imminent.

Neither Jones nor fellow Clashman Joe Strummer (now leading the Pogues) is giving anything away just yet, but John Lydon is in no doubt how he feels on the subject.

"I hate it. It's so penny-pinching. They try and dress it up so we won't know what they're doing: `Oh, the kids want us,' or `Oh, we've still got something to say.' But that's not it at all. They're just in it for the money."

So these rumors about the Sex Pistols reforming, they're just another of those legends, like Jim Morrison's still alive and Paul McCartney isn't?

"Oh, no, they're true. The Sex Pistols are reforming, but they won't let me in. They've got Paul McCartney instead. I can't wait to see it."

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