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East River Pipe’s Nontrivial Things: John Lydon Vs. Tom Snyder

Stoutly refusing to record his passionate songs under anything less than his own terms (in his New Jersey home on a TASCAM MiniStudio), F.M. Cornog, under the name East River Pipe, has released seven albums since 1994 that can stand toe-to-toe with anything by your favorite indie rockers over the past 20 years. Although working full-time at the local Home Depot and raising a daughter with his wife may have curtailed Cornog’s recording time somewhat, the quality of the finished product remains unchanged. ERP’s latest, We Live In Rented Rooms (Merge), is further testimony to a man who refuses to play the rock-star game (form a band, tour, do photo shoots, etc.) and has come out the other side with a brilliant body of work—and with his soul intact. Cornog will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.

Cornog: After high school, nothing much was going on—just an ocean of beer, a forest of weed, a job at a carpet warehouse in town and a nagging suspicion that I was destined to become a working-class coward, just like my father. It was 1980, and I was listening to Closer by Joy Division and Second Edition by PiL. That was my cheery soundtrack. Anyway, when I heard that John Lydon and Keith Levene of PiL were going to be on The Tomorrow Show, I tuned in. Their angry, stoned bitterness seemed to mirror my own state of mind. They only knew what they didn’t like, which was just about everything. But you could also see that Lydon was grasping at some pretty deep ideas, and some of those ideas were positive, though he couldn’t articulate them. Watch as the singularly abrasive Lydon and the annoyingly passive, “medicated” Levene trade barbs with the host of The Tomorrow Show, Tom Snyder. Memorable and very funny.

Video after the jump.

One reply on “East River Pipe’s Nontrivial Things: John Lydon Vs. Tom Snyder”

Thanks for posting this clip! The Tomorrow Show had a slew of winners and the PIL show was one of his best. I seem to share all of your previous music references, as well. I appreciate your taste, integrity, and music.

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