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.

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(Eclipse - Progrock from Quebec . . timing wasn't good)

I think, of all the various genres of music in the world, Rock Quebecois of the 1970's is probably the least known. A number of bands came out as part of the Progrock scene and achieved a certain loyal following, while others recorded one of two albums and vanished without a trace.

One of those bands was Eclipse. Almost totally unknown outside of Canada and, specifically Quebec. This French speaking band had all the earmarks of being a success. Great production, good musicians and a major label (CBS). But times being what they were (we're talking 1976 here - the year of The Sex Pistols and the great change in music), could not settle in with an audience and, English being the language of Rock, there was no interest in them from a mainstream point of view.

I've always been amazed at how a lot of European bands were rejected out of hand simply because they didn't sing in English - somehow their work wasn't valid because you couldn't understand what they were saying. I've often felt we missed out on a lot of great music because of that. Our loss.

Anyway - here is Eclipse from their first release in 1976. The track is called "La Derniere Fois". . . and the chords are universal.

How can so many people who obsess over sex and guns not love a band named for their two most favoritest things in the whole world?