Now I seem to pick up from your writing that you are a Trappist monk who only listens to choral works.

Next, Branson turns down an interview.

P.

What a Long Strange Trip it’s Been

For those of the uninitiated, the above is a line from ‘Truckin’ by The Grateful Dead. I’m not a ‘Deadhead’; in fact I’m not even a big fan of the band at all, but I’ve always loved that track and it sort of sums up my life!

Before I continue could I say a big thank you to my old friend, Tony Michaelides for allowing me to squat on his blog.

Tony is one of several people I’ve been very glad to re-acquaint with, having recently made a decison to once again start doing what I do best, which is talking bollocks, but getting paid for it.

John McGeogh, Guitar Player.

I was going to start with an amusing little vignette about how I came to leave home, but something happened last night which made me revise my ideas.

I was busy networking when I came across something which alerted me to the fact that another old friend, Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees and PIL guitarist/sax player, John McGeogh, had flitted off this mortal coil in 2004. That made me very sad indeed and I thought it would be most fitting to commence with a tribute to one of rock music’s unsung heroes.

I first met John when I used to hang around Virgin Records when they were based in Vernon’s Yard off Portobello Road in the late seventies. I was working for Radio 1 and freelancing for magazines (no pun etc.) and always popped in when I had a spare moment as it was a great place to hang out and they had the best record cupboard going. A young lad called George O’Dowd used to help with the record packing but I’m not sure what happened to him!

John’s wife Janet worked in the promotions office and after knowing her for a while she introduced me to John and their English Bull Terrier, Stephen. We got on well and occasionally met up for a drink (no not Stephen!). On one occasion, a Friday afternoon, John had come to give Janet a lift home but she was delayed. As he was going in my direction, he offered to give me a lift home instead. The traffic was heavy and round about Holland Park John said “Why don’t we park up and go for a drink”. In those days I never needed asking twice so I aquiesced.

To cut a long story short, I finally landed back in Shepherd’s Bush the following Sunday evening and to this day, I haven’t a clue where we went or what we did. All I know is I felt a little bit dicky!

When I saw Janet in Waitrose, Temple Fortune, many years later and long after she was divorced from John, she told me that she seemed to recall that he turned up sometime on Monday afternoon in a similar state to me.

The last time I saw John was in the late 80’s. I bumped into him somewhere in Soho. He was on good form and told me he was doing really well and was now living in the States and playing with Public Image Limited. He was just back in the country for a couple of weeks. He told me that he was earning serious money for the first time in his life and seemed more than happy to spend it on getting the both of us pissed. I was going to a party that night and asked John if he fancied going along. As usual if a drink was on offer then John was more than happy to tag along. To be honest most of us were like that then, but as we had got a bit older we were a bit more likely to apply a touch of moderation. I’m not sure that moderation ever cropped up in John’s vocabulary, which is probably why he was such a fucking great guitar player.

Whilst we were at the party, someone put on a copy of the new PIL album ‘Happy’ and whilst ‘Seattle’ was playing a couple of people commented on the fantastic guitar riffing. It was typical of John that he kept completely quiet about the fact that the ‘fantastic’ riff merchant was actually in their midst.

John had an amazing style which was like a very dense version of the ‘rhythm as lead’ school. I don’t think it would be too audacious to claim that John McGeogh’s guitar style defined the whole late/post punk period. It was certainly imitated by more people than would care to admit, but no one ever nailed it like John. It had mystery, it had tension, it had anger and most of all it had passion; something seriously missing from music today.

In 1979 I worked on a Rado 1 evening show and managed to talk the senior producer into letting me programme all the music (those were the days!!). Magazine’s second album ‘Secondhand Daylight’ had just come out and I played ‘Rhythm of Cruelty’ on the show. There was more real stuff going on in that one track than in the entire output of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai combined.

John went on to play with The Banshees and The Armoury Show with Richard Jobson, late of The Skids, before hitching his wagon to PIL. He retired form playing live in 1994.

He is probably the most seriously undervalued guitarist in UK rock history, but those of us who were there know he was the dog’s bollocks. If you doubt that or you are too young to know, just find yourself a copy of ‘Rhythm of Cruelty’, put it on the player and crank up the volume. if it doesn’t have you jumping up and down within seconds then you really ought to check that you still have a pulse.

Roll on buddy x