In Memory of Geordie Walker and Keith Levene

Geordie Walker (1958-2023) and Keith Levene (1957-2022) [1]

 

November, it appears, is a mortally dangerous time of year for post-punk guitarists ... 

 

For last year, on the 11th of November, Keith Levene died (aged 65); and yesterday, on the 26th of this month, Geordie Walker passed away (aged 64). 

I'm not going to pretend that I have any great fascination for musicians; always banging on about their instruments and different playing and recording techniques, they are, as Malcolm used to say, amongst the least interesting people to be around.

 

However, Levene - as a member of Public Image Ltd. - and Walker - as a member of Killing Joke - did produce some of the most exciting and bewitching guitar sounds ever heard and I was a huge fan of their work in the late 1970s and early-mid '80s [2]. 

 

So, it was with a certain sadness that I heard about Keith dying last year and, similarly, I was sorry to wake up to the news of Geordie's death this morning. I never met either of them, but their music has significantly shaped (what is commonly referred to as) the soundtrack of my life and for that I'm grateful to both.       

 

 

Notes 

 

[1] The black and white screenshot of Geordie Walker is taken from the video directed by Peter Care for the Killing Joke single 'Love Like Blood' (1985); the black and white screenshot of Keith Levene is taken from the video directed by Don Letts for the Public Image Ltd. single 'Public Image' (1978).

 

[2] See the post dated 1 Sept 2023 for my memories of Killing Joke: click here.   

Chrysopoeia 3: No More Gas, Just Gold He Said - Gold on My Head!

Do you love Annabella? 

Gold is what she holds.

 

 

I. 

 

Having confronted the perceived greyness of English culture with nihilistic blackness during the punk period, McLaren and Westwood dramatically changed tactics (and shop design) during their pirate phase: now gold was the colour by which to challenge the three things they hated most: puritanism, provincialism, and poverty.  

 

Just to be clear: by the latter, we refer to a certain spiritual condition; to individuals bereft of ideas, imagination and a sense of adventure, rather than those without money for the gas meter; to individuals whose vision of a post-punk future involved either wearing raincoats and moaning about being on the dole, or adopting a gothic persona and pretending to be one of the undead.  

 

Contra this model of either bleak or morbid miserabilism, Malcolm and Vivienne offered a new romanticism that was all about sun, gold, and piracy ...

 

 

II. 

 

Thus it was that Seditionaries gave way to Worlds End and Malcolm's new group, Bow Wow Wow, was fronted not by a spiky-haired, pale-faced punk with green-teeth, but by an exotic-looking, 14-year-old girl called Annabella, who informed us that she didn't care about having no money, because she had gold in her hair. 

 

And, besides, thanks to TEK technology, sang Annabella, she could steal the songs she loved to listen to by illegally taping them off the radio: "No silver, no copper / Cassette on my shoulder / I'm richer than Richard III / I don't need to work" [1].

  

The idea that you can look rich and feel powerful - without having any money - is an interesting one, rooted in both the concept of a natural (or savage) nobility and dandyism. It suggests that what matters most is not what you have in your wallet, but how you walk, talk, and present yourself; a combination of style, swagger and attitude. 

 

And it's always important to be reminded that, for Malcolm, punk was about fighting for the right not to work - Cos work, is not the golden rule - and I happily endorse his suggestion that the unemployed be issued roller skates and paid in gold dust [2].  

 

 

Jordan wearing a golden outfit from the 

Worlds End Pirate Collection (A/W 1981)

Image reworked from a photo by Michael Costiff

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Lyrics from the Bow Wow Wow song 'Gold He Said', which originally featured on the 8-track mini-album Your Cassette Pet (EMI Records, 1980). Whilst Dave Barbarossa, Leigh Gorman and Matthew Ashman came up with the music, it was McLaren - a uniquely gifted lyricist - who came up with the words. Click here to play. 

[2] This is something that all those dreary left-leaning punks who earnestly believed themselves to be part of a drab socialist revolution never understood. I would have loved to have been paid in gold dust when I was signing on during the 1980s - far more exciting than having to cash a giro at the post office every fortnight. I'm a little surprised, therefore, that Paul Gorman dismisses Malcolm's proposal as preposterous (though maybe he's a fan of Absurdism and means that in a good way); see The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 456. 

      Finally, note that the line quoted in italics is a lyric (again written by McLaren) from the second Bow Wow Wow single 'W.O.R.K. (N.O. Nah, No No My Daddy Don't)', (EMI Records, 1981): click here to play the extended version. 

My Pagan Self Revealed (Reflections on a Mexican Devil Mask)

I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus 

and would rather be a satyr than a saint

I.

I have already written elsewhere on Torpedo the Ark about how, for me, the way to move beyond the ruins of the late 1970s was not via a poppy new romanticism or a shameless embrace of free market capitalism, but, rather, towards a post-punk paganism inspired by a wide range of influences including Nietzsche, Lawrence, Jung, Crowley, McLaren, and Jaz Coleman.*

Thus, after 1982, I defined myself less as an anarchist and more as an anti-Christ and the task, as I saw it then, was to aggressively confront Occidental reason and Christian morality with its absolute Other by promoting a pessimistic vitalism tied to an anti-modern politics. 

In other words, safety pins were replaced by horns on head and the vintage Mexican devil mask that I can be seen holding in the photo above became the face of my soul; i.e., my essential self is a concealed self, a disguised self, the product of playful dissimulation. This is what Wilde refers to as the truth of masks and those who are profound enough to be superficial will understand the philosophical importance of this fact.  

II. 

The native peoples of Mexico have had a thing for the making and wearing of masks for millennia; i.e., long before the Spanish arrived - or the tourists. Obviously, the masks had a ritual and magical significance and were worn during religious ceremonies and festivals. Sometimes they had human features; sometimes animal.

And sometimes they incarnated deities, demons, or devils; the latter often having real horns and images of snakes, lizards, or frogs added to the usually grotesque facial design.

Although my mask is hand-carved from wood, traditional masks were also made from other materials including clay, leather, and wax. After the Conquest of Mexico (1519-21), the Spanish outlawed indigenous beliefs, but Christian evangelisers were happy to exploit the love of masks, dance, and spectacle to propagate their faith amongst the natives.

Often, however, rather than successfully replace old cultural traditions with entirely new forms, masked events became a strange amalgamation of paganism and Catholicism. It was Carnival - but not as the Europeans originally understood it.

Today, masked festivals remain very popular and prevalent in parts of the country with large numbers of native peoples and old customs and beliefs live on, if only in a commercialised and aestheticised form.           

* Note: Readers interested in this earlier post to which I refer - with my reflections on Pagan Magazine - can read it by clicking here. And for another post on the truth of masks, click here.