How long have I been gone, do you know?

Being the subject of a micro-section of the recent article on Magazine in MOJO 343, I’d like to share a few reflections on the published photo of myself [page 50] with Magazine from September ’77. I’ve analysed this picture on several occasions in the past, and what I can say is that the sheet in front of me on the piano stand is my original handwritten manuscript for the keyboard part to Motorcade. Judging also by my finger positions on the keys, this could be an early rehearsal/working of Motorcade. Acknowledged as the co-writer of Motorcade, another bit of context here: the song started life not in rehearsals with the band but as a solo keyboard piece sometime in August ’77 in the back room of my parents’ home in Bury, influenced very much by some Satie piano pieces. It was then later presented to the band during one of the early rehearsal sessions.

At the time of the photo, I was commuting from the Department of American Music at Keele University (where I was completing a PhD in North American Live Electronic Music) on a fairly regular daily basis. Additionally, I was also working with Dick Witts, prior to his formation of The Passage, as part of his work with the Manchester Musicians Collective. Magazine was very much an extra-curricular activity for myself at the time, as my primary focus was avantgarde and experimental music. A few months before the published photo, Dick and I had performed The Sinking Of The Titanic by Gavin Bryars at the Peterloo Gallery in Manchester.

Bob Dickinson, Lincoln