MODEL WORKER
FROM A NEW BOOK, FIVE EMINENT ADMIRERS SALUTE LATE MAGAZINE/BANSHEES/PiL GUITARIST JOHN McGEOCH.
SIOUXSIE SIOUX
Grande Dame of post-punk
“I remember [the Banshees] being really, really desperate to find a guitarist. It was so soul-destroying not finding anyone that had a spark. Of course, Shot By Both Sides – that song and really the sound of the guitar – was just something which said, We have to see if this guy is available. It was stunning work that we did together [McGeoch played on Kaleidoscope (1980), Juju (1981),
A Kiss In The Dreamhouse (1982)] and I just think it’s such a shame that it couldn’t have gone on a bit longer… Out of all the musicians I’ve worked with in the Banshees, I could see myself working with McGeoch again.”
JONNY GREENWOOD
Radiohead’s big screen guitarist/ keyboardist
“I heard The Correct
Use Of Soap when I was about 10 or 11 and I played it constantly. Sweetheart Contract was my favourite. I love that McGeoch played everything in the service of the song – not to grandstand. On this song, his feel, and the sound of his guitar, is just so fluid and musical. [Magazine] were ambitious writers – lyrically as well as musically – and occupied an odd space between punk and keyboard-driven music. The songs were well written and arranged thoughtfully – never ponderous or pretentious. It was a lesson in not being boring.”
JOHNNY MARR
Indie rock chaser of comets “Like everyone else who noticed John McGeoch, it was because of Shot By Both Sides and then The Light Pours Out Of Me. That word “arch” comes to mind – he uses a lot of half tone runs, and there’s a considered conceptual mind at play there. You really hear it in The
Correct Use Of Soap and riffs like BMeOcaJuOse You’re Frightened. It shows someone who was doing something very deliberate and it is also someone who was very of the times.”
RODDY FRAME
Aztec Camera man
“I first saw John playing with Magazine in 1978 in the Satellite City club in Glasgow. I was already a huge fan. He played all the phased arpeggios and tricky chords with a stylish swagger… His guitar parts were like a signpost to beyond punk for any guitarists wishing to progress. Never naff or self-indulgent. Never improvised. A style that wasn’t rooted in the blues. It was edgy and audacious and playful… Even his choice of guitar, a Yamaha SG, seemed to signify that he wasn’t interested in rock’n’roll orthodoxy. Bill Nelson – another Northern innovator – was the only other person I’d seen play that model.”
KEITH LEVENE
Ex-PiL progressive punk
“It really fits that John ended up in PiL [between 1987 and 1992]; he was perfect for them [after the] journey he’d been on from Magazine and then the Banshees. Magazine were one of my favourite bands – when Devoto left Buzzcocks I found that really interesting. Devoto was in that weirdy-punk mystical/militant area. He was intelligent and had skin in the game.”
Interviews excerpted from The Light Pours Out Of Me – The Authorised Biography Of John McGeoch by Rory SullivanBurke, published by Omnibus on April 28. The Yamaha SG
1000 is now being replicated by Eastwood Guitars in tribute to McGeoch and is available in sunburst, green and black finishes.