The Light Pours Out Of Me

★★★ Rory Sullivan-Burke OMNIBUS PRESS. £20

Authorised biography of Magazine/Banshees/ Armoury Show/PiL guitar magus John McGeoch. “Guitar-playing isn’t escapism for me… it’s a responsibility.” So said John McGeoch in April 1981, the point where his transformative impact upon Siouxsie & The Banshees was about to explode with Juju, an album defined by McGeoch’s uniquely selfless form of guitar heroism. Perhaps this commitment to the collective explains how one of his generation’s most influential musicians had slipped from view long before his untimely death in 2004. Through many new interviews with friends, fans, peers, family members and bandmates (the one notable absentee: John Lydon), Rory Sullivan-Burke portrays a conflicted man, torn between the ambition that saw him quit Magazine upon release of the band’s best album, and a shyness compounded by addiction to alcohol. Although the text could have benefited from a tighter edit, the author’s empathy and passion are true to McGeoch, who seems to have enhanced everyone he worked with. As Dave Formula simply says: “You couldn’t replace him.”