The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (400 page)

James Freud

(Colin McGlinchey-Melbourne, Australia, 29 June 1959)

Models

(Teenage) Radio Stars

(Various acts)

As the more recognisable James Freud, aspiring Melbourne musician Colin McGlinchey set pulses racing as lead singer and bassist with Aussie newwavers, Models. Freud developed a love for music by listening to Frankie Avalon records as a toddler, but he met considerable resistance from his family when choosing it as a metier.

The singer and bass-player therefore chose the ‘secret’ name of James Freud upon joining Teenage Radio Stars when he was seventeen. Freud’s first recording was the single ‘I Wanna Be Your Baby’ (1977). With the singer/bassist becoming the focal point of the band, a name change reflected this: as James Freud & The Radio Stars, the group claimed major hits with their debut single, ‘Modern Girl’ and album
Breaking Silence
(both 1980). British newwave synth-hero Gary Numan was impressed, and booked the band to open for him on tour; however, a name-change was necessary to avoid confusion with the UK’s own Radio Stars.

Freud hit paydirt with his next band. Models had been formed in late 1978, but only scored a first hit (1981’s ‘Cut Lunch’) upon Freud’s entry into the band. Models went on to become one of the most popular antipodean alternative acts during the eighties. The band’s biggest hits were ‘Barbados’ (1985, Australia number two) and ‘Out of Mind, Out of Sight’ (1985, Australia number one; US Top Forty) both of which were written by the enigmatic front man. (The latter cut also broke Models internationally.) The downward curve was, however, a steep one–Freud quitting his most successful band for a less-than-triumphant solo career.

Behind the scenes, Freud had a number of ongoing issues with alcoholism and drug dependency, all of which were luridly (and perhaps a little boastfully) detailed in his big-selling 2002 autobiography. James Freud never overcame his demons, and he was found dead at his Hawthorn home some eight years later. An ARIA Hall of Fame acceptance speech made just the previous week by fellow band members had gone some way to suggest that the singer was not out of danger.

Saturday 13

J P Toulon

(Jean-Paul Toulon–Madison, Wisconsin, 29 June 1979)

Old Skull

(Various acts)

As a huge fan of hardcore acts like Live Skull and Bad Brains, singer and guitarist J P Toulon formed the pre-teen punk band Old Skull with younger brother Jamie (keyboards), and the line-up was completed by drummer Jesse Collins-Davies, whose father had played with Madison punks Tar Babies.

Although Old Skull garnered brief notoriety around the turn of the nineties, mainly because of their tender years (the band’s average age was just nine) and youthful lyrical subject matter, they were generally dismissed as a novelty act. They eventually found an ally in John Peel (who else?), the influential British DJ playing tracks from the group’s debut album
Get Outta School
(Restless, 1989). The record thereby gained attention from a cross-section of the US media, most critics divided as to whether it was impressive for a bunch of kids, or simply unlistenable. Regardless of whichever it was, Old Skull shortly bagged a few slots on national television and also featured extensively in periodicals such as
People, Newsweek
and the
NME.
The unexpected attention then turned to fellow musicians, with Flaming Lips, GWAR and Sonic Youth all offering opening slots to the pre-pubescent punks.

The band’s ‘reputation’ only began to slide once it became known that the Toulon brothers’ father Vern–a former member of New York industrial act Missing Foundation–was not only producing and managing the band, but also writing many of the songs. Nevertheless, Old Skull spun it out for one more album, the much-improved
CIA Drug Fest
(1992). By this time, however, Collins-Davies had been replaced on drums by J P – an interim percussionist, Graham Lindsey, having been grounded by his parents for a month once they’d learned of his involvement in the group …

The Toulon brothers relocated to New York and went on to play in a variety of punk acts (including Planned Collapse and Star Fucking Hipsters), but were both to succumb to drug addiction. J P Toulon–by now himself a father–died on his brother’s birthday, aged just thirty: no exact reason was given for his passing, though it is known that he’d suffered pancreatitis in the months before his death. Tragically, Jamie Toulon was to commit suicide in Lynchburg, Virginia, just seven months later.

Vern Toulon died in May 2001 after strug-glingfor many years. His former wife–the brothers’ mother–also died in a train accident.

Wednesday 24

Peter Christopherson

(Leeds, England, 27 February 1955)

Throbbing Gristle

Coil

Psychic TV

(Various acts)

Better-known among his vast circle of friends and contemporaries as ‘Sleazy’, Peter Christopherson was a graphic artist, photographer and experimental musician. Christopherson was one of three partners who founded the groundbreak-ing art agency Hipgnosis, a company responsible for some of the most notable album designs of the seventies and eighties: among them were such eye-catching sleeves as Al Stewart’s
Year of the Cat
(1976), Yes’s
Going For the One
(1977) and a variety of covers for Pink Floyd, Bad Company and Led Zeppelin. ‘Sleazy’ himself was noted for having produced the series of sleeves that accompanied Peter Gabriel’s first releases. (He also created a lurid window display for Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s
Sex
empo-rium–which caused no little consternation with its scattering of broken, bloodied mannequin parts.)

As a musician, Yorkshire-born Christopherson was one of the original members of Throbbing Gristle, the band credited with kickstarting the industrial scene. This musically diverse act put out four studio albums of bewildering and varied material before splitting in 1981, after which Christopherson–who contributed various instruments, synth and sound samples–joined Psychic TV with Genesis P-Orridge (Neil Megson). At this time, the resourceful Christopherson custom-built his own sampler, which, while not the first-ever of its type, went some way to revolutionising the method by which synthetic music was made in live performance.

Christopherson thereby met his musical and personal partner John Balance (Geoffrey Burton), the pair going on to form Coil, arguably the best–and with some fifteen studio recordings, certainly the most prolific–of his musical projects. Peter Christopherson also recorded solo and worked with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. He died in his sleep, apparently from natural causes.

John Balance died in November 2004.

DECEMBER

Monday 13

Stuart ‘Woolly’ Wolstenholme

(Chadderton, Lancashire, England, 15 April 1947)

Barclay James Harvest

Maestoso

(Various acts)

Barclay James Harvest defied obvious categorisation. Despite a large audience among the UK’s ‘serious’ album-buying set of the mid-1970s, they were more concerned with crafting songs than flexing musical muscle. Self-taught vocalist and pianist ‘Woolly’ Wolstenholme was a Lancashire art student whose love of Mahler and The Beatles made him want to start his own band.

The seeds of BJH were therefore sewn in Saddleworth, Yorkshire, during 1966; the singer/organist (also a dab hand at tenor banjo and horn in his younger days) was joined by his old school pal, John Lees (guitar), plus Les Holroyd (bass) and Mel Pritchard (drums). Signing with Harvest (appropriately), the band put out a first album in 1970: the name ‘Barclay James Harvest’ was apparently drawn at random from a hat. From a promising start, the group were to enjoy steady, if not spectacular sales and a growing live following as the decade wore on. They built a loyal fanbase, but critics remained divided throughout BJH’s career: the band remained unfazed, even adopting one slight as a song title with ‘A Poor Man’s Moody Blues’ (1977). Despite this, BJH’s melodic, introspective records sold consistently across Europe–particularly in Germany where two of their long-players were number ones and another remained on the chart for almost four years. The best-remembered albums are probably
Everyone Is Everybody Else
(1974),
Time Honoured Ghosts
(1975, UK Top Forty) and
Octoberon
(1976, UK Top Twenty). Although the core of BJH recorded well into the nineties, Wolstenholme had become unhappy with the band’s apparent move away from the ‘symphonic’ rock at which he excelled, and he departed in 1979.

The musician reappeared quickly with an average solo album called
Maestoso
(1980), which he toured in support of British songstress Judie Tzuke. The record and tour’s lukewarm response made Wolstenholme think again about the rock industry and the next album was shelved, the musician instead making a decent living from television and film soundtracks, as well as organic farming, a more recently developed passion. A couple of attempts to revitalise BJH with Lees encouraged Wolstenholme to return to the studio, where his aborted second solo record was finally completed and issued in 1994. In the last decade of his life, Stuart ‘Woolly’ Wolstenholme was surprisingly prolific, releasing three new collections under the group name Maestoso, and touring once again with Lees.