The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (404 page)

Mick Karn (second left), with Japan colleagues David Sylvian, Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri: Their time was Mao

The group’s good looks and heavy use of makeup made them popular with the New Romantic community, and UK hits began to flow at the movement’s height during the early eighties. Japan – who’d switched labels to Virgin in 1980 – proved that they were a cut above the Spandau Ballets and Duran Durans that surrounded them, however, with singles like ‘Quiet Life’ (1981, UK Top Twenty), ‘I Second That Emotion’ (1982, Top Ten) and the remarkable, disquieting ‘Ghosts’ (1982, UK Top Five). While Japan breached the British Top Forty on no fewer than nine occasions between 1981 and 1983, critics enthused further about the band’s comparatively elegant, sophisticated albums. And so distinctive was the bass player’s sound that his contributions to Gary Numan’s
Dance
album (1981) led many to think they were hearing a new Japan production.

His band’s final studio recording,
Tin Drum
(1982), drew comparisons between Karn and Jaco Pastorius, sealing the bassist a decent post-Japan career. Karn was the first of the group to issue a solo album with
Titles
(1982), upon which he played a variety of instruments – the record also featured Barbieri and Jansen. (Sylvian was the only ex-Japan member not to work with Karn, the former front man having blotted his copybook by poaching Karn’s girlfriend.) Karn was in constant demand as a session man – he worked with Kate Bush and Midge Ure – his musical style also lending itself ideally to soundtrack material. Other acts with whom he recorded included the curious Dali’s Car (with Bauhaus singer Peter Murphy) and NiNa (with Kate Pierson of The B-52’s). With Karn and Sylvian having patched up their differences, the original members of Japan then reunited for one final album as Rain Tree Crow in 1990.

Mick Karn continued to release albums into the millennium and also found time to study psychotherapy in his later career. Fans were shocked, however, by the musician’s online revelation in June 2010 that he was fighting an advanced stage of cancer. Friends and fellow musicians rallied to raise funds for his treatment, but Karn’s condition steadily worsened until his death at home in London.

Gerry Rafferty

(Paisley, Scotland, 16 April 1947)

Stealers Wheel

(Various acts)

The deteriorating health of another popular British musician had been subject to even more speculation ahead of his passing at a Bournemouth hospital on the same day.

Scottish singer/songwriter Gerry Rafferty was encouraged to listen to and learn Irish folk songs by his mother; his father was a deaf alcoholic who died when the singer was a teenager. Inspired by The Beatles and Bob Dylan, Rafferty began composing with co-writer Joe Egan at school, and continued while he earned a modest living first at a butcher’s shop and then a shoe shop. The pair formed the shortlived Fifth Column (who released the 1966 single ‘Benjamin Day’) and The Maverix before Rafferty’s stint with later comedy-giant Billy Connolly in the folk/jug band The Humblebums. This spawned a couple of recordings with folk label Transatlantic, who, on the duo’s split, also issued Rafferty’s largely ignored debut solo album
Can I Have My Money Back?
(1971). It was on reuniting with Egan, though, that Rafferty found his first brush with fame under the group name Stealers Wheel. This band surely would have become even bigger had they not been beset with constant line-up alterations and endless litigation. Regardless, Stealers Wheel scored one major international hit with the industry-taunting ‘Stuck In the Middle With You’ (1973, UK/US Top Ten – later used to memorable effect in the Quentin Tarantino movie,
Reservoir Dogs)
and a lesser one with the equally sardonic ‘Star’ (1974, UK/US Top Forty). Another big problem for the band was Rafferty’s apparent diffidence, which resulted in some problematic television appearances and his subsequent replacement on tour by Mott The Hoople’s Luther Grosvenor during the band’s 1973 peak.

With Stealers Wheel wilting as fast as they’d blossomed, Rafferty was, in 1975, forced to take time out before his next move – legal issues preventing him from recording for three years. His 1978 return was, however, dramatic and sublime.

Rafferty’s career was effectively cemented by the global hit ‘Baker Street’ (1978, UK/US Top Three), which was another song that reflected his growing disenchantment with the industry. In one of pop music’s great ironies, this ubiquitous track passed five million radio plays in 2010, apparently having netted the reluctant star over $100,000 a year in royalties since its release. (By contrast, the record’s iconic alto sax solo was performed by fellow Scotsman Raphael Ravenscroft, who received nothing for his work bar a cheque for £27 – which bounced.) ‘Baker Street’’s parent album
City To City
(1978) then went platinum, removing the
Saturday Night Fever
soundtrack from US number one on its way to six-million worldwide sales and securing for Rafferty two further Top Forty singles. In its wake, the follow-up
Night Owl
(1979) was certified gold on both sides of the Atlantic, birthing a spate of further transatlantic hits in the title cut (1979, UK Top Five), ‘Days Gone Down’ (1979, US Top Twenty) and ‘Get It Right Next Time’ (1979, UK/US Top Forty).

Despite such a fine run, Rafferty never once played in the United States; this continued disinterest in touring subsequent albums caused the artist to slip gradually from the public eye, even though he continued to record into the nineties. Rumour has it that Rafferty had such immense issues with self-esteem that he turned down invitations to play with Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney. Perhaps in an effort to offset these problems, the singer – like his father before him – took to the bottle throughout adulthood, which, in 1990, cost him his twenty-year marriage and was to cause severe problems to the singer further down the line. While Rafferty’s former wife Carla and daughter, Martha, remained a source of support to him, many started distancing themselves from a man who’d become a liability in public. There were apparently ‘uncharacteristic’ tales of wrecked hotel rooms and drunken flights, but what separated these from the usual stories of rock excess were that, in almost every case, Rafferty was alone at the time.

‘It has been through some of my darkest moments that I have written my best songs.’

Gerry Rafferty

When stories emerged in 2008 pertaining to unnatural public behaviour (one report alleged of his urinating in a hotel foyer) and finally his brief disappearance, concerns began to emerge regarding Rafferty’s long-term prospects. The peripatetic musician had, in fact, been wary of telling the media where he was living in the first place. Rafferty’s condition appeared to improve after the announcement of his engagement to Italian fashion designer Enzina Fuschini. Rafferty’s new partner also admitted that she’d had no idea of her partner’s fame until some time into their relationship.

However, in the time-honoured manner of alcoholism, the problem returned and Rafferty was admitted to a hospital in Bournemouth, England during November 2010. After appearing to rally – and despite doctors even suggesting that he might overcome his addiction – Rafferty died quietly from liver failure two months later. His memorial service was attended by many with whom he’d worked and whose lives he’d touched over the decades: the service itself was brief and unceremonious. This was doubtless the way Gerry Rafferty would have wanted it.

Thursday 13

Alex Kirst

(Canada, 1963)

The Nymphs

The Trolls (Iggy Pop)

Little is known about the early life of percussionist Alex Kirst, but he began his career with a bang in the late eighties, developing a purposely basic style with New Jersey-formed pop-punks, The Nymphs. The Inger Lorre-fronted band gained some recognition for their eponymous debut album (Geffen, 1991), but had to wait some time for its release and thus became better-known for a series of riotous live performances. Kirst had become a member of the group upon their relocation to Los Angeles in 1985, but the group was to fall apart seven years later when Lorre ran out on them just before a concert.

Recognising his undoubted ability, Iggy Pop invited Kirst out on tour to work as both a musician and composer with his new band (sometimes known as The Trolls), the drummer thus playing alongside his guitarist brother Whitey. Kirst’s distinctive work can be heard on the Iggy Pop albums
Beat Em Up
(2001) and
Skull Ring
(2003).

Alex Kirst died suddenly in January 2011 when he was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver as he strolled down an apparently deserted road in Cathedral City, California. Following the incident, a devastated Whitey described Alex Kirst as his ‘big brother’, stating that his sibling had only ‘gone to the store to get cigarettes.’ Despite a $17,000 reward pledged by Kirst’s ex-wife for information, police were still searching for the driver responsible in late 2011, there being some discrepancy over the type of vehicle involved.

Friday 14

Trish Keenan

(Patricia Anne Keenan - Birmingham, England, 28 September 1968)

Broadcast

Trish Keenan served as the distinctive lead singer of the British alternative/electronica act Broadcast – born as Pan Am Flight Bag in Birmingham during 1995 – for the band’s entire time together. Her hypnotic, disquieting vocals were complemented by the similarly characteristic musicianship of Roj Stevens (keyboard), Tim Felton (guitar) and James Cargill (bass). (The band were to employ a variety of drummers through the years.)

Broadcast’s first EP,
The Book Lovers
(Duophonic, 1996), gained many plaudits, the title cut being an eerie delight and a shoe-in for John Peel’s popular Festive Fifty listeners’ choices that year. The stir prompted Warp to sign the band, issuing the compilation
Work and Non-Work
(1997). This was followed by four studio collections culminating in a joint effort with The Focus Group, the remarkably titled .
. . Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age
(2009); by this time, Broadcast were effectively the Keenan and Cargill duo. Aside from her undeniable vocal prowess, Keenan had continued to drive the project with her constant hunger for new sonic and production effects.