As a rule, I don’t cry over celebrity deaths. Well, Ian Curtis perhaps, but I was very young, depressed and I think more than a little affected by John Peel’s understated, heartfelt radio announcement. Now I’m older and less depressed, but hearing about Mick Karn’s death from cancer on 4th January really upset me.
My life wears its necklace of crystallised moments and while memories are mostly a set of restrung chimera, the special ones contain a perfect bead of light captured on canvass. My personal art collection includes moonlight in Karnak, sunlight in Petra, making love to someone I truly loved, and the Japan gig at Hammersmith Odeon 1981.
David Sylvian may have been Japan’s frontman, but it was Mick Karn who caught attention with his sharp suit, robotic headnod and balletic bourrées across the stage. The man was the epitome of style and grace, with bass playing that could dig right down to your soul, pluck out your heart and dance pointe on it. His hands were those of a craftsman and it’s no surprise that he was also a talented sculptor, carving those same strong, dextrous fingers, the type that can as easily produce eroticism out of an inert piece of kit as deftly unhook a bra. I treasure my signed brochure of his exhibition at the Hamilton Gallery.
There had been many gigs before, there have been many since, but that night, I think, encapsulated the hopeful cusp of my adult life. I was about to start drama school, finally taking my long overdue leave of home and stretching out into an unknown future. My best friend was at fashion college. Together we primped and prepared ourselves to head for the clubs or student parties with the latter-day punks and burgeoning Romantics. We adorned ourselves carefully for every encounter with the outside world, rummaging through the markets and antique stalls in Kensington, Camden, Lawrence Corner, or my mother’s hoarded clothes from the fifties and sixties, nipped, tucked, adapted. We looked beautiful. We would take the world by storm.
As I’m currently residing in a (freezing) rural community with a bicycle as my only form of transport, old jeans and sweaters are now the order of the day. I don’t mind so much but there’s a part of me grieving for the time when I cared more, when I had the time and resources to indulge in the fun of decoration and reinvention
But it meant more to us than externals. Talking to the same friend the other day, we were analysing the bands that have really made an impact on us over the years and suddenly we made the connection. Our favourite artists either emerged from the Art Schools or developed powerful visuals in parallel to their music: Bowie, Japan, Foxx, Scritti Politti, Fad Gadget, XTC, Ian Dury, Kate Bush, Bill Nelson, Sparks, David Byrne, Roxy Music, Velvet Underground, Laurie Anderson, the list goes on. They were cunning (in the positive sense of the word), not prostitutes for the baubles of fame. They dared to mix into the palette of good musicianship literature, philosophy, dance, drama, fashion and multimedia, to produce an original blend of rhythms, mood, experimentation, soundscapes and lyrics which bludgeoned you from behind.
I’d completely forgotten that I used to spend long hours in my teens designing clothes and cities. I have a mild form of Synesthesia – say a word, I see a colour, play music, I see choreography – yet I haven’t really done any art since then and I’m not sure why that visual compulsion got switched off. Shortly before Mick Karn’s death, a friend sent me a sketchbook and pencils – so perhaps it’s time to reclaim my art and my style, because I don’t believe our dreams should die with our heroes.
If life didn’t turn out quite as originally envisaged, it’s still had plenty of sparkle underscored by the never-ending soundtrack of amazing artists. Thank you for providing some of the magic, Mick. That’s something that can never die.
Mick Karn: 24 July 1958 to 4 January 2011
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