07.28.13
Mick Farren (1943-2013)
Mick Farren, UK rocker, author and troublemaker, passed away while performing onstage with his old band, the Deviants.
As a young man I bought Deviants albums, along with his later solo releases, Screwed Up and Vampires Stole My Lunch Money, the latter of which featured charming titles “Half Price Drinks,” “I Want a Drink,” and “Drunk in the Morning,” a trilogy that communicated a certain amount of personal biography.
When I first moved to southern California, Farren was living in LA and writing a weekly column for the long since gone Los Angeles Reader, an alternative newsweekly.
Here’s a bit from the David Frost show, with Farren explaining how he injected a bit of craziness into the Isle of Wight rock festival in 1969.
And here is an excerpt from one of Farren’s book, one which I bought, entitled The Black Leather Jacket:
“It was all too obvious that (the black leather jacket) was my provisional membership card to the Bad Boys … I’m sure my normally level-headed mother saw it as the first rash step down the slippery slope that led all the way to drugs, degradation and cheap women. So, for that matter, did I.
“… I struggled into what was going to be my first cool leather garment. The leather creaked with newness and smelled like the interior of a factory fresh car … My legs seemed longer, my shoulders broader … I looked so damn cool. Mother of God, I was a cross between Elvis and Lord Byron!”