Obituary
One of the greatest ever frontpersons has joined the Watch Tower in the Sky
I Am Damo Suzuki No More
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Musings on the byways of popular culture
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https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/feb/10/rock-singer-damo-suzuki-dies-aged-74
“I was born and I was dead
I’m gonna give my despair”
RIP
Fucking amazing guy. Absolute force of nature.
Can were brilliant both before and after him – but when with him for Tago, Future and Bamyasi they were possibly the best band in the world for a while. Something about his fervid liquid hysteria lifted the whole unit to another level.
“Fervid liquid hysteria” – this is why you get paid the big bucks…
“Fervid liquid hysteria” – blow it out yer arse, Moosey!
Authentic frontier gibberish, moi?
Heckchewerly, Moosie, I found your phrase both telling and magisterially evocative; you are our own Gerard Manley Hopkins!
Thank you. It’s me sprung rhythm.
I’m with Moose on this.
Just to add that my youth would have been a far lesser thing without Can and Damo during this period. A tonic for the imagination.
Indeed.
Tago Mago, in particular, is my “go-to” Can.
I feel this will be an appropriate tribute in my digital radio show (1978-tomorrow) next week:
Be brave. Play all 14 minutes of Mother Sky.
Some years ago, I managed to get my band to play Connection – but they drew the line at Mushroom…
…wimps…although I suppose we might have been bottled off…
Wasn’t he recruited because he looked right? Without any kind of audition? And didn’t he just make shit up as he went along, without even being able to actually sing or speak English very much? This is what made Can so very, very great.
But yeah. Taylor Swift. Right.
Sounds like Scarlet Rivera and her recruitment to the Rolling Thunder Tour.
Why the unnecessary swipe at TS? What relevance has she to this conversation? Do you feel like Billy Big Bollocks now with your totally random and juvenile posturing…”Ooh, look at me everyone, I’m so edgy putting down a mere pop star with my oh-so-superior taste”.
Hey, Black Type, why the unnecessary swipe at me? What relevance have I to this conversation? Do you feel like Billy Big Bollocks now with your totally random and juvenile posturing…”Ooh, look at me everyone, I’m so edgy putting down a mere Afterword comment with my oh-so-superior taste”.
(Love the “oh-so-superior”!)
I would just like to add to this unedifying squabble – I have never knowingly listened to more than 45 seconds of Can and, shamefacedly, I admit to thinking “Who he?” when first reading the OP.
I’m hoping The Chiefs win tonight so we get lots of shots of Ms Swift
Persuading people to watch American football… Terrifying power. Let’s hope that her next boyfriend isn’t a cast member on Mrs Brown’s Boys.
The film of Can doing ‘Spoon’ is utterly terrifying, from the look in the keyboard player’s eyes to the camera crew and various randoms wandering around. Damo wreathed in his hair. And then the juggler comes on stage. Jaki and Holger just keep on with the beat.
There’s no effing squabble here, LoW, nothing requiring the intercession of a referee (poss. Junes in his Rules ice-cream outfit). There’s just a weirdo kneejerk reaction to the mere mention of her name.
That offending comment in full:
“But yeah. Taylor Swift. Right.” Imagine that said with an admiring *phew*, followed by “now that’s what I call real music!”
The real problem with Swift is not her music, which is too anodyne to cause offence, but her fans, and not all of them. Just the adults terming themselves “Swifties” and going to concerts with their daughters. Swift is a cult, a Western K-Pop Idol. Her fans adore her, not her music. They love the *idea* of her. Fine for teenage girls – role model and all that. But cultists do not tolerate criticism – even implied – of their venerated idol. I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of Can. I certainly wouldn’t sledge into any commenter who thought they were shit, or mentioned their name in a way I imagined to be derogatory. That’s the behaviour of a real cult.
You first offer a Swift “Right” then expand into a much longer “too anodyne” para – fair enough, your opinion is as valid as anyone’s. I’m only saying “Never liked Can and I fear I never will” though perhaps an obituary thread is not the place for that. Time for lunch methinks.
I don’t care if you never like Can and never will. I don’t care if anyone likes Taylor Swift. I don’t care if anyone’s opinion is as valid as anyone else’s. I don’t even care if it’s lunchtime. I care only for the scents and sounds of nature.
Oh sorry, I’ve had beans
You brought her up, apropos of nothing, in a totally unrelated context. And have now proceeded in your usual faux-witty yet condescending way to enlighten us all on why she’s beneath your lofty standards, and in the process had a gratuitous snark at those misguided fools who dare to enjoy her music. You could have just stopped after the tribute to Damo and Can, but no…
Perhaps you’re the one with the obsession.
I don’t think “faux-witty” is quite as good as “oh-so-humorous”, but “oh-so-superior” is a keeper. Thank you.
I rest my case.
You’re a good man.
…. Albert Black Type
From the best album XTC ever made.
…and John Leckie.
A reminder that the 2024 version of the Dukes of Stratosphear would be making records that sound like Kings of Leon or Devendra Banhart.
Yeah. The first Dukes album was made 15 years after the end of the sixties. 15 years ago now it was 2009 which was last Tuesday as far as I’m concerned.
Well Lodes, on Spotify this track has had over 42 million plays. Second has a mere 7 million so this is probably a good place to start.
Time for my education to commence…
Got to 47 seconds this time. I truly am not worthy
In fairness, I think one can credit Suzuki for paving the way for Einar’s much loved ( by him) contributions to the Sugarcubes.
My pals Fuzzy Lights backed him up a few years ago. It goes without saying, really – he was totally bonkers.
Fuzzy Lights, eh? Album 3 years ago, decent enough. What now?
Last seen at Half-Ton studios in Dec 2022. I work with the partner of one of them, I’ll ask.
Malcolm Mooney, the previous vocalist, is – very improbably – still alive.
Admire his “Can do” attitude
Apparently he suffered from tinnitus.
Who doesn’t?
Tin-nitus. A condition of the ear can-al.
Everything about Malcolm is improbable.
He was the real influence on MES, though the Pope of Prestwich never admitted it.
This seems as good a time as any to post this gem from my old pals Mongo Shakers ( who were chuffed the other week to be the opening track on Maconie’s Freakzone).
I’m sure Tamo would approve.
Well – that’s just brilliant!
It really is! Wonderfully entertaining. Thanks @Junglejim
I enjoyed that. Excellent.
Apart from the bits with Noel Edmonds.
Some chums backed him in 2010.
Before checking out some of the clips above, I had never heard anything by Can. Based on what I had read of them over the years, they are more tuneful than I expected – although they are not quite my cup of tea.
However, the late Damo sounds like a real character – something that seems to be increasingly rare in music. I expect, like many characters, he was probably hard to live with on a daily basis, but it definitely sounds like he added to the gaiety of at least some people’s nations. RIP.
There is a documentary called Energy about his colon cancer (first diagnosed when he was just 33) and his relationship with his wife whom he met in 1985.
This news has sent me back to Can and reminded me how much I like them.
Wish it wasn’t deaths that keep reminding me of or introducing me to music but it’s increasingly the case. And surely to continue to be ever more so. Sounds to have been a true original. RIP.