Green’s playing showed the young aspirant how one guitarist could sound like two by integrating brief solo licks into the gaps of staccato rhythm playing. Jagged and frenetic, Johnson’s style emerged from listening to Mick Green of the late ‘50s/early ‘60s British combo Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. A new generation of guitar heretics and anti-heroes was paying attention. Nothing could have sounded further from the rock “god” theatrics of contemporaries like Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, and Brian May. Cutting through their tight, barren rhythm section was Wilko’s Fender Telecaster, emitting elemental blues-based patterns via a simple tube amp. In that subtraction, the band added speed and unadorned rawness. Feelgoods stripped rock and R&B down to its bare bones, leaving only a skeletal sound that time and technology had seemingly bypassed. Unknown Pleasures #2… on Unknown Pleasures #5.When Stupidity hit the top of the British album charts during punk’s breakout year, 1976, it was apparent that a new spirit was in the air, and it was out of step with the pop gloss of glam and the complexity of prog that then ruled Britannia’s rock waves. Unknown Pleasures #2… on Unknown Pleasures #2: Stephen… Unknown Pleasures #2… on Unknown Pleasures #1: Mark… Susan Walker on The Piper: Podcast Review… Subi shah on Things Fell Apart by Jon Ronso… Markgorman on Things Fell Apart by Jon Ronso… Search for: More Mark Gorman Blogs you may likeĪ Streetcar named De… on A Streetcar named Desire by Sc… Join 2,624 other subscribers Search my Blog here. I strongly recommend that you see this fascinating insight into how a unique man prepares for death. It makes him seem all the more vulnerable. Other than the brief Daltrey moments we see no reference to his family other than the revelation that his wife, and childhood sweetheart, passed away a decade ago. What also makes the film remarkable is his solitude. What makes it spectacular is Temple’s clever editing and the recurring death motifs (a shadowy behooded figure stalks the background constantly – perhaps the companion of the Bergmanesque Reaper). It’s a miraculous achievement and feels incredibly intimate as you are drawn into Johnson’s nadir. Only, he doesn’t die – the documentary begins in early 2013 and Johnson is alive to this day.īut, in the belief that these are his last days on earth Johnson stalks the world in a sort of purgatory as he says his farewell to adoring fans, records a valedictory album with Roger Daltrey and philosophises on the meaning of death, completely free of self pity. Temple was recruited to film the last eight months of Johnson’s life after he was diagnosed with terminal Pancreatic Cancer. A central motif is taken from the Seventh Seal where Johnson plays Chess with the Grim Reaper played by…Johnson. It’s this aspect of his personality that fires Temple’s imagination because, throughout, Temple riffs off Johnson’s fevered imagination and regular quotations from Shakespeare, Milton etc and sets these against outtakes from the likes of Tarkovsky movies. At one point in his unlikely career he was a school teacher (English I assume). For a start, Wilko Johnson, who appears on stage to be a bit of a clown and who talks with a wide boy London estuary accent, is actually incredibly well read and educated. But don’t assume for one second that this means the 92 minutes lacks colour. The format is possibly unique in that the documentary only really features one individual, the eponymous character, with a few fleeting contributions from The Who’s Roger Daltrey. Julien Temple has a reputation for musical oddities – he rose to fame with the Sex Pistols’ Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle and his Dr Feelgood documentary, Oil City Confidential, was highly regarded – it was presumably during the making of the latter that he developed his relationship with their legendary axe wielder that led to his following Wilko’s pancreatic cancer story that is the basis of ‘The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson’.
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