John McGeoch, Dead At 48



thanks to Mark Ohe for passing along the sad news that former Magazine guitarist John McGeoch passed away earlier this week. I heard something about it on XFM yesterday, went googling when I got home and upon finding nothing, assumed this was a lame prank (keep in mind that XFM was the station that reported the death of Ian Dury --- courtesy of temp. dj Bob Geldof, no less --- some 4 years before the Blockheads genius actually passed away).

McGeoch was one of several icons to make his way through a lineup of Siouxsie & The Banshees (replaced at one point, by Robert Smith) and also played guitar in a particularly lame version of Public Image Ltd., sans Keith Levene or Jah Wobble.

Though much of the above makes McGeoch come off like the answer to a dopey trivia question, his playing with Magazine was astonishing --- he also had a unique, heavily flanged sound that you could spend ages trying to replicate (I've tried it, I know).

Posted: Wed - March 10, 2004 at 12:22 PM      

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