Mick Farren

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Mick Farren (left) 2007

Michael Anthony "Mick" Farren (* 3. September 1943 in Cheltenham , Gloucestershire , † 27. July 2013 in London , England ) was a British journalist , science fiction - author and singer , who work closely with the counter-culture and the Underground in Britain was connected. He lived in Los Angeles .

Act

As a musician

Farren was the singer of the protopunk band The Deviants from 1967 to 1969 , with whom he released three albums. In 1970 his solo album Mona - The Carnivorous Circus appeared , on which Steve Peregrin Took , John Gustafson and Paul Buckmaster participated. After that, he stopped his musical activities to concentrate on writing.

In the mid-1970s, he briefly revived his music career and released the EP Screwed Up , the album Vampires Stole My Lunch Money and the single Broken Statue . His journalist colleague Chrissie Hynde from NME and Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson involved. Since then, he has only recorded occasional musical activities. He collaborated with Wayne Kramer on Who Shot You Dutch? and Death Tongue , with Jack Lancaster on The Deathray Tapes and with Andy Colquhoun on The Deviants albums Eating Jello With a Heated Fork and Dr. Crow .

In addition, he wrote texts for various musician friends. He worked with Lemmy Kilmister , with whom he wrote Lost Johnny for Hawkwind and Keep Us on the Road and Damage Case for Motörhead . With Larry Wallis he wrote When's the Fun Begin? for the Pink Fairies and various titles for Wallis' solo album Death in a Guitar Afternoon . He wrote the lyrics for Wayne Kramer's single Get Some in the mid-1970s and other lyrics in the 1990s.

As an author

During the early 1970s he wrote for the British underground press such as the International Times and founded the comic book series Nasty Tales , which he successfully defended against allegations of profanity . He later wrote for the mainstream -Magazine New Musical Express (NME) for which he the article The Titanic Sails At Dawn ( dt .: sailing the Titanic at dusk ) wrote an analysis about what the plight of the contemporary in his opinion Rock music and ultimately led to the emergence of punk .

He is the author of over 20 science fiction novels. His first novel The Texts of Festival (1973) is set in a post-apocalyptic future in which today's rock music is the basis of religion. The DNA Cowboys - tetralogy ( The Quest of the DNA Cowboys , 1976 Synaptic Manhunt , 1976 The Neural Atrocity , 1977, and The Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys , 1989), in its mixture of elements of the Underground -literature and Science -Fiction are considered a forerunner of cyberpunk . His novel The Armageddon Crazy , published in 1989, is set in the USA, where fundamentalists rule and undermine the constitution after 2000. The series to Victor Renquist ( The Time of Feasting, 1996, Dark Lost , 2000, More Than Mortal , 2001, and Underland, 2002) belongs to the realm of urban vampire - Fantasy . On May 3, 2010, Farren announced in his weblog that he was working on another novel about Victor Renquist with the working title Renquist V , which has not been published.

Farren wrote more than ten non-fiction books, mostly biographies (including four about Elvis Presley ), autobiographical and books on culture (for example The Black Leather Jacket ) and poetry. From 2003 to 2008 he was a columnist for the weekly Los Angeles CityBeat .

Other activities

Farren organized the Phun City Festival in 1970 . For a long time he was associated with the British Hells Angels , who provided security for Phun City ; they even awarded him a badge of honor , which he was allowed to use for his first solo album Mona . He was a prominent activist for the British White Panthers Movement , a group that organized free food and other support for free festivals such as the Windsor Free Festival .

death

Mick Farren collapsed from a heart attack on July 27, 2013 while performing with his band The Deviants on the stage at The Borderline in London. The performance took place as part of The Atomic Sunshine One Day Festival. He died as a result of this heart attack in a hospital in London.

Discography (excerpt)

with The Deviants
  • Ptooff! (1967, Underground Impresarios / Decca Records )
  • Disposable (1968, Stable Records)
  • The Deviants 3 (1969, Transatlantic Records)
  • Eating Jello With a Heated Fork (1996, Alive Records)
  • The Deviants Have Left The Planet (1999, compilation )
  • This CD Is Condemned (2000, Alive Records)
  • On Your Knees, Earthlings (2001, Alive Records)
  • Dr. Crow (2002, Track Records)
solo
  • Mona - The Carnivorous Circus (1970, Transatlantic Records)
  • Vampires Stole My Lunch Money (1978, Logo Records)
  • To The Masterlock (2005, live album , Captain Trip Records)
Collaborations
  • Wayne Kramer & Mick Farren - Who Shot You Dutch? (1987)
  • Wayne Kramer - Death Tongue (1991, Progressive Records)
  • Tijuana Bible - Gringo Madness (1993)
  • Mick Farren & Jack Lancaster - The Deathray Tapes (1995, Alive Records)

bibliography

Novels
  • The Texts of Festival (1973)
  • The Tale of Willy's Rats (1974)
  • The Quest of the DNA Cowboys (1976)
  • Synaptic Manhunt (1976)
  • The Neural Atrocity (1977)
  • The Feelies (1978)
  • The Song of Phaid the Gambler (1981, in the US in two volumes: Phaid the Gambler , 1986, and Citizen Phaid , 1986)
  • Protectorate (1984)
  • Corpse (1986, also as Vickers )
  • Their Master's War (1988)
  • The Long Orbit (1988, also as Exit Funtopia )
  • The Armageddon Crazy (1989)
  • The Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys (1989)
  • Mars - The Red Planet (1990)
  • Necrom (1991)
  • The Time of Feasting (1996)
  • Back from Hell (1999)
  • Jim Morrison's Adventures in the Afterlife (1999)
  • Darklost (2000)
  • More Than Mortal (2001)
  • Underland (2002)
  • The DNA Cowboys Trilogy (Omnibus, 2002)
  • Kindling (2004)
  • Conflagration (2006)
Short stories
  • The Ants Are Going (1978)
  • The Great Elvis Presley Look-Alike Murder Mystery (1981)
  • Fun in the Final Days (1990)
  • Zones of Chaos (Collection, 2009)
Non-fiction
  • Elvis in His Own Words (1977)
  • Rolling Stones in Their Own Words (1980)
  • Encyclopedia of British Beat Groups and Solo Artists of the Sixties (1980, with Colin Cross and Paul Kendall)
  • Elvis Presley: The Illustrated Record (1982)
  • The Black Leather Jacket (1985)
    • German: Black Power: The cult of the black leather jacket. Translated by Loretta Wolf. Heyne, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-453-35086-3 .
  • Elvis And The Colonel (1988)
  • CIA Files: Secrets of "The Company" (2000)
  • Give The Anarchist A Cigarette (2001)
  • Gene Vincent: There's One in Every Town (2004)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mick Farren: The Titanic Sails At Dawn . In: NME . June 19, 1976, p. 5-6 ( online ). Online ( Memento of the original from June 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thanatosoft.freeserve.co.uk
personal data
SURNAME Farren, Mick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Farren, Michael Anthony (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British journalist, author and singer
DATE OF BIRTH September 3, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Cheltenham , Gloucestershire
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 2013
Place of death London