Keith LeBlanc – d. April 2024

You sit down to play; the kit becomes
an orchestra, a symphony of drums,
super-heavy, hi-hat like a ticking bomb,
paranoid snare and depth-charge toms,
kick-drum beating rebellion in sixteenths,
no compromise, no sell-out, no relief.

Read about Keith LeBlanc here

Chris Cross – d. March 25th 2024

Sooner or later we will return
to an Eden of our own; yours
will be lush and romantic, bass
amped up and folded back until
it becomes a hymn to lost youth.

Read about Chris Cross here

Steve Harley – d. March 17th 2024

Even through the soup of medium wave
I heard that glimmer of guitar, a six-string
smile, riffing like a wink. Song devises codes
of joy; you broke every one, over and over.

Read about Steve Harley here

Karl Wallinger – d. March 10th 2024

Some songs blunder in,
shouting their own names,
angry, but with no solutions.
Others wear different skin,
turn inertia into flames,
kindle private revolutions. 

Reaf about Karl Wallinger here

Eric Carmen – d. March 2024

America wears a disguise of song,
usually too long,
torn between the loud and the lush,
and always too much.
You sang anguish into a soft spell
all by yourself,
and when I dial you on the telephone
nobody’s home. 

Read about Eric Carmen here

Tony Green – d. March 4th 2024

In One! A double - no, a treble bed.
In Two! The only colours; black and red.
In Three! The working man and his pleasures.
And Bully’s Special Prize! The drama of small measures. 

Read about Tony Green here

Dave Myers – d. February 28th 2024

Butter and fillet steak comes up
to room temperature in the old kitchen.
In the yard a motorcycle clicks as it cools.
I hear laughter like the clink of cutlery,
and I set a place at the table for one.

Read about Dave Myers here

Alan Brownjohn – d. February 23rd 2024

I watched you write me into a poem,
your old shirt cuffs ironed to a shine.
We are all in a sonnet for the unlucky,
far from who we want to be, known
only to ourselves and those who mine,
like you, the language of subtlety.

Read about Alan Brownjohn here

Stan Bowles – d. February 24th 2024

We love our mavericks; deft,
defiant, playing impudent one-twos
with two fingers in the air,
a betting slip and a phone number
hidden in their wrinkled sock. 

Read about Stan Bowles here

Pamela Salem – d. February 21st 2024

I stumbled across you in the labyrinth
of childhood; serpentine, seductive,
waiting around the corner in a place
where television was a two-way mirror,
and yearning was love without a script. 

Read about Pamela Salem here

John Savident – d. February 21st 2024

Here are roses and a meat cleaver,
Scotch & Threat and hearty laughter,
a slug of pain for a luckless lover.
Life is large, but you were larger.

Read about John Savident here

Ewen MacIntosh – d. February 19th 2024

Have you met him yet?
The empty man at the empty desk,
gloriously flat, outrageously bland,
playing a ‘Don’t Know’ in a slough
of ‘Strongly Disagrees’. 

Read about Ewen MacIntosh

Alexei Navalny – d. February 16th 2024

If you would speak up, know this;
the right word is a wedging of doors,
a filling of lamps, a bending of bars,
a flare shot into the sky, a hand
raised to say no more, a tuning fork
before the choir sings, maybe not
today or tomorrow, but sometime. 

Read about Alexei Navalny here

Steve Wright – d. February 12th 2024

A celestial On Air light blinks
and the airwaves open up.
The music is drowned out
by the wild sounds of a zoo
where animals cannot sing
and the jocks are not serious.

Read about Steve Wright here

Damo Suzuki – d. February 9th 2024

Here is a song sung in code,
in chant, howl, shriek, moan,
sung as in future days, old
now but once new, stoned
yet stone cold sober. Don’t
turn the light on; leave it alone.

Read about Damo Suzuki here

Michael Jayston – d. February 5th 2024

The screen role demands
a particular Englishness;
weary, morose, soft hands
but hard eyes, finesse
but not flash. I wonder who
might fit the part? You. 

Read about Michael Jayston here

Barry John - d. February 4th 2024

Daw'r chwalfa; mae bob amser yn ei wneud.
I fyny yn mynd y Garryowen; daw'r bêl lawr
mewn dimensiwn arall, yn wrthwynebol ymlaen
wedi'i rendro'n ddiffrwyth, yn ansymudol.
Blink, ac mae'r oes aur wedi diflannu.

The breakdown comes; it always does.
Up goes the Garryowen; the ball comes
down in another dimension, opposing
forwards rendered limbless, immobile.
Blink, and the golden age is gone.

Read about Barry John here
 

Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett – d. February 3rd 2024

What your bass taught me:
it is felt before it is heard;
it is conjured from smoke;
it is organiser and upsetter;
it is soul, spine and culture. 

Read about Aston 'Family Man' Barrett here

Ian Lavender – d. February 2nd 2024

Who did you think you were kidding?
You were always a week away from
your call-up, juvenile lead in the
rustic drama of memory, mourning
an old movie and a dead soldier
for every sad stitch in your scarf. 

Read about Ian Lavender here

Wayne Kramer – d. February 2nd 2024

I saw Detroit aflame again tonight,
from Twelfth Street to the Ballroom.
They said it was a stray spark from
an incendiary guitar, played fast by
a hostile witness to the apocalypse.

Read about Wayne Kramer here