It's been a peculiar few days. Got up at 3.30am on Friday 22nd to go catch a flight to Paris and caught J's post about the passing of our friend and utter inspiration, Greg Shaw. I knew he hadn't been well but I never exactly expected an exit so soon. It was made all the more poignant because we were about to be part an international breach of the peace keeping force heading France-ward to see The Barracudas and The Nomads. With the inclusion of Chris Wilson playing with the former and Roy Loney in town to play an acoustic set at the Roberta Bayley/Leee Black Childers photofest, there was heightened Groovies activity expected in the area. More about which later.
It's been a heady few days and I'm not in the condition to make much sense of any of it right now. It's 6.30am Monday and although I got up to go to work, I can't face it so I'm gonna bum around and try to make sense of what has gone down. I can tell you this though. There would have been no NBT if it hadn't been for the example and constant straight down the line enthusiasm that this guy breathed into his love for rock and roll. This is no time for the psychedelicized psoap opera that might have made up part of his real life but which ultimately made him the great man he was. With weaknesses like we all. When Andy Shernoff and I were in Kassel recently we talked about how Greg was really the catalyst of it all. The guy that took zinedom from a Sci-Fi thing into music writing. I just read Billy and Miriam's testament to Greg in The Norton Newsletter and had just been recalling the "Berlin Incident" myself. So more later, I'll try to make sense of all this when I'm a little more compus mentus. Needless to say we've lost a true Commander and Keeper of the Faith and that's not something that fills me with any confidence at all. I can tell you that his spirit was looming large in Paris this weekend though and I'll be pouring over those Bomps today when I should be working. It's the very least the man deserves...
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