I’ve never really been one to mourn the loss of people I do
not know so the public outpouring of grief when a celebrity dies be that a film
star or musician has always left me feeling a bit bemused if I’m honest. Don’t
get me wrong it’s sad when someone dies but in truth the passing of say, Motorhead drummer Philthy Animal Taylor or say BB King felt no different than the list of death listed in my local paper on the
same day these musical greats died popped her clogs.
So it feels a bit strange and hugely contradictory writing
this post about a musician who died this year without a huge fanfare and I
suspect unless you were a fan will have passed most people by without a murmur.
Gavin Clark died on the 16th February this year a
month short of his 46th birthday. Who? I hear a lot of you say but
read on as I suspect most of you may have heard his music maybe without
actually knowing it was him.
I first discovered his music Gavin’s music when he was
fronting Clayhill, I remember getting a free CD with a music magazine (I think
it was Q) with the track One Nerve on it. I’m guessing this was around 2006 as
that was when the album Mine At Last was realised. The lyrics to the track are
quite brutal but Clark’s voice is so beautiful they don’t seem that be so
vicious.
“I see what you're doing here
I'm sick of the shit from you and you're kind
Yeah I, I see what you're doing here
You're breaking me down one nerve at a time”
I immediately bought 3 Clayhill albums Cuban Green, Small
Circle and the aforementioned Mine At Last and started to do a bit of digging
about the band. Although Wikipedia says that the band released 5 albums I can
only find 4 listed the one I don’t have is called Acoustic and currently
retails at about £85 Amazon.
One Nerve was no fluke Clayhill’s music is simply wonderful
and I have just listened to all three albums back to back recently, hence the reason
I am writing this post as I felt a real sense of lost as I listened to them.
If you have every watched a Shane Meadows Film or drama
(This Is England, Somer’s Town etc.) you WILL have heard Gavin Clark as Shane
used his music in all of his work the most famous track is a cover of The
Smiths – Please, Please Let Me Get what I Want which was used in the film This
Is England. It takes a lot of guts to cover a Smiths song and even more to do
it well and in my opinion this version is as good if not better than the
original.
Clark has released music prior to Clayhill under the name
Sunhouse an album that I know means a lot to some people I know. He has also
released music under his own name, as the vocalist of UNKLE and a new
collaboration (recorded prior to his death) under the name of Evangelist is
just about to come out.
It was mentioned that Clark was to become a household name
due to his work with UNKLE and whether than would have ever happened I’m not
sure all I know is I have lost an artist whose work I held very close to my
heart.
A few days after this death his family released this poem Clark
which is pretty much his last piece of work.
I went to look at the
sea
From a distance
If I get too close
she always talks to me
Talks too much
sometimes.
I sat on a wall and
heard just a whisper
‘Come my young one’
Off the wall, down
the path, down the steps, across the pebbles and onto the sand
I sat close leaving
imprints of heels, leaving imprints of hands.
Why are you so brokenhearted she said?
It’s been so long
since you’ve come, when you were young you’d laugh and sing, throw pebbles and
swim
Now you’re fully
grown you only come when it’s bitter and sad, silent, alone.
I took off my socks
and wondered how she’d made an arch from a rock.
The sound of soft
waves went from one ear to an ear, the hint of melody, of salt water tears.
I don’t know I said
Sometimes I’m happy
sometimes I’m sad, sometimes I’m thoughtless and angry and glad to be bad…But
you’re right I only come to you when the world has no sense or release and I
don’t want philosophy. Doctrine, science or grief, to hear the wisdom of
historical fools from men with no teeth and too many rules.
Silence she said and
listen to me each one of these waves are kids of the sea
My children do you
understand?
Sometimes they’re
gentle, sometimes ferocious and wild and blind.
One of her children
washed over my feet and I thought of the back lanes the lights in the street,
the hunger for wealth.
She smiled for me too
I picked up my socks
and I picked up my shoes
Headed back up the
sand, the pebbles the steps, then she told me something I’ll never forget.
How she created the
arch in the rock and the why
I blew her a kiss and
waved her goodbye
I’ll see you tomorrow
I said, I promise I’ll try
I’ll see you tomorrow
I said
Then I cried.
Enough of the sentimentality I guess what I’m saying we lost
some great artists this year Gavin Clark being one of them.
