Tuesday, November 09, 2010

The greatness and perfection of John Mohan

Lawrence said in 1982 that the guitar Maurice Deebank used on Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty “made a sound like pins popping in your head”. John Mohan, who later joined Felt and also authored a similar effect on his contributions to The Servants’ recordings, is the only other guitarist who can make that sound.

Mohan's 1986/7 demos, just issued by Edition 59, are essential to old Felt fans, new Clientele fans and anyone who ever thought ‘what if Deebank’s album Inner Thought Zone had the greatness and perfection we dared dream it would?'.

What we really need after this is for The Servants demos from their very brief reformation in 1998 to be released. They are at least 8,000 times better than the official versions recorded by David Westlake with a much less complementary backing band and later released on the Play Dusty For Me album. They deserve to be heard.

Unfortunately, Westlake doesn’t share my opinion and as a solicitor won’t (allegedly) take kindly to those Servants demos being uploaded. A shame.

No comments: