In the summer of 1991, I attended a gig in Brighton where a fledgling young band had previously courted controversy at an Oxbridge ball.
They gained notoriety and their picture was slapped on the front of the NME, with the catchy play-on headline, “Punt’s Not Dead”! The band from Blackwood, South Wales….The Manic Street Preachers had arrived.
I wasn’t impressed with them. Glam Rock, smattering of the New Romantic and Punk creation with an androgynous style (I kinda liked that). I think half the Left in Brighton turned up to see the gig and afterwards in the pub for the postmortem. I found the musicwanting and derivative. It had an edge in a trendy amateurish way though one of my favourite songs from that time was the angst punk, You Love Us. But in saying that I liked their raw edge angsty left-wing artistry. I liked their album covers.
I remember Richey on front page of the NME carving “4 Real” on his arm. And as someone who had self-harmed (was self-harming at the time) it kinda exposed the state of his mind while spiralling out of control. Sometimes it is hard to find the language to comprehend your distress instead you resort to other forms of expression, a way of saying this is how bad I feel. The rest of the band thought, at the time, Richey’s self-harming was cool rock star chic but to me it reflected a distressed young man culminating with his “disappearance” in early 1995.
And now the case is closed. Richey Edwards is now officially dead. The Manics next album will feature lyrics Richey left behind. I remember when hearing their post-Richey album, Everything Must Go, blew me away with its polished style and upbeat music and it is still one of my favourite albums of the 1990s. There were the influences of Richey on that album such as the raw political passionate, Kevin Carter. I always wonder what happened on the day Richey went missing, part of me hoped he’d disappeared off to Goa but, in reality, he seemed to have simply jumped off the Severn Bridge. He should be remembered for writing some of the most creative, political emotionally raw lyrics and music of the early 1990s.
RIP Richey….
Posted by harpymarx 
