The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (60 page)

The ashes of Sid Vicious were, according to his mother, scattered over the Pennsylvania plot where Nancy Spungen was buried – much against her family’s wishes. Another widely spread story is that Anne Beverley accidentally dropped the urn at Heathrow Airport, and Vicious’s remains were sucked up into the air-conditioning and subsequently blown about the building and its travellers.

DEAD INTERESTING!

‘WHAT DO I GET?’ (SEVERE DEPRESSION,
IT SEEMS)

Very strange is the supposed ‘Curse of The Buzzcocks’, an extraordinary phenomenon affecting icons who have played with the celebrated Manchester punks. The Buzzcocks were one of the young punk bands who opened on several now legendary nights for The Sex Pistols: Sid Vicious died of a self-inflicted overdose (
February 1979)
. Then, less than a year after touring as the band’s support, Joy Division singer lan Curtis hanged himself
(
May 1980)
. Most bizarrely, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain became the third newwave legend to take his own life subsequent to touring with The Buzzcocks
(
April 1994)
: a year before, the Seattle grunge gods had chosen the reformed band to open on their European tour.

Genial Buzzcocks frontman Pete Shelley nowadays says, ‘There’s no need for the supports to know about this. I save it ‘til after the tour.’

MARCH

Sunday 4

Mike Patto

(Michael Thomas McCarthy - Cirencester, Gloucestershire, 22 September 1942)

Patto (Timebox)

Spooky Tooth

(Boxer)

(Various acts)

Mike Patto’s is the classic tragedy of the man who appeared to have it all. A talented musician/singer, Patto played with and for so many diverse acts in his lifetime it would take an entire ‘Rock Family Tree’ to deal adequately with them all. As a young man, though, it was his ability on the games field that impressed most, and he was a county champion boxer in Norfolk as a youth. There wasn’t a lot Patto
couldn’t
do, to be honest. He’d been a good scholar and was popular with women because of his ability on the dance floor (he was a champion here, too), but it is for his musicianship that he is best remembered. (His name-change to ‘Patto’ came from not wanting to sound like ‘McCartney’.) His first band to gain wide notice was a covers act called The Fretmen, with whom Patto appeared on television, while another, The Bo Street Runners (briefly featuring Mick Fleetwood on drums) were offered a contract with Brian Epstein. This, incredibly, was turned down – as was a further contract with Larry Parnes, after intervention from Patto’s father. The first real breakthrough for this dynamic guitarist and singer came in the late sixties, with the group Timebox, who then became Patto. Although Mike Patto still hadn’t achieved huge success, he was invited to join Spooky Tooth in November 1973. The band already had two frontmen in Mick Jones (later of Foreigner) and Gary Wright (who became a successful solo artist); the latter unfortunately proved incompatible with Patto – thus he was on the move once more.

It was while performing with Boxer that Mike Patto learned of his illness. After collapsing during a 1976 American tour, he was diagnosed with lymphatic leukaemia, and the band returned to the UK so that he could commence treatment. Less than three years after the diagnosis, Patto passed away and was buried in his adopted home of Hingham, Norfolk. He is survived by his wife and three children, including his musician son, Michael.

See also
Ollie Halsall (
May 1992); Greg Ridley (
November 2003)

Friday 16

Roy Montrell

(Raymond Montrell - New Orleans, Louisiana, 27 February 1928)

To call him a session man would be hugely unfair, for Roy Montrell was one of the most sought after and inspiring guitarists of his day, playing with Bobby Mitchell, Lloyd Price and Little Richard, but most influen-tially as a member of Fats Domino’s band, after his military discharge in the early fifties. Such was the demand for Montrell’s services – the number of well-known songs on which he performed may well reach into the thousands – that he only ever cut a few sides of his own, including ‘(Everytime I Hear) That Mellow Saxophone’ (1956) and ‘Mudd’ (1960).

Montrell’s glittering career ended tragically though, when – on tour with Domino – he was found dead in his room at the Sonesta Hotel, Amsterdam, apparently from a heroin overdose, the needle and paraphernalia still by his side.

Saturday 17

Zenon De Fleur

(Zenon Hierowski - Shepherd’s Bush, London, 9 September 1951)

The Count Bishops

(Long Pig)

Yet another young musician influenced by Elvis and the blues, Zenon Hierowski built himself a guitar in woodwork classes at fourteen, and a few years later founded his own band, Long Pig. While working as an accountant, Hierowski (who changed his moniker to the more flamboyant ‘De Fleur’, apparently after a studio engineer had said, ‘Look at Zen on de floor!’) joined the band Chrome. As The Count Bishops – Telecaster-toting De Fleur, Dave Tice (lead vocals, replacing Mike Spenser), Johnny Guitar (guitars), Steve Lewins (bass) and Paul Balbi (drums) – the band became one of the best on the live circuit during the era. The Count Bishops were the first to join Chiswick Records ahead of rivals The Hammersmith Gorillas and Roogalator – but they were all to become part of an exciting late-seventies R & B sub-scene that introduced folk to bands like Dr Feelgood and Eddie & The Hot Rods.