Fight!

There's only one good article in the June 2004 issue of Uncut magazine (which has yet another Beatle on the cover, god save us). It's in the "Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before" section where journo's write up a page of salacious real life gossip regarding stars they've met. This time it's by editor Allan Jones and is all about John Martyn and the famed concert which was finally released as Live At Leeds.

The general gist of the story is as follows... Martyn, bassist Thompson and guest guitarist Kossoff are all extremely pissed before the concert and the aggression level is very high. Kossoff gropes a woman, is bashed by the boyfriend but tells the others that a gang did it. So being a sort of gang themselves they rush out to do a little bashing themselves. When they realise it was just one bloke, Martyn turns around and punches Kossoff in the face with Thompson following up with a whack to the side of his head. Then, somehow, they get on stage and play a gorgeous, gentle long piece of jazz/folk/ambient that belies their general antagonism to everything. However, after the concert, Kossoff breaks a bottle over Martyn's head so he proceeds to bash Kossoff mercilessly until he "opens the door, blood all over the front of his shirt, holding Kossoff like laundry, which he then drops to the floor and kicks".

Now this is the same man whose mild mannered songs from around this time are just plain spectacular. "Solid Air" is one of my favourite albums with it's deep, booming acoustic bass and half mumbled, somnambulistic vocals. So it's strange to hear that he had a violent fucked up side. I'd known that 'he liked a drink' as his display at Wollongong University in late 70s readily testified and I had heard some other things about his hostility but it still comes as a shock to know that beautiful music can still be created by someone with so much violence in them.