Oh no!

Mick Karn died today. The biggest crush of my teenage years (hey, I never claimed to be normal), his was the face that covered one whole wall of my bedroom - and since not that many people shared my enthusiasm, finding photos with which to do the said covering was a pretty full-time task. I joined his fan club and my membership number was 003. I am not kidding.

Mick could also claim part of the credit for Husband and I getting together: at university, I wanted a copy of an album Husband owned, and since Husband was VERY particular about the equipment on which his precious discs were played (this was the time of vinyl, remember) he offered to record it for me if I gave him a blank tape. So I gave him a tape on one side of which I had already recorded Mick Karn's first solo album - a largely instrumental work heavily featuring boingy fretless bass and lots of oboe. Husband couldn't resist a nosey listen and was sufficiently perplexed by what he heard that he had to ask me about it when he returned the tape. He confessed that he was slightly surprised by my musical tastes since they were not the usual suspects found in our little group - mainly Talking Heads and Paul Simon. He was intrigued, I tell you.

After that it was only a matter of........well, quite a lot of months, actually, before Husband and I were an item. So as well as being the focus of the majority of my difficult teenage years, Mick Karn contributed to getting Husband and I together. I am really rather sad he is gone.

(I was also sad to see that Gerry Rafferty has died too, but I didn't fancy him nearly as much.)