Orpheus ascending

"exalted companion of T.Rex nights"

I have a pink beret upstairs in my wardrobe. It has the Captain's graph on the label. I doubt either of us is sensible. It is a treasured item, for I've retained a fond affection for the Captain & his crew since March 1977. Seems like yesterday to me. Can't beat a pink beret and a pair of sunglasses.

Sometime in March '77 Marc & the Damned end up at Portsmouth to complete a short but emphatically brilliant UK tour. A triumph! Even the music press are beginning to warm to the once-clown prince and has-been. There is an encore at Portsmouth which lasts for about 14 minutes as Marc, his band of session-stalwarts, and the Damned pile into an elongated mental version of Get it on! Marc's lead is blistering. The Captain's been nagging him all tour to play more solos and for longer - typically he doesn't. But perhaps that's clever, because when they come they astonish all who witness them. Less is indeed more! When you play a copy of this to the unitiated they still find it incomprehensible.

 Meanwhile, the Captain these days has moved off bass and plays progressively elongated solos (on a SG) of which Mr. Gilmour would be proud. But he's been doing it for all those years that Marc has been dead!  Savage irony.

So Dandy in the Underworld appeared and Marc, as did Orpheus, ascended once more to the forefront of music consciousness. As prophetic as ever, and, true to his own lyrics, he came out of the cocaine murk, cleaned up his act, got a shit-hot band together and............disappeared back into Hades, just like Orpheus.

Unbelievable.

Steve Harley, a guest backing-singer on the title-track, has never really got over this, as have any of us. It's hard to imagine how much Marc crammed into those big five years when you look back.

The world is a poorer place without this genius.