There is a door…

Martin posted this on twitter this morning:

It’s very sad news, and I know that all fans will join me in sending deepest condolences to Mick’s family, friends, and former bandmates.

I can’t write a personal eulogy – it’s not my place to do that – but I guess it’s part of the function of Sproutology to note and contextualise Mick’s place in the band, which was of course very significant.

You can go back to the mid 1970s really for that. Paddy, the elder brother with the wild ideas about how music should be, Martin and Mick his devoted acolytes, learning and developing their own playing and ideas, sharing their musical discoveries and tastes in the small world of Witton Gilbert. Mick was of Martin’s age; the two were growing up together, and that sort of friendship is something that never leaves your heart, even if you move apart in your lives and locations. You often rediscover it too late, in my experience, and it’s often this sort of sad event that reminds you – I was fortunate enough last year to give my best childhood friend a hug at the event of his father’s funeral.

And gradually the first incarnation of Prefab Sprout formed, in the hut across the road from the garage in Witton Gilbert, with Mick – a talented guitarist in his own right – having taken on the role of drummer, because a drummer was needed. Hours of rehearsals, jamming, sharing, dreaming turned the noise from the shed into a proper band. A band that was ready to play live and meet the world head on, on its own terms, with a swagger.

And the band that emerged was astonishing. I’ve been fortunate enough to hear recordings of some of the songs – as I type I have a song called “Touch and Go” in my head, one of my favourites from that period. The band is tight as a nut, there’s a very new wave sensibility in the song, and it’s a very different proposition to the path traced from Swoon onwards. There is sheer joyousness about the playing, it’s being done for love and not commerce.

We really just get a sense of this from the very early singles on which Mick played, and some of the b-sides such as “Tin Can Pot”, which came from that period and retain some of the same attack and bravado.

Mick moved on to look for his own musical path, Prefab Sprout moved into a different sort of direction, and although much was gained, a great deal was also lost. Such is the march of time. The Faustian pact of the record deals brought the band to us, the fans, but perhaps the earlier incarnation was, well, just a bit more fun?

I had one brief encounter with Mick and Family a decade or more ago. In the days of the Sproutnet forum his family posted to ask for any memories of the Sprout period and music as Mick was getting married, and the board regulars put together a bootleg compilation, “From Hull to Hawaii”. A few of these were produced for fans in exchange for a charity donation, probably less than 100 in total though I forget the exact numbers, I was producing them in my spare bedroom as CD-Rs. We got a few signed by Mick which were distributed at random in the charity group, and of course I retained one myself. It’s one of my proudest possessions.

Without Mick and Martin, we wouldn’t have Prefab Sprout. Not at all. Paddy would probably be an ex teacher of English, writing songs in his spare time, a sort of musical Father MacKenzie. We owe Mick a great debt, and Martin our most profound sympathy.

There is a charitable donation page in Mick’s memory here. Dig deep, and all that.