Scott Walker: 30 Century Man

Tonight we see a film with my partner's parents. The film we see is 'Scott Walker: 30 Century Man', as her folks are big Scott Walker fans. The film tells the story of his transformation from teen idol Scott Engel, through his time with The Walker Brothers and then into his solo career. His records gradually got weirder and weirder and sales declined. Save for a brief Walkers reunion he disappeared until a record label finally let him do things his way. Even then his output was less than prolific, averaging about one record every ten years. His way turned out to be very avant-garde. It is described as exploring the boundaries between chord and dis-chord. I have to say that, although the programme probably overdid his later stuff, I found myself rather taken with the pretentious experimentalism of his material. Particularly with a song about the hanging of Mussolini, which for the recording required a percussionist to punch a slab of meat with his fists.



There are many gushing contributions from celebrity fans who you feel are courtesy of David Bowie's address book, he is credited as being as executive producer - Damon Albarn, Johnny Marr (yes him again), Julian Cope (no idea my favourite poet was a fan and even compiled an album of Scott's stuff), Marc Almond, Radiohead, Simon Raymonde, Jarvis Cocker and many more. Quite a cult following.

His songs are dark, depressing, daunting, discomforting and even disturbing, all the d's. My kind of stuff. I'm intrigued. I can feel a CD purchase or two coming on.