No cure for originality

I’ve always thought of Robert Smith, 50 today, as being somewhat Japanese. I think the kind of music he produced with The Cure would have worked very well in J-Pop. Walking the streets of Tokyo and Osaka today are many young people who look like Robert Smith did in his youth thirty years ago. A particular look that started with him is peculiarly suited to the Japanese physique. I’m talking about a time well before the ghastly Goths arrived to claim him for their own. I’m making a big thing of people turning 50 this year. Very soon it’s going to happen to me. Today it’s happening to Robert Smith. Now, despite his long, hirsute and black-clad Cure career, the best song he ever made with that band was the b-side of their very first single, 10.15 Saturday Night (the a-side was Killing An Arab). The next best thing he did was jump in as emergency guitarist for Siouxsie And The Banshees mid-tour, stopping them from splitting up early in their career. The rest is his story, but I’d rather have his prologue. My long-lost friend, Ray, is also 50 today. Unlike Robert, nobody looks like Ray. Another true original. Where Robert stooped to conquer, Ray stooped to tie his shoelaces. The view from Hotel High Up gave him a certain prescience. Japanese English might describe Ray as dancing like an octopus army admiring a spaghetti collection. Now, he too has made it to 50. Originality of any kind needs such anomaly structures.



Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/