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John McKay’s Reactor - Sat Sept 27th 2025 8pm-10pm
John McKay’s Reactor - Sat Sept 27th 2025 8pm-10pm
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The Scream, the debut album from Siouxsie & the Banshees, was released
late enough in the punk era to bear some claim as the first post-punk
album, with only minor traces of 'punk' and enough hints of what had
come even earlier to feel utterly new.
Siouxsie was clearly the focus of the band, but the sonic dynamo was
John McKay, composer of most of the album's music and hit singles, such
as Hong Kong Garden, while simultaneously creating a wholly new guitar
sound that was harsh and brittle, yet melodically intoxicating, best
articulated by a confounded Steve Albini many years later, ". . . only
now people are trying to copy it, and even now nobody understands how
that guitar player got all that pointless noise to stick together as
songs".
Many of the most influential guitarists of the past four decades
credited John as a major influence, including Geordie from Killing Joke,
Jim Reid of The Jesus And Mary Chain, U2's The Edge, Thurston Moore,
Johnny Marr,and even the two guitarists who followed him into The
Banshees – The Cure's Robert Smith and Magazine's John McGeoch.
McKay's burgeoning status as the anti-guitar hero came to a sudden halt
when he and Banshees drummer Kenny Morris – at artistic odds with
Siouxsie, bassist Steve Severin and manager Nils Stevenson – fled the
band just after the start of a tour in support of the group's second
album, Join Hands.
It became a major music paper scandal and eventually the subject of a
BBC documentary, with Siouxsie's vitriol at the situation working its
way into the lyrics of a later Banshees b-side, 'Drop Dead /
Celebration'.
Aside from a solitary single on Marc Riley's In Tape label some years
later, McKay went silent.
So, it is a revelation for many to learn that numerous excellent
recordings were made by McKay in the immediate years following his
abrupt departure from The Banshees.
Unheard by all but a very few, featuring drummer Kenny Morris, Mick
Allen from Rema Rema, Matthew Seligman of the Soft Boys, longer-term
collaborator Graham Dowdall (Nico / Ludus) and John's wife, Linda… the
latter three of whom are now all sadly deceased.
Sixes And Sevens is an historic lost album bearing fair claim as the
lost treasure of the post-punk era, the album collects eleven compelling
studio tracks. A prelude to the great surprise of John's return to live
performance, with a fresh new band and a number of live shows in the
offing. John McKay’s Reactor will feature the lad ‘imself on guitar, Jen
Brown (The Priscillas) on vocals, Jola (Adam & The Ants, The Priscillas)
on drums, and Billy King on bass.
