The Anarchist Has Left The Building
On Saturday, July 27, 2013, after I finished proofing the print copy of Hoods, Hot Rods, and Hellcats, I sent the small list of corrections to Brian Roe. I was floored the next day when I got on Facebook and saw that Mick Farren was dead. He had been performing at the Borderline Club in London the day before, as part of the Atomic Sunshine Festival, when he collapsed on stage.
I don’t really know what to say, except that he was one of my idols, he was a fellow Gene Vincent fan, he was kind enough to write the introduction to my anthology, and I think of him as my friend.
I'm glad he died on stage with his boots on, but most of all I'm glad he didn't die in America—far worse than being a country that had come to frighten him, we are a country he couldn't afford to die in.
"Much of what we now call the paranormal is, I'm quite convinced, the product of forms of science and mathematics we have yet to even approach. As to the knowledge of our inevitable death being a spur to inquiry and creativity, I think it's much more basic than that. Humans are curious monkeys who stood on their hind legs to look over the tall grass, and we just can't stop doing it. In fact, I actually do my best to ignore individual mortality. My real hope and faith is that the Ancient Tribe of the Searching Ones will survive and continue, and that I can in my own way add a couple of insights to the common store of knowledge theory and fantasy. That's what really continues." —Mick
