It's funny how a name can trigger an image in your brain - almost like a cue for film to start running in some cerebral cinema. You think of the name Bond and instantly you're transported to an exotic casino seated opposite Sean Connery - immaculate in tuxedo and bow tie he introduced himself from behind the stack of chips - "My name is Bond - James Bond". The name John McGeoch plays the same sort of tricks. It's 1981 in anyone of fifty venues around the world and Siouxsie and the Banshees are playing. The song is Night Shift - that brooding monster of blue lights and foul deeds and the second verse is coming to its end. A quick glance is exchanged across the stage between Severin and McGeoch and the steamroller is halted for one eternal split second as the chilling blue wash is replaced by a flash of lightning and McGeoch turns on his heels to his amp and lifts his guitar above his head in that never ending moment of total transfixion it SCREEEAAAAMS

If John McGeoch had retired after creating that moment I could have understood it but this is a long story and there are old chapters to be rediscovered and new ones yet to be written. Let's go back to the beginning.

John McGeoch bought his first guitar when he was 12 in his hometown of Greenock. In the age-old way of these things he saved for it from his wages as a paperboy and set out about learning The Cream song "Sunshine of Your Love" when he got it home. It being the late 60's he was still at school so he only played in his spare time but gradually his repertoire enlarged until - in 1970 - he joined Greenocks finest - the Slugband. Take it away John.

"We used to play nearly every weekend at youth club discos church dances - anywhere around the area that would let us play really. It was all covers of others people's songs - Free and Led Zeppelin stuff but it was good experience at that point - We lasted about 14 months together and then I moved to London with my parents in 71 and that was the end of The Slugband."

Did you do any playing in London at that time?

"I was still finishing school then so I didn't have a lot of time with exams and everything for a band but I did play some folk clubs with another guy doing Simon and Garfunkel medleys and Beatles songs and things"

So what happened next?

"Eventually I finished school and decided to go to Manchester to study art. This was 76 and I'd not really taken much interest in music for a while and then all of a sudden I became aware of punk. All the torn shirts and spikey hair had passed me by and by no means was I a punk. I moved into a flat with Malcolm Garrett and started to take an interest in what was happening. We'd go to a nightclub and Malcolm would point out the Buzzcocks who he knew and at that time they were the top dogs in Manchester. There were the Buzzcocks - Slaughter and the Dogs - The Drones and The Worst who were great."

So how did you get involved in that scene?

"Well - one day Malcolm came in and said that Howard Devoto had left The Buzzcocks. Malcolm knew Linder who was Ho ward's girlfriend and he had told her that I was a guitarist and Howard asked it I wanted to come round for some sort of audition. I was well nervous but I got my guitar out and a couple of days later I went and met Howard. We did some talking and got on great and in that first session we worked out "Shot by Both Sides and "Big Dummy" and that was the start of Magazine. We started to rehearse a few times when I could fit it in and eventually we played our first gig. The Electric Circus was closing down and the last night was a sort of festival and that was where we debuted. Penetration and The Buzzcocks played and we just did three songs. We were playing "Big Dummy" and Howard came on carrying this enormous rag doll and the people just didn't know what the **** was going on. Magazine went on from there and that was when all the buzz started about us.

How did that affect you?

"Well I was still at college and it was during the holidays and I was working in an electrical shop selling TV's. It was ridiculous - I'd got this job and it was the sort where you had to wear a suit. I had to borrow one of my Dad's and anyway one day I'm walking from work to the bus-stop and there's an NME lying on the floor. I picked it up to have a read and there's Howard staring up at me from the cover".

The Most Important Man Alive!

"Yeah - that the one - I just couldn't ******* believe it and that was all the start of the press business and everything."

Was the deal like that as well?

"No - it was almost the opposite - Howard phoned me one day and said this guy from Virgin was coming up to see us and it was all very low key. Howard was doing nearly all the business at that time - he'd been managing The Buzzcocks as well before Richard Boone took over. Anyway we went out for a meal with Virgin and that was virtually it - a few weeks later we went into the studio and we had a deal. I was in the middle of my final exams while we were recording "Real Life" and that was that. We began gigging all over the country and Virgin found us a manager who looked after us for a few months. We went out on tour after the release of the album and that was when we met Raf. He was managing Neo the support band but we got on so well with him that he started working with us a few months after the end of the tour. He took over our management and was with us right up to the end - he still works with Howard these days."

"It didn't suffer from not being advertised - it told us that we've got 30 or 40 000 people who are fans if you like. When we put out a single we know we'll sell X thousand copies because we've got that soft core following."

That soft core following support Magazine comfortably through the next three years and a succession of acclaimed albums. As they carved out their own niche as the thinking man's band McGeoch's reputation was being boosted by his innovative style and rapid development but despite the bands constant activity they remained in a bizarre state of limbo. Stranded in the stateless area between great reviews and corresponding chart placings.

In September 79 Siouxsie and the Banshees were halved by the desertion of Morris and McKay and as the remaining members of the entourage returned to London they were already discussing replacements. McGeoch unbeknown to him was high on their list. At roughly the same time John had a couple of other - rather different projects on the go.

Through his club going and socialising John had become one of the founder members of Visage. The background of the band was totally unlike Magazine - Megabuck deals - star studded lineups and instant sales on the back of the biggest club boom since the days of the swinging sixties. The different environment caused some different headaches as well.

"One time I was in Spain at the same time as Visage were recording the second album in London. Rusty wanted me to put a guitar solo on something or other but I only had one day off and there was no way that I could fly home on my one day off. Rusty is not a man to be put off by such things and he was actually trying to put together a satellite linkup from Madrid to London for this one guitar part. Not surprisingly it didn't come off but I was sorry not to have been as involved on "The Anvil" as I had been on the first album".

At about the same time McGeoch also stepped into the shoes of the departed Derwood to play on "Kiss Me Deadly" - the last Gen X album but we jump ahead of ourselves here.

Lets go back to Dec 79 and Jan 80 and Siouxsie and Steve sitting in a Camden Town rehearsal room sifting through piles of letters from John Peel summoned guitar hopefuls. After weeks of frustration Nils Stevenson - the Banshees manager - called John and invited him down to the rehearsal that was to produce "Happy House". A rapport was quickly established and in the following months John contributed work to the album that would become "Kaleidoscope".

Work was also completed on "The Correct Use of Soap" - probably Magazines most accomplished album and then in March 1980 a new step was taken and John made his live debut with the Banshees in the seedy confines of Manchester's Osborne Club.

The gigs that followed were a fine omen for the future and stretching through Scotland and London they revealed a new band - looser and warmer than ever before as the glacial myths about the Banshees were slowly but surely melted.

It was back to Magazine for what was to be their final tour of Britain with McGeoch that spring and then in the summer came the announcement that he was to leave to pursue a variety of new projects.

That vague phase heralded a new start for John in his career as a Banshee and led to the revitalisation of what had looked a crippled band. Much of the credit for that renewal should go to what many regard as their finest album - Ju-Ju. '81 was a year of constant touring for the band and its cutting edge was honed to a fine degree before the recording came to be cone. Consequently the album as a whole was quite breathtaking and the guitar remains the finest work that McGeoch has yet achieved.

Moving into 82 and the picture began to look a little less rosy - the incessant travel was beginning to take its toll and as the sessions for "A Kiss in the Dreamhouse" approached the tension was beginning to show

When did it start to go sour?

"Around the time of the recording really - I was well under the weather and definitely not myself and when we came to record a lot of the songs weren't in a concrete form and had no real guitar parts to them. I'd not been involved in the writing as much as on the previous album and that made my job that much harder. Songs like "Circle" and "Cocoon" just left me wondering where to start which caused a lot of friction in the studio. We got the album finished eventually and the next thing on the cards was a trip to Madrid for a couple of shows which really I just wasn't fit for. I collapsed with nervous exhaustion and the second show was a shambles which I had to carry the can for. When we got home I checked into a rest home for a week and came out as right as rain. However the rest of the band had decided that the Spanish shows were the last straw and I was informed by letter that I had been dissolved out of the partnership. As you can imagine I was left feeling a little bitter about it all."

So what did you do?

"Well - while we were in Scandinavia touring I'd had a couple of offers to produce some Swedish bands so I packed my bags and went to Sweden for a month to make an album. I was supposed to be producing but I finished up virtually engineering as well as all the engineers used to go home about eight o'clock and no-one wants to stop recording at that time. It was hard work but that knowledge has already come in useful with the Armoury Show."

How did that come about?

"Very simply - actually. Richard has been a friend for a long time and we'd always intended working together at some point. This was just the first chance we'd both had to put it together with the right people. It's going just fine at the moment - we've just got new management and it looks like we'll be signing a major deal sometime in February."

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