Mick Farren Dies At 69

Author, journalist and Deviants singer Mick Farren has passed away at the age of 69. He’s reported to have collapsed on stage while performing at London’s Borderline venue on Saturday night.

He co-founded the band in 1967 and they released three albums over the following two years. Later he was one of the activists who tore down the fences at the Isle Of Wight festival, and he wrote lyrics for Hawkind and Motorhead.

Farren recently told The Quietus: “I’d already got a grounding in Elvis Presley and Gene Vincent and Miles Davis, and the rougher end of the Beat Generation, and I’d seen Marlon Brando in The Wild One, and that was my heritage and baggage that I took to the psychedelic party. And it really wasn’t welcomed too much by Krishna’s Children. And yeah, there were some clashes. At the same time though, I was required.”

As a journalist he’s possibly best remembered for writing the NME article The Titanic Sails At Dawn, published in June 1976 just before the punk explosion, in which he said: “The iceberg in this case seems to be one of a particularly threatening nature. It is an iceberg that is drifting uncomfortably close to the dazzlingly lit, wonderfully appointed Titanic that is big-time, rock-pop, tax exile, jet-set show business.”

Farren also wrote 23 novels, and 11 non-fiction titles including four about Elvis Presley. His most recent work was career-spanning anthology Elvis Died For Somebody’s Since But Not Mine. His most recent blog entry was published on July 15.