John McGeoch, says Paul Morley in the introduction to this biography, was not just a guitarist, but a “truth seeker”, using his instrument to play but also to make sense of the world. He speaks of the vividness of his playing: “ravishing little bursts of consciousness, dream fragments, battle wounds, electric charges”.
First-time author Rory Sullivan-Burke doesn’t write with Morley’s flair, but The Light Pours Out Of Me is a thorough, dogged volume, shot through with enormous enthusiasm for McGeoch, born in Greenock, Scotland, who in his time played with Magazine, Visage, Siouxsie & The Banshees, the Armoury Show and Public Image Ltd.
McGeoch emerges as a great guitar talent in a post-punk era when players were expected to at least affect limited competence on their instruments. His sensibility and sense of light, form and colour were doubtless informed by his lifelong interest in the visual arts. While in Magazine he studied for an art degree at Manchester Polytechnic. He was a paradoxical man –
