#rob deacon

Abstract Magazine Issue 5 Various Artists 1985, Sweatbox Just got up to flip the record after sitting cross-legged on the couch typing on my laptop for quite a bit, not realizing my leg had fallen asleep until I tried to plant on it and had to pinwheel my arms to keep from falling flat out and cracking my head into my turntable. Absolutely how the coroner will shoot my body someday too, ass-naked and alone on the floor of my apartment, surrounded by instruments I can’t play and books I haven’t gotten to, bleeding into my record collection with a scythe propped sardonically against the wall in the background.

Speaking of ignominious deaths, while doing some research on the compiler of today’s record, a post-punk compilation / fanzine combo from 1985, the first thing that came up was a 2007 post from Burl Veneer’s old Typepad blog, specifically this inimitable sentence: “Abstract was the brainchild of Rob Deacon, who died last month in a canoeing accident at age 42 (same as me).” Strange nautical coincidence that, and a neat trick for Burl to keep blogging after death too (in fact, he’s still at it here on Tumblr), but I kept link hopping, and have learned that Deacon was quite a special guy, and a pivotal figure in two or three generations of UK music.

There’s genuine fondness and grief in The Guardian obit, the kind they reserve for lesser-known people who busted their asses and made a difference behind the scenes in media, and they spell out a resume I’m a little ashamed not to have been more up on. He was in his late teens when he started Abstract magazine, profiling the cream of the post-punk crop and cajoling exclusive tracks out of a bunch of them. Abstract would eventually morph into his own label, the influential Sweatbox, but the magazine + compilation bug stuck with him, and he’d go on to start the CD-era Volume series, which moved real numbers for an indie comp and featured… Jesus, everybody, apparently. He followed that up with the groundbreaking Trance Europe Express and Trance Atlantic electronic compilations, became a dance night impresario, did music photography, started a label (Deviant)… and then he fell out of his fuckin’ boat. Damn.

Abstract #5 is a real time capsule of 1985, featuring songs and interviews with the likes of Swans, Gene Loves Jezebel, Cindytalk, Colourbox, and the Jazz Butcher, interspersed with record reviews, scene reports, comics and more. The written pieces are all over the place stylistically, some transcribed in a borderline-incoherent fashion, others fighting for their lives against the adventurous two-tone printed layouts, but it has a wonderful fanzine energy and a level of ballsy spite you don’t see much these days.

Nearly every artist has a bone to pick with their label or journalists or bands they used to like that sold out or fans who have any sort of expectations of them. (The editorial pages get into it too, describing Morrissey “prancing daffodilously” and previewing a new New Order tune called “I’ve Got a Cock Like the M1,” which would see daylight as “The Perfect Kiss.”)

It’s zany and vulnerable and, even just shy of 40 years later, totally inspiring stuff. Highlights include Swans’ Michael Gira’s typically serial killer-coded interview, in which he talks about watching TV for 14 hours a day and shares the trans body horrific lyrics to a song called “BASTARD” that would eventually come out during the band’s maniac 1986; an account from industrial music pioneers Test Dept of the ’84 miner’s strike in South Wales, with a photo of one member who appears to have two sets of upper teeth like a shark; and the 400 Blows talking about having recorded their contribution to the issue in an echoing drainage pipe in which they nearly became trapped and drowned.

Musically this is by design a mixed bag (side one is kind of the uncommercial, experimental bits; side two the peppier guitar pop stuff). None of these exclusives would make anyone’s definitive collection of any of these bands, but as a complete listening and reading experience, Abstract #5 is a beautiful celebration. Cheers to Rob.