under cover ladies night wallpaper: Back from the dead by special request: Billy Mckenzie Day (orig. 09/20/06)

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Context
Discography
Biography & Basic Information
The Associates @ Myspace

Billy MacKenzie interviewed on The Tube (4:41)

'The Associates Story', from Caledonia Dreaming' (3:55)

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Interview (excerpt, NME, 9th October 1982)

What are you thinking about, Billy?
I'm thinking about all other kind of things other than Billy Mackenzie, someone who looks quite good in a magazine or sometimes quite awful. Like I've been through the mangle, and I'm no' gonna go through my past, but I was pretty wild and roughed up. From when I was born. Scots-Irish-fucking gypsy family, d'ye ken what I mean? That's some fucking pollination.
Did you physically hurt people?
Eh, no' really, but I've got that capacity: I was always called Billy Whizz. I was always dashing off here or dashing off there. It was my energy that always got me into trouble. There was one teacher at primary school. She really turned me onto things, helped me wi' music, and when I left I was overcome by leaving her. All the other kids going to secondary school. I don't think they could've given an f about her - but she was magic in my eyes... and there was old toughie Mackenzie crying.
In some ways physically attacking people doesn't mean that you havenae got a good heart. Being indifferent to everything and everyone. that's what I wouldn't have wanted to be like. Indifference is the real nightmare. Sometimes I'll punch someone's face when they're real indifferent. If you punch somebody's face they don't feel numb anymore.
It seems that you've had to learn for yourself what to do with all that energy. No one's really directed you.
Aye. Mines like been dissipated, I think that's the right word. I've got to have my energy working for me rather than against me. That's what I'm slowly learning to do. It's hard coping with the energy that charges around inside your whole being. But I'm beginning to like it. And people that I work with can have as much energy as me and sometimes more, and I like to help channel their energy. It gives me a really good feeling, to see other people going along wi' yourself going YES!!!
Do you want to rise above all the crap?
I want to be part of the crap as well in a way. Cos I just really like the potential of people. I'll always be for the underdog. Cos there's always going to be good things coming out of people. There's none of this I'm so wonderful and there are only two people in the world who can write like me, cos that's a load of rubbish, as I'm finding out all the time.
Y'know, I get quite a lot of flak from people. That bit of fame thing, I've been the object of four physical attacks. Four weeks ago I got a tumble in my face just cos it was me. It got me right over the nose. And then I had a fight with these gamekeeper lads, pointing their guns at me and everything. I war out exercising and one of them clocked me, there's that fucking little pop star. A week before that I got spat on. I get a lot of stick.
People are always wanting to impress themselves. A bit like me, but I don't want to deceive myself.
What do you feel about Billy Mackenzie?
Sometimes he's OK and sometimes he's horrible. But he has a lot of manners.
Has he grown up?
I don't know! But I do feel a wee bit different.
Is he a lucky bastard?
Always has been. Jammy. Like even - this'll probably be a cue for other people to try and stuff a tumbler in me face - but that tumbler in my face a few weeks ago by rights should have cut my face open but it just left a little mark. I'm always falling over things and I've been run over four times but I get through it. So there's definitely a jammy element there. I just hope it continues. And the songs, they just come. They just happen. Anytime. Any place. And I'm really good at it basically.

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Sleeves

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Death and tributes

'On 22nd January, 1997, Billy Mackenzie took his own life. He was 39 years old. He took an overdose of prescription drugs and died in a garden shed in the grounds of his father's home in Auchterhouse, Dundee. It was the shed where he kept his beloved whippets -- Billy was one of the leading trainers in the U.K. After discovering his son's body, Billy's father Jim burned the shed down. The police said there were no suspicious circumstances, and it later emerged that Billy had been suffering from depression, and had reacted badly to the death of his mother, Lily, the previous year. He left a note apologising to his family, but said nothing of a specific reason for his suicide.' -- Mark Doyle

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Songs about Billy Mackenzie: (1) The Smiths 'William, It Was Really Nothing' (Morrissey famously had a big crush on BM; BM recorded an answer-song: 'Stephen, You're Still Really Something'); (2) The Cure 'Cut Here' (Robert Smith's tribute song to BM); (3) Siouxie and the Banshees 'Say' (Siouxie had plans to meet up with BM the day he committed suicide; the song is partly about that).

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"Billy demanded, not mass acceptance, but unconditional love for what he did. I wonder whether he didn't feel as excited about the new music as he made out. He hated having to conform to the music business, but that's what he had to do every time he signed a new record deal. He felt like a seal who had to go out on the rocks and clap for fish." -- Martin Ware, Heaven 17

"The Associates were a great group: we ripped them off. Billy was a great singer: I couldn't rip him off. He was Caruso on a balloon of oxygen." -- Bono

"Billy's voice was frightening. I only had two-and-a-half octaves, and he had this four-and-a-half octave glass shattering job. What a talent to lose." -- Ian McCulloch, Echo & the Bunnymen

Billy Mackenzie Tribute Website
The Affectionate Bunch

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Alan Rankine

Billy Mackenzie's partner in The Associates was Alan Rankine. While Rankine's post-Associates music was overshadowed by Mackenzie's, he's continued to do interesting work, notably as a record producer for Belle & Sebastian, Cocteau Twins, Pale Fountains, Anna Domino, and others. Rankine is currently a resident producer for the Belgian label Les Disques du Crepuscule. Discover him in detail here.