I woke, this morning, to some sad and shocking news, that being that Geordie Walker, guitarist of Killing Joke, had passed away last night, following a massive stroke he suffered on Friday. He was 64 years old. I’ve devoted so many entries to Killing Joke here over the past almost-19 years, that I shouldn’t need to spell out how significant this is for me.
It seems incorrect to refer to Geordie as a “celebrity” or a “rock star.” Even in his native England, he was probably able to walk the streets without causing too much of a stir outside of the the odd zealot. By all accounts, he lived and died as a man of humble means. Easily the hardest member of the tightly-knit band to get to know, Geordie shied away from doing interviews (he preferred to let the music speak for itself) and wasn’t notoriously receptive to feverish entreaties from bug-eyed fanboys (trust me on that one). He behaved like neither a celebrity nor a rock star, but to certain circles, he was positively a God. An integral — and utterly irreplaceable — component to the signature sound of the band he steadily played in for over 46 years, Geordie’s contribution to Killing Joke cannot be overstated, and without him, I dare say that they cannot possibly continue, nor do I expect they will want to.
I was fortunate enough to meet the man on several occasions, usually backstage after gigs, or via the auspices of rock journalism, but as stated above, he was the most elusive and enigmatic member of Killing Joke. My favorite incident, of a sort, involved interviewing him circa the release of 1994’s Pandemonium. Seated at the bar of the No-Tell Motel, a long-vanished bar on Avenue A, Geordie and I ran through the motions of the conventional interview. As we spoke, a television set over the bar played an endless reel of vintage pornography, a constant distraction that routinely prompted Geordie to deviate from his already somewhat dispassionate responses with a lively “Ooh, she’s got a nice one!” At a certain point, I made the colossal mistake of setting my portable tape-recorder — the one ostensibly documenting this conversation —on the bar. Not missing this cue, Geordie —with the stealth and nonchalance of a seasoned pickpocket — somehow got hold of it and rewound the tape — handily wiping clean about 85% of our chat. I, of course, was furious and incredulous upon discovering this, but it was certainly true to character and so impressively executed that it was very hard to fault him for it. Cheeky fucker.
I can no longer remember how many times I’ve seen Killing Joke perform, but I have been lucky enough to do so very many times, crossing oceans to do so on more than a couple of occasions. When they played London’s Royal Albert Hall back in March of this year, I struggled to secure a way for my son and I to fly over and catch the show, but funds, work demands and school schedules forbade. I took solace in the fact that they were threatening to head back into the studio to start the cycle all over again, so the chances seemed promising that they’d return to the States. Sadly, not only will they not be touring ever again, but Geordie passed before they could even start properly recording.
There are certain public figures you never really expect to die. Geordie Walker, resplendent behind his thick, hollow-bodied Gibson ES-295 (the “Golden Harp”), nonchalantly conjuring a veritable maelstrom of twanging harmonics with seemingly the slightest of possible hand movements, was one such figure. The sound he created with that instrument — notoriously characterized by bandmate Jaz Coleman as “fire from Heaven” — cannot be duplicated. I realize that sounds like hyperbole, but suffice to say, many have tried and all have failed. There was only one Geordie, and now he is gone.
But Geordie will never die as long as his music plays, and play it damn well will, if I have anything to say about it. On the bus home from the Thanksgiving weekend at my mother’s house today, I dialed up Killing Joke’s most recent live album, 2022’s Honour The Fire LIVE on my headphones. Unlike most of their more recent live albums (the band mined a new avenue of revenue, in these lean times, by regularly releasing tour recordings for the ardent completists like myself), this particular disc positively crackles, with Geordie’s guitar pushed prominently high in the mix, cruelly underscoring that there was so much fire left in his playing. I would have loved to hear what he’d have done next.
Rest in peace, Geordie. Thank you for the music.
Killing Joke Forever.
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