Tony Ogden, front man of one of the best Bands ever, World of Twist, died this week! He was only 44.
There’s an article on the Guardian about him: It’s a twisted world.
In recent(ish) musical history, however, there is one exception to all this. In the early 1990s, a group called World of Twist attempted to drop into the slipstream of what was known as “Madchester” and wean Stone Roses fans on to a singular meld of Hawkwind, Roxy Music and northern soul.
For a few singles, at least, they were impossibly great. So much so that the teenage Noel Gallagher tried to join their road crew and nearly named Oasis after their peak work, a song called Sons of the Stage (the Oasis slogan “noise and confusion” comes from the same source). It all came to nought. An offshoot of Virgin records did what private firms always do and threw oceans of cash at them, but they still foundered.
In the poetic estimation of their singer and chief visionary, one Tony Ogden, they “spent £250,000 making an album with the smallest bollocks in pop history”.
Ogden went on to waste “four years on smack watching Third Reich movies”, and subsequently apologised to his fans for “letting them down”. Quite rightly, however, he just about stood by his pocket-sized oeuvre: “I’d ask anyone to play that World of Twist album 20 times with every dial on full. If it doesn’t rock, come and smash it over my head.”
Ogden died this week, aged 44, his personal history an apparent mess of unfulfilled promise and unreturned calls. He was, I’d wager, the last of the lost geniuses.
The Independent also has an obituary.
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