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Synopsis
When teenage guitar prodigy Keith Gear shares a stage with Jimi Hendrix in mid 60s Soho he forms a bond with his hero and embarks on a journey that will take him a long way from his South London roots. Reluctantly thrust into the spotlight with his band Dominion, he plays the fame game briefly and finds it wanting. With Jimi he enjoys acid trips in London, jam sessions in New York and reflective evenings in Morocco. In the decades that follow he experiences cult fame as a solo artist and sees a close friend become an unlikely star on the alternative comedy scene. By the 1990s a psychopathic celebrity killer is on the loose and the ageing and battle-worn Gear is largely forgotten. In the midst of all this a chance encounter at the Avalonia festival opens up unexpected pathways for Gear’s future. With dark humour Rob Chapman creates an elaborate mosaic that gradually reveals the outsiders and uncompromising spirits who roam the fringes of popular culture.
'Chapman's success lies in ensuring the minutiae of Gear's life, both professional and personal, are meticulously presented. He instills discographies, live events, music rags, radio stations and fellow musicians with a life and enthusiasm that helps plot a convincing course alongside a skewed reality anchored by some of music's biggest names.'Ross Bennett, MOJO
Ross Bennett
The idea of a fictional, parallel world of music that takes the life of Jimi Hendrix as its lynchpin is a tough one to sniffle at. And the name Keith Gear, hero of Dusk Music, says it all really: he’s part everyman, part rock-god – he’s a megastar at 19 and it’s never going to last.The narrative twists and turns all over the shop, taking in the wide-eyed, grimy genius of acid-lit jam sessions with Jimi, through the trials of Thatcher’s 80s, to the mid-90s prospect of a poorly-attended benefit gig in, you guessed it, Sunderland. And beyond. Everything in Dusk Music is slightly off-pitch and out of focus, but there are definite pangs of pathos to be felt for the Withnail & I squalor and chaos of Gear’s existence as he watches the spirit of ’68 get corporatised into oblivion. Gear’s fall from the heady shedding of prejudice in Soho and NY’s East Village to cold, need-money-for-the-meter obscurity is hard to stomach, and often the deftness of the writing gets lost in the epic scope of it all. But what Dusk Music does best is being, at times, very dry and very funny, poking fun and having a pop at the various crimes of music media, and of opinion-makers in general.
James Hogg
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