What a week! Vale to two gents whose music moved my heart and hips: John Martyn and Lux Interior, both (allegedly) 60 years of age and both crazy-assed wild men who lived it hard. Musically they mighta been from different stratospheres, but both made a big impact on my psyche in their own ways. Lux did it to me as an alienated 13-year-old dork when my older brother brought home a cassette comprising of Off The Bone and Songs The Lord Taught Us, something which quickly made me realise there was a world of cool music beyond the Sex Pistols. I thought the likes of Lux, Ivy, Bryan Gregory and Nick Knox were the scariest, most awesome mofos who ever hit earth. I think I was right. Weird and somewhat disconcerting to see these '70s punk-rock heroes dropping like flies the last decade. John Martyn hit my world in my mid 20s. It was an older British workmate who'd worked for the likes of Rough Trade and Mute in his time who felt it was his duty to give me an education on certain artists who were sorely lacking on my musical radar. First on the list was Mr. Martyn. The likes of Bless The Weather, Solid Air, Sunday's Child and Inside Out - some of the best British albums of the 1970s - very quickly became firm favourites and I held my head up high as a Martyn cheerleader bar none. His music, which combined elements of British folk, American blues and even shades of spiritual avant-jazz, like the best of music, soothed my troubled psyche during stormy times. I owe the guy something, I'm sure.