Michael Anthony Farren (3 September 1943 – 27 July 2013) was an English rock musician, singer, journalist, and author associated with counterculture and the UK underground, who had a significant influence on the development of British proto punk garage rock music.
Contents
Early life
Farren was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and after moving to Worthing, Sussex, attended Worthing High School for Boys, which was a state grammar school. In 1963, he moved to London, where he studied at Saint Martin's School of Art.
Music
Farren was the singer with the proto-punk garage rock R&B band The Deviants between 1967 and 1969, releasing three albums.
During 1970 he released the solo album Mona – The Carnivorous Circus, which also featured Steve Peregrin Took, John Gustafson and Paul Buckmaster, before ending his music business to concentrate on writing.
During the mid-1970s, he briefly revived his musical career, releasing the single "Play With Fire" featuring Marky Bell (later in The Ramones), Jon Tiven, and Doug Snyder, the EP Screwed Up, album Vampires Stole My Lunch Money and single "Broken Statue". The album featured fellow New Musical Express (NME) journalist Chrissie Hynde, Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson and the original Motörhead guitarist, Larry Wallis. He also contributed song ideas and music for short-lived Ladbroke Grove ensemble Warsaw Pakt's 1977 Needle Time LP.
He sporadically did musical work after that, collaborating with MC5's Wayne Kramer on Who Shot You Dutch? and Death Tongue, Jack Lancaster on The Deathray Tapes and Andy Colquhoun on The Deviants albums Eating Jello With a Heated Fork and Dr. Crow.
Aside from his own work, he provided lyrics for various musician friends over the years. He collaborated with Ian Fraser Kilmister (Lemmy), co-writing "Lost Johnny" for Hawkwind, and "Keep Us on the Road" and "Damage Case" for Motörhead. With Larry Wallis, he co-wrote "When's the Fun Begin?" for the Pink Fairies and several tracks on Wallis' solo album Death in the Guitafternoon. He provided lyrics for the Wayne Kramer single "Get Some" during the mid-1970s, and continued to work with and for him during the 1990s.
Discography
Singles
Solo
1976 – "Play with Fire" / "Lost Johnny" (Ork records)
1978 – "Half Price Drinks" (Logo Records)
1978 – "Broken Statue" / "It's All in the Picture" (Logo records)
Other appearances
1968 - The Deviants – "You've Got to Hold On" / "Let's Loot the Supermarket" (Stable Records)
1977 – Mick Farren and The Deviants – Screwed Up EP (Stiff Records)
1987 – Wayne Kramer & Mick Farren – Who Shot You Dutch?
199? – Lunar Malice – "Gunfire in the Night" / "Touched by the Fire"
Albums
With The Deviants
Solo
1970 – Mona – The Carnivorous Circus (Transatlantic Records)
1978 – Vampires Stole My Lunch Money (Logo Records)
2005 – To the Masterlock – live (Captain Trip Records, Japan)
Other appearances
1991 – Wayne Kramer – Death Tongue (Progressive Records)
1993 – Tijuana Bible – Gringo Madness
1995 – Mick Farren and Jack Lancaster – The Deathray Tapes (Alive Records)
2013 – Mick Farren and Andy Colquhoun – Black Vinyl Dress
Compilations
1996 – Mick Farren and The Deviants – Fragments of Broken Probes
1996 – The Social Deviants – Garbage (Alive Records)
1999 – The Deviants – The Deviants Have Left the Planet
2000 – Mick Farren and The Deviants – This CD Is Condemned (Alive Records)
2001 – Mick Farren and The Deviants – On Your Knees, Earthlings (Alive Records)
Writing
During the early 1970s he contributed to the UK underground press, including the International Times; he also established Nasty Tales, which he successfully defended from an obscenity charge. He later wrote for the mainstream New Musical Express, for which his work included the article "The Titanic Sails At Dawn", in which he considered the malaise afflicting then-contemporary rock music, and described the conditions that subsequently resulted in punk.
He wrote 23 novels, including the Victor Renquist novels and the DNA Cowboys sequence. His 1989 novel The Armageddon Crazy described a post-2000 United States dominated by fundamentalists who subvert the Constitution. He began writing fantasy literature in the 1970s.
Farren wrote eleven works of non-fiction, including a number of biographical (including four on Elvis Presley), autobiographical and culture books (such as The Black Leather Jacket), and much poetry.
From 2003 to 2008, he was a columnist for the weekly newspaper Los Angeles CityBeat.
In his 3 May 2010 Doc40 blog, Farren announced that he was writing another Victor Renquist novel, with the working title of Renquist V.
In 2013, he worked with digital imprint Ink Monkey Books on audio inserts (with Andy Colquhoun of The Deviants) for reissues of The Texts of Festival and the DNA Cowboys sequence.