John McKay’s Reactor

at Hare & Hounds, Birmingham
£22.60
Includes booking fee

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John McKay’s Reactor

John McKay is an English musician and songwriter who was the first studio guitarist of Siouxsie and the Banshees. Siouxsie was clearly the focus of the band, but the sonic dynamo was John McKay, composer of most of the album’s music and hit singles, such as Hong Kong Garden, while simultaneously creating a wholly new guitar sound that was harsh and brittle, yet melodically intoxicating, best articulated by a confounded Steve Albini many years later, “. . . only now people are trying to copy it, and even now nobody understands how that guitar player got all that pointless noise to stick together as songs”. Many of the most influential guitarists of the past four decades credited John as a major influence, including Geordie from Killing Joke, Jim Reid of The Jesus And Mary Chain, U2‘s The Edge, Thurston Moore, Johnny Marr,and even the two guitarists who followed him into The Banshees – The Cure‘s Robert Smith and Magazine‘s John McGeoch.

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John McKay’s Reactor image © Jack Spicer Adams

Hare & Hounds

106 High Street
Kings Heath
Birmingham
B14 7JZ

Website:
hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk
Disabled Booking:
0121 444 2081

See all events at Hare & Hounds

John McKay’s Reactor image © Jack Spicer Adams

Hare & Hounds

106 High Street
Kings Heath
Birmingham
B14 7JZ

Website:
hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk
Disabled Booking:
0121 444 2081

See all events at Hare & Hounds

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on Sat 19 July 2025