John McKay’s Reactor

at Wrecking Ball Music and Books, Hull
£24.75
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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Wrecking Ball Music and Books

East Arcade
Prince's Quay
Hull
HU1 2ER

Website:
wreckingballpress.com/tag/wrecking-ball-music-and-books

See all events at Wrecking Ball Music and Books

Wrecking Ball Music and Books

East Arcade
Prince's Quay
Hull
HU1 2ER

Website:
wreckingballpress.com/tag/wrecking-ball-music-and-books

See all events at Wrecking Ball Music and Books

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on Sat 27 September 2025