Given my love of Super Furry Animals, it can’t come as a surprise to any of you that I’m marking the passing of Howard Marks here, the only real surprise is probably that I’ve taken my time to do it.
SFA’s first album sleeve is adorned with the various passport pictures of Marks’ various altar-egos that he used during his years of smuggling dope, and contained a song which name checked him too:
Super Furry Animals – Hangin’ With Howard Marks
and the last but one image also featured on the first CD single I ever bought by them:
Super Furry Animals – Something 4 The Weekend
His autobiography, Mr Nice, is essential counter-culture reading, and Marks even makes an appearance in “Human Traffic” a film I love which I wrote about here a while ago (although I got a little pre-occupied with defending Danny Dyer in that post, if memory serves)
And yes, for the uninitiated, that is Andrew Lincoln aka Rick from The Walking Dead as Felix slumped on the end of the sofa.
But perhaps I should leave the eulogies to those who knew Marks best, and you can read what Gruff Rhys from SFA had to say here.
So long Howard, and thanks for all the spliff.
Normally, I think it’s a bit lazy to end on a quote from one of the songs I’ve posted, but I think today I’ll make an exception:
I wish you well,
Buy buy, sell sell.
I wish you goodbye,
Sell sell, sky-high, sell sell.
More soon.
A History of Dubious Taste 