Mick Geyer (1953-2004)
Mick Geyer was our manager from late '91 to late'95. I'd met him
through his involvement in public radio at 3PBS. He was a spectacularly
adult person in a world of low and local ambition. He was very impressive,
he was jazz and he was beat. He was windblown and dry and always looked
like he really should have a long drink of water . He was not interested
in the music business, he was interested in art and music. He was uncompromising
and, when he committed to representing us, he gave us comprehensive cover
and front to the squares on the scene. (And there were many)
He shared a penthouse flat in St Kilda with his longtime partner Lowanna
and her son Bo. Red wine, a soft pack of Camels , flowers and fine drawing
pencils were items high on the Geyer shopping list. It became a kind of
salon for a disparate group of musicians, both local and international.
You'd climb the stairs , open the door and there would always be someone
with Mick sitting around the huge, sunlit room. The walls were lined with
pristine, yet obviously much handled , jazz and blues vinyl discs and
bookcases full of rare , arcane books , each one full of torn paper markers
to points of interest in Mick's ever expanding cosmology. He drew you
into his world, and, for us, took some heavy blows in the mundane blood
sport that is the australian music scene. With Micks help we were protected
by opinions and values in other dimensions. This is how I experienced
Mick. From this lofty eyrie, he spread out his fine webs of influence
and daring contact across the city , the nation and the world. Music people
he touched and guided include Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Dirty Three,
Henry Rollins, the Cruel Sea, PBS, Kim Salmon and the Surrealists, Lisa
Miller, Chris Wilson and Barry palmer. At his funeral, he was referred
to by many as a "compass point" and a "guide".
Mick Geyer
Of course, he had other lives and I learned of these at his last stop in front of the altar at Mt St Carmels Catholic church in Sunbury. The sun shone , and, the church being in the primary school grounds, the sound of children playing broke through the stained glass atmosphere and over the heads of the crowd gathered around the gleaming coffin. The priest began by saying that Mick had one to this very same primary school.
His brother Peter spoke of Mick playing football in Sunbury and founding the Sunbury Centrals cricket team who were run on very socialistic lines with every player getting to ball 4 overs no matter what the parlous state the game was in. He also spoke of Mick leading a strike at CUB after leaving school to work in the "real world" rather than seek any higher education.
Mick got bored with the music scene pretty quick but continued to work with friends and fellow travelllers. He worked , again in an advisory or guiding role , with Nick Cave and his 1999 Meltdown festival in London. He also had a role ( if only his presence and his vast archive of music) in the "murder ballads" cd as well as being credited in a production capacity for the "No more shall we part" cd. He went to Geneva and worked for UNICEF. As always, he moved and lived in a mysterious and aristocratic manner. He was not one to let you see the wheels moving or the gears changing. No one knew where he got the juice to fuel his life from. Equally mysterious , was where and when he got diagnosed with the tumour that finally raced through him like a wild fire. We gathered in the church to the sound of the laughing children outside and John Coltrane blowing softly inside. His coffin was carried past us by his brothers and friends to a carnivalesque, uplifting tune by Abdullah Ibrahim. He is survived by his father Ron, his brothers Peter, Greg and Brendan, his sister Jenny, his many nieces and nephews and the legion of people he touched , seemingly never briefly, in his fast, ravenous life. We will all feel and know his absence .
Rod, Gordy, Mick