'A life well-lived' - a tribute to legendary Swindon musician Richard Skidmore

Former bandmate and Ink columnist Dave Franklin writes about the loss of a good friend.

For the last few decades Richard Skidmore, known as Skiddy, was a mainstay of the Swindon music scene, featuring in a plethora of genre-hopping bands. You'd find it hard to find a more caring, witty and talented man. He was a true legend around the town. Tragically after a long illness Skiddy passed away recently, leaving behind a legacy second to none. His life touched and brightened so many people's lives in the fishing, the biking and the music communities, showing that his life was one well-lived. Former bandmate Dave Franklin writes a touching tribute.

 

I want to talk about a local musician, a local legend even, though he would hate for me to say as much, who lost his brutal battle with cancer a couple of weeks ago.

A stalwart of the Swindon scene, and further afield too, this is my tribute to a drummer, singer, guitarist, bandmate, drinking buddy, and for the last thirty years, good friend.

They say that being a rock star is a 24-hour-a-day job. If so, Richard Skidmore, "Skiddy" to all who knew him, was undoubtedly one. Whether pounding out drums for the punky-metal crowd, fronting his brand of angst-ridden, driven Americana, or just holding court at the bar, he always wore that badge well.

We first met when he was fronting the second incarnation of dark, alt-rockers Jacksauce, and I was taking a more country-rock pathway with The Sun Devils. The original scene, being even smaller then than it is now, meant that we became friends fairly quickly and were either sharing stages or heckling each other from the audience across a series of long-forgotten music venues—The George, The Footplate and Firkin, The Monkey Club, and, a few that have stood the test of time, Level 3, The Beehive, and The Queens Tap.

But our musical lives really became intertwined when I put my own band together, Steerpyke, with the idea that we might give New Model Army a run for their money, or at least Blyth Power. Not only was Skiddy the only person who could have fronted it, the only person who could realise the vision I had for the band, he was gracious enough to sing my often complex lyrics. I can't imagine many willing to sing someone else's words, especially as they were usually convoluted historical analogies about the first Poll Tax, the politics of the Second Crusade, First World War Poets, Green Men and the destruction of the walls of Jericho, often with bits in Latin! He did so with professionalism, the required level of gravitas, and a lot of sarcasm! A small price to pay.

After that band had run its course, we even had a stint backing a guy whose gimmick was playing hurdy-gurdy on a few of his songs, a tuneless and melodically diabolical instrument for an unrehearsed rhythm section to make sound interesting, always fun and sometimes downright chaotic times. Music made flying by the seat of our collective pants! Such as playing a set at Radfest after Skiddy, getting a bit drunk and very sunburnt, and then electing to go for a swim in the nearby River Thames. All of which seemed to lead to mass disorientation on his part and his falling off his drum stool, and almost the stage itself, during the final song. But we all have stories like that about him.

When he formed his own band, Black Sheep Apprentice, a blend of Johnny Cash and The Clash (had they formed in West Texas, rather than West London,) I played bass with him for many years, a band that saw him, blossom into a singer-songwriter/guitarist, firing off salvos of angsty, dark and visceral Americana (although no-one was calling it Americana then, unless you were Wilco!) but sometimes laced with silver linings. Sometimes.

In his later years, he returned to his first instrument, drums, and you could argue that Street Outlaws, a punky-metal power trio led by Phil Powell, was by far his most successful band, by most metrics—number and status of gigs, size of audience, notable bands supported. The proverbial local band made good. And if it wasn't for the rapid onset of pancreatic cancer, he would still be there now pounding out tribal rhythms at places like Rebellion Festival and sharing stages with the great and good of the heavier end of the musical community.

It is difficult when someone is taken far too young. You get to thinking about what music they still had in them. This definitely shouldn't have been the end of the story, and a second Black Sheep Apprentice album was certainly on the cards had Skiddy been given more time.

But if all we can leave behind are memories, mine are of someone who made music fun, who made my band experiences more often than not odd and enjoyable, creative and rewarding, unpredictable and enriched. Also, of long chats over a pint, everything from history, something we were both deeply interested in, to irreverent humour and the stupidity of life, and of sinking Whiskey Macs after one of his signature dishes. Man, could he cook!

Enjoy jamming at that great gig in the sky, fingers crossed it's all in A minor!