Requiem: RIP Killing Joke's Geordie Walker
On November 26th, one of music’s brightest and most creative lights burned out. Kevin "Geordie" Walker, one of the founding members of Killing Joke, passed from this reality–from all accounts due to a stroke he had suffered the day before. To call Walker a guitarist, or even a musician, would do him and his work a tremendous disservice. He was more than that–he was a sonic alchemist who taught us how the guitar could create monuments, unfamiliar yet comforting. A light in a mostly miserable world.
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Throughout his nearly 45 years as a guitarist, he effortlessly pushed the boundaries of whatever genre Killing Joke were working in, from brash post punk to melancholic new wave to the dystopian industrial stomp of the last few records. Geordie seemed the perfect balance to frontman Jaz Coleman’s manic delivery, the sense of order to chaos (move to Iceland to avoid that meteor or whatever the fuck nonwithstanding). It’s become a cliche to write about musicians being the perfect pair, the whole McCartney/Lennon thing, but in this case it’s entirely applicable.
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My history of listening, truly listening to Killing Joke didn’t really occur until I was in my mid twenties, a time that’s long passed. Generally when I latch onto a band there’s one single aspect that draws me in, guitars or vocals, but in the case of Killing Joke it was everything all at once. In the following years I would come to realize that it was mostly the interplay between Coleman’s unique delivery and Walker’s even more unique playing. I try not to be given to hyperbole but together they created musical sunstorms, sonic fucking magic.
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My psychiatrist told me I was a, and this is a direct quote, “great self historian,” which probably was meant as a pejorative, but my self-aware/centered nature does have a strong memory for a soundtrack and there have been many times in my life that were given some comfort, meaning, or at least distraction, to the sound of Walker’s guitar.
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In 2011, some years after Jef Whitehead made sure I studied Killing Joke in more than just a passing manner, I was awakening from a long period of self-destructive living, the kind that doesn’t even make for interesting reading-that real “down there” kind of shit. I was desperately trying to find some kind of meaning somewhere, anywhere. I’d already found solace in another artist who left us too soon, Mark Lanegan, and had found my way out of the darkest (so far) period of my life but I needed something to help me remember who I was before I spiraled downwards. Then, a copy of Absolute Dissent came into the record store I was working at. The sonic magisters helped me uncover a secret. Where Lanegan helped me cope and begin to heal, Killing Joke helped me see that I didn’t need to remember who I was but rather take control of who I am.
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Fast forward a few years to, I suppose ironically enough, this exact time of year. I was ending a fairly toxic relationship, had been fired under dubious pretense from the record store I helped build into a success, and was working as a fucking night shift cleaner at various prostate cancer centers for the mother of the girl whose relationship I was trying to sever. It was one of those times in life that Hemingway wrote about. Or at least I guess he did, I only read his stuff in high school and have shit recall. I wandered into AKA Music in Philadelphia, which sadly shuttered a few years back, and came across a copy of the 2003 self-titled record. This was at a time where the fucking thing, major label and all, was a chore to find in the wild. If I believed in this kind of thing it would almost seem like it was predestined to be found at the time I needed it most. This record would become my favorite of theirs, largely owing to Geordie’s mesmerizingly megalithic riffs and their interplay with Dave Grohl(!)’s drumwork. The songs are expansive and lush, with a wealth of emotions within, from joy and triumph to melancholia to resolute determination.
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I have no history with these demos but came across them while I was working on this. I’d never heard them before, which isn’t surprising given just how much material Geordie recorded with Killing Joke, but these seemed appropriate for the occasion. You can hear just how much he made these songs shine even before the rest of the band had contributed.
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Few things could truly describe this loss to the world than knowing that the rest of the recording Geordie, Jaz, and Joy Division/New Order’s Peter Hook did together in 1993 are lost to history but that also they will never get back together in a studio somewhere to pick up on lost time. But this also makes the K÷93 record that did surface all the more special.
Over the last few days you’ve no doubt seen musicians and artists from all genres and walks of life pay tribute to Geordie, some with great detail and beautiful storycraft while others are sparse and sad. But the unifying theme with all of them is how the music of Killing Joke and the cosmic gift of Geordie’s writing and playing meant something dear to their lives, something that uplifted them in very dark times. My prattling on about it is just one voice out of hundreds. And that, gatherers, is the sign of a life well lived in service to the sonic masses. May his work continue to inspire and shelter those on their way.
I have a lot of regrets in my life that continue to accrue interest daily, but one that I’ll never be able to resolve is seeing Killing Joke live. Something always came up when they were to come around but I always thought I would have time to see them eventually. Sometimes eventually never comes. Like the rest of you, I’ll be waiting to see what comes next. And I’ll continue to be grateful for what they have given. Cheers, Geordie, safe travels.
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