PULP
for Steve Mackay
10 November 1966 – 2 March 2023
Steve Mackey, the bass guitarist for Pulp during the band’s most successful years, and exceptional musician, producer, photographer and filmmaker as his wife stylist Katie Grand described him, has died aged 56.
Mackey joined Pulp in 1989, first contributing to their third album Separations. He went on to play on all their subsequent studio albums, including the likes of Different Class and His ’n’ Hers which are regarded as high points in the mid-90s Britpop scene.
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With his sharp tailoring, drooping quiff and model good looks, Mackey brought raffish cool and driving, disco-influenced rhythm to the Sheffield band, whose first two albums, recorded with different bassists in 1983 and 1987, had been minor cult hits in the British indie scene. Mackey, who was born in Sheffield and went to school with another of the city’s future music stars, Richard Hawley, played in other local bands such as Trolley Dog Shag but started following Pulp and befriended frontman Jarvis Cocker. “They seemed quite self-contained, quite aloof, and I was in really noisy bands, garage bands, and Pulp were like an art band,” he said in 1996. “It didn’t seem very welcoming.”
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As well as joining Pulp’s reunion gigs, Mackey collaborated with an impressive range of musicians as a producer, co-writer and mixer. He co-wrote and produced songs on Florence + the Machine’s debut album Lungs; co-produced the breakthrough MIA single Galang; worked on early recordings by the Horrors; and continued to collaborate with Cocker on the latter’s solo recordings. He later partnered with Daft Punk producer Thomas Bangalter to produce tracks on Arcade Fire’s album Everything Now, and worked with Spiritualized on 2018 album And Nothing Hurt.
In later years – sometimes in collaboration with his wife’s magazine Love – Mackey took on high profile fashion photography and film-making projects for clients including Miu Miu, Giorgio Armani, Moncler and Saint Laurent. He collaborated with Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele on music direction for the label, whom he hailed as “a true dreamer and always fearless, inquisitive, inspiring and fun to work with” when Michele stepped down from the role last year.
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
The Guardian - thanks as ever
Track 01. Do You Remember the First Time? 4:04Track 02. Razzmatazz 3:36Track 03. Monday Morning 5:31Track 04. Underwear 4:48Track 05. Sorted For E’s And Wizz 5:03Track 06. Disco 2000 5:00Track 07. Joyriders 4:10Track 08. Acrylic Afternoons 5:58Track 09. Mis-Shapes 4:37Track 10. Babies 5:30Track 11. Common People 9:0358 mins
