The Absence: Memoirs of a Banshee Drummer

As a member of Big in Japan, The Slits and, most famously, Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Creatures, 'Budgie' was an era-defining drummer in the much-mythologised post punk scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. But before he was Budgie, Peter Clarke was a boy growing up in working class St Helens in the 1960s. The loss of his mum at a young age created the absence that haunts the pages of this book. As a teenager disenchanted with art school in Liverpool, Peter became Budgie and befriended the likes of Jayne Casey, Pete Burns and other luminaries of the legendary Eric's Club before taking off for London and the big city heat of punk. Budgie's unique technique and musical sensitivity endeared him to the all-female group The Slits, who asked him to play on their debut album Cut. Subsequent touring with former members of the Sex Pistols and others from the post punk aristocracy firmly established Budgie's reputation for innovation. But the beating heart of this at times painfully honest account of a life often sabotaged is, of course, his long-term position as Siouxsie and the Banshees' drummer and co-writer alongside his ex-wife Siouxsie Sioux.