According to Spotify, our musical tastes are hammered into shape around the age of 14. We’re destined to return to that early teenage soundtrack for the rest of our lives, and in my case the theory checks out. When I was 14, a friend’s older brother came back from university for the summer with some records by Bogshed, and I was quickly besotted. The sleeves featured macabre, pencil-drawn images of characters in states of distress, and the music was similarly agitated: rickety guitar riffs, a crunchy bass and a singer who would alternately bark and croon a barrage of non sequiturs. “Die scousers spiele Fußball!” he yelled, for no apparent reason. I couldn’t stop grinning. My friend’s brother could have come home with LL Cool J’s Radio that summer and things might have turned out differently, but he didn’t. Bogshed was where it was, and because I was 14 at the time, Bogshed is where it still is today. No other music makes me feel quite so elated.
When I mentioned this to former Bogshed bass player and sleeve illustrator Mike Bryson, he gave a world-weary laugh. “Unfortunately, you’re not representative of the world, Rhodri,” he said. When we spoke in October he was receiving care in a hospice near Lancaster following cancer treatment. He died last week, one month before his band’s back catalogue is being rereleased on a 5-CD set entitled Bog-Set. “I’m delighted that it’s happening, even though it’s on CD, just as CDs are becoming obsolete,” he said. “I hope I’m still here when it comes out.”
