Screaming Lord Sutch
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Screaming Lord Sutch (November 10, 1940 - June 16, 1999) was a British politician, musician and maverick.
He was born David Edward Sutch on November 10, 1940. In the 1960s, inspired by one of his favourite rock'n'roll stars, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, he changed his name by deed poll to Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow, despite the fact that he had no connection with the peerage. Following a successful career as an early-'60s pop music attraction, it became customary for the UK press and citizens to refer to him as Screaming Lord Sutch, or simply Lord Sutch. Early works included recordings produced by legendary audio pioneer Joe Meek.
He founded the Official Monster Raving Loony Party in 1983 and fought the Bermondsey byelection. In his career he contested over 40 elections, rarely threatening the major party candidates, but often getting a respectable number of votes. He was an easily recognisable figure at election counts due to his flamboyant clothes. It was shortly after he polled several hundred votes in Margaret Thatcher's Finchley constituency in 1983 that the deposit paid by candidates was raised from £150 to £500. This did little to deter the legendarily deposit-losing Lord Sutch, who increased the number of rock concerts he performed per year to pay for his mock political campaigns.
Lord Sutch's album Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends was named in a 1998 BBC poll as the worst album of all time, a status it also held in Colin Larkin's book The Top 1000 Albums of All Time, despite the fact that Jimmy Page, John Bonham, Jeff Beck , Noel Redding and Nicky Hopkins among others performed on it and helped to write it.
Despite his seemingly light-hearted antics, in actuality Screaming Lord Sutch suffered from bipolar disorder and ended up committing suicide by hanging on June 16, 1999, following the death of his mother the previous year.
Discography
- Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends (1970)
- Hands of Jack the Ripper (1972)
- Alive & Well (1982)
- Murder in the Graveyard (2003)
External links
- BBC report of Sutch's death (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/371216.stm)de:Screaming Lord Sutch