The musician I wrote about previously, Steve Kilbey, put out an album with his band in 1988 called "Starfish", containing the beautiful hit single "Under the Milky Way". At that time a neighbour from childhood who became a friend at university for a time was addicted to the album. He would play the CD on repeat in his car, driving fast, endlessly.
After he left uni he went looking for the quick, easy dollar on the edge of the law.
His funeral was the first I attended of anyone of my generation. He was murdered, knifed to death in his Bankok apartment, according to what I was told. Related to shady business dealings, it seems.
His lifelong friend, who read his eulogy, was, ironically, about to go to prison for theft in business shortly thereafter.
His friend was a lovely man and the act was out of character. He was very nonchalant about going to prison and was soon out and on with his life. It didn't break up his family, but put great stress on his parents.
I spoke with him at the funeral of our mutual friend and with the mother of the deceased at the mourning or celebration, depending on how you saw it, learning more about her son's life since I last knew him, many years ago.
He lived fast and died young.
I'm sure he fit more into his 50 or so years than many do in 90.
He was a risk taker.
He once asked me if I wanted to move into a share house with him at uni. I said "no" because I knew he lived a much more fast living, risk taking life than me and he understood my thinking, I'm sure.
I saw him once after uni. He was very close to his mother who was a lovely woman and visited her when he could, having moved away from the small town she lived in. His father had died young and had not been much of a man, I hear. When I saw him last he was driving a red sports car. The likes of which I've never owned, being the more conservative, practical type.
His name was Steven but his friend's called him "Skills", a name he gave himself, based on a criticism he was given as a youngster.
I doubt he has any regrets from where he is now. Who knows?
There are more stories to tell of him, including a brush with death at a famous South American beach with a friend in dangerous surf, and a fight at a brothel in Texas while with the same friend (not the one who read the eulogy, which was beautiful, by the way).
Long live Skills.
May we learn from his courage and also from maybe taking one too many risks.
And if you listen to Starfish (or was it Gold Afternoon Fix? Listen to them both, they have a related feel, recorded in LA and oozing a feel of the times- late 80's, as interpreted by the song writer), you may get a sense of where Skills head was at in 1988.
A particular song on Starfish called "Blood Money" perhaps was a premonition of what was sadly to come.
https://youtu.be/C_Z48dHFYLc
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