Friday, November 14, 2014

Drumobit: Johnny Elichaoff

Johnny Elichaoff, one of the dealers on Channel 4's Four Rooms and - long ago - a drummer - has died following a fall from a London shop roof.

The Mail's coverage of his death is as dreadful as you'd expect - the headline can't even find space for his name:

Tragedy as Trinny Woodall's former husband, 55, falls to his death from roof of central London shopping centre
They tell you how old he is, but not who he is.

Then, the paper gets on to his musical career:
Nicknamed Johnny Too Bad, he played in a Seventies band called Stark Naked And The Car Thieves before defecting to the equally bizarrely named Baby And The Black Spots and then playing in guitarist Robert Fripp's League Of Gentlemen.

His musical career was interrupted by a two-year spell in the Army in 1984, and he went on to help manage rock bands Tears For Fears and Fairground Attraction.
Stark Naked And The Car Thieves isn't that bizarre a name for a punky-new wave band; and even if it was, Baby And The Black Spots is surely less bizarre a name?

Then the Mail hears from a witness.
Alex Fakhre, 25, who witnessed the fall, told the Evening Standard: 'I was coming back from my girlfriend’s and the road was all blocked off. The police said a guy had fallen from the car park (roof). He looked in a pretty bad way.'
Except he, clearly, didn't witness the fall, as the paper would have known if they'd read what they were copying from another paper.

Although he never made much of a living from music, he made up for it when he went into business. Talking to Channel 4 during his spell on Four Rooms, he summed up his stance:
'When people ask me what I do, I always say 'what do you need?' I'll buy and sell anything - watches, crude oil, furniture, pictures, anything at all!'


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