Also known as Kickboy Face Instruments Vocals | Name Claude Bessy | |
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Died 2 September 1999(1999-09-02) (aged 54) Occupation(s) Singer, songwriter, writer, magazine editor, music video producer | ||
Claude Bessy (20 June 1945 – 2 October 1999), also known as Kickboy Face, was a French writer, magazine editor, singer, video producer, and painter. He was noted as an iconic founder of the Los Angeles punk scene in the mid 1970s and was involved in the British post-punk scene in the 1980s.
Biography
Born in Normandy, France, Bessy moved to the US in 1966 and later to California where he worked as a waiter among many other jobs and founded Angeleno Dread, L.A.'s first reggae fanzine.
In May 1977 he helped Steve Samiof launch the monthly punk rock magazine Slash, which he edited until it ceased publication in 1980.
As Kickboy Face (a pen name adopted from a song and album by Prince Jazzbo), Bessy was the lead singer for the band Catholic Discipline and featured prominently in the film The Decline of Western Civilization.
Bessy left California in November 1980. moving with his lifelong partner Philomena Winstanley to the U.K. where he landed a job as a press officer at Rough Trade record label. There he championed American groups such as Gun Club and Panther Burns.
In 1982 Bessy was hired as the resident VJ at The Haçienda in Manchester. He went on to produce music videos and films for The Virgin Prunes, The Fall and William S. Burroughs, and work with Factory Records' Ikon FCL video label, producing a Christmas Factory Records video trailer Bessy Talks Turkey.
Bessy returned to London where he worked for Forbidden Planet and wrote record sleeve notes. He contributed vocals to records by Sonic Youth, Howard Devoto, Wire's Graham Lewis and trumpeter Marc Cunningham.
In 1987 Bessy moved to Barcelona, Spain where he took to painting and earned a living teaching English. He died of lung cancer in 1999.