FEATURE
Television Personalities photos by Rafa Skam
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Above left: Treacy at a festival in Spain, Above right: Treacy, Skam and friends, Below: ...And Don’t The Kids Just Love It
“Monsters hiding in my kitchen cupboard / Satan must have eaten Mother Hubbard,” Treacy sings on ‘My Very First Nervous Breakdown’, his voice warbly, the guitars behind him as insistent as a curse. Not long later, he was in jail.
continued to receive tributes from a host of sources, finally cashing in on so much goodwill he had sent out through the world. Rafa Skam, the lead singer of the Spanish band The Yellow Melodies and a particularly diehard fan, released an entire tribute album dedicated to TVP.
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“Their whole discography is absolutely brilliant,” says Skam of the Personalities’ appeal. “They don’t have a bad song. They don’t have a perfect sound either, but I think that even that ‘unclean’ sound increases the beauty of their tunes. And also their lyrics and attitude are remarkable. They are all elements that make you fall in love with them.”
hoplifting was the crime that kept Treacy at Her Majesty’s pleasure for some six years – he’d had to resort to stealing in order to pay for an increasingly unmanageable drug habit. Though he began his stint behind bars in Brixton, eventually he was transferred to a prison boat, a vessel he called ‘The Good Ship Lollipop’. Throughout it all, Treacy remained connected to the outside world. “There were computers,” he told an interviewer after his release. “I found fan websites … One of the nuns brought me a guitar. I was supposed to give it back at lockup in the evenings but they let me keep it in the cell with me.” When Treacy was finally released, he returned to the world an affected but unbowed man. “My first impressions [of Dan] were that he was funny,” says Victoria Yeulet, a TVP fan who connected with Treacy following his release, and would end up playing with the band for more than three years. “Obviously he’d just had a troubled few years so I knew that, but he was enthusiastic, and quite complex. “I first met [him] as I was working in a record shop in Soho,” she goes on. “He became a regular customer and I would chat with him a lot. I didn’t recognise him as being Dan Treacy – he looked quite different from when he was younger.”
“Dan was very off-hand about the whole music business, and scornful of conventions.”
Despite the fact he had spent so long out of the limelight, Yeulet says Treacy was eager to get back into making music. Ed Ball, the bassist who appeared on the very first Television Personalities record, rejoined the band. “It was a very simple thing – with just him, me and Ed Ball initially,” says Yeulet. “[Ed and Dan] were obsessed with Joe Meek recordings, old soul records, freakbeat, [and] ’60s mod stuff like me. [And they] were film freaks: always quoting lines together. Him and Ed had known each other since they were kids, so I think it was a great point for Daniel then. He was just getting the chance to be creative with people he trusted. We became a little mod gang really. It was very friendship-based.” It was a time of healing for Treacy. “We played what Daniel called the ‘comeback’ gig at Bush Hall … for a Chickfactor magazine weekend event,” says Yeulet. “It was really fun. Everyone really enjoyed it. People had travelled from other countries to see it. I was fully aware of how shambolic TVPs shows could be, so was prepared for the ad hoc nature of it, which was part of it all. “Many of Daniel’s songs are extremely raw,” she adds. “[They] take in sensitivities and really dark realities too. People connect with the songwriting, but the sound is also really important, I think. I think the combination of darkness and then lightheartedness that he manages to encompass throughout the years and lineups is quite unique.” Suddenly, Treacy was a cult hero again. Over the years his reputation had been bolstered by praise he received from a multiple of alt rock sources, chiefly among them Kurt Cobain. The Nirvana frontman had once called …And Don’t The Kids Just Love It one of the greatest records of all time, and lavished praise upon Treacy in a number of interviews. Cobain wasn’t the only one either – though jail had kept him from the public eye, he 18 :: BRAG :: 730 :: 29:11:17
Not too long after the release of the tribute, Treacy travelled to Spain to play a show and Skam got the opportunity to meet his hero for the first time. “Before the gig, the guy from the label which distributes their music in Spain invited me to meet Dan at his hotel,” says Skam. “Dan was on the bed, drinking some beers, and listening to music … We showed him some remarkable Spanish music and he liked it. Then he went to the venue, took his guitar, and started to play. It was very special. After the gig, we spent the whole night talking about music. It was an unforgettable time.” Suddenly, Treacy wasn’t a con anymore. Nor, somehow, was he even an ex-con – his time behind bars no longer defined him. After years of hardship, Treacy had come into his own: he was, first and foremost, a musician, a genius finally getting his due and travelling the world while the tributes began to trickle in. And then, just as everything seemed to be going well for Treacy, things took a predictably unpredictable turn. He was rushed into emergency surgery for a brain clot on the brain, and then disappeared, gone from the world once again.
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or a Television Personalities fan searching for clues about Treacy’s whereabouts following his 2011 surgery, his Wikipedia page provides no reassuring answers. Indeed, there is something distinctly haunting about the entry’s last line. “As of 2016, no further updates to Treacy’s condition have been made and Television Personalities has remained inactive,” it says. Reading that, one could be forgiven for worrying that Treacy might well have passed away – after all, the statement has the eerie ring of the obituary about it. But Dan Treacy has not passed away. Treacy is healing, still bouncing back from the brain surgery he had some five years ago, cared for by professionals and by his colleagues and compatriots. He lives now in a nursing home. Talking to those who know him well, it is obvious that he still has some way to go on his road to recovery, but, thankfully, it is also true he has a thousand hands to help him. “I’ve always remained friends with Daniel,” says Victoria Yeulet. “I sent him a birthday card only last month actually. I really hope his recovery enables him to make more art.” It’s a sentiment Rafa Skam echoes too. “I hope he gets well soon,” says Skam, “and starts writing new songs and playing live.” Maybe the ‘I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives’ connection isn’t so apt after all. Barrett lived out his last years alone, seemingly uninterested in making music again. Treacy is surrounded by friends, still fuelled by the desire to make art. “Although [Dan] is unwell, and being looked after in a nursing home, I try to visit him every month, if I can,” says Jowe Head. “He still has ambitions to make music and record songs again. I shall help him, if I can.” ■ thebrag.com