"Mic Christopher (1969 - 2001)"	Sorted Magazine
Donnacha DeLong	n/a

Mic Christopher, of the criminally underrated Dublin band, the Mary Janes, died on 29 November. The circumstances of the incident two weeks ago that put him on a life-support machine, while on tour with the Waterboys, are unclear. What is clear is that Ireland has lost a great talent, someone who should have been a lot more successful than he was, and the Dublin live scene will be poorer for his absence. Mic Christopher is someone whose path I personally crossed quite a few times over his tragically short life. He went to the same secondary school that I did; in fact, he blazed a rebellious trail that I was to follow. The trouble my own insistence on wearing my hair long and piercing my ears caused led to many comparisons with the dreadlocked Mic who had drawn the same criticism a few years earlier. Mic's parents are friends of my parents, so tales of his activities were a constant source of interest. It was a few years, though, before I actually had a decent conversation with him. In fact, it was through a Sorted invite to the launch of "Spiders" by Space in 1997. Mic was the support act and joined us in the free bar upstairs in Whelan's. A somewhat alcohol-fuelled conversation, swapping stories of our experiences of school, him discussing the music biz from his side, me from mine. It was great to finally meet the "legendary" Mic properly. Some time after that, we interviewed Mic about his work in Bosnia with the Warchild group. Of course, going to gigs in Dublin on a somewhat regular basis, it was kind of hard to miss Mic, playing solo or with the Mary Janes, as he was a regular fixture in Whelan's and often cropped up as a support act elsewhere. The fact that he never got any further while crud like Boyzone was clogging up the charts is criminal. And now he's dead. There's not much more I can say, our thoughts and best wishes go out to his family in this difficult time and we hope that Mic will live on in the memories of those who heard him for a long time.