Still Spoken
Dying in the Public Eye: Catherine Mayer and the Legacy of Andy Gill
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Episode notes
In this unmissable episode of Still Spoken, Elaine Kasket talks with Catherine Mayer, who was married to Andy Gill - of the English post-punk band Gang of Four - until his death. She was close friends with the late Michael Hutchence (INXS) and Paula Yates.
Catherine and the author of All the Ghosts in the Machine discuss the complexity of the digital legacy Andy left behind, as well as the perils of digital legacy when a public figure dies - issues we rarely consider but that are increasingly important in modern loss.
Catherine Mayer is a writer, activist, speaker and the co-founder and President of the Women's Equality Party. She co-founded the Primadonna Festival.
Catherine co-authored Good Grief: Embracing Life at a Time of Death with Anne Mayer-Bird. She wrote about losing Michael Hutchence and Paula Yates in The Observer in 2017, here.
Catherine Mayer and Elaine Kasket previously appeared together in 2022 on this podcast from the ICAEW about death and digital assets.
The New York Times article about online trolling of the Covid dead, written by Dan Levin, can be found here.
The 'big biography' Catherine refers to in the podcast is Charles: The Heart of a King (Penguin).
Images of Catherine Mayer and Andy Gill within the chapters of this episode, and on any promotion for or video versions of this episode, are used with the permission of Catherine Mayer.
I do this podcast with no help from anyone other than my guests. If you want a simple start to your own podcast, you can do what I did: get a great podcasting platform (see the link for mine below) and easily add music and sound effects with an affordable subscription to Epidemic Sound.
Music and sound effects in this episode:
Lucky Charm by Mimi Elesen, sourced on Epidemic Sound
Permission granted to Still Spoken by Catherine Mayer/Republic of Music/BMG Rights Management: The Dying Rays (2020), on This Heaven Gives Me Migraine EP, (c) Gill Music (2020)
Lyrics:
Stop the seconds flow
Oh, I'm too late
I'm back where I began at the start
I'm caught in the wake
I'll have my due and drag the rock up the hill
Nothing to lose that's not been lost
I wish the sun anchored still
What I wanted disappears in the haze
A speck of dust held forever in the dying rays
Breath on the mirror; nothing inside
The horizon's bare, but in the night, I miss the pilot's light
Control and power, empires were built in our minds
But it will all go up in a blaze; only dust in the dying rays
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