When Goths fall out: Murphy and Perry have stand-up fist fight

Okay, not a stand-up fist fight. Nobody does that any more. But the bitter collapse of a plans for a Pete Murphy-Brendan Perry 100 date world tour is ending in smeared eyeliner and angry Facebook posts.

Perry started it, sir, with this:

"The truth of the matter is that PM [Peter Murphy] wasted months of my time, energy and effort. It was he, after all, who invited me to tour with him and then reneged on our agreement not once, not twice but three times... can you imagine my frustration? ... I would not have minded so much if he had shown some remorse by way of an apology, this would have been the very least I could expect from such an honorable and 'spiritual' man. Right? Well wrong... When I last wrote to him to enquire how he was and what the problem was, he basically told me to mind my own business... Cuckoo!"

Hang about, Brendan? Murphy dumped on you once, and you carried on. He did it again, and you still carried on? By the time of the third time he turned you over, you might start to wonder if you let yourself in for it, right? There comes a point when Charlie Brown has to stop blaming Lucy, and ask himself why he keeps trying to kick a ball he knows won't be there, right?

Perry hasn't finished, though:

"The guy has too many albeit mysterious health issues to deal with and, to be honest, he's a sandwich short of a picnic."

I can't help but feel a bit disappointed that Brendan Perry would use 'sandwich short of a picnic' as a genuine term of abuse. It's a bit like turning up at the Dead Can Dance rehearsal rooms to find the walls covered in 'this is a round tuit' and 'I know you think you understood what you think that I said' posters.

Still, Peter Murphy won't take that sort of thing lying down. Sideline watches from, erm, the sidelines:

Murphy now retaliates saying that he mistook Perry for a better person suggesting Perry should "write angry depressive 'Goth' songs that would be a good big market for you." And things get serious when Murphy adds: "if I find any serious libel in print up there on the web, I tell you, and from the real Irish fucker that I can be, I will take no hesitation in suing your bad ass."

Ha! Pete Murphy scolded Perry by accusing him of playing to the doomy-Goth lowest common denominator market. That would probably hurt. Had it not come from a man who makes a cameo in Twilight: Eclipse.