Bloody Genesis, bloody Camel, bloody Emerson Lake and bloody Palmer, King bloody Crimson. You'd have thought we'd have learned our lesson by now. If your boat sinks you don't design your next boat to the same specifications — unless, of course, you are Richard Branson.

The music of the seventies, that grandiose, pompous, equipment-dominated underpants, failed. It fell on its fat, stupid face. It entertained nobody but the performer. We got rid of it too. What refreshment that was, knowing that you'd no longer have to see chubby keyboard players in capes attempting to play nine synthesizers at one time.

But what's happening now? It's creeping back and it's being welcomed with open arms. King Crimson albums are unashamedly appearing at the front of record collections after spending ten years in the unfashionable section that you hid in your bedroom. But who is encouraging the resurgence of this execrable poo? New Musos. That's who.

Because and only because I am a friend of the stars, I was recently talking to Ian McCulloch from top rock outfit, Echo and the Bunnymen.

'People who talk about their equipment are worse than people who talk about fookin' cars,' he wryly observed.

He's right. New Musos are in love with their equipment. It verges on the point of fetishism. They'll talk endlessly about gear they've got, gear they want, how they've modified their gear. It's an illness, very probably a medical condition. It's called being agonisingly boring.

New Musos are not always easy to spot. You might be forgiven for thinking that Paul Hardcastle is one but he isn't, he's just boring. No, New Musos have that look about them that says, "I've worked out a few Robert Fripp riffs in my time.' That fat guitarist in Marillion, he's one. Nik Kershaw, he's another. You can tell when he's playing that he'd just love to burst into a glissando guitar solo or worse stop playing his guitar and attempt to play two keyboards at the same time. You can spot them a mile off. They're the ones who stop smiling on TOTP when their mimed solo comes up because 'solos are serious business' when you're a New Muso with a wife and 14 MIDI synths to support.

Because and only because I am the fifth Smith, Morrissey might recently have confided that:

'Synthesizer players should be hung by the heels and shot.'

What an admirable stance. What were originally designed to imitate reality are now being used to imitate Rick Wakeman. The equipment is dictating the creative objective. Depeche Mode have given up writing songs. They merely get a clever sequence going, give it an accessibly pretentious name and shove it out as a single.

And whenever there are pop stars making wilfs of themselves you can be sure that there are a thousand would-be pop stars doing exactly the same. Amateur New Musos are probably the worst thing since ingrowing piles. They labour under the strangest misconceptions. Some of them seriously believe that it is them who is talented or, funnier still, interesting. They think that owning a DX7 and being able to recite the user manual will make them a 'fun guy' (as opposed to funghi), the life and soul (as opposed to arsehole) and attractive to women (as opposed to ugly bleeders).

Amateur New Musos are simple to pick out in a crowded room. Invariably they will be standing on their own on account of them being exquisitely dull. They have long hair or those ridiculous plaits that say, 'Yes, I used to be a long haired prat, now I'm just a prat!' Some of them smell of fish too but that's neither here nor there.

Because and only because I am a confidante to the stars, Green from Scritti Politti told me:

'Anyone with long hair in 1986 is a mega-prat.'

Or a New Muso. The irony is that Green has for the past two years been working with those two blokes whose names no-one can ever remember and they are closet New Musos to a man. Whilst being too clever to grow their hair or openly admit to enjoying National Health albums (not to mention playing with Fred Frith) they both go glassy eyed when they talk about full bandwidth Fairlights and SRC Friendchips.

Personally I blame Re-flex for all this. You probably don't remember them. They looked like an advert for alopecia and sounded like melodic tinnitus. The group had a collective age of 700 and extremely dubious pasts. The keyboard player, whose name escapes me at the moment, had, prior to his forming the band, called himself Absolute Elsewhere. Absolute bloody Elsewhere! Although they were as thin on musical talent as they were on top they loved their equipment. They used to go to Germany to 'discuss' technological developments with the manufacturers of synthesizers. If you'd ever spoken to a German synth manufacturer you'd never knock Paul Daniels for being boring ever again. But if Reflex got the slightest whiff of something else they could buy that (a) no-one had and (b) no-one understood then they'd be on the next flight to Frankfurt before you could say, 'hair transplant.'

There has recently been a division within the ranks of New Musoism. The split faction came with the dawn of the computer and they are quite simply called Computer Bastards. These people are singlehandedly responsible for castrating music and if you dare ask they will tell you at enormous length exactly how they produce the sterile blip-bop that crawls up the side of your head and insults your eardrums every time you turn on Radio One.

But the revolution is nigh. It will be bloody. Bloody Genesis, bloody Camel, Emerson Lake and bloody Palmer. In the immortal words of Brian Walden, 'Let me put this scenario to you.' There will be a smashing of sequencers, a crunching of Trevor Horn-style media glasses and a cacophony of tuneless screaming as Level 42 are stapled to Mr Mister, as the tedious conversation and the perfunctory drivel grind to a halt and music is saved.

Because and only because I am a friend of political leaders, Lenin once told me:

'The revolution must start with oneself.'

He was right. You know what a New Muso looks like now. If you see one or someone who might be one, set him on fire just in case. You can never be too safe.

Reporter Wilkinson Cake was speaking to Adrian Deevoy, 87, who was for some years Assistant Editor of International Musician and Recording World magazine before taking the obvious career step to Features Editor of Penthouse. Mr. Deevoy is not the possessor of any MIDI synthesizers.