SONGS
THEY NEVER PLAY ON THE RADIO –
JAMES YOUNG
As you go through life and the more books that you read, the more you
will find that the plaudits and the quotes from reviewers as
displayed on the covers are more often than not mere hype, baloney
and product endorsement dressed up as literary criticism. You will
find that though they may well be genuine quotes, they are mostly
written by either acquaintances of the author or by critics with a
vested interest in delivering positive feedback be it from simply
following 'guidance' as laid down by their employers (their editor),
or to simply ensure they remain on book publishers lists of favoured
reviewers so as to continue being sent free books. You will even find
more often than not that the reviewer whose quote adorns the cover
seems to have read a completely different book to the one you're
holding in your hands – as if they've not actually read it at all?
This may come as no great revelation to those employed within the
book selling/publishing industry but to many others it might well be
something they've never really considered. No matter how passionate
you might feel about books, at the end of the day the publishing and
the selling of them is a business just like any other particularly
when you get to the Waterstones mass retail level. There, a book is a
product just like a tin of baked beans, nothing more and nothing less
than just another unit to shift.
It comes, therefore, as something of a surprise when the plaudits and
the quotes on the cover of Songs They Never Play On The Radio
by James Young for once ring absolutely true because it is indeed an
incredibly well-written book. It may even possibly be one of the best
music books ever written? Possibly.
'A coolly literary masterpiece' – Greil Marcus. 'The
greatest rock and roll book' – Tony Wilson. 'Sad, funny,
brilliant' – Tony Parsons. 'Anyone who reads this book will
be moved by the lyrical poignancy, intimate detail and near mythic
quality the author captures' – Danny Sugarman. 'A work of
comic ingenuity' – David Sinclair.
Praise indeed.
James Young was the piano player in Nico's backing band during the
1980s and Songs They Never Play On The Radio is his memoir of those
years. There are so many anecdotes within its pages that it's nigh on
impossible to pick out any particular ones as highlights or as
examples of the quality of the writing. It is quite simply a funny,
rollicking, rolling train of quips, quotes, anecdotes, vignettes,
observations and asides that capture Nico and the world around her
during her Manchester heroin years in all its debauched, sordid and
comic glory.
Nico's personality and the array of characters who gravitate toward
her is a gift that keeps on giving, so much so that the story could
almost have written itself but it's the fact that it's been captured
by someone who actually knows how to write that takes it to a whole
other level.
Nico, of course, once sang with the Velvet Underground before being
unceremoniously thrown out, and that in itself grants her legendary
status. By the time of the 1980s, however, she had washed up in
Manchester of all places, virtually penniless and alone apart from a
healthy heroin habit to support. Though she had suffered tragedies in
her life, Nico was never a tragic figure as such and isn't depicted
as one in the book. She was too singular, too selfish, too Germanic
for that.
Throughout the book she instead comes across at times like a German
version of Margot (as played by Penelope Keith) from the BBC comedy
series The Good Life but without the etiquette and without the
snobbery. Rather than floral skirts she is dressed instead in leather
jacket and biker boots, armed with a foghorn voice – and on heroin.
Stuffing packages of it up her backside every time she approaches the
border of a new country when on tour and has to go through customs. Declaring very loudly to one and all that it wasn't the only thing she put up there: "My father was Turkish... you know what that means, don't you? I like it the Turkish way..."
Nico might well have been gullible and at the mercy of being used by
those around her but one thing all her hangers-on knew was that she
was their meal ticket, and without her they didn't really have a
hope. Her heroin dependency was obviously a major issue to
continuously contend with but it was also the thin spider's web that
they all hung by and the fuel that kept everything going.
Into the book James Young weaves appearances by such characters as
John Cooper Clarke, linking up with Nico purely through their shared
special interest. Gregory Corso shares the same interest but whilst
John Cooper Clarke is likeable, Corso comes across as a diminutive
junky hoodlum. Then there's John Cale, brought in to produce Nico's
new album and introducing a level of professionalism only matched by
his paranoia but eclipsed by his utter, complete and total meanness.
Allen Ginsberg disappoints Nico by failing to get naked though his
own personal special interest in anything anal remains undiminished.
Towering over all of them, however, is Nico's erstwhile manager, Dr
Demetrius, otherwise known as Alan Wise, the legendary mover and
shaker in the Manchester music scene. Dr Demetrius' behaviour is
often shocking yet other times touching, his love for Nico remaining
forever unrequited apart from an incident involving a sleeping Nico
on the bunk of an Intercity train. 'Naturally, I wiped it off
afterwards.' he's quoted as saying 'Wouldn't wish to leave a
stain on her character.'
Whether or not Nico was likeable as a person is besides the point -
because she was a legend, a muse of both Federico Fellini and Andy
Warhol who had fallen from grace and ended up as a drug addict in
Manchester. As James Young puts it in his preface: 'She influenced
us all. It may sound absurd but, despite the monstrous egotism and
the sordid scenes, there was something almost pure about her. A kind
of concentrated will. Not pretty, sweet or socially acceptable,
certainly, but intense, uncompromising and disarmingly frank.'
There is indeed a lot in Young's book that is sordid, not pretty, not
sweet and certainly not socially acceptable but there are also
moments of genuine loveliness such as when Nico's paddling along the
shoreline on a beach in Australia, singing 'Daisy, Daisy, give me
your answer do,' swishing her feet in the water, happy in the sunset.
Yes, Nico was indeed a legend. And this is indeed a very good book.
John Serpico
