The Primal Screamer - Nick Blinko

THE PRIMAL SCREAMER – NICK BLINKO

Anyone with even a passing interest or regard for seminal Anarcho Punk legends Rudimentary Peni is almost duty bound to want to read this book, written as it is by Nick Blinko, the lead vocalist, lead guitarist and lead artist behind that same band. Written in the form of diary entries from the point of view of a psychiatrist by the name of Dr Dweller, The Primal Screamer tells the story of his encounter with Nathaniel Snoxell who has been brought to him by his parents following a suicide attempt.

In a bid to get to the bottom of the reason for Nathaniel's death wish, Dr Dweller puts him through a course of primal scream therapy during which the world of Nathaniel Snoxell slowly but surely opens up to him. The world revealed is strange, demented, macabre, gothic and bizarre, echoed in the pictures that Nathaniel draws of frightful, disfigured creatures with no control over their existences, leading nakedly horrific sub-lives.

It's an interesting premise, you might think? A clever idea? Particularly as it's coming from the vocalist of such a highly regarded band as Rudimentary Peni. Indeed, rather than being written as a straight narrative it's a wholly unexpected angle to be coming from. The big question, however, is does it actually work? The answer – unfortunately – is 'No, not really'...

One of the reasons why it doesn't work may well be down to Primal Screamer being Nick Blinko's first book where he's just being too ambitious and trying to be a little too clever for his own good. It's an interesting book, let that not be denied, but it's the weaving of fact and fiction (along with the inconsistently drawn character of Dr Dweller) that let's it down when it should be – and was probably intended to be – it's strength.

Much of Nathaniel Snoxell's life as described by Dr Dweller is obviously fiction or even horror fantasy. For example, the stone door hidden beneath the stairwell-cupboard in his family's home that leads to a cellar that no-one else knows about but him, wherein sits a television that hasn't been switched off in thirty years even though there's no cable coming from it. Or the attic of the house that contains vicious hooks from which hang skeletons of human children.

Alongside this, Dr Dweller also describes and records in his diary a running commentary of Nathaniel's new band that he's formed which is never specifically named but is obviously Rudimentary Peni. He notes how Nathaniel has started to frequent an 'Anarchy Centre' 'in Wapping of all places' and has made contact with 'some anarchist group which has a large distribution network of its own, records, financing the Anarchy Centre, pamphlets, etc'. Though never named, this is Crass, of course.

This obviously means that Nathaniel Snoxell is Nick Blinko – but not quite. Nathaniel is a character based upon Nick Blinko - and there's the big difference. The Primal Screamer, therefore, is a work of fiction based upon real life events that without doubt is an interesting premise as a means to tell the story of Nick Blinko and Rudimentary Peni – if that indeed was its aim? But this is where the book falls down. It's neither quite one or the other.

Anyone with any knowledge of Rudimentary Peni will immediately recognise all the sign posts, the characters, and the sequence of events. The timeline of the release of Nathaniel's band's records - from the first two EPs to the album on the anarchist label - matches perfectly with Rudimentary Peni's history. Even the little things such as them not really liking playing live is a reflection of how Peni were.

Other things, however, are a distortion. The bassist of Nathaniel's band whom Nathaniel calls 'Freak' is described as having a hare lip, cleft palate and other malformations. In the end he even dies of cancer and anarchists try to dig his body up. The drummer is referred to as 'Imbecile' and is described as liking to spend his time consuming alcohol and meat pies down the pub. It's a bit like the cartoon version of the Sex Pistols in The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle film where Sid Vicious is called 'The Gimmick', Steve Jones is called 'The Crook', and Johnny Rotten is called 'The Collaborator'.

And then there's such things as Nathaniel's description of 'the corpse of punk' as having no life in it whatsoever, it being this decayed grandeur of a fallen subculture which has so attracted him. He despises, however, the audience at the Anarchy Centre, describing them as being degenerate. Is this Nick Blinko's thoughts or the fictitious thoughts of Nathaniel Snoxell?

Distorting it further is the fact that it's all spoken through the voice of Dr Dweller via his diary, it being a very inconsistent voice at that and one that often doesn't ring true in the slightest. As just one example, would an eminent doctor on being told that in America the music as played by Nathaniel's band is known as 'hardcore', really say 'Sounds rather rude to me'?

Come the end of the book, Nathaniel is depicted as having regressed to a sub-human bestial state, last seen fleeing from a butcher's shop with a dead piglet under his arm whilst biting the head off an unplucked game bird. Has anyone actually seen Nick Blinko lately, I wonder?

Dr Dweller in the meantime has disappeared from his cell in a Tibetan Monastery in Scotland to which he's retired, leaving behind stacks of manuscripts and diaries some of which have been published in book form going under the title The Primal Screamer...

If Nick Blinko's intention was to forge reality and dream, truth and fiction, into one seamless dream state then it's an ambitious and laudable idea. Whether he succeeded in doing this with The Primal Screamer is debatable, the judgement probably being influenced by how much the reader knows about Rudimentary Peni. Perhaps the book would work better if approached with virgin eyes and no prior knowledge of Nick Blinko and his musical past?

None of this should diminish, however, the legacy of Rudimentary Peni who were and still stand as an absolutely unique, seminal and important band in the annals of punk rock history. Their music being so sublimely twisted so as to be rendered into something almost unprecedented. Accompanied and somewhat enhanced of course by Nick Blinko's art work that to this day stands alone and apart from all other artists working within the same and often misunderstood 'outsider art' scene.

John Serpico