Berlin Now - Peter Schneider

 BERLIN NOW - 

THE RISE OF THE CITY AND THE FALL OF THE WALL - PETER SCHNEIDER

All roads don't lead to Rome, they lead to Berlin. And why? Because Berlin is an anomaly. A muddled, messed up ball of confusion where you end up whether you take either the right turn or the wrong. Berlin is a representation, a hall of mirrors reflecting the logical and simultaneously illogical outcome of all decisions, all paths and all flights of fancy. Berlin is the Cinderella of European capitals, a city though often compared to New York is actually more comparable to Detroit in its sense of devastated ephemerality and rejuvenation.

How exactly do you write about a city? With great difficulty I imagine because just as the night has a thousand eyes a city has a million stories. You need passion, enthusiasm and an awareness of not only the physical life overground but the unreported and oft times unspoken life underground. An awareness as possessed by Peter Schneider who puts it to full effect in Berlin Now, his ode to that most fascinating of cities.

How exactly do you sing about a city? Or to be more precise, how exactly do you sing about Berlin? Lou Reed named a whole LP after it, an LP that just happened to be one of the most bleakest ever recorded. In Holidays In The Sun, the Sex Pistols likened it to an end of the world tourist attraction. David Bowie in Heroes depicted it as a place where dreams can rule supreme, whilst in his Where Are We Now? he reflected upon it with much affection.

Berlin is whatever you make of it and ultimately whatever you want it to be.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the explosion of places and types of entertainment in the city was unprecedented, spurred by a surfeit of abandoned warehouses and factory sites. Caught off guard by the fall of the Wall, the owners of these sites had little idea of what to do with them though the movers and the shakers of West Berlin's alternative culture had no such hesitancy and swiftly moved in and took them over. This was the time it should be remembered when Ecstasy was becoming everyone's preferred drug of choice and Techno the accompanying soundtrack.

'What these clubs promised was the possibility of another life,' writes Schneider 'one that celebrated the moment, the now. They were driven above all by the desire to escape from the real, everyday world of capitalism and to create a parallel world according to one's own rules.' Just like Bowie's Heroes, in fact.

Berlin became the stuff of legend where young people from all corners of the world flocked to immerse themselves and to soak-up non-stop drugs, dancing, sex, protest and a hitherto unprecedented approximation of freedom.

When Schneider tells his grown children he is planning to write a book about Berlin, they look at him with indulgent scepticism as if to say 'sure, go for it if your target group is the fifty-plus generation', presuming he won't be writing anything about what matters to younger people such as the bunker and tunnel parties and clubs that open only after midnight on the weekends and don't close until the following Monday or Tuesday.

To be fair to Schneider, however, he doesn't shirk from his research and attends and reports back from a variety of nightclubs, inadvertently ending up as one of the oldest swingers in town. He concludes, in fact, that a lot of great artists whose work has now been canonised as masterpieces didn't just come from nowhere but built their reputation on the foundation of a highly politicised culture of street theatres, variety clubs cabarets, cafes, bars, and nightclubs whose performances were considered low art at the time. Alternative culture is always the springboard.

That's not to give the impression that Berlin Now is solely about club culture and alternative lifestyles because it's not. Schneider also looks at Berlin's architecture, the fall of the Wall and it's consequences, the Stasi legacy, the American occupation after the 2nd World War, Jewish life in Berlin, gentrification, and so on. Interestingly, he mentions at one point that it's actually misleading to speak of the 'fall of the Wall' because the Wall didn't fall on November 9 or even in the ensuing days; instead, several openings were broken into it with the help of cranes and then specialised companies were brought in to cart it off piece by piece.

And what became of the Wall in the end? Well, whilst a lot of it was reprocessed and ground down to sand to be used in the building of new highways in the former East Germany, a lot of it was also distributed around the world - to at least 125 different places to be precise including America and even Tonga and Hawaii.

Interesting also is the subject of Berlin and gentrification, a subject of relevance to most major cities throughout the western world these days. Schneider describes gentrification as meaning expulsion - the displacement of an area's traditional inhabitants by more well-off nonlocals with deep pockets, this being as good a description as any. The question, however, is 'what to be done about it it?'.

Whilst the Berlin militants and its Autonome scene shout "Burn the tourists!" and launch attacks on luxury cars and cafes selling latte macchiato, some Left-leaning district city councils particularly in the former East German parts of the capital are now starting to demand that money not be the last word and that the cultural values of certain areas be given priority over market value. Needless to say, the heralds of the free market economy and other market fundamentalists are up in arms against them. More so than around race and ethnicity, gentrification and class are the areas where the future of Berlin is going to be decided, it would seem. And likewise, of course, for every other major city throughout the world.

Peter Schneider is a good writer but then if you're going to make a book about a city be of any interest then you're going to have to be because let's face it, it can easily be a pretty dry subject. Throughout the book you get the sense that he's doing his utmost to remain politically neutral though every now and then his personal opinions seep through between the lines, sometimes revealing his liberalism and then sometimes revealing his conservatism. But that's okay and even understandable because Berlin is a city of extremes that almost forces passion, making it near impossible not to sound forth. Berlin is a city that everyone should try and visit at least once in their life and Berlin Now succeeds in demonstrating why.

John Serpico

Head-On - Julian Cope

 HEAD-ON - JULIAN COPE

The story of Julian Cope is like one of Bill Hicks' positive news drugs stories: 'Today, a young man on acid realised that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration - that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.' Being a one-time consummate drug taker, however, isn't the only string to Julian's bow of course as he's also a musician, a writer, an antiquarian, an activist, a visionary and an eloquent user of the English language which is what makes his autobiography, Head-On - Memories of the Liverpool Punk-scene and the story of the Teardrop Explodes (1976-82), such a joy to read.

Combining perfect English phrases such as 'bless my cotton socks' and American West Coast, Haight Astbury-like phrases, Julian Cope's uses of language is endearing. The title of the book, 'Head-On', is a double entendre referring to 'head' not only in the fellatio sense but also in the sense of where someone is at. For example, anyone with a penchant for music is a 'music-head', anyone who simply likes going to the pub is a 'pub-head', and anyone seemingly without any particular obsessions is a 'non-head', and so on and so forth.

But never mind all that. Let's just cut to the chase shall we and get straight to the drugs? Julian was 22 years old before he smoked his first joint and before that he'd never even smoked a cigarette. In fact he had always been vehemently anti-drugs until one day Teardrop Explodes guitarist Alan Gill told him that he was a tense asshole and needed to relax properly. 'Oh, that seemed fair enough' Julian says before describing the moment he lost his drug virginity.

'I sucked hard on the joint, a massive toke. It tasted really good. My head cleared up. My aching which had been there since my early teenage years, started to evaporate. Out of the top of my head I could feel all my little devils flying off. Yes, I was saved. I felt clean. I was 22 and I felt free. Not hippy free, just cooler about myself. I realised that it was okay to be me. And so it began. The turning point.'

With the slightest of skips and the barest minimum of jumps, Julian quickly progresses to constantly dropping LSD and from then on there's no looking back as he transforms into - as one fan describes it - a king of psychedelia. When appearing on the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test, Julian is on a cocktail of weed and amyl nitrate, and when appearing on Top Of The Pops he's on acid - staring down the camera into the living rooms of millions of viewers.

In America, fans queue up backstage calling out to Julian that they've got some LSD for him, whilst on arriving in San Francisco he's given a clear plastic bag full of 'sherbert', 'It's pure California Crystal,' he's informed by the bearer of the gift 'A thousand trip bag. I live out on the rock and the Dead sent it for you.'

Can you imagine? It certainly puts that night you got really drunk down the pub into perspective.

At one point Julian mentions a couplet that he's had spinning round in his head that went: 'I'm a Turner sky, and I look from above. It's all right for now, but how do I get down?' It's a brilliant line and one I'm not sure he ever committed to an actual song but it aptly describes the state he must have ascended to from his prodigious intake of hallucinogens. This all begs the question of course as to what effect such copious drug use might have upon a person in the long term? Well, have you seen what Julian Cope looks like nowadays and how he dresses? He's in a league of his own though we shouldn't be deceived by appearances because beneath the matted hair, beard, leathers and military cap there's a genuinely lovely human being concerned with environmentalism and cultural revolution whose railing against 'greed-heads' never lets up. Or as Julian describes himself: 'A forward-thinking motherfucker'.

It could be argued that Bill Drummond was wrong when he told Julian not to do drugs because he was bad enough straight so just think what a pain in the ass he'd be when high? Certainly, as evidenced by his book, before his drug-induced revelations and the pulling away of the veil from across his eyes, Julian never concerned himself much with the wider world beyond that of music and the societal politics of punk rock. In fact, throughout a large part of his book Julian comes across as a petulant queen bitch with hardly a good word to say about anyone - and that includes himself.

For example, according to Julian a band like A Certain Ratio were 'crap', Monochrome Set could 'fuck right off', Essential Logic were 'London free jazz', and Paul Weller-inspired Mod stuff 'sucked shit'. As for individuals, Ian McCulloch of Echo And The Bunnymen was a 'shit head', NME journalist Dave McCulloch was 'a plank', the Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark vocalist, Andy McCluskey, was like Leo Sayer; and as for erstwhile manager and fellow band member David Balfe he was 'a twat, a dwarf, and a satanic son-of-a-bitch'.

Those who do meet with approval are Pete Wylie, The Clash, Mark E Smith and The Fall (who he sees 28 times in 1978), Arthur Love, Scott Walker and even Lydia Lunch who visits Julian one night backstage and informs him that watching him on stage was like masturbation, before whisking him away and shagging his ass off.

By the sound of it Julian needed to write Head-On so as to get it all off his chest and to enable him to move on. And moved on he certainly has to become nowadays a polymath of sorts; expert in all things Krautrock, post-war Japanese experimental rock, stone circles and European Megalithic culture. As well as continuing to explore his own musically creative urges in the form of over 30 albums of original, fascinating and innovative near-sonic orgasms, as he might put it. 

Julian Cope is a gentleman and a scholar, a floored genius, an endearing writer and a veritable national treasure. And Head-On is a good book.

John Serpico

Zapata Of Mexico - Peter E Newell

 ZAPATA OF MEXICO - PETER E NEWELL

Everyone has at least heard of Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, I presume? If only from a slew of cowboy films where they and the Mexican Revolution are a backdrop to the main story? If not, then why not? If yes, then you might wonder what significance they have to the modern day world? Or if you know of the Zapatista slogan 'Tierra y Libertad' - 'Land and Liberty' - you might wonder how it might be relevant to a densely-packed urban population living in any of Britain's major conurbations where the closest a lot of people get to land is a window box on a tower block balcony? And of course, you wouldn't be wrong to wonder because Emiliano Zapata and the Mexican Revolution of 1910 do indeed appear to be a world away from the modern day world. But then on closer inspection and examination, however, they might actually be a lot closer than you think?

In January 1994, under the guidance of Subcommandante Insurgente Marcos, the indigenous people of Chiapas in Mexico declared independence of the Mexican State, creating an autonomous zone that is still in existence to this day. The indigenous people declared themselves to be Zapatistas, named after Emiliano Zapata from seeing themselves as his natural ideological heirs. They aligned themselves with anti-neoliberal sentiments and actions gaining traction at that time, recognising as natural allies the huge swathe of people around the world who were also questioning and physically challenging the concurrent global economic system.

A trade deal going by name of The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had been struck between Mexico, America and Canada and it was going to leave the peasant land workers of Mexico in a very much worse off position to that which they were already in. It was this that instigated the people of Chiapas to not only reject the Mexican State but to also declare war against it. All driven by the confidence and belief that rather than a world of exploitation being thrust upon them, another world was possible.

As any would-be revolutionary should know, taking on the full military might of any State power is commendable but at the same time potentially foolhardy or even suicidal which is why Subcommandante Marcos and the Zapatistas of 1994 not only looked to Emiliano Zapata for inspiration but also for tactics.

"Amigos! It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees," Zapata had once famously declared "The land free, free for all, without overseers and without masters, that is the cry of the revolution."

And so with these words echoing down from the past along with an additional cry of 'Basta!' (Enough!) the Zapatistas of 1994 armed only with machetes, clubs and a few guns launched their attack upon the Mexican State.

Emiliano Zapata had understood that sudden, hard, merciless attack is the best form of defence and that formal battles with the Mexican Army should be avoided unless victory was fairly certain, thereby denying the enemy the opportunity to destroy them at one blow. The Zapatistas were more an insurgent people than an army but were instead masters of guerrilla warfare. They laid traps and ambushes, cut supply lines, took small towns by storm, destroyed the smaller enemy units and harassed the larger ones. These tactics completely disconcerted their enemy who could never put their firepower into effective use. If the Mexican Army advanced with a large force, they never found anyone to fight and if they divided their forces they exposed themselves to destruction in ambushes and assaults.

Just as importantly, Zapata also understood the power of the word and that the written word in particular was also a weapon. Subsequently, circulars, decrees and manifestos would pour forth from the Zapatista headquarters. For Zapata, a printing press was just as valuable as a gun.

These are the lessons learned by Subcommandante Marcos in regard to the Mexican Revolution of 1910 though by 1994 there was of course also the Internet to be used as well, enabling therefore effective global communication to all fellow travellers and supporters. And vice versa.

Zapata Of Mexico by Peter E Newell is the sprawling, rolling story of Emiliano Zapata and how he came to symbolise unmitigated and unrepentant revolutionary zeal. It's the story of a man of great principle who could not be bought out or brought down by concessions or the lure of wealth and luxury. A man who was never interested in the seeking and gaining of power but in only the destruction of it. A man who still to this day symbolises a purity of intent that due to its very simplicity is at odds with everything that the modern day world of global economic capitalist power represents. A man who rather than trying to impose his will upon a people sought only to serve and protect that peoples' will.

Peter E Newell's book is not an easy read by any means as it's often difficult to keep up with the gamut of characters and place names stemming from how incredibly well researched it is. It is, however, an invaluable book and a useful gateway into the history of Mexico and the meaning of what it is to be a revolutionary in a world of exploitation, reactionary politics and compliance to the idea of greed being an inherent condition of human nature.

John Serpico

Strangeland - Tracey Emin

 STRANGELAND - TRACEY EMIN

I like Tracey Emin. There, I've said it. There is a proviso, however, in that I'm not a big fan of her art, particularly her installations. It's a delicate balance - a juggling act - but I manage it in the same way that I like Francis Bacon whilst not being a big fan of his art - or his studio. Especially his studio. I remember there being an exhibition of Tracey Emin's artwork in Amsterdam once, and on the outside of the Van Gogh Museum a gigantic banner advertising the show had been hung and I remember stopping to look at it and thinking that's an impressive achievement for an artist to have their name outside the Van Gogh Museum like that. Up there if not better than being nominated for the Turner Prize? The thing was, I didn't feel compelled to go in there and to actually view the show. I did at a later date but for the meantime the kudos and the sheer achievement was enough, which all served to enforce the idea that Tracey Emin's greatest work of art is not her tent with the names sown onto it or her unmade bed or her drawings. No, Tracey Emin's greatest work of art is herself.

Strangeland is a collection of Emin's memoirs and recollections written in a painfully forthright, often shockingly confessional but more than likely exaggerated manner, reminiscent of the confessional writings of Billy Childish. And that didn't take very long did it - to bring Billy Childish's name into the proceedings? But then it's almost unavoidable, really. Billy Childish is like the conscience that haunts Emin's art. The pure and unsullied Ying to her 'sold to the highest bidder' Yang. The question of whose art is the better doesn't come into it, however, and neither does commerciality or even originality. If anything, it's more to do with marketing because without any doubt more people know who Tracey Emin is and know some of her art than those who know of Billy Childish. It's just how the world works. The art world especially.

There's some pretty shocking stuff in Strangeland. Things that a reviewer once said that he wished someone who loved Emin had advised her not to publish. But publish she did and now here it all is in book form for the whole world to see. And for whose benefit? Well, for Emin's I presume because whilst it's good to have such candid and at times such brutal honesty displayed there's very little for the reader to actually gain from it, particularly when it comes to her anecdotes in regard to underage sex and abuse.

Strangeland is another addition to Tracey Emin's canon. Another string to her bow. Another medium to channel her art through - that art being herself, of course. Tracey Emin is her own muse, her own subject, and her own creation. Her grand finale, even. The point being that whether it's good or bad art is neither here nor there. That's not the question. That isn't what Emin's art is about.

Likewise, the question as to whether Strangeland is a good book or not is also neither here nor there. It can be read in the same way you would any other book, of course, but it shouldn't really be critiqued in the same way. That's not to say it's beyond criticism, it's just that the ingenuity of Tracey Emin is in the way she's smashed through a kind of fourth art wall in the same way, dare I say, as Picasso did with his Cubism. Purists might scoff but it's true and it doesn't mean you necessarily need to like Emin's art to recognise this.

John Serpico

Harmony In My Head - Steve Diggle

 HARMONY IN MY HEAD - STEVE DIGGLE

The last time I saw Steve Diggle he was as happy as Larry. This wasn't round his house for tea and biscuits I should point out but onstage with the Buzzcocks at the Paradiso, Amsterdam in 2009. He was playing his heart out on his guitar, swigging from a bottle of Champagne and smiling ear to ear looking for all the world as if he was in his natural element which, of course, he was. Whether or not any chemical stimulant was adding to his happiness is between him and his lawyer but as this was Amsterdam there was a slim chance it might have been. And why not? When in Rome and all that...

Harmony In My Head is Steve Diggle's autobiography, ghost written by Terry Rawlings, and it's a rollicking read full of of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. All the things, in fact, that you could want from an autobiography. There's also plenty of insights as you might expect in regard to the early Punk days, the Buzzcocks, and life in England during that whole Punk era with Diggle coming across as a genuinely affable, working class bloke possessed of a wit and intelligence that has seen him weather and survive decades of both personal and music business highs and lows. Moreover, he comes across as the kind of bloke you'd want want as a friend that you would very much treasure as such.

'People have forgotten just how desperate it was living in England during the early Seventies,' Diggle says, and it's true. History has a way of being written by either those with a vested interest or by those with a hankering for nostalgia, hence why as promoted by the tory press that decade is always depicted by images of piles of uncollected rubbish, striking workers, and the three-day week. The entertainment industry in the meantime depicts it as a golden age of glam rock, Hollywood blockbusters, and 'traditional' comedians telling 'traditional' jokes.

Being born into this world meant being born as mere cannon fodder fit only to be a spectator to the spectacle. Active participation in the world and the shaping of it was denied, leaving the likes of Steve Diggle with his nose pressed against the window watching life go by outside and an often ludicrous life at that. He sums it up by describing a night at the Manchester Free Trade Hall watching Patrick Moraz from prog rock group Yes, onstage with 'a fucking shop's worth of keyboards, banks and banks of them, with all those jackplug socket boards that looked like a telephone exchange. It was ridiculous but that wasn't all. Half way through a number he jumped up and blew into a 15-foot Alpine horn. That's when I knew I'd been had.'

From seemingly out of nowhere, however, the Sex Pistols suddenly appeared and from experiencing them came the notion that you don't need money or permission or even talent - you just need ideas even if those ideas are above your station.

'The message was 'Do it yourself',' Diggle tells us. 'I can't emphasize how important this was at that time, how important it was for music in this country. There were a million people on the dole and here was a band saying 'Get up off your arse. Express yourself. You can do it'. The barrier had gone between the ordinary kid on the street and the musician on the stage.'

Hence the Buzzcocks and punk's first double entendre - suggesting a vibrator - and a name as good as a Sex Pistol. Hence Spiral Scratch, the Buzzcocks debut EP on their New Hormones label that according to Geoff Travis of Rough Trade was the first independent record people really wanted. Hence a slew of classic, near-perfect singles that when compiled onto a single album - Singles Going Steady - made for a classic, near-perfect album. Hence for Steve Diggle a life of creativity, travel, art, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

Diggle's a candid raconteur and reveals things of interest in a very matter of fact manner, much of which I'd not even considered. I didn't know, for example, that the song 'Harmony In My Head' was inspired by James Joyce's Ulysses, one of the best though most difficult books in the world. I didn't know 'Love You More' was at the time the shortest ever A-side single released  in the UK, clocking in at just one minute and forty-five seconds. I didn't know that on signing to United Artists that the label at first refused to press 'Orgasm Addict' as they thought the word 'orgasm' was disgusting. And then likewise with 'Oh Shit', the B-side of the second single, 'What Do I Get?', where the pressing plant staff actually walked out.

And then in regard to original Buzzcocks bassist, Garth, whom little is really known about to the point of him being somewhat of a punk rock enigma, Diggle informs us he was a 'massive truck driver-type of a guy, a huge build of a man, a proper bruiser' who happened to have a certain propensity for fighting. Garth would fight with bouncers (six at a time on one occasion), band members themselves (Pete Shelley once, for buying the wrong size batteries for his ghetto-blaster), and even whole audiences, one time in Leeds wading into the front row after someone spat at him only to result in the entire stage being pelted with bottles and glasses and the band having to flee the venue for their lives.

Being a self-confessed, life-long conscientious objector to the 9-5 work ethic, Steve Diggle has successfully navigated and dodged every imaginable sling and arrow that a life of being a rock'n'roller (and a punk one at that) could possibly throw at him - and he's still standing. Harmony In My Head is a testament to that mighty endeavour and that most noble of achievements. 

John Serpico

Mother, Brother, Lover - Jarvis Cocker

 MOTHER, BROTHER, LOVER - JARVIS COCKER

A book of selected lyrics written by Jarvis Cocker and the obvious question it invites being 'Is Jarvis Cocker a great lyricist?' The immediate problem with this, however, is in the criteria in which the lyrics are judged as in do they retain their integrity when isolated from the music and when stood alone on a naked page? For the most part I'd say unfortunately not, that it's only when combined with the music of Pulp that they come into their own, though to be fair to Jarvis this is something he admits himself in the written introduction of his book where he highlights the instruction he includes with any lyric sheet that comes with the records - 'NB Please do not read the lyrics whilst listening to the recordings'. That's not to say he doesn't have his moments but in comparison to some genuinely great lyricists such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Elvis Costello, Lou Reed, Nick Cave and so on, they're few and far between. So is Mother, Brother, Lover an ill-advised vanity project or merely meant for Jarvis Cocker/Pulp fans only? The fact that mine is a signed copy and that this means very little to me suggests that yes, it might well be a bit of both.

I used to adhere to the Lemmy Kilmister school of thought that said if you can't say something in three minutes (in the context of the typical length of a song) then it's probably not worth saying, though nowadays I tend to rescind on that idea and sympathise a lot more with the epic song and lyric. I still believe, however, that anything too stupid to say is sung instead which is where the appeal of Jarvis Cocker lies because  at least he's always tried to inject some sense and meaning into a song. A prime and probably the best example of this being Cunts Are Still Running The World that not only makes for a good song title but is also a pretty meaningful and even sensible and reasoned thing to declare.

Another thing that makes Jarvis Cocker's lyrics of interest is his class consciousness which is actually a rare thing to find within music or for it at least to be so prominent. It's in evidence throughout his songs such as I Spy, Mile End, Catcliffe Shakedown, and Cocaine Socialism among others and of course it's there in Common People, the song that is perhaps the pinnacle of his song writing. There's a caveat, however, and that's in the way that however much Jarvis displays his awareness of where he's from and the class structure he was born into, there's a certain loathing if not even a fear of certain aspects of the working class culture he's of that actually outweighs his adversity to aspects of middle class culture he's encountered.

There's an unpredictability and a latent violence within working class culture that Jarvis encapsulates in Common People with the lines 'Like a dog lying in the corner they will bite you and never warn you - Look out, they'll tear your insides out.' It's an acknowledgment of not only something that Jarvis himself is frightened of but of something that others should be wary of too. What Jarvis does not acknowledge, however, is that this unpredictability and latent violence is a power that the working class hold and is in fact a key to their emancipation, for want of a better word. Rather than living their lives with 'no meaning or control and with nowhere left to go', the very things that Jarvis is frightened are what actually enables the working class to 'burn so bright' whilst all those possessed of wealth and privilege can only stand to be 'amazed that they exist' and be left to 'only wonder why'.

As I said, Common People is probably the pinnacle of his song writing and is a song Jarvis should be rightly proud of.

Jarvis Cocker nowadays is very close to being a national treasure, a kind of grand old dame of Britpop. He may not have a latent violent bone in his body - which of course is no bad thing at all - but because he is of the 'common people' he still has an unpredictability about him that is always going to stand him in good stead and is the ingredient that will always have him remain a person of interest. Even if his book isn't.

John Serpico

Go Now - Richard Hell

 GO NOW - RICHARD HELL

He was a punk rock originator, or so they say and so he claims. Not of the musical style but the look as in the spiky hair and the ragged clothes held together by safety pins. Malcolm McLaren had seen him in New York and wanted to bring him over to England to lead a band he was thinking of putting together. He declined, so McLaren simply stole or 'borrowed' his image and the rest is history. To have invented punk rock should be enough for any man and guarantees a legacy of sorts but if you're possessed of a creative urge then you've got to do something with it, hence Richard Hell and The Voidoids and his career as a poet and writer. A man's got to eat and pay his bills at the end of the day as well, of course. Not that I imagine he's actually made much money from his legacy, his music and his books, if any at all in fact. Which brings us to Go Now, written by Richard Hell and published in 1996, and though its reach is global as evidenced by a copy falling into my hands down here at the edge of the world it's very doubtful it's been much of a money spinner for the author.

The blurb on the back cover describes the book as a 'tragi-comic road novel. A walk, ride and fall on the wild side' and in one sense it is; like a cross between Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, On The Road, and any number of books by Charles Bukowski. The plotline - or what there is of one - is very simple: A fading punk rock star and his ex-girlfriend are commissioned to drive a car from California to New York and to write a book about the experience, him doing the writing and the ex-girlfriend taking photographs. What it entails, however, is her taking photographs and him doing a lot of navel gazing.

'How are you supposed to spend your damned life?' he ponders at one point 'What is there to aspire to? Fame and money. Sex and drugs. What else is there to do with freedom?' And on it goes, which is fair enough though it doesn't make for the most riveting of reading it must be said. The problem is that there's too much self-loathing and pitifulness going on. Too much wondering where he's going to get his next bag of heroin from whilst at the same time juggling with the question as to whether he's an addict or not and if so why so? Too much junky business, as Johnny Thunders would say. The America he's describing being almost a desolate one, punctuated by cheap motels, diners and people pre-occupied with their own problems. Like an echo of the inside of the author's head, America is not a happy place.

A curious aspect of the book is when it comes to the question of how autobiographical it is? The narrator goes by the name of Billy Mud and this is clearly Richard Hell himself. The ex-girlfriend is called Chrissa and is French which suggests this is meant to be a representation of Lizzy Mercier Descloux, who was once Hell's girlfriend. The funder of the road trip and the person who wants to produce the book based on it is British and is called Jake. I was thinking Jake Riviera, the co-founder of Stiff Records, the label on which Richard Hell's debut Blank Generation EP was first released.

This all then begs the question did any of the events in the book actually take place? Did Hell ever take a road trip with Mercier Descloux and if so did they stop off at Hell's aunt's house where he ended up having sex with his aunt and being caught in flagrante delicto by Mercier Descloux, who then took photos of them in the act? Having read Hell's actual autobiography, I Dreamt I Was A Very Clean Tramp, it's entirely feasible from what he revealed in it in regard to his sexual peccadillos and his somewhat ungentlemanly disregard for discretion. 

Though does any of it matter? Of course not. Does any of it make for a great book? Well, no, not a great book as such but certainly not a bad one.

John Serpico