Nico in Manchester is my favourite of all Nicos
Plus Thakzin, Dean Blunt, Lankum and more
(Coming at you a day early, before Primavera starts to occupy my mind.)
Musical biographies tend to divide into two categories: those who view the central character as some kind of unvarnished god who can do no humanly wrong; and those that revel in the humanity - and even occasional mundanity - of the musician in question.
I far prefer the second kind. For me, it enhances the legend to find out that Kraftwerk suffered from dodgy tummies before their Mumbai gig in 1981, however much Ralf Hütter might not like to hear it. (This thanks to Wolfgang Flür’s I Was A Robot, one of the best books ever about life in a pioneering, if not that successful, band.) This kind of insight strips the artist back to their humanity: they’re not alien beings from a different planet, whose works are beyond human comprehension; they’re humans, like us, and can suffer after a dodgy curry. Their achievements are human, too, which only makes them more impressive.
James Young’s Nico: Songs They Never Play On The Radio is very much in the second category of book, detailing the legendary German singer’s adventures in Manchester, London and on tour in the mid 1980s, as viewed through the eyes of her keyboard player. It’s farcical at times - Nico playing a tour of low-brow Italian discos, who are far more interested in Michael Jackson - funny, particularly when Young captures Nico’s distinctive Teutonic honk of a speaking voice, and incredibly moving, when Nico, briefly low on heroin, is forced to confront the wreck of her life.
I don’t think the book ever really gets to the bottom of who Nico is and where she has come from. But nor does it really try: it’s not a formal biography or historical text. Nico’s eye-raising personal history is referenced - growing up in war-torn Berlin, her father disappearing at a young age, early modelling jobs to pay the bills, appearing in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, experiences at Warhol’s Factory, the Velvet Underground and so forth - but only in the name of understanding Nico in the 1980s, how she could end up in crumbling, post-industrial Manchester, taking on low-paid tours in the name of putting together enough money for a fix. In the end, the situation kind of makes sense, as much as anything about Nico could ever really make sense.
“There’s a kind of purity in her [Nico],” Young says at one point towards the end of the book, in conversation with her manager Dr Demetrius (aka Manchester promoter Alan Wise, “in that remorseless monomania, that heroic indifference. Nico wouldn’t piss on us if we were on fire, so at least we know where we stand.” This is about as close as we get to a definitive analysis of the Nico character. And, fittingly, it comes across as affectionate.
A lot of people have said that Songs They Never Play On The Radio is depressing. I’m not sure if I agree. Yes, Nico’s situation is a sorry one and that fact that she shares heroin with her son, Ari, is given added poignancy by the fact that Ari died of an overdose in 2023, his body lying undiscovered for a month.
But Nico, on the whole, seems happy with her lot, at least when there is a steady supply of heroin. Or, perhaps, she seems as happy as the ever contradictory Nico could be. This is the woman who blew out Fellini because she didn’t want to get out of bed; who grew to hate the beauty that had given her a ticket out of the Berlin rubble; who could have become a vast star in the 1960s if she had continued with the simple musical charm of her debut album Chelsea Girls, only to follow it up with two of the bleakest, most beautifully cold, albums ever recorded in The Marble Index and Desertshore. (This is also the woman that Young portrays happily paddling in the ocean on a day off from the Australian tour, a tiny, joyful detail that a more academic book might have ignored.)
Young can be hard on the various characters in the book - John Cale, for example, comes across as selfish, arrogant and (initially) washed out - but there is definitely affection in there for Nico, however badly she treats him. Somewhere in there, beyond the layers of legend, there is a real person, who loves her son, has a problem with phlegm and likes to record open-heart surgery on the communal video recorder. (The 1995 documentary Nico - Icon, in which Young also appears, is excellent too. But Nico comes across as almost too iconic, too perfect, a divinity rather than a flesh and blood human. Which feels a little unreal and even cold to my tastes.)
Amid the mundanity of 80s Manchester, Songs They Never Play…. never entirely forgets that we are talking about Nico here. The singer might be sick of talking about her past - as she makes very clear in a local radio interview that appears early in the book - but the occasional references to Lou Reed, Jim Morrison, Andy Warhol et al do pop up, as Nico has rare moments of self reflection.
Nico is troubled and chaotic, her life grimy and poor. But her art is divine and she never misses a gig. Amid the squalor of Nico’s brief residence in South London she manages to record Camera Obscura, her final studio album and a work of flawed but devastating brilliance. Young calls König, the final song on Camera Obscura,“standout”… “A beautiful, almost chorale-like piece”, which is A) undoubtedly true and B) not at all what you’re expecting after reading tales of the album’s ramshackle recording process.
Young may focus his attention on the day-to-day mundanity of life with Nico - the T shirts they don’t sell, the crowds who don’t turn up, the endless cigarettes smoked and in-van bickering - in his book but he never under-appreciates her art.
And that is vitally important. A frequent refrain in the book, whenever the band complains to Demetrius about the way they are treated by Nico, is that they couldn’t do it without her. To which there is no comeback: of course they couldn’t. And the reason the band endures bad or non-existent pay, cramped buses, daily chaos and frequent put downs, is that this is Nico and they believe in her art.
This, in the end, is why I see Songs They Never Play…. as more celebration than tragedy. You will laugh, cry and become exasperated at Nico’s life; you will wish that things could have turned out differently; but most of all, you will want to come back to the incredible music that lies at the heart of the Nico enigma.
Some listening
Lankum - The Rocky Road to Dublin (live)
I am stupidly excited about seeing Lankum at Primavera Sound this week. And what better to get ready than this live version of The Rocky Road to Dublin, a 19th-century Irish song written by Irish poet D. K. Gavan that Lankum undercut with unfathomable amount of grace and latent menace? I think it is one of my favourite things they have ever done and the band’s new album Live in Dublin is incredible.
Thakzin - The Magnificent Dance
OK, this isn’t new: it’s from 2022; but I was inspired to dig it out by a Resident Advisor piece on 3-Step, which I had vaguely heard of but had no idea what it really was. Thakzin, it appears, is the 3-Step don and the absolutely haunting, impeccably elegant The Magnificent Dance is his calling card, like the spaciest Detroit techno melting down to its melodic core in the South African afternoon sun. As you might imagine, a three-step rhythm on the bass drum plays a big role in the 3-step sound. but it’s a lot more than that. Thakzin explains it thus: “In 3-step, each and every sound matters,” he told RA. “It's mostly driven by the rhythm and the communication of drums. However, musicality plays a huge role because it balances the mood of the song.”
Dean Blunt, Panda Bear and Vegyn - DOWNER
Dean Blunt, Panda Bear and Vegyn feels like a collaboration drawn out of a hat. So why the hell is it so magnificent, a kind of trip hop shoegaze hybrid that should, by all rights, stink the place, but instead feels like a cool kiss on a summer’s day? That’s the magic of Dean Blunt, I guess.
Things I’ve done
My guest on Line Noise with week is Matt Edwards, aka remixer, producer and DJ extraordinaire Radio Slave. We talked about covers, J Dilla, Kylie Minogue, Berlin and its Radio Slave era, remixing, Rekids and more.
The Playlists
All killer, no filler, guaranteed no Nico to spoil the vibe. (Oh come on, it’s a joke. I LOVE Nico.) Yup, it’s my playlists of new music, both long and short. Please do follow.