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BOOK REVIEW! NICO --- SONGS THEY NEVER PLAY ON THE RADIO BY JAMES YOUNG (Bloomesbury Publishing, 1992)

Shame on Brad Kohler for sending me this book! I mean it!!! Y'see, this personalist diary of one's participation with the ol' Moon Goddess herself Nico during a slew of tours and recording sessions is fine and dandy itself but really, Brad shoulda remembered that I already have this tome for the times albeit under a totally different title. Shows ya just how much the fanabla pays attention to the stuff I write up! You know, it really does get me deep down in the ol' pate de foi gras when a devoted fan and admirer of mine gets things wrong, and in such a gross manner at that t'boot! Sheesh what kinda admirers do I really have, but at least him giving me a book outta the kindness of his heart does make me feel all kinda warm 'n toasty inside. Besides I haven't read this 'un in ages so it's like Brad sent me more'n just a little "hint" to give it another go...

So here it is, old turds in new bowels more or less, and to prove that I'm a man who takes chances I ain't gonna read my old writeup of this in order to compare notes and look smarter than the average blog reader. I might contradict myself and even end up looking like a total idiot (or worse yet rock critic) having said one thing then and another thing now, but that's the price I pay for being the foolhardy gambler (who always loses) that I am and shall remain!

James Young played keyboards in Nico's final group Faction and the saga he tells 'bout the gal just reiterates everything we've known about her to the point where even Kohler gave an apt description of the ice goddess' final years via the "Li'l Minx" comic that appeared in the last issue of my very own crudzine. Yes, everything we've already known about Nico and are still afraid to ask is brought up...Nico the rayciss, Nico the stinkpot, Nico the junkie, Nico the gal who forgets her friends 'n it's all here. It won't get you to chuck your platters but it will reinforce alla those sagas about the Nico's viscousness trying to gouge a black model's eyeball out with a wine glass and other things that I'm sure would upset the more precious petunia types who tune into the blog. But eh, they'll still keep their Nico recs as well I'll bet.

Lotsa special guest appearances in these pages from an equally junked up John Cooper Clarke, Ari the bastard kid who's even more of a mental wreck than mama can be, and former bandmate/producer John Cale whose brain seems to be about as white powdered as Nico's. It is not so strange that, for being collaborator for over two decades at this point, the two seem more or less like a jaundiced married couple with a deep sort of irritation for each others' presence, and come to think of it it's things like this which make the entire sordid and seed saga all the more tasty. 

It ain't the streamlined sixties/seventies decadence that seemed really appealing to us cloistered kids who only got a taste of it via the rock mags, but a better than average encapsulation of what happened once that decadence got way off the rails as the hard-edged seventies slid into the squeaky clean eighties and that whole drugs/pervo scene just wasn't as fun as it used to be. For a good tombstone to the entire deca-Warhol/lower Manhattan era you can't beat this 'un which won't make you wanna mourn for those days'r anything, but it will remind us of what bigtime jerkoffs some of our favorite under-the-counterculture icons could get to be sometimes. And after all of the books, articles and rumors I've come across, boy were there many!