Last time I met Nikki was in New York.

He was playing an instore somewhere on the Lower East Side, and I went down with Kid Millions to see him perform. As usual, he was magical: his voice cracking and wavering with emotion, joking with the crowd, dressed like Johnny Thunders in his velvet sleeves and with his guitar held high. Someone offered him dope. “Sorry,” he laughed. “I only do hard drugs.” He spotted me sitting at the back, and waved his guitar in my direction, trying to entice me onstage to play a few numbers (Nikki promoted a handful of Legend! shows in the early Eighties). I shook my head. I was enjoying myself too much.

Time before, we were hanging with Mercury Rev, stealing their whiskey, reminiscing.

I was never into Swell Maps as much as some of my peers - although who could deny the exuberance of some of their more thrown-away moments of two-minute pop brilliance? - but there were a couple of Jacobites albums from the mid-Eighties that occupy a very special place in my heart.

Nikki was a true gent - too beholden to rock’n'roll mythology, for sure: too taken with the lace and frills of the early Seventies - but a true gent. He believed he was a star. It didn’t matter that only a handful of people agreed with him - he believed he was a star, and so he behaved like one, throughout his life.

You’ll be missed, Nikki.

Posted by Everett True on Tuesday, March 28th, 2006
(3 Comments)

uh-huh.

Posted by Andrew Clare on Sunday, March 19th, 2006
(No Comments)

Dagnabbit.

A couple of nights ago, got a text from my occasional music partner Careless Boy to say he was playing a gig with Noah Taylor (Flirting, It Happened One Summer, Shine) at the Marlborough. I blinked several times at it, decided Careless Boy had to be having me on, and promptly forgot to chase it up.

So anyhooo.

Yesterday met up with Careless Boy and he was telling me all about the show. Three people showed up to watch the band, when all of a sudden four men (and a woman) walk in…the Bad Seeds. Noah holds up his violin, gestures towards Warren Ellis. “Wanna play…?”

Warren jumps up on stage, plays a couple of songs.

Man. Fuck it. Yes, you could say I was mad with myself.

Posted by Everett True on Friday, March 3rd, 2006
(3 Comments)

Something that’s been bugging me constantly about Nirvana is the date of when Kurt first met Courtney.

The ‘official’ version is that the pair first met in Portland 1990 - as told by Azerrad, Cross et al. There’s no factual basis for this story at all, just Courtney and her concern at not appearing too much of a golddigger.

I happen to know that I actually introduced the couple in LA at a Butthole Surfers/L7 concert in May 1991 - but the ‘official’ biographers choose not to believe this version, even though I have many close mutual friends who back me up here. Trouble is, the only person who could really verify my story has been dead for over a decade now.

Today, while researching the book, found this tucked away in a joint Kurt + Courtney interview with Sassy magazine, January 1992: “I saw him play in Portland in 1988,” says Courtney. “I thought he was passionate and cute, but I couldn’t tell if he was smart, or had any integrity. And then I met him at a show about a year ago.” “Butthole Surfers,” says Kurt. “And L7,” adds Courtney, “I really pursued him…”

Ha! Take that crap revisionist historians.

Posted by Everett True on Wednesday, March 1st, 2006
(9 Comments)