Nico: The End

"Nico was a very successful German model. She was a feature in the Andy Warhol Factory scene, and then Warhol put her in the Velvet Underground. Which was a strange move, and perhaps not altogether successful. However, John Cale, who I think it’s safe to say was the musical brains of the Underground, made some absolutely magnificent albums with her. If you don’t know The Marble Index , I recommend it, it’s an absolute masterpiece. Nico was without musical training but I think she had an extraordinary musical gift; I reject that ‘all you have to do to be good is to practice for 10,000 hours’ idea, it couldn’t be more wrong. Just like, say, athletics. I mean, you have to work at it too. But if the musical gift isn’t there, it makes no difference how hard you work. We used to be inundated with tapes from hopefuls. Sadly the overwhelming majority weren’t any good at all. I eventually came to the conclusion that the kindest thing to say was: ‘don’t sacrifice your life to this.’ It’s a harsh thing to say, but it can save people. I know people well into their fifties who are still chasing the musical dream, it’s tragic. However, you have to be very careful, because you’re playing with people’s identities and as the all too familiar story of Dick Rowe warns us, we may be convinced that a band or a piece of music has no potential and be absolutely wrong . Dick Rowe, for anyone who doesn’t know, was the guy at Decca who in 1962 turned down The Beatles with the phrase that haunted him for the rest of his life: “Guitar groups are on their way out, Mr Epstein.” Get the weekly Five Books newsletter Yet it’s bizarrely common to come across people who think they’ve done something incredible, when they’ve just come up with a straightforward three-chord sequence. They genuinely think they’ve revolutionised music. A tragi-comic case was a guy who signed to our label. He went on to do quite high-profile stuff, so I’m not going to say who it was, but he came to me with his new song. This song had the melody from Duran Duran’s song ‘Ordinary Day’. He’d even chosen an almost identical title for ‘his’ song. The extraordinary thing was that he genuinely wasn’t aware. He’d somehow managed to fool himself. Very strange. One of the guiding principles I set myself for these recommendations was that you don’t have to be a fan of the artist in order to find the book interesting. I say that now because Nico’s music isn’t to everyone’s taste. Anyway, the book was written by a guy called James Young; a member of Nico’s band. I was introduced to James at a party in the 1990s by my much-missed friend Robert Sandall. At the time I’d only vaguely heard of Nico really. But Robert told me it was an incredible book, so I got it and he was correct, it’s quite brilliant. It is, it has to be said, very dark. James manages to place the reader in the middle of the visceral squalor that surrounds heroin addiction. It’s not an easy read, but it’s brilliantly written and fascinating. It covers the extreme trials of touring with Nico. There are lots of colourful characters, and then he covers the making of the album. Unfortunately, in my view, the album, Camera Obscura, isn’t all that great. It suffers from being made in 1985! Whereas the earlier albums were made with real instruments, this one relies on the then fashionable DX7 synth. At the time everyone thought… and I include myself in this… that it was the most amazing thing. But its sounds dated very quickly. Sound dates faster than humour. Yes, it’s the period leading up to her death. Yes. I don’t think anything pleased her very much. A junkie’s personality is gradually subsumed by their habit; eventually, they pretty much become a zombie; caring about nothing except for their next hit. Nico had a pretty tough early life. Born just before the second world war, her father was in the German army but somehow fell from grace and, according to some accounts, was sent to a concentration camp where he was shot. Post-war Germany was a very difficult place to be. She was abused, and in her teens, raped by an American soldier. There’s a story that Nico had to give evidence at the soldier’s court martial, a court martial which led to his execution. However, as is so often the case in Nico’s life, it’s extremely difficult to separate fact from fiction. Regardless, when you hear the early albums she did with Cale you realise she had real talent. As you say, the book is about decline, it’s about decadence, it’s about the tedium of being on tour. Being on tour, by the way, is extraordinarily tedious. If you want to know what being on tour is like, go and sit in an airport for three hours every day for three months: that’s what it’s like. I think that’s why it so often leads to drugs; people are very, very bored. The book captures everything. I’d even say James very nearly manages to depict even the odours of the drug addiction."