I Eat Music

Nick Cave has apologised to Kylie Minogue and Avril Lavigne for including them in his new book, ‘The Death Of Bunny Munro’. The book’s titular lead character is obsessed with the two singers, and in particular Avril Lavigne’s vagina.

Cave told BBC 6music: “I would like to publicly apologise to both of them, especially Avril Lavigne. Because the writing about her is darker and more invasive I guess. I know Kylie and at least, I hope, she will take it in the spirit it was written. At the time that the book was set, which was about eight years ago, or seven years ago, Kylie Minogue and her hot pants were all the tabloids wrote about in this country”.

In a recent iTunes ‘Meet The Author’ podcast, Cave said on the same issue: “I’m slightly worried about touring America, to be honest. … The whole book revolves around Avril Lavigne’s vagina. And it’s not a happy book. But I just keep thinking that if Avril Lavigne wrote a book about my dick, I wouldn’t mind”.

Nick Cave’s second novel, ‘The Death Of Bunny Munro’, will be made available as an iPhone app, it has been revealed.

The iPhone edition, which will apparently be released before the print version, will allow readers to change fonts and colour and add virtual bookmarks when you decide to stop reading (you know, like a book). The text will automatically scroll up the screen (the speed of which you can adjust depending on your reading speed) and the audiobook version will be bundled with it. But the most interesting part is a feature that allows you to switch between the audio and text versions. If your eyes get tired, just pop in your headphones and Nick Cave will arrive (ie in recorded form, he will not actually ‘arrive’) to read the rest to you.

Nick Cave and Bad Seeds collaborator Warren Ellis have also composed a soundtrack to the book, although I’m not entirely sure if this is included in the iPhone app or not.

The hardback edition of the book will be published by Faber & Faber on 8 Sep. Cave’s first novel, 1989’s ‘And The Ass Saw The Angel’, will be re-issued to coincide with the new release.

Now, it might appear cynical of me to say this, but it does seem that every rock biography written by a little known figure in the music industry comes with its very own revelation about how a now dead rock star they once knew was murdered.

The latest to do this is ‘Rock Roadie’, by former Jimi Hendrix roadie James ‘Tappy’ Wright. In it, Wright claims that the guitarist’s manager Michael Jeffery drunkenly admitted to offing him as part of a life insurance scam. Wright alleges that Jeffery was the sole beneficiary of a $2 million life insurance policy taken out by Hendrix, and, in order to get his hands on the cash, he visited the London hotel room of Monika Dannemann, where Hendrix was staying the night he died, and force fed him pills and alcohol, which caused him to choke on his own vomit.

In the book Wright says: “I can still hear that conversation, see the man I’d known for so much of my life, his face pale, hand clutching at his glass in sudden rage. [He told me:] ‘I had to do it, Tappy. You understand, don’t you? I had to do it. You know damn well what I’m talking about. I was in London the night of Jimi’s death and together with some old friends… we went round to Monika’s hotel room, got a handful of pills and stuffed them into his mouth… then poured a few bottles of red wine deep into his windpipe. I had to do it. Jimi was worth much more to me dead than alive. That son of a bitch was going to leave me. If I lost him, I’d lose everything’”.

We tried to contact Jeffrey to get his side of the story but he died in a plane crash in 1973 and our ouija board is broken.

Varg Vikernes, aka Count Grishnackh, he of early nineties Norwegian black metal outfit Burzum, will soon be released after serving 15 years in prison for the murder of Oystein Aarseth, aka Euronymous, guitarist with another Norwegian black metal band called Mayhem. Vikernes was also convicted for burning down a number of churches.

The musician was sentenced to 21 years in 1993 and has been denied parole four times, most recently in September last year. In 2003, he was granted a week long release but failed to return to prison and was found several days later driving a stolen car with various weapons and a fake passport, which is never a great idea if you’re trying to prove to a parole board that you’re a reformed character. This incident saw him receive an extra 13 months on his sentence. However, more recently he has been allowed out to walk around the local area and visit his family, and two weeks ago his latest application for parole was accepted.

Vikernes told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet: “I will have to report [to a parole officer] for one year – initially every two weeks, and then once a month”.

The early nineties Norwegian black metal scene and the power struggle that lead to Vikernes murdering Aarseth was the subject of Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind’s excellent book, ‘Lords Of Chaos’. You should read it.

This article originally appeared in CMU Daily on 12 Mar 2009

In a lengthy, and now deleted post on The Cardinals website, Ryan Adams has announced that the band he fronts will play their final gig in Atlanta, Georgia before splitting. On top of that, Adams revealed that he plans to bow out of music altogether for the foreseeable future, and stop blogging, while he works on two books, attempts to recover from some inner ear problems and rediscover what it was that excited him about music in his youth. Except he took a lot longer to say all that.

Adams revealed that he suffers from Ménière’s disease, which combines symptoms of tinnitus and vertigo to make for one unpleasant time. This, he said, was the cause of apparently drunken behaviour at recent gigs and has left him dizzy and nauseous on regular occasions.

He wrote: “I am ready for quieter times as I think it is very evident I am struggling with some balance and hearing issues. … I won’t be blogging here anymore – but not for effect – it just is not being kind to myself – I need a life that is mine – I need to grow up and grow into who I have subtly been working back towards”.

He may be off blogging, but will still continue writing, promising two more books, in addition to his previously reported anthology of poetry and short stories, ‘Infinity Blues’, which will also be published this year.

Although he seemed fairly committed to finding new outlets for his creativity, Adams did not rule out a return to music in the future. He said: “Maybe I will work my way back into some kind of music situation but this is the time for me to step back now … My dream was to try and tap into [the] energy I saw watching Minutemen VCR tapes … of Mike Watt’s crazy shaking leg and his electric fingers – or how Sonic Youth droned into beautiful clouds those guitars shaking, Kim and Steve rattling the pulsing lines into feverish thudding imaginary subway cars racing through my heart”.

This article originally appeared in CMU Daily on 16 Jan 2009