Books written by Nina Antonia: Johnny Thunders, In Cold Blood, The New York Dolls, The Prettiest Star, The Only Ones, From Albion to Shangri-La. Films: 'Arthur Kane-New York Doll. 'Looking For Johnny', The Greenwood Faun, Incurable: The Haunted Writings of Lionel Johnson, the Decadent Era's Dark Angel.
Liner Notes written by Nina Antonia: Nico, The New York Dolls, The Heartbreakers, Iggy & The Stooges. Contributions to: Mojo, Uncut, Classic Rock. Anthologies: 'Bosie & The Beast' - Fenris Wolf 8'. 'South-West 13' Egaeus Press. Forthcoming: 'How Shall Dead Men Sing' - Egaeus Press - 'A Midwinter Entertainment.'
In Conversation with Gary Lachman, Nina Antonia and Travis Elborough
The Century Club, Shaftesbury Avenue, London
July 4th 2023
Torrential rain was not the best backdrop to trying to find an anonymous Soho doorway but once inside the fourth floor of London’s Century Club turned out to be an excellent space in which to eavesdrop on a three-way conversion between Nina, Travis and Gary – who you might know better as Gary Valentine, bass player with Blondie up until 1977. Now based in London, these days Gary is a writer specialising in consciousness, the esoteric and the occult. Nina shares many of these interests but the discussion tonight was about music – specifically about the New York scene in the mid-1970s. Gary lived there as a budding musician, whilst Nina chronicled the rise and fall of the New York Dolls and their guitarist Johnny Thunders, the subject of her most recent book, In Cold Blood. Travis did well to keep the conversation flowing and we got some excellent anecdotes – who knew that Kung-Fu Girls on the first Blondie LP was written for Thunders? Nina hung around after the event to sign copies of her book (Gary had been too modest to bring his book New York Rocker) and I learnt that guitarist Neal Whitmore and ex-Thunders drummer Chris Musto will be setting some of Nina’s poems to music. A very rewarding couple of hours.
Thank you for persevering and visiting the site that hasn’t been updated since last September, due to health issues. Happily it is now rolling again, to coincide with the publication of a revised edition of ‘Johnny Thunders – In Cold Blood’ via Jawbone Press. Featuring an additional chapter and a foreword by Mike Scott (The Waterboys) the release date was set as close as could be for what would have been Johnny’s 71st birthday. It also has an index which might not seem particularly exciting but it gives a book a kind of elan, underpinning the concept of it being a culturally valid item. For at least the last 7 years, people have made contact asking if there were any spare copies of the book left, it used to break my heart to tell them the cupboard was empty, whilst according to Amazon ‘Johnny Thunders – In Cold Blood’ was one of the most sought after books on their site. Meanwhile, both the 1987 version and the Cherry Red 1992 edition were being sold by book dealers at extortionate prices. Although nothing beats having an actual copy of a book, a Kindle version of the book has been available for a year or so, not that I have Kindle being somewhat old fashioned!
For almost a decade, attempts were made to find a new home for ‘In Cold Blood’ – publishers are strange creatures, they don’t recognise sub-cultures or their devotion. A U.S literary agent knocked on the door of several companies in New York that specialise in rock biogs, hoping to get a deal for ‘JT- In Cold Blood’ but it was a futile exercise, they had their hands full with Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin projects. There I was thinking that Johnny being a home-grown rocker who could have come from nowhere else, might have swayed them. The corporate perspective has narrowed the scope to the tried and tested. Did they even notice when the Japanese edition zoomed into the top 10 music books of the Amazon chart on the day it was released? It’s all history now…I’m eternally grateful to Mike Scott who introduced me to Kevin Pocklington at the North Literary Agency and a deal was swiftly forged with Jawbone Press who truly understand how significant Johnny Thunders is. This is the definitive edition, featuring an intense final chapter. ‘Johnny Thunders – In Cold Blood’ has grown up with me or perhaps it is I who have grown up with the book that changed the course of my life.
‘Johnny Thunders: In Cold Blood’ is Available through good book shops and via Amazon
A fateful destiny: Uncanny happenings and anecdotes: this portrait of Oscar Wilde and his troubled friends is a decadent delight, says Christopher Josiffe
Comprising five essays, each of which highlights esoteric aspects of Oscar Wilde’s fateful relationship with “Bosie”, aka Lord Alfred Douglas, this book, while slim, includes many surprising details new to this reviewer, despite some familiarity with Wilde’s triumphs and travails.
Constance Wilde’s membership of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, alongside Yeats, Machen and the ubiquitous Crowley, is well-known. Less so, perhaps, is the idea that Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray included some of the Order’s ritual secrets, passed on to her husband by Constance. These were not to be shared among the profane on “pain of being paralysed without visible weapon”. Constance later became seriously ill with a spinal condition causing gradual paralysis. Both Oscar and Constance consulted society fortune-teller Mrs Robinson; she once told him: “I see a very brilliant life for you up to a certain point. Then I see a wall. Beyond the wall I see nothing.”
Aubrey Beardsley, Decadent artist par excellence, refused to have any of Wilde’s books in his house because, he said, they were “accursed”.
Dorian Gray, as described in Wilde’s novel, resembled Lord Alfred Douglas in appearance and mannerisms, yet Wilde hadn’t yet met Bosie at the time of writing. Douglas later recalled having read the book many times before his first encounter with Wilde, suggesting it had placed a “glamour” upon him, drawing the two together for good or ill.
Lord Alfred was already living under the shadow of a family curse; Wilde described his ancestors as “a mad, bad line”. The curse dated back to the 14th century, when “Black Douglas” attempted to transport his friend Robert the Bruce’s heart to the Holy Land, but was ambushed and killed en route.
Three centuries on, the violently insane third Marquess of Queensbury, aged 10, murdered a cook by roasting him on a spit. He was caught in the act before he could consume his victim, but was henceforth known as “The Cannibalistic Idiot”.
John Douglas, the seventh Marquess (Bosie’s grandfather) died in a curious hunting incident in 1858, officially due to an accidental gun discharge. However,rumours of suicide were rife. Seven years later, his 18-year-old son Francis died in a mountaineering accident. Another son, James, committed suicide in 1891 by slitting his own throat with a razor. Other untimely deaths among the Douglas male line are recorded, most recently in 2009. Bosie’s father John Sholto Douglas, the ninth Marquess of Queensberry, is renowned as the founder of modern boxing, and for his outspoken atheism, violent temper and obsessive, relentless pursuit of Wilde, leading to the latter’s imprisonment and ruin. He evidently held Wilde responsible for leading his son astray.
Aleister Crowley adopted the opposite position, regarding Wilde as the victim. His hostility towards Bosie, expressed in verse and worse, may have been an attempt to instigate a court-room battle; the Beast being no stranger to litigation. Douglas failed to respond, despite Crowley issuing increasingly offensive pamphlets and essays unsuccessfully seeking to provoke their target. “Bosie”, read one, absurdly, “is a common prostitute, blackmailer, sodomite.” One wonders what had attracted Crowley’s ire? Was it, as Antonia suggests, Douglas’s conversion to Roman Catholicism? Or envy of Douglas’s superior poetry?
The doomed poet Lionel Johnson introduced his Winchester College friend (and perhaps more than friend?) Lord Alfred to Wilde in 1891, and thus commenced their fateful destiny; although as Wilde later wrote to Douglas: “I discern in all our relations not Destiny but Doom.” Johnson’s “melancholy verses wreathed by an eerie foreboding” appear to have predicted his early death aged 35. Ill health, including bouts of spinal paralysis, were worsened by a diet of tea, cigarettes and alcohol – especially the latter. Absinthe was a particular favourite.
His austere rooms at 8 New Square, Lincoln’s Inn Fields had long been associated with a malevolent entity occasionally glimpsed as “a large shadow winged creature with fearsome claws” (see FT353:30-33). Johnson confided to a friend that all was not well in his chambers, where “things happened”. His landlord had failed to point out that tenants taking these rooms invariably died within two years. Johnson’s trilogy of “infernal hymns”, Vinum Daemonum, Satanas and Dark Angel may not have helped matters. His spectre is said to haunt the area still.
Dancing with Salomé includes a good deal more in the way of uncanny happenings and anecdotes, and is enhanced by evocative photo portraits of its protagonists. A decadent delight, by virtue of its prose as well as its subject matter. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Nina Antonia at The Atlantis Bookshop Saturday 13th August from 7pm
We are delighted to be able to host the author Nina Antonia this coming weekend. We featured her book, Dancing with Salome, in a January Friday Favourite during lockdown and now have the chance to welcome her to the Shop. Her book features a series of interlinking essays which take the reader on a journey to meet the Decadent demi-monde of the 1890’s with whom Wilde and Douglas mingled. Whilst eroticism and mysticism were key themes of the Decadents, there was also a surge of interest in ritual magic, enabled by the flowering of the “Golden Dawn” – the most significant esoteric order in England’s history. Wilde’s wife, Constance, was a member, as was W.B. Yeats, alongside Aleister Crowley and Arthur Machen. All would play a part, directly or indirectly, in the drama of Oscar Wilde’s enchanted & accursed life.
Although this is a free event, please be kind enough to RSVP (LINK BELOW) to help us plan the logistics of the evening.
If you are unable to attend but would still like an inscribed copy, please order it below using the link (LINK BELOW), and send us an email with the message you would like incorporated.
A big thank you to Gillian McCain, co-collaborator of ‘Please Kill Me’, pictured here in her brand new Johnny Thunder’s tee. Gillian’s hot pink shoes are something Johnny would probably have approved of! The t-shirt features photographs I took of Johnny whilst working on his authorised biography ‘In Cold Blood’ and was designed by Cutesy Badass Productions. You too could wear Johnny close to your heart, just like Gillian. Whether you sport a jaunty hat is optional. This commemorative t-shirt is being promoted because I have developed mobility issues and need to get some apparatus to make life less painful & easier to get around. I didn’t want to do ‘Go Fund Me’ worthy as it is. The tee really is a limited edition & made of good quality cotton. Whatever the weather you’ll always be cool in a Johnny Thunders tee-shirt, now available here: https://etsy.me/3Q7ZZrq
Johnny Thunders… In Cold Blood Limited Edition T-shirt. $49.99 + shipping. 50% of sales will be donated to Nina for a mobility apparatus. Only 120 Available! WORLDWIDE SHIPPING.
Available in UNISEX S, M, L and XL. Yes, Etsy says Men’s Sizes but it’s UNISEX.
To commemorate what would have been Johnny Thunders 70th Birthday, @cutesybprods by @bhalldesigns in collaboration with Nina Antonia has released a limited edition t-shirt, featuring photos that Nina took of Johnny while writing his authorized biography ‘In Cold Blood’.
SIZE CHART
Size Length Width Small 28” 18” Medium 29” 20” Large 30” 22” X-Large 31” 24”
Cutesy Badass Productions is a new company dedicated to providing Limited Edition Pop Culture Pieces from Apparel to Printed Material. The brainchild of Beth Hall, a multitalented designer, started her career in 2002 as an art director in the video game industry and has since freelanced on various projects for Nina Antonia, Bobby BeauSoleil, Holt McCallany, DJ Sid Presley, Helmut Berger, Lydia Lunch, The Damned, Westgate Gallery, and Christian McLaughlin.
‘Lunar Moths’ is a collection of verses dedicated to the ephemeral nature of life’s fly by nights. In folklore, little white moths represented the souls of unbaptized children, unable to settle any place for long they flutter haplessly through night’s tributaries. The theme of the Lost Soul, those who drift on the midnight tide, briefly glittering and often seductive is of little real value. Modern life is rather too robust for their slender if memorable gifts, from Jean Seberg to Denny Fouts, to Johnny Thunders, they are ghosts in daylight, rubbing shoulders with Chatterton reborn at sunset in Euston Station. All creative people have refrains they return to, ‘Lunar Moths’ is a collection of Nina’s poems. Lunar Moths is £6 plus shipping and handling. For availability/purchase, please email Nina through her website https://ninaantoniaauthor.com/contact/ or contact the publisher at theblacklightenginedriver@hotmail.co.uk.
Nina Antonia 