‘The Perfumed Cesspit’: My review of Phil Baker’s book ‘City of The Beast – The London of Aleister Crowley’ (pub. Strange Attractor Press) which appeared in the June 2023 edition of ‘Fortean Times.’ I have two of Phil Baker’s books, namely his study of absinthe and his biography of Austin Osman Spare, interesting subjects both. The challenge of reviewing ‘City of The Beast’ however was my dislike of Crowley. As a wealthy and privileged Victorian male, every pleasure was his for the taking whilst he immersed himself in the darker side of magic(k) Volumes have been written about Crowley and his devotees are legion. Why? He serves as a symbol of rebellion; a one man pre-cursor of the Swinging Sixties but he was a cruel narcissist, his ego as big as the mountains he once climbed, who cared not for those he wrecked, ravaged and slandered, including two partners who both ended up in asylums. Despite this, Baker’s book is an engaging read that captures a freer more bohemian London peopled by a glittering guttersnipe cast.
Thirteen years ago, author Nina Antonia wrote the cult bible of all things Johnny Thunders with her book Johnny Thunders: In Cold Blood. It’s the definitive portrait of the condemned man of rock and roll, from the baptism of fire and tragedy that was the New York Dolls, through the junkie punk years of the Heartbreakers, to his sudden and mysterious death in 1991. A brand-new edition was released this week, adding a new closing chapter, bringing Thunders’ legacy up to date with new photos and a foreword by Mike Scott of The Waterboys. Nina is about to tell you all about it in this episode!
Purchase a copy of Johnny Thunders: In Cold Blood: The Official Biography: Revised & Updated Edition through Jawbone Press HERE
Listen to a playlist of The New York Dolls, Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, and Johnny Thunders solo HERE
Find Nina Antonia online at her official website HERE
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.
“A beautiful film…Ultimately a wonderful celebration of friendship.Thanks for the laughs, the thrills, the tears and some of the best fucking rock n roll music ever made.”– Steve Kane, President Warner Music Canada
TVO and Feltfilm are pleased to announce the world broadcast and online premiere of TVO Original Picture My Face: The Story of Teenage Head, Tuesday, November 3, 2020 at 9 pm ET on TVO and tvo.org. This relevant and poignant documentary tells the story of Canada’s glamour punk band, Teenage Head, determined to re-enter the limelight some 40 years after causing legendary punk rock riots at Toronto’s Ontario Place. But first they need to save their founder and lead guitarist Gord Lewis from crippling depression. Features appearances by Marky Ramone, Rob Baker (The Tragically Hip), and renowned punk writers Jon Savage and Nina Antonia.
Unlike some essays, ‘A Purple Thread’ was not commissioned but evolved at its own pace. The Oscar Wilde market is already brimming with product including books, articles and films, even ornaments. Wilde has infiltrated the mainstream as martyred poet, gay rights pioneer and Victorian dandy, his flame tended by the likes of Matthew Sturgis who recently ensured Oscar’s posthumous longevity with a poised, authoritative biography. Preferring the obscure and unsung meant that Mr Wilde was never going to join my stable of subjects for a full length volume. Besides, being a ragamuffin of the literary world meant that I would never score the kind of book deal that such a venture would require. Unlike Oliver Twist in the workhouse, I never ask for more, only different, chronicling the waifs and strays that haunt the twilight borders and are of no account to sale teams at larger publishers.
My favourite book length account of Oscar Wilde has to be the largely forgotten ‘Aspects of Wilde’ by Vincent O’Sullivan. Originally published in 1936, O’Sullivan who knew both Oscar and Lord Alfred Douglas gives us snap shots, insights and recollections in his quirky account. Written years before Oscar’s ‘Sainthood’ O’Sullivan’s ‘Aspects’ is kinder in tone to Lord Alfred Douglas than most contemporary books. An expert in the field of Wilde studies informed me that prior to 1960, ‘Bosie’ Douglas was not reviled in print, in the way he is now* (*Aleister Crowley being the exception to the rule). The simple device of creating a foe for the hero to rise up against is usually reserved for cinema but works a treat in sustaining the Wilde myth. If everyone had a copy of ‘Aspects’ Lord Alfred might be less denigrated but alas they do not and Vincent O’Sullivan went to a pauper’s grave in Paris, in 1940. One can safely assume that Oscar never paid Vincent back the money he gave him so that he could be with Bosie in Italy. It’s just as likely that O’Sullivan would have demurred repayment from one of his heroes. Sadly, Vincent remains a ghost of his era, his work occasionally reprinted in anthologies of the supernatural, to which he was prone. Whilst ‘Aspects of Wilde’ is not a paranormal tome, O’Sullivan’s spooky sensibility is tangible and proved to be the inspiration for ‘A Purple Thread: The Supernatural Doom of Oscar Wilde.’ One paragraph in particular, where the author notes that Aubrey Beardsley was amongst many who believed that to own any of Oscar’s books was unlucky, stayed with me, just as the music from a song does, playing over and over.
Was Oscar Wilde under a doom?
We all like to believe that we are at the helm of our own destiny, steering a course driven by free-will. Yet sometimes it appears that fate plays its part, something that Oscar grasped early on in his Gothic poem ‘The Harlot’s House’ where the dancers are compared to automatons whose movements are governed by invisible hands. ‘Then turning to my love I said, “The dead are dancing with the dead, the dust is whirling with the dust.” Which has proved to be Oscar Wilde’s afterlife – a drama of unquiet spirits who still manage to enthral us, a shadow play that never ends………
Upon completion, ‘A Purple Thread’ loitered in the wings, its future uncertain, too long for a magazine article, too short for a book, perfect for a novelette though hardly anyone publishes them.
Have you ever tried to get something off the ground and no matter what you do, how hard you try, everything is against it? As if life is saying, ‘Sorry, can’t oblige right now’ so you let it go. There’s no point in banging your head against the wall if it’s not the right time and obstacles manifest in all directions. The dust however continued to whirl with the dust, prompting Clint Marsh, the creator and editor of ‘Fiddler’s Green’ a charming journal hailing from Berkeley, to make contact. A heady pot-pourri of the esoteric and olde-worlde, decadent and quaint, ‘A Purple Thread’ had found its forever home in the Peculiar Parish of Fiddler’s Green, with the able assistance of artist Nathaniel Winter-Hebert whose marvellous illustrations have brought an extra dimension to the project. I’d always dreamed of having my work illustrated and am grateful to both Nathaniel for his lively interpretations and Clint for creating something quite magical and without precedent.
“Glamorous teen heartthrob Brett Smiley had the looks and the talent of a future superstar, but fate had different plans for him. As much the work of a detective as a biographer, The Prettiest Star, Nina Antonia’s expert excavation of the life of Smiley tells one of the most fascinating and tragic ‘what if’ stories of the rock era.” ~ Richard Metzger
Previously out of print since 2005, The Prettiest Star: Whatever Happened to Brett Smiley? is now available as an eBook on Kindle with an enhanced photo gallery.
The epitome of Fey, ‘Beautiful’ Brett Smiley was primed for fame in the frenetic era of Glam but success was illusory. A former child actor, Brett had everything including a Mephistophelean manager, Andrew Loog Oldham who had steered the Rolling Stones to mega-stardom. Meanwhile, in Liverpool, Nina Antonia, a disenfranchised teenager witnessed Smiley’s sole television appearance in the UK. Interviewed by a concerned Russell Harty, the fate of the young singer was already in jeopardy. With a one way ticket to the boulevard of broken dreams, Brett was to become a missing piece of Nina’s childhood, until their paths crossed, almost 30 years later.
Prior to lockdown, I was interviewed by the sartorially splendid Darcy Sullivan for the equally dandified spring edition of ‘The Chap.’ Darcy asked some unusually pertinent questions that included a fine quota of Thunder’s related queries and also provided the opportunity to recollect seeing Quentin Crisp in conversation at the Royal Court in Liverpool. Crisp was the first author I’d seen address an audience and he was as you might expect, very witty and engaging. He was also most gracious when the time came for me to get a copy of ‘The Naked Civil Servant’ signed. Pete Burns was also getting his copy signed. Both gone now in the twinkling of gloriously painted eyes that recall the mad decadent verse of Edmund Gosse:
‘Prince-jewellers, whose facet-rhymes combine/ All hues that glow, all rays that shift & shine/ Farewell thy song is sung, thy splendour fled.’……….
This informative and lavishly illustrated book is out now.
Includes the four versions of In Cold Blood, two versions of Too Much Too Soon and the Johnny Thunders Sleeve Notes by Nina Antonia as well as her interview with Brian Young. Thank you, Hiroshi and congrats!
Photo take from Darcy Sullivan’s Channel on YouTube
Moments away from the snarling frenzy of traffic on the main road and into the quieter arteries of Bloomsbury, a sense of the past still lingers. Once an oasis of creative bohemia, the area has managed to hang on to its identity, there are second- hand book shops, coffee bars where you can hear Jonathan Richman and Roy Orbison whilst corner pubs feature some of the original Victorian exteriors, sea green and damson purple tiles glimmering in the late afternoon sun as they have done for the last century or so. I am nervous and suggest to my companions, ‘Lord’ & ‘Lady’ Darcy that we venture to the small park on the next block from ‘Gays the Word’ bookshop, where we will be launching ‘Incurable’ – the selected writings of Lionel Johnson, featuring a biographical essay and some photographs as old as the pubs. (Available via Strange Attractor Press.) I wonder if Lionel, a desperate tippler, ever drank round here. The vast Gothic hulk, The Russell Hotel, probably belonged to the family of one of his dearest friends, Francis, Earl Russell. It is a fascinating monolith, the exterior decorated with plump garlanded cherubs and shell-shocked Merlads coiled around lights that no longer work. How fantastic it must have once looked, like a magical ship sailing on a sea of night.
London has become a very difficult place to live in, uncomfortable, over-priced, and competitive – circumstances keep me here but it also has so many poetic ghosts fluttering around like spectral white moths that I am inclined to stay until I too join them. It is nearly twilight, the day giving itself up to the evening and I’ve begun to procrastinate – part of the pre-event ritual. I insist politely that we stop off at the little park to watch the last of the sun’s rays glancing off the leaves on the tall trees, like tiny golden darts. Lord Darcy, dashing dandy about town, press officer for the Oscar Wilde society, who will be asking the questions that need to be asked, reminds me that we really should convene to ‘Gays the Word.’
I’ve done many literary events over the years but none have been as enjoyable as this one or as thoughtfully prepared, a big thank you to Uli who did all the organising. What makes an evening special? The venue has much to do with it, ‘Gay’s the Word’ being a historical and community landmark, as well as a Queer safe space and a very fine bookshop. The audience are brimming with good-will; Jamie from Strange Attractor gives a stirring speech about how independent publishers and independent bookshops are part of the same precious fabric. Lord Darcy’s moustache is impeccable as is his knowledge of Oscar Wilde. One of the microphone’s break, but that happens at every event, usually I blame the ghost of Johnny Thunders but tonight it’s Lionel Johnson being the little trickster, despite his melancholy visage on multiple copies of ‘Incurable’ taking up most of the shop window display. The past always interweaves with the future, however, and just as we are about to start, Walter Lure arrives with Mick Rossi, currently playing in Walter’s LAMF band. I cannot believe that a Heartbreaker has attended one of my gigs!! But stranger things have happened. They always do.
Nina Antonia 