[Though earlier I'd donated to Duke letters from Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998) to me, more recently, in sorting through my files, I came across photocopies of at least some of the letters I wrote to him. Here's Part V of a long one I wrote in longhand from Clapham, London, dated July 10, 1991. Ellipses indicate slight editing (deletion of a few personal details). Extra paragraph breaks added for easier reading. For his other letters, please see Wallace Fowlie Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Here's a link to the collection guide.]
But of other bands, I can think of Roxy Music in their first ten years -- citing Nietzsche, there is a lyric easy to remember ("even Zarathustra") because of the emphasis Bryan Ferry gives it in his decadent, campy vocal delivery, carefully pronouncing each syllable. It may be [is] the song "Mother of Pearl."
There is Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. I recall a proclamation at Morrison's memorial in Père Lachaise: "Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds are following you, Jim."
There is the Clash, who we've spoken about before, & Joy Division, a serious & committed cult status band, whose singer Ian Curtis committed suicide (you can hear the desperation in his voice); also, if you're interested in bands clearly influenced by earlier artistes, I can think of the Pretenders, who adopt Oscar Wilde: "We're all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars;" The Jam, who quote Shelley on one album cover, That's Entertainment! There are the Talking Heads, who began as an art band and became very good, until success spoiled their attitude; and the highly original Elvis Costello, who seems well-versed in language.
I meant to mention earlier that some early David Bowie has clear references to Nietzsche on The Man Who Sold the World, and that Lou Reed studied under Delmore Schwartz, who, I recall your saying, didn't know French and yet translated Rimbaud (badly); there is the Jim Carroll Band, Jim Carroll himself a poet; & William S. Burroughs has at least two albums out, mostly of his own work.
Iggy Pop's Lust for Life refers, on the title track, to Burroughs' writing, and his reflective song "The Passenger" takes one of Morrison's images, of "the city's ripped back sides;" & to complete the connections, Siouxsie & the Banshees do a cover version of this. Iggy, who has been characterized by Ray Manzarek as a latter-day Rimbaud is only like Rimbaud the poet in that he is a man in rebellion; Iggy is a poet and rock musician, a different kind of guy, but not Rimbaud. . . (Manzarek was critical to the Doors' sound, without which Morrison sounds like a madman, as on "Horse Latitudes.")
I've tried to make up for not having written sooner. . . I hope my writing is legible; I have no access to a typewriter at the house I'm lodging at.
[Y] told me that you had lunch together but didn't provide any details. . .
I find that diaries, journals, letters, thoughts all blend together in a staged imaginary dialogue which is really a monologue of endless chatter that continues in dreams and occasional nightmares. It is difficult to converse with anyone here on anything but the most basic level; the English are reticent, and it takes a while for them to loosen up . . .
If you have time to write, please direct your letter to:
18 1/2 Macaulay Rd
Clapham
London SW4 0QX
I hope all is well with you. Warmly & Respectfully
your friend,
Erik
[FINIS.]
[Though earlier I'd donated to Duke letters from Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998) to me, more recently, in sorting through my files, I came across photocopies of at least some of the letters I wrote to him. Here's Part IV of a long one I wrote in longhand from Clapham, London, dated July 10, 1991. Ellipses indicate slight editing (deletion of a few personal details). Extra paragraph breaks added for easier reading. For his other letters, please see Wallace Fowlie Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Here's a link to the collection guide.]
Other bands Rimbaud has influenced --we've talked about Patti Smith, and of course the Doors and Bob Dylan; probably the Velvet Underground, certainly [John Cale and] Lou Reed; indirectly, David Bowie and Iggy Pop. A Dead Kennedys book has a direct quotation from Nietzsche, but not Rimbaud.
There is a current band, which I expect has been influenced so, and that's Siouxsie and the Banshees. I was able to see them here, and was most impressed. This is an understatement. I was "blown away" by their performance. I saw them at the Town & Country, a rock club in an old theatre about the size of Memorial Hall at UNC [Chapel Hill], but with much better fittings and services -- in Kentish Town.
What blew me away was the continuous, relentless precision, the brilliant, glittering originality and dedicated studiousness of their performance, without the usual rock star egos and accompanying sexual flaunting: here is a band that is serious, philosophical, visionary, hardworking, and continuing. They have an almost decadent lustre, a smoky, intelligent lyrical style, and the right attitude toward themselves & toward their audience.
As the show progressed, I drew down from my balcony perch into the swirling mass beneath the stage, drawn by the energy of the band's delivery, the strange textures which included a cowbell and cello, strong guitars, drums and percussion, played upon with collaborative light swaths, an enormous Tantric Hindu icon, a god and goddess in conjugal embrace. I can recall it clearly, feeling like a hoplite in the sixth rank of a phalanx, until pressing & pressed forward as the first rank seemed to fall away crushed between the crowd and the stage, scattering to the sides, filtering back through the crowd, as I sweated and danced like a Bachannal. I could almost feel the crowd's expatiated nihilism forced upwards into a smoking overhead dome as Siouxsie sang Cassandra-like the words to "Cities in Dust," the imagery shimmering like an opium vision --
"Your city lies in dust, my friend
. . . All our cities will rise in dust . . ."
It was indeed a dithyrambic performance, Siouxsie & the Banshees playing the role of urban shaman, forcing the hollowness out of the spectators until they, we, became the performance & the dance. Long afterwards, I felt the afterglow of the experience. I still do. It was rock at its richest, and I feel in a position to judge, after experiencing a strange variety of different performances in a short time.
I feel certain that Siouxsie & the Banshees, besides maintaining a vital thread in rock music, have been and are guided by nineteenth century impulses like French symbolism and twentieth century movements such as the Surrealists, but I have no lyric sheets in hand and no cultural reviews to back me. I think that what has kept them on track is their only modest success; they are too strange, apparently, for mass popularity, unlike the Doors, who despite their strangeness, managed to be too successful in too short a time, which drew Jim Morrison onto the rocks. (I wonder what he would have been doing if he had gotten through that time. Poetry & pictures, or exile to remote places. . .)
[The experience strongly persists in memory, somehow floating outside of linear time. "Esta es musica / Del otro mundo" = This is music from the other world," -- "El Día de Los Muertos," part of the first encore, after "Trust in Me."
The night's performance ended with "Cities in Dust."
Siouxise earlier joked before starting "Dear Prudence," after "Fear of the Unknown:" "Doesn't it make you sick?"
"Kiss Them for Me" and "Peek-a-Boo" were real cool times, too.
The Town & Country had a capacity of about 2,100. It's now the O2 Forum Kentish Town, with added capacity.]
Letter from Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998) at Chapel Hill, to me at London, July 23,1991.
Dear Erik, if I have counted the days correctly, Liz is with you now in London -- and you are in good spirits. I enjoyed seeing her -- all too briefly -- and I have been reading 3 precious documents she loaned me: Rolling Stone, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed. Your letter from London (July 10) tops all my documents. I am clipping it to your first letter to me, Oct. 24, 1987, but they give me information and insights on my present subject (as you know). I often feel you should be writing the little book I am trying to write. . . You are working hard, drinking Italian coffee, attending operas. Great College Street -- a beautiful card now on my desk. It is thrilling for me to read you on TV on the Doors (1969). Lizard: we must talk about this word. Then your passage on Siouxsie and the Banshees. And also, on Malcolm McDonald. . . Whenever you say, "I'm spinning off," I know there will be a rich passage.
I rather think you are coming home next month. Am I wrong about that? These next days you will be reliving many London experiences with Liz. There have been a few events here -- a reunion with 5-6 old students chez Dave Williamson who writes the press notices for UNC. Dr. H. G. Jones drove me there -- he is the historian of N.C. who told us stories about the Arctic region and explained a few artifacts. A brunch chez Steve Salemson, manager of Duke U. Press. Thursday I will see my old doctor friends who are back from Nice. I believe Liz sent you a copy of a letter from Bob Cohn, the Mallarmé expert. I thought it would amuse you. It helped to keep me plugging away on the little book which, if I do it, and a publisher takes it,I would call The fifth and last memoir. It is really that: the joining of the poles of my existence. Remember, Erik, you promised not to disown me, if this comes about. love to you and Liz --
Wallace
