Nico, Songs They Never Play on the Radio

by James Edward Young

The story of Nico, former model, film actress, singer with the Velvet Underground and darling of Andy Warhol's factory.;In 1982 Nico was living in Manchester, alone and interested only in feeding her heroin habit. Local promoter Dr Demetrius saw an opportunity, hired musicians to back her, rented a decrepit van and set off with Nico and the band on a disastrous tour of Italy. Over the next six years, until her death in 1988, Nico toured the world with assorted thrown-together bands. They made next to no money, appalled many of their audiences and occasionally, on the rare nights when the music worked, pleased a few.;James Young played keyboards for Nico throughout those years. In this book, he records the never-ending antics of a picaresque circus of addicts, outsiders and misfits who travelled the world - East and Western Europe, the United States, Australia and Japan - encountering an equally bizarre and extraordinary mixture of people: poets, artists, gangsters, losers and drifters. John Cale, John Cooper Clarke, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso are among those who appear in this story of Nico, the last Bohemian.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography Memoir, Pop Culture, Rock N Roll

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 1992

About the author

The author of the biography of Nico is incorrectly listed as James Webb Young on Google Books.

James Edward^^Young

James Edward Young played keyboards for Nico.

Reviews

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Teutonic Laughter

Despite the Teutonic subject matter, this is one of the funniest music books I have ever read.
James Young was Nico's keyboard player for many years during her solo post-VU period, leading up to her unfortunate death.
So he had a long time to witness her at her worst and most self-abusive.
It must have been painful to have to live with her shenanigans and to be financially dependent on her for a musical career as well.

The Veins of the Ice Maiden

This memoir lays out the veins of the Ice Maiden for all to see.
Andy Warhol said somewhere that Nico reminded him of an IBM computer with a Greta Garbo accent.
I'm sure I read this in one of his books, but I can't locate it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wild, irreverent romp through the darkest moment in Nico's history. OK, so every moment in Nico's career was "the darkest" but this is much darker.

Young writes with a lacerating wit, taking no prisoners as he evokes the chancers, hangers-on, druggies and lunatics touring with Nico on her 1000-date world tour.

His ear for detail, dialect, character is amazing. He evokes the sleazy degeneracy of the scene, taking us away from Nico, the dull junkie, into a wider world of nihilism and madness.

His character-assassination of John Cale is one of the most surpising moments: a lifelong Japanese fan of Cale comes to his dressing room, makes a shy speech and hands him a present. Cale tears it open. Inside is a small bottle of alcohol. A freshly-clean Cale hands it back to the girl, saying: "I don't drink."

Ouch. The legacy of the Velvet Underground, apart from the music, is a trail of drug abuse, asshole behaviour, and laughable egoism. Young rocks it home.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book while on vacation in London and was sold by John Water's quote on the back cover, praising the sad dark humor of James Young's account of life on tour with one post-glory Nico.

Sad? Absolutely. Dark. Oh, hell yes. Funny? I did chuckle a few times, but only in the way that one sometimes has to laugh to keep from crying in the face of profound hopelessness.

Young was a musician in Nico's back-up band when the Warhol Factory-era icon attempted a mostly disastrous comeback tour in the 80s. This tour would wind through many years and countries, with over 1,000 gigs played by the time of her death in 1988.

For me, the book played out like an Alex Cox remake of the classic comedy My Favorite Year, with Nico in the role of Peter O'Toole's lovably washed-up alcoholic screen legend and the further addition of a madcap supporting cast of drug-addled hangers-on straight from the world of Sid & Nancy.

If only Nico possessed the same faded devil-may-care charm as O'Toole's cracked actor, Mr. Water's claim of dark comedy could have been more apt (though who am I to argue what makes John Waters laugh?). Nico is a sad, bitter, hollow soul in this book, completely enslaved to heroin and obsessed with her own decay and mortality. Not exactly the life of the party.

We do get glimpses of the author's rare moments with Nico when she let her guard down, when she stole a rare smile, or in perhaps the most simply beautiful moment in the book, when Nico sits in a boat during a sunset, giggling and singing a children's song.

Such moments are mere sentences in a book filled with pages and pages of miserable people performing desperate acts in order to achieve their almighty high, whether it be in the form of heroin, prostitutes or other even more arcane pursuits.

This wasn't the easiest book to read, though it was a very strong portrait of a woman known best as the ice princess of the Velvet Underground, the emotionless beauty whose face could have been a mirror or a movie screen.

In the book, Nico is being interviewed by a particularly clueless radio jockey who introduces her as "the Femme Fatale herself, Nico." To which she responds, in dry earnestness, "That song was actually not written about me, you know."

Her great frustration based on Young's account is that she was only ever appreciated as the diva behind Warhol's banana; however, we also discover a Nico who is eager to re-live her glory days, hallucinating Jim Morrisson from the window of her tour bus and weeping alone in her dressing room when Bob Dylan refused to attend one of her shows.

Largely, this book was more heartbreak than humor for me, but the nuance of Nico's charm is not completely absent - a spice that flavored her legend, but left me wishing for more.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. I agree there wa a lot of quotes that I couldn't imagine the author remembering word for word- but regardless I think this has been one of my favorite music bios. Books often write very little about Nico. She tends to be overshadowed I think since most of the songs on Chelsea Girls (if not all) are written by other talent. Once she started creating the daunting sound that is truly her, people didn't give her the time of day and most books don't cover that period of her life. It's almost as if she didn't fit the mold anymore so it was better for everyone to remember her as the blonde model who sang with the velvets. This book showed her true self and the beauty in her talent later on in life despite the behavior everyone put up with from her addiction.

I would recommend over and over!

[minnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the best music biographies I ever read, from memory it was written by the guy who played keyboards in Nico's eighties touring band, and on some of her later albums.James Young writes this book as an observer, as he travels Europe with Nico and her band,and meets a lot of eccentrics junkies and oddballs.At this period of her life Nico was a hardened junkie and sought out drugs wherever she went,I don't think anyone can possibly write a book that would portray the true Nico as she always seems so cold and aloof, but James Young has definitely got as close as anyone will.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Funny, evocative, well written but also shockingly insensitive, stigmatizing, and sexist. Why is it that male rock stars, in their addictions and debauchery, are lionized while Nico is mocked and stripped of all dignity? Fans of her music will find this book sorely lacking in music-related content.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not actually the book I expected. The book covers the years 1982 up to her death in 1988. I would have liked a book that reflected on her entire life not just this small portion of it. For me I would have been more interested in the Lou Reed Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol, Coco Chanel, Eileen Ford years. The Preface does very briefly touch on that and loosely mentions Fellini, Bob Dylan, Brian Jones (Rolling Stones), Jim Morrison. All of that in expanded detail would have made a much better biography.
Wow this book was crap. It is most likely the worse bio I have ever read. Two hundred plus pages of junkies looking for heroin or whatever drug they can get and being totally wasted all the time. Yet another talented individual that threw her life away to addictions. Sad, disgusting and not worth the paper it's printed on. I recommend it to no one.

Surprisingly, no pictures.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is James Young's memoir of his time as keyboardist and arranger in Nico's last touring band. It is a fascinating account of life at the bottom rung of the musical ladder. Nico herself remains an enigmatic and unknowable figure, almost completely absorbed in herself and her heroin addiction.

One thing I am struck by how is unafraid Young is of painting very unflattering pictures of real people in the book. John Cale comes across as a complete dickhead and Nico's son Ari is not dealt with particularly generously. Nico's manager is given a pseudonym but the magic of the internet makes it easy to find his name; he is portrayed more affectionately though not I suspect as how he would like to portray himself. The book's candour is one of its strengths, but I would love to know how it got past the publisher's libel lawyers.

These short words do not do justice to how much I love this book. It is one of the best things about being a working musician I have read. Nico is one of music's heroic figures and the world is emptier without her.

[Clay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't like to write it but this book wasn't really good. I thought that most events seemed to have been made up, there is a LOT of direct dialogue and I don't see how the author could remember all that. There are also so many clichés. For example there's a scene where he claims that their things have been stolen after a gig in Poland. I don't know, of course it could have happened but it seemed to have been made up. There were also some scenes with a lot of potential like when it was described how Nico looked forward to meeting Bob Dylan but it wasn't described properly, just a couple of sentences. There was no real narrative either. I wouldn't really recommend this book at all.

[Flashflood · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book. Made me drop "Backing musician for humourless heroine addict" from my list of potential career changes.

[David Partikian · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Young’s unauthorized biography of the enigmatic beauty and reluctant frontwoman of the early Velvet Underground is wickedly funny and—perhaps—the best book on “rock and roll” and “fame” that has ever been written. It is also a tad mean-spirited and most emphatically unauthorized. Lou Reed declined to allow his lyrics to be reproduced in the book, and it is not as if Reed harbors fond memories of Nico.

Obvious blurbs immediately reference the Warhol line about each person enjoying fifteen minutes of fame. For sure, in this book, Nico is well past her “fifteen minutes,” when her manager, Demetrius, arranges a retinue of ragtag musicians to back up her morose Teutonic schtick on tours that encompass (in no particular order) Italy, Spain, the USA, Amsterdam, Eastern Europe, Australia and Japan during the 1980’s before her untimely but unsurprising death from a bicycle fall while vacationing in Ibiza in 1988. Chronicled with savage cynical wit and a graduate student’s showy vocabulary, the piano player turned author presents the heroine, warts and all. Perhaps, the true star of this book is not the Diva herself, but her and most of the band’s heroin addiction. Smack or Junk or the Works are front and center in almost every chapter. Tours are not about the music, but where to score. Bathing is unnecessary; Young revels in describing the stench of body odor and the infrequency of Nico washing. Sex is for people not strung out on smack, so there is very little of it in the biography and none involving the former sex symbol and Elle model.

The other musicians, with names like Echo, are rarely humanized excepting their quest for junk (or sex by the tabla player, Random, who is just a pot head) and heavily accented British dialects. Young has a gifted ear for transcribing dialects in a manner that is easy on the eyes. Nico’s Teutonic drawl is stretched out with long repeated vowels. All a reader must do is read her lines, elongated vowel hints provided by Young, with "Femme Fatale" or "All Tomorrow’s Parties" in mind to get the correct feel for Nico’s dour humor.

As the tour and book slog on with numerous border crossings and cavity searches a reader must ponder why an educated bloke like the author would tolerate this cavalcade of junkie misfits as they make their way across the globe playing oldies and a smattering of genre-unclassifiable new material with no expression of joy or even satisfaction. The humor and absurdity of the situation is what fuels the book. Unwashed, morose junkies traipsing from one dingy set to another to scarf up every last cent, sou, yen, or pfenning that a nostalgic fan might offer. Nico The End is a savage indictment of both fleeting fame and the fraudulent nature of rock and roll or art rock. With cameo appearances by Allen Ginsberg, John Cale (who comes across as a flaming egotistical asshole) and others and with an utterly expected non-cameo by Bob (Bawb) Dylan, who wrote “I’ll Keep It with Mine” for the 60’s icon, the book meanders, often hysterically, culminating in the resolution that awaits us all.

Nico The End far surpasses rock biographies that veer towards hagiography. However—upon reread over two decades after its initial publication—it does stray into the realm of mean-spiritedness. Nico comes across as a caricature of an apathetic junkie who has let herself gone to seed. And while this may be an accurate depiction and a necessary one, Young does little to try to clarify the enigma that was Nico. The book appeared three years before a pop fluff mainstream movie release, Nico Icon which did indeed veer towards hagiography. And while the film utterly neglects (perhaps because it is hearsay) mention of a biographical detail that could well explain Nico’s darkness, James Young mentions it twice, but only in the closing chapters of his biography: Nico, as a teen, was among women raped by a black, US serviceman while growing up in occupied West Germany town. The crime was uncovered. Nico was forced to testify. The serviceman was executed. Young gets kudos for relating this key fact while the movie gets an emphatic thumbs down for ignoring it completely.

Whether mean-spirited or not, Nico: The End deserves a look. One need not be obsessed with the Velvet Underground or rock to appreciate the depiction of absurdity in this book. Ultimately more satisfying than Burrough’s Junkie or even Naked Lunch, Nico: The End is an essential chronicle of addiction, apathy and survival with a modicum of fame.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nico is middle aged, plump and addicted to heroin. She moves to Manchester and at one point shares a flat with John Cooper Clarke. Can't express how funny and Manchester this book is...a MUST read for sure!

[Pat Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most honest book about being in a deadend band I've ever read. Funny as hell too.

[Linz · Rating 5 out of 5]

anyone who may be thinking about a career in the music industry should read this book xx

[Diane · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a dark and depressing account of Nico's last decade. She was addicted to heroin and depressed and was still touring thanks to a greedy promotor. The author ( a hired drummer) tries to add some humor to the story by telling tales of some of the surrounding characters but it all seemed sad and grotesque. I enjoyed the appearance of poet Alan Ginsburg but overall I was exhausted by this tired tale.

[Kelly-lee Stewart · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this a laborious read. I think it's because I have been around too many smack heads in bands. I didn't find it funny. It was just normal shit that you have to deal with. Nico was a sad woman who just lived for her habit. Her son used to join her in jacking up. Laughing yet?

[Raechel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't do drugs - drink tea instead, it's much nicer

[Tuck]

fuck yeah. the solution to the problem is to read faster.

[Bettie]

Manchester at that time.

to hunt down the deals

[Sofia Capriani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nico was one of the most fascinating characters in rock'n'roll. Although, she wasn't actually neither singer no rocker. She was an artist, performer, obsessed with her very peculiar world. In the book we see her in sad condition, in her last years. She died when she was fifty, after long period of drugs abuse and chaotic way of life. The book tells a story about bunch of bohemians who travel with her around Europe in her final attempt to scrap some money. The whole book is breathtaking, more literature then biografy or memoir of a relatively short period in the life of the writer, who happened to be some minor character in the band. Episodes in Italy, where nobody recognized her (she was singer for The Velvet Underground, on one of the - probably - ten or twenty crucial LPs in the history of 20th century music, as well as one of Andy Warhol's most important apparitions in his artistic/life project Factory); in Berlin - where she was almost chased off the stage with boos (she was born German and her grave is in Berlin); and Poland (where she sings illegaly during the communist regime, and later muses about Jim Morrison during long and lost journey through polish darkness and fog) are unforgettable. One of the best books about rock'n'roll artists.

[Ben Bergonzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tremendous ride through the druggy late punk Manchester scene written by the piano player in Nico's last band. She was an ex-Warhol factory girl briefly parachuted into the Velvet Underground and latterly a very distinctive solo voice. This book paints a picture of her struggling from one heroin shot to the next but still managing to be stylish, charismatic and talented. Young really writes superbly. Here's his description of John Cooper Clarke 'His own creation. A slim volume. A tall stick-legged rocker dandy with a bouffant hairdo remniscent of 18th century Versailles and Dylan circa Highway 61.' The story goes on to take in John Cale and grimly hilarious descriptions of their tours of Japan and Eastern Europe.
I didn't know the music at the time I read this. But listening to it since, I found it surprisingly good and listenable.

[Pablo Giménez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had mixed feelings about this book. When I started it I felt that the author was just making fun of Nico's accent and drug habit.
Along the reading it felt awkward knowing how her band and her manager didn't help her with her personal issues, sometimes I felt exhausted with descriptions or situations that talked about people that didn't interest me, Nico seems to be hidden somewhere and I couldn't get to her, but getting to the end I found some beautiful pages where I could hear Nico's feelings and thoughts (the Dylan's visit that never happened almost made me cry) so finally I enjoy it but it took me a long.
I love Nico, I love her albums beyond the factory era and I think that this is a good book to read after watching the documentar y Nico: Icon wich is daaaaark, pretty dark.

[Michael Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

What did I know about the Velvet Underground? Not much. Still don't. What did I know about Nico? Probably less, but I know a bit more now. And even though this book is heavily impressionistic and I'm inclined to question the complete authenticity of some of the wittier episodes, there's no doubt it's an interesting window into the twilight of a cult and it is very, very entertaining to read and rich with colourful detail of one kind or another. In fact, it's a rare example of a book that might not have suffered by being a little bit longer. But then again isn't the worst thing a book can be ALSO the best thing it can be - Not long enough.

[Monica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know that I really LIKED this bio. I was interested in Nico and this was all I could find. The book is not well written and difficult to follow at times...the best parts were when the writer actually had something to reveal about Nico, like when her son comes to visit her and their twisted relationship is dissected. It does a good job of portraying Nico's reality in the mid 80s which was as a sad junkie with a huge amount of self loathing which came across in her hatred of women in general. I wouldn't suggest this book to anyone but a hardcore Nico fan.

[Zac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nico tours and records in the 80s with a crew of weirdos and lowlifes straight out of an Irvine Welsh novel. I was initially a bit disappointed that it did not include more biographical details about Nico, but I felt that I got a good sense of her personality and sense of humour (or lack thereof) by the end. Young is in an interesting position of being a longtime collaborator but not a lover or fellow junkie. He is an engaging and witty writer, and observant. The humour was often subtle and I only chuckled a couple of times but it was quite an entertaining and light read.

[Ray Dunsmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A darkly funny memoir of Nico's final decade on the road, written by the keyboard player who'd been assigned to her backing band in the early 80s and ended up seeing her through to the very end. It's a compelling read, one that deserves mention in the same breath as others of its kind - not necessarily tour memoirs, but books that shine a hard light on the necrotic narcosis of heroin addiction - Trainspotting, William Burroughs' Junky and the like. It's a deeply sad story, but Young imbues it with enough comic absurdism to keep you from wallowing in the mires too long.

[Marcos Navarro · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Young cuenta sus años girando con Nico de manera realista y sobre todo, con mucho sentido del humor. Me gusta que no pretenda hacer de ella algo que no era, ni la idolatra ni la desprecia, pero cuando terminas el libro te dad cuenta de que por muy complicado que fuese trabajar con la reina de las tinieblas y la heroína, al final todos llevaban un pedacito de ella en su corazón.

[Randy Russberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best written books on rock n roll. Deeply felt, mesmerized with its subject - the aging self destructive mysterious star, one of the most beautiful and uncompromising women of popular music, extremely original Nico.

[Kozmo Kliegl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Documents the last few years of this former Andy Warhol goddess is a good story about a former/minor star making a living in late Cold War Europe.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the two or three best fly on the wall rock books ever.