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Apathy for the Devil: A 1970s Memoir
Credited with establishing the NME as the home of serious music writing, Nick Kent interviewed some of the most iconic stars of the 1970s and was drawn into a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. In this memoir he recalls a decade in which he witnessed David Bowie’s debut as Ziggy Stardust, was roused from a heroin-induced unconsciousness by Iggy Pop and saw how fame went to the head of the young John Lydon. Slightly off-mint.
408 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 85 reviews
August 14, 2017
Nick Kent's 1970s autobiography is exactly what you might expect: a drug-addled odyssey through the musical underworlds of London and Los Angeles. Kent's life reads almost like an episode of 20 Feet from Stardom, fraught with encounters both sinister and sympathetic with the likes of Peter Grant, Iggy Pop, and Glenn Frey. In a few instances he seems inclined to set the proverbial record straight (no, Keith Richards did not puke on him; yes, he did puke on Keith Richards' doorstep), but for the most part he's telling two stories with remarkable simultaneity: 1970s rock music's rise and fall from grace, and his own. What's particularly refreshing here is Kent's first-hand account of the punk phenomenon, usually such a polarizing point in music history. Kent is, of course, uniquely placed to tell both sides of the story, being intimately involved with both the rock 'establishment' (he'd spent time touring with Zeppelin and the Stones, to name just two) and the punk underground (he was recruited as a Sex Pistol for all of about twenty minutes and later had the shit kicked out of him by Sid Vicious and a rotating cast of bloodthirsty minions). He refrains from pitting punk against the rest of rock music and manages to provide a fairly evenhanded account of the lasting (or not) effects of the Pistols, the Clash, and the rest of their ilk. All in all, a good read as autobiographies go and one anybody with an abiding interest in the decade's music should get their hands on.
October 29, 2010
The first thing that struck me was a "KLAANG!" from repeated use of language more common in tabloid confessionals - "just a few short weeks later" (in what way were these particular weeks shorter than other weeks, Nick?) and on the next page "just a few short days later" (similar question, Nick). I did also struggle with the way he pushes himself into the centre of everything, and defines the event he was at (a Stooges gig to 200 people, a party in Rod Stewart's Hollywood home, a scuffle in Dingwalls, a gig in Cardiff by some people who went on to be The Damned) as THE DEFINING MOMENT ON WHICH 20th CENTURY HISTORY PIVOTED. I was reminded of Max Boyce - "I WAS THERE", which I don't think was the effect he was after. His love of Bowie as shown in the book differs from how I remember Nick writing about him in the NME - I seem to remember he saw Bowie as a lesser light. I'll need to have another look at "The Dark Stuff" to see if he was always a clunky writer and I've only just noticed. Still, it was only £2 in Fopp.
March 28, 2010
Nick Kent's collection of essays/interviews "The Dark Stuff" is a must for rock n' roll reading. The one theme that runs through that collection is the fucked-up rock n' roll figure. And he's good at capturing the low moments of very talented artists.
His memoir of the 70's "Apathy for the Devil" is an interesting book that focuses on himself of course, who was basically a mirror image of his subject matters that he wrote about. The 70's decade was not kind to Kent, but it is also what made him interesting - a good writer who can look into the lives of others and pick up the damaging aspect as well as what makes them great. So it is interesting to read what he says about artists of that period -especially the Sex Pistols, for whom he has mixed feelings. I was kind of surprised that he poo-poos Public Image Ltd, but the whole punk experience seems to left him with a bad taste in his mouth.
I don't totally agree with his music taste, but he is honest to see the weakness in lot of his favorite artist's works, and that I think makes him a good critic. The drug addiction aspect of his story must be told, but beyond that it is basically the everyday type of material regarding drug taking and its world.
What makes Kent unique is his take on fellow writers of the music magazine world (NME) and how they function in that world. Of all the writers I found himquite hard on Paul Morley, who I feel is one of the top critics of the 80's and still is. So yeah I don't trust his critical judgement, but I like the way he says it.
"The Dark Stuff" is the essential book to have by Kent, but this is a good volume and a detailed snapshot of life in 1970s London.
His memoir of the 70's "Apathy for the Devil" is an interesting book that focuses on himself of course, who was basically a mirror image of his subject matters that he wrote about. The 70's decade was not kind to Kent, but it is also what made him interesting - a good writer who can look into the lives of others and pick up the damaging aspect as well as what makes them great. So it is interesting to read what he says about artists of that period -especially the Sex Pistols, for whom he has mixed feelings. I was kind of surprised that he poo-poos Public Image Ltd, but the whole punk experience seems to left him with a bad taste in his mouth.
I don't totally agree with his music taste, but he is honest to see the weakness in lot of his favorite artist's works, and that I think makes him a good critic. The drug addiction aspect of his story must be told, but beyond that it is basically the everyday type of material regarding drug taking and its world.
What makes Kent unique is his take on fellow writers of the music magazine world (NME) and how they function in that world. Of all the writers I found himquite hard on Paul Morley, who I feel is one of the top critics of the 80's and still is. So yeah I don't trust his critical judgement, but I like the way he says it.
"The Dark Stuff" is the essential book to have by Kent, but this is a good volume and a detailed snapshot of life in 1970s London.
January 28, 2019
Nick Kent was one of the most blowhardy, know-it-all, cool-kid rock journalists of his time, specializing in building “rock god” myths about artists who “sneered” in all the right places and allegedly took lots of dope. Throughout his career, Kent loved giving romantic, bigger-than-life blowies to Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Neil Young and other “sneering,” “primal” and “outlaw” artists who thrived on the white-hot edges of nihilist sensibility, emotional breakdown and sensory derangement.
Nick liked to doll himself up in tangled long hair and leather jackets and be mistaken for a member of the Stones, Led Zeppelin or the Stooges. He liked to style himself as a “rock star rock journalist” who snorts the serious dope with Keith and hangs with Zep and their sinister entourage on the Sunset Strip. It was just part of being a New Journalist, according to Kent, somebody who’s “right there in the scrum” with the higher beings known as rock superstars, “soaking up the essence and then channeling it into an art form of their own.” In other words, Nick Kent was a kind of glorified groupie who wrote about driving in cars and going to parties and getting loaded with his idols.
In Apathy for the Devil, Nick’s prone to writing stuff like: “I saw one of the Clash’s first London shows.” And: “I’d heard a pre-release copy of Blood On the Tracks” (he said this to impress Marc Bolan). And: Johnny Thunders “was a walking advert for heroin.”
It turns out Nick Kent was also a whiny twit who went around spoiling everyone’s fun by complaining about how dumb Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen were. He thinks, for example, that Sid Vicious was “morally vacuous.” Ooooh, was he, Nick? Kent also claims to have been a very early member of the Sex Pistols, back when he was a supercool guy who used to hang around with other supercool guys like Malcolm McLaren. Nick even claims credit for pointing the early Pistols “towards the future” by playing the Stooges and Modern Lovers for guitarist Steve Jones and bassist Glen Matlock (Johnny Rotten hadn't joined yet). But everyone soon found out Nick didn’t have much musical ability and wasn’t very cool, and he was soon dismissed from the Sex Pistols project. Nick, to his credit, writes admiringly of Steve Jones’ raw, muscular chops: “What had taken me literally years to put into practice on a fretboard he managed to master in a matter of weeks.”
Kent’s main claim to fame is that he claims Sid Vicious whacked him in the head with a “bike chain” in 1976. He claims Malcolm McLaren and Johnny Rotten ordered Sid to beat him up because, well, they’re just evil, hateful fuckers who never did like Nick Kent much, I guess. In the incident, Nick claims Rotten’s sidekick Jah Wobble held an “open penknife” close to his face, while Sid took three or four bike-chain swings at his head. Sid, thankfully, connected only once, but "if two or more of those chain-swings had actually reached me, I’d probably have been killed by the head trauma,” Nick writes. Heeeeelp, mom!—Sid Vicious tried to kill meeeeeeeee!
Yet the more Nick writes about this, the murkier it gets. Says Nick: “I was so stoned that night that I didn’t even feel the blow.” What? What the heck? That’s pretty stoned, man. You can't feel getting smacked with a bike chain, but you remember how many times Sid swung the chain at you? Yet Nick claims he knows it was deadly serious attack because “there was blood everywhere: on the wall behind me in a wide crimson arc and all over the back of my jacket.” However, breathless though his tone may be, Nick can’t be bothered to describe the extent of any injuries to his head, neck or face.
Was there really any injury at all, Nick? Did any of this really happen? Surely being whipped with a bike chain by Sid Vicious, to the extent that blood flies across the wall and covers your jacket, would involve an injury that would require a hospital visit and stitches? Or at least a bandage? I don't care how "stoned" you claim you are—getting your head lacerated by a chain is gonna sting. But again, there’s not a word about any damage from Nick. As he is being “led out” of the venue, Nick claims Vivienne Westwood rushed up to apologize, calling Sid “a boy” and “a psychopath.” Viv swears Sid will have nothing further to do with the Sex Pistols following this brutal assault on poor Nick Kent. Again, Nick can't "even feel" getting lacerated by a bike chain—but he clearly remembers the details of a chat with Vivienne.
Sure thing, Nick. Are we really supposed to believe that Sid Vicious nearly killed you because he was a crazy monster and McLaren sicked him on you because Johnny Rotten and his buddies didn’t like your long hippie hair? Sorry, Nick—in this day and age, we’re going to need to see video evidence and/or a hospital record. After all, throughout your career, you were deeply involved in the business of buffing the image of rock stars as “outlaws,” dope fiends and scary degenerates. And McLaren and the Pistols certainly knew a thing or two about getting the media "on message." A mutual reach-around tale like “Yelp! Sid hit me with a chain because he didn’t like my writing!” helps both your careers, eh? Don’t it? Shows how “real” you punk rockers and rock star journalists were keeping it, innit?
In the aftermath of the incident, Nick authored a series of articles expounding on the theme of "Sid is scary and disgusting and a horrible, horrible scary man! The Sex Pistols stink, too!" Which inevitably only made the band more notorious and famous. Unsurprisingly, the alleged incident was also milked for easy mileage in the 1986 Sid & Nancy movie (with Nick's name changed to "Dick Bent," perhaps to emphasize the fictionality of it). In The Dark Stuff, Nick’s book of writings on rock stars, published years before Apathy, Nick describes the incident as “my immortal spat with Sid Vicious.” Well, darn it, Nick—now I’m starting to question everything you say. Were you whacked with a bike chain so hard it sprayed a “wide crimson arc” of your blood on the wall? Or was it just a “spat,” some kind of screaming little chest-bumping bitch-fest between you and Sid? Well?
Whatever happened, it wasn’t the first time that little Nick Kent claims Malcolm McLaren’s thugs roughed him up. In 1974, Nick was lucky enough to be living with Chrissie Hynde (who always did have terrible taste in men, by the way. See: Ray Davies and Simple Minds’ Jim Kerr, who left Hynde for Patsy Kensit, who left Kerr for Liam Gallagher. And so on.). Due to Nick’s substance abuse and general twittishness, he and Chrissie fought frequently and were often on the outs. Nick claims that during a “two-week trial separation” from Hynde, he got gonorrhea while “screwing around” in Paris. He then returned to London and passed along the disease to the dynamic contralto and future Pretenders frontwoman.
“From that point on,” Nick confesses, Hynde “didn’t really want to have anything more to do with me.” But Nick was slow to understand. “Go fuck yourself!” Chrissie told him when he showed up at McLaren’s King’s Road clothes store, where Chrissie was working. Nick then became enraged when Hynde told him she was going out with someone else. According to Nick, he took off his belt and was “about to hit her” when a “strange bloke who just happened to be on the premises—one of McLaren’s mad brood—stepped forward and punched me in the face so hard my whole body almost flew through the shop window onto the pavement outside.”
Dear lord—your whole body, Nick? Almost flew through the window? To the pavement outside? A glassless shop window was it, er? Eh? How much of the body got through? The elbow?
Kent, it should be added, is extremely rude and resentful toward Chrissie Hynde. He calls her “nagging.” He accuses the future Rock and Roll Hall of Famer of “using” his “high profile” as a rock journalist to promote her own career and establish herself in the rock ecosystem. Well, so what, Nick? What’s your point? It’s nothing compared to all the wet blowies you gave to Ziggy and Iggy, Jimmy and Mick and Keith and the rest to raise your own profile. It looks bad, Nick, really bad, to be laying into a classy babe like Chrissie Hynde this way.
Anyway, getting his ass kicked is a recurring theme in the Nick Kent saga. Nick claims that in December 1977, a gang of “punk wannabes who wanted to do what Sid did” assaulted him in the King’s Cross area of London. He says the guys carried out a “ritual” of “slashing my skin with their weapons,” then kicking the spot that had been cut. He claims his face was turned into a “bloody pulp” and that he received a kick to the head, “effectively knocking me unconscious.” Somehow, he survived and staggered to a “nearby drug house of recent acquaintance.” He claims a “junkie girl” there cleaned his wounds with a damp cloth while her boyfriend fed him “lashings of Valium, pain pills and reefer.” An hour later, he says he was stoned and feeling fine, kicking back watching a TV show with his new friends.
Wait a minute, Nick—sadistic followers of Sid Vicious slashed you repeatedly, turned your face to “bloody pulp” and beat you into unconsciousness—but there was no need for a hospital visit? Everything’s totally supercool an hour later? You're too tough, too "battle-tested," as you say— nobody can kill a true badass like Nick Kent? Yes, we must be grateful for the infinite kindness of junkie girls and their generous boyfriends, I suppose. Well, if you say so, Nick.
Kent also confirms that Kenneth Anger, Satanist goofball and masturbator for Alfred Kinsey’s “studies,” apparently really did go around threatening to turn his adversaries into toads. Nick writes that Anger confronted him at the NME offices in London in 1976 after Nick wrote that Jimmy Page (like Anger, a goofball acolyte of Aleister Crowley) was unhappy about how Anger was mishandling Lucifer Rising, the Anger film for which Page had contributed a soundtrack and financing (Kent mistakenly calls the movie Scorpio Rising, an earlier Anger film). Nick quotes Anger: “I just have to crook this little finger and Jimmy Page will automatically be transformed into a toad.”
Nick neglects to mention that nearly a decade earlier, Anger had reportedly cast a spell to turn Bobby Beausoleil, the star of Lucifer Rising, into a toad. Spookily, following Anger's alleged spell-casting, Beausoleil would wind up receiving a life sentence for the 1969 murder of Gary Hinman, the first of the spree of killings blamed on Charles Manson and his gang.
Well, but Nick doesn't have much to say about the Manson case. He seems almost unaware of its transformative impact on the culture and society of his beloved 1970s and beyond. It turns out Nick Kent doesn't have much to say about anything except his small world of dope addiction and his love-hate relationships with some rock stars. One will not get from Nick Kent any hint of an analysis of how the excesses of the late 1960s and 1970s led to the savage rightward tilt of culture and politics that continues to this day.
What we do know is that Kent loves clichés, almost all of them. He’s also prone to lazily invoking "Spinal Tap" to describe bands on the heavier side of the spectrum that he doesn’t like. Below are some Nick insights on a range of rock world luminaries, culled from both Apathy for the Devil and The Dark Stuff:
The Band: “They were just too hairy for my taste.”
The Sweet: “Imagine Spinal Tap without the punchlines.”
Bob Marley (after Marley called Kent the Jamaican equivalent of “scumbag”): “It was obvious he (Marley) had a serious problem with men who were unafraid to exhibit their feminine side in public.”
Shane McGowan: “In between those moments when his brain isn’t being swamped out by some oppressive agent of stupefaction, it’s clear Shane McGowan has something he wants to tell me.”
Mick Jagger: “Anyone who’s ever known him will tell you what an interesting bunch of guys Mick Jagger can be.”
Joy Division: “I was much too jaded to see any value in what Joy Division had to offer.”
Guns N’ Roses: “There are a number of Spinal Tap comparisons. . . there is no real imagination at work here, no wit, no joy, no irony, certainly no originality whatsoever.”
Dire Straits: “Pub rock for the rising young homeowner demographic.”
Bob Dylan’s Renaldo and Clara film: like “watching paint dry.”
Eminem: “Can Eminem’s high-powered homies convince him to open up his heart and accept the healing power of forgiveness into his life so that he can truly save himself? Or do they just think that kind of thinking is strictly for pussies? Time alone will tell.”
Lou Reed: “Trying to locate anything resembling human warmth, empathy and decency in Reed’s personality was as futile an exercise as trying to get blood from a stone.”
Charles Manson: “Human excrement like Charles Manson could only make their homicidal mark in the LSD-drenched late sixties.”
Happy Mondays and Stone Roses: “Talk about the decline of civilization!”
Rod Stewart: “He took to the celebrity playboy lifestyle like the proverbial duck to water. . . . the closest thing to Dean Martin that England has ever produced.”
Morrissey: “He recalls seeing Patti Smith, then newly retired from rock, giving a poetry reading in which she ‘made farting noises for almost one hour . . . it was both peculiar and singularly depressing.’”
Prince: “He abhors drug-taking and drinking, and talks about people who haven’t yet accepted God into their lives as though he were addressing the handicapped.”
Brian Jones: “What he gave to the Stones was the full force of authentically damned youth.”
Kurt Cobain: “I always saw his griping as a punk-rock pose and essentially a cop-out on his part.”
Bruce Springsteen: creates “eloquent anthems for blue-collar Americans struggling to keep their faith in uncertain times.” (Faith in what, Nick?)
In the end, one can say that Nick Kent raises the question: How many times can a man listen to Aladdin Sane, Sticky Fingers, Led Zeppelin IV and Raw Power before he becomes a narcissistic lying junkie sociopath with zero to say about the world?
To Nick’s credit, he admits he’s been a “bad person” who's “done many bad things.” Near the end, he also admits he’s a pretty bad writer: “True wit and illumination were still awfully difficult to detect in the sentences I was scribbling down.” However, he (falsely) suggests his terrible writing was a temporary circumstance caused by drug abuse. Absurdly, he even compares himself, favorably, to Thomas De Quincey, revered author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. Hey Nick—it's a lousy comparison!
Not a joke: Kent says he nearly died from pneumonia, got off drugs, and finally found the love and light of God. Right—he found Jesus. He says this occurred after he dropped to his knees and prayed in a wooden chapel in “a little Finian’s Rainbow kind of village bathed in the idyllic rays of an early afternoon sun high in a cloudless blue sky."
Nick adds that he’s now “a responsible middle-aged homeowner, taxpayer and parent.” He seems to exist in a state of rigid disdain for all music produced in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s (except for The Smiths, of course). Ah, well, I guess everything Nick did was just a waste of time after all. Nick Kent doesn’t seem to stand for a damn thing except an armload of sweet rockin' records from the early 1970s.
“Apathy for the devil,” Nick recounts, was what Bob Dylan replied when asked his opinion of a mid-70s Rolling Stones performance. So no, no particular Nick insight there, either. Just stealing something bitter and forlorn that Bob Dylan said, in hopes of eking out a trifle more career mileage.
Nick liked to doll himself up in tangled long hair and leather jackets and be mistaken for a member of the Stones, Led Zeppelin or the Stooges. He liked to style himself as a “rock star rock journalist” who snorts the serious dope with Keith and hangs with Zep and their sinister entourage on the Sunset Strip. It was just part of being a New Journalist, according to Kent, somebody who’s “right there in the scrum” with the higher beings known as rock superstars, “soaking up the essence and then channeling it into an art form of their own.” In other words, Nick Kent was a kind of glorified groupie who wrote about driving in cars and going to parties and getting loaded with his idols.
In Apathy for the Devil, Nick’s prone to writing stuff like: “I saw one of the Clash’s first London shows.” And: “I’d heard a pre-release copy of Blood On the Tracks” (he said this to impress Marc Bolan). And: Johnny Thunders “was a walking advert for heroin.”
It turns out Nick Kent was also a whiny twit who went around spoiling everyone’s fun by complaining about how dumb Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen were. He thinks, for example, that Sid Vicious was “morally vacuous.” Ooooh, was he, Nick? Kent also claims to have been a very early member of the Sex Pistols, back when he was a supercool guy who used to hang around with other supercool guys like Malcolm McLaren. Nick even claims credit for pointing the early Pistols “towards the future” by playing the Stooges and Modern Lovers for guitarist Steve Jones and bassist Glen Matlock (Johnny Rotten hadn't joined yet). But everyone soon found out Nick didn’t have much musical ability and wasn’t very cool, and he was soon dismissed from the Sex Pistols project. Nick, to his credit, writes admiringly of Steve Jones’ raw, muscular chops: “What had taken me literally years to put into practice on a fretboard he managed to master in a matter of weeks.”
Kent’s main claim to fame is that he claims Sid Vicious whacked him in the head with a “bike chain” in 1976. He claims Malcolm McLaren and Johnny Rotten ordered Sid to beat him up because, well, they’re just evil, hateful fuckers who never did like Nick Kent much, I guess. In the incident, Nick claims Rotten’s sidekick Jah Wobble held an “open penknife” close to his face, while Sid took three or four bike-chain swings at his head. Sid, thankfully, connected only once, but "if two or more of those chain-swings had actually reached me, I’d probably have been killed by the head trauma,” Nick writes. Heeeeelp, mom!—Sid Vicious tried to kill meeeeeeeee!
Yet the more Nick writes about this, the murkier it gets. Says Nick: “I was so stoned that night that I didn’t even feel the blow.” What? What the heck? That’s pretty stoned, man. You can't feel getting smacked with a bike chain, but you remember how many times Sid swung the chain at you? Yet Nick claims he knows it was deadly serious attack because “there was blood everywhere: on the wall behind me in a wide crimson arc and all over the back of my jacket.” However, breathless though his tone may be, Nick can’t be bothered to describe the extent of any injuries to his head, neck or face.
Was there really any injury at all, Nick? Did any of this really happen? Surely being whipped with a bike chain by Sid Vicious, to the extent that blood flies across the wall and covers your jacket, would involve an injury that would require a hospital visit and stitches? Or at least a bandage? I don't care how "stoned" you claim you are—getting your head lacerated by a chain is gonna sting. But again, there’s not a word about any damage from Nick. As he is being “led out” of the venue, Nick claims Vivienne Westwood rushed up to apologize, calling Sid “a boy” and “a psychopath.” Viv swears Sid will have nothing further to do with the Sex Pistols following this brutal assault on poor Nick Kent. Again, Nick can't "even feel" getting lacerated by a bike chain—but he clearly remembers the details of a chat with Vivienne.
Sure thing, Nick. Are we really supposed to believe that Sid Vicious nearly killed you because he was a crazy monster and McLaren sicked him on you because Johnny Rotten and his buddies didn’t like your long hippie hair? Sorry, Nick—in this day and age, we’re going to need to see video evidence and/or a hospital record. After all, throughout your career, you were deeply involved in the business of buffing the image of rock stars as “outlaws,” dope fiends and scary degenerates. And McLaren and the Pistols certainly knew a thing or two about getting the media "on message." A mutual reach-around tale like “Yelp! Sid hit me with a chain because he didn’t like my writing!” helps both your careers, eh? Don’t it? Shows how “real” you punk rockers and rock star journalists were keeping it, innit?
In the aftermath of the incident, Nick authored a series of articles expounding on the theme of "Sid is scary and disgusting and a horrible, horrible scary man! The Sex Pistols stink, too!" Which inevitably only made the band more notorious and famous. Unsurprisingly, the alleged incident was also milked for easy mileage in the 1986 Sid & Nancy movie (with Nick's name changed to "Dick Bent," perhaps to emphasize the fictionality of it). In The Dark Stuff, Nick’s book of writings on rock stars, published years before Apathy, Nick describes the incident as “my immortal spat with Sid Vicious.” Well, darn it, Nick—now I’m starting to question everything you say. Were you whacked with a bike chain so hard it sprayed a “wide crimson arc” of your blood on the wall? Or was it just a “spat,” some kind of screaming little chest-bumping bitch-fest between you and Sid? Well?
Whatever happened, it wasn’t the first time that little Nick Kent claims Malcolm McLaren’s thugs roughed him up. In 1974, Nick was lucky enough to be living with Chrissie Hynde (who always did have terrible taste in men, by the way. See: Ray Davies and Simple Minds’ Jim Kerr, who left Hynde for Patsy Kensit, who left Kerr for Liam Gallagher. And so on.). Due to Nick’s substance abuse and general twittishness, he and Chrissie fought frequently and were often on the outs. Nick claims that during a “two-week trial separation” from Hynde, he got gonorrhea while “screwing around” in Paris. He then returned to London and passed along the disease to the dynamic contralto and future Pretenders frontwoman.
“From that point on,” Nick confesses, Hynde “didn’t really want to have anything more to do with me.” But Nick was slow to understand. “Go fuck yourself!” Chrissie told him when he showed up at McLaren’s King’s Road clothes store, where Chrissie was working. Nick then became enraged when Hynde told him she was going out with someone else. According to Nick, he took off his belt and was “about to hit her” when a “strange bloke who just happened to be on the premises—one of McLaren’s mad brood—stepped forward and punched me in the face so hard my whole body almost flew through the shop window onto the pavement outside.”
Dear lord—your whole body, Nick? Almost flew through the window? To the pavement outside? A glassless shop window was it, er? Eh? How much of the body got through? The elbow?
Kent, it should be added, is extremely rude and resentful toward Chrissie Hynde. He calls her “nagging.” He accuses the future Rock and Roll Hall of Famer of “using” his “high profile” as a rock journalist to promote her own career and establish herself in the rock ecosystem. Well, so what, Nick? What’s your point? It’s nothing compared to all the wet blowies you gave to Ziggy and Iggy, Jimmy and Mick and Keith and the rest to raise your own profile. It looks bad, Nick, really bad, to be laying into a classy babe like Chrissie Hynde this way.
Anyway, getting his ass kicked is a recurring theme in the Nick Kent saga. Nick claims that in December 1977, a gang of “punk wannabes who wanted to do what Sid did” assaulted him in the King’s Cross area of London. He says the guys carried out a “ritual” of “slashing my skin with their weapons,” then kicking the spot that had been cut. He claims his face was turned into a “bloody pulp” and that he received a kick to the head, “effectively knocking me unconscious.” Somehow, he survived and staggered to a “nearby drug house of recent acquaintance.” He claims a “junkie girl” there cleaned his wounds with a damp cloth while her boyfriend fed him “lashings of Valium, pain pills and reefer.” An hour later, he says he was stoned and feeling fine, kicking back watching a TV show with his new friends.
Wait a minute, Nick—sadistic followers of Sid Vicious slashed you repeatedly, turned your face to “bloody pulp” and beat you into unconsciousness—but there was no need for a hospital visit? Everything’s totally supercool an hour later? You're too tough, too "battle-tested," as you say— nobody can kill a true badass like Nick Kent? Yes, we must be grateful for the infinite kindness of junkie girls and their generous boyfriends, I suppose. Well, if you say so, Nick.
Kent also confirms that Kenneth Anger, Satanist goofball and masturbator for Alfred Kinsey’s “studies,” apparently really did go around threatening to turn his adversaries into toads. Nick writes that Anger confronted him at the NME offices in London in 1976 after Nick wrote that Jimmy Page (like Anger, a goofball acolyte of Aleister Crowley) was unhappy about how Anger was mishandling Lucifer Rising, the Anger film for which Page had contributed a soundtrack and financing (Kent mistakenly calls the movie Scorpio Rising, an earlier Anger film). Nick quotes Anger: “I just have to crook this little finger and Jimmy Page will automatically be transformed into a toad.”
Nick neglects to mention that nearly a decade earlier, Anger had reportedly cast a spell to turn Bobby Beausoleil, the star of Lucifer Rising, into a toad. Spookily, following Anger's alleged spell-casting, Beausoleil would wind up receiving a life sentence for the 1969 murder of Gary Hinman, the first of the spree of killings blamed on Charles Manson and his gang.
Well, but Nick doesn't have much to say about the Manson case. He seems almost unaware of its transformative impact on the culture and society of his beloved 1970s and beyond. It turns out Nick Kent doesn't have much to say about anything except his small world of dope addiction and his love-hate relationships with some rock stars. One will not get from Nick Kent any hint of an analysis of how the excesses of the late 1960s and 1970s led to the savage rightward tilt of culture and politics that continues to this day.
What we do know is that Kent loves clichés, almost all of them. He’s also prone to lazily invoking "Spinal Tap" to describe bands on the heavier side of the spectrum that he doesn’t like. Below are some Nick insights on a range of rock world luminaries, culled from both Apathy for the Devil and The Dark Stuff:
The Band: “They were just too hairy for my taste.”
The Sweet: “Imagine Spinal Tap without the punchlines.”
Bob Marley (after Marley called Kent the Jamaican equivalent of “scumbag”): “It was obvious he (Marley) had a serious problem with men who were unafraid to exhibit their feminine side in public.”
Shane McGowan: “In between those moments when his brain isn’t being swamped out by some oppressive agent of stupefaction, it’s clear Shane McGowan has something he wants to tell me.”
Mick Jagger: “Anyone who’s ever known him will tell you what an interesting bunch of guys Mick Jagger can be.”
Joy Division: “I was much too jaded to see any value in what Joy Division had to offer.”
Guns N’ Roses: “There are a number of Spinal Tap comparisons. . . there is no real imagination at work here, no wit, no joy, no irony, certainly no originality whatsoever.”
Dire Straits: “Pub rock for the rising young homeowner demographic.”
Bob Dylan’s Renaldo and Clara film: like “watching paint dry.”
Eminem: “Can Eminem’s high-powered homies convince him to open up his heart and accept the healing power of forgiveness into his life so that he can truly save himself? Or do they just think that kind of thinking is strictly for pussies? Time alone will tell.”
Lou Reed: “Trying to locate anything resembling human warmth, empathy and decency in Reed’s personality was as futile an exercise as trying to get blood from a stone.”
Charles Manson: “Human excrement like Charles Manson could only make their homicidal mark in the LSD-drenched late sixties.”
Happy Mondays and Stone Roses: “Talk about the decline of civilization!”
Rod Stewart: “He took to the celebrity playboy lifestyle like the proverbial duck to water. . . . the closest thing to Dean Martin that England has ever produced.”
Morrissey: “He recalls seeing Patti Smith, then newly retired from rock, giving a poetry reading in which she ‘made farting noises for almost one hour . . . it was both peculiar and singularly depressing.’”
Prince: “He abhors drug-taking and drinking, and talks about people who haven’t yet accepted God into their lives as though he were addressing the handicapped.”
Brian Jones: “What he gave to the Stones was the full force of authentically damned youth.”
Kurt Cobain: “I always saw his griping as a punk-rock pose and essentially a cop-out on his part.”
Bruce Springsteen: creates “eloquent anthems for blue-collar Americans struggling to keep their faith in uncertain times.” (Faith in what, Nick?)
In the end, one can say that Nick Kent raises the question: How many times can a man listen to Aladdin Sane, Sticky Fingers, Led Zeppelin IV and Raw Power before he becomes a narcissistic lying junkie sociopath with zero to say about the world?
To Nick’s credit, he admits he’s been a “bad person” who's “done many bad things.” Near the end, he also admits he’s a pretty bad writer: “True wit and illumination were still awfully difficult to detect in the sentences I was scribbling down.” However, he (falsely) suggests his terrible writing was a temporary circumstance caused by drug abuse. Absurdly, he even compares himself, favorably, to Thomas De Quincey, revered author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. Hey Nick—it's a lousy comparison!
Not a joke: Kent says he nearly died from pneumonia, got off drugs, and finally found the love and light of God. Right—he found Jesus. He says this occurred after he dropped to his knees and prayed in a wooden chapel in “a little Finian’s Rainbow kind of village bathed in the idyllic rays of an early afternoon sun high in a cloudless blue sky."
Nick adds that he’s now “a responsible middle-aged homeowner, taxpayer and parent.” He seems to exist in a state of rigid disdain for all music produced in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s (except for The Smiths, of course). Ah, well, I guess everything Nick did was just a waste of time after all. Nick Kent doesn’t seem to stand for a damn thing except an armload of sweet rockin' records from the early 1970s.
“Apathy for the devil,” Nick recounts, was what Bob Dylan replied when asked his opinion of a mid-70s Rolling Stones performance. So no, no particular Nick insight there, either. Just stealing something bitter and forlorn that Bob Dylan said, in hopes of eking out a trifle more career mileage.
February 24, 2023
I cannot see why, from this book, Kent was so revered at the NME and The Face magazine. His writing seems to mimic Gonzo journalistic principles by taking a shitload of drugs (yawn) and immersion within the entourage of famous rock stars (yawn) with very little of consequence to emerge regarding personality- his or his subjects- except excess and hedonism.
He writes, especially in the first quarter like a British Bobby reading a statement in court, with over ebullience which just seems a bit sixth form.
He comes across as an unlikeable person among unlikeable people. My interest was in Nick Drake and Syd Barrett but there was nothing new, incisive or revealing about his words on either of these.
I’m not even sure why I gave it 2 stars instead of 1. Perhaps because I got through it. Perhaps because I wanted to like him and his references to Kerouac as influence. I guess it captures the 70’s from his pov but don’t expect a sociological and historical foray into 70’s music culture.
He writes, especially in the first quarter like a British Bobby reading a statement in court, with over ebullience which just seems a bit sixth form.
He comes across as an unlikeable person among unlikeable people. My interest was in Nick Drake and Syd Barrett but there was nothing new, incisive or revealing about his words on either of these.
I’m not even sure why I gave it 2 stars instead of 1. Perhaps because I got through it. Perhaps because I wanted to like him and his references to Kerouac as influence. I guess it captures the 70’s from his pov but don’t expect a sociological and historical foray into 70’s music culture.
September 2, 2019
I enjoyed this a bit more than “The Dark Stuff”. It’s a memoir that is very descriptive and informative with regards to the music of the 1970s, while also letting in on the personal life of the author himself - particularly how he was caught up in the excessive lifestyle that many of his peers seemed to follow as well. I liked how he details the life and working patterns of a rock journalist of the time, as well as the (mis)adventures that went along with it. In this respect, it does a good job at framing a specific time and place not just in rock music but in music journalism as well.
I didn’t like the 1976 chapter. It’s the only one were he openly rants too much; against bands and people, along with more ranting about punk rock in the UK and the harm it did. But I guess he can take the liberty of being biased and opinionated in this respect, seeing as luckily for him he is and will remain an important name amongst the storytellers of rock music.
The “Soundtrack for the Seventies” at the end is a good addition, and I will make a note of its contents for further musical discoveries.
I didn’t like the 1976 chapter. It’s the only one were he openly rants too much; against bands and people, along with more ranting about punk rock in the UK and the harm it did. But I guess he can take the liberty of being biased and opinionated in this respect, seeing as luckily for him he is and will remain an important name amongst the storytellers of rock music.
The “Soundtrack for the Seventies” at the end is a good addition, and I will make a note of its contents for further musical discoveries.
June 15, 2022
Apathy for the Devil is a deeply entertaining memoir that captures the music of the 70s with insight and humor. I might question some of Kent’s more… Forrest Gump-esque claims of being present for certain historic moments (it sometimes feels like he stops just short of claiming he invented punk rock), but he tells the stories in such entertaining fashion that it doesn’t matter. Kent is a music critic famous for his work for NME in the era he writes about here, and his life is full of encounters (chance and planned) with stars such as the Sex Pistols (he was a founding member and the guy Sid Vicious whipped with a bike chain), Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Keith Richards, to name a few. Kent was the sort of music critic who tried to keep up with the stars he wrote about, which led to him becoming a drug-addict who seemed to idolize the worst tendencies of rock excess. A lot of the book is about his descent into addiction, and he writes about rock bottom lucidly. He tries to be honest about his romantic relationships, but he comes across as belittling and sexist a lot of the time (but then again, maybe that is honest to who he is); this extends beyond his romantic relationships to the relatively few female musicians he has anything positive to say about (he goes out of his way to rag on The Slits). He also seems to loath post-punk with a passion. Nonetheless, this is a very engaging read by a flawed man and talented writer who WAS there for a lot of important musical moments.
July 24, 2011
The overall message from this book that I took was Nick pleading "I wasn't just a hanger-on, I wasn't just a hanger-on!", causing me to think, "Wait a minute, mate, Jagger, Richards, Stewart, Bowie, Bolan, Plant and Page, they had the talent and mystique. You were just a hanger-on, weren't you?" He was also a good looking boy, as the front cover attests, which no doubt helped him to hang on in there, defying Sting's cogent observation that all music journalists liked Elvis Costello because they all looked like him.
Kent, however, sees himself at pretty much the same level as the aforementioned rock gods, although he brandished a pen instead of a microphone. Or at least he'd certainly like to be at that level. He's just about self-effacing enough to get away with it, although there's a lot of "poor me" stuff that gets in the way of a decent yarn or vicious swipe. He makes the schoolboy error of being yet another guy who claims he gave Malcolm McLaren the inspiration for the term "punk rock", although he admits it was either him or the New York Dolls that did. Never mind the thousand other claimants, of course. To me, this just seemed like another desperate leap for significance, as much of the book does. I'd admit there are a mere handful of journalists who make a lasting impact through journalism, but it tends to be investigative journalism. No doubt Kent, Shaar Murray, Birchell, Morely et al would beg to differ of course.
And, to be fair, Kent has written books, and this one was pretty good. The book's chapters are done on a yearly basis as the decade of the seventies roll by, although the final two years, 1978 and 1979, are compressed into one. This is because, I suspect, the drug addiction was really taking its toll by then. After forming the Sex Pistols - yes, really - Kent becomes pretty vague about a lot of stuff, and the last chapters contain a lot less pithy anecdotes and a lot more retrospective writing one suspects to have been researched with the aid of back copies of NME and Google searches. "Apathy for the Devil" is a good book and easy to read. For anyone interested in recalling the music of the time, this adds a colourful perspective to some of the main players.
Kent, however, sees himself at pretty much the same level as the aforementioned rock gods, although he brandished a pen instead of a microphone. Or at least he'd certainly like to be at that level. He's just about self-effacing enough to get away with it, although there's a lot of "poor me" stuff that gets in the way of a decent yarn or vicious swipe. He makes the schoolboy error of being yet another guy who claims he gave Malcolm McLaren the inspiration for the term "punk rock", although he admits it was either him or the New York Dolls that did. Never mind the thousand other claimants, of course. To me, this just seemed like another desperate leap for significance, as much of the book does. I'd admit there are a mere handful of journalists who make a lasting impact through journalism, but it tends to be investigative journalism. No doubt Kent, Shaar Murray, Birchell, Morely et al would beg to differ of course.
And, to be fair, Kent has written books, and this one was pretty good. The book's chapters are done on a yearly basis as the decade of the seventies roll by, although the final two years, 1978 and 1979, are compressed into one. This is because, I suspect, the drug addiction was really taking its toll by then. After forming the Sex Pistols - yes, really - Kent becomes pretty vague about a lot of stuff, and the last chapters contain a lot less pithy anecdotes and a lot more retrospective writing one suspects to have been researched with the aid of back copies of NME and Google searches. "Apathy for the Devil" is a good book and easy to read. For anyone interested in recalling the music of the time, this adds a colourful perspective to some of the main players.
October 19, 2011
Wow, I was all over with this one. I've read another of Nick Kent's books, which I had enjoyed immensely. This, unfortunately, didn't prove to be the case here. He came across as a whiny prat most of the book, judgmental of most of the singers and bands he was speaking about, and their drug/alcohol addictions, while the whole entirety of the 70's Kent himself was messed up on drugs. It just didn't jive at all. The tone of the book, I thought, was idle worship and musical stories as well as his thoughts on that decade. Instead, it seems like much of the book was an excuse for him to bitch about his relationship with Chrissie Hynde hitting the skids and how it supposedly scarred him for years after it's demise(he gave her gonorrhea, would you blame her for leaving? Come on!). He goes on to first diss, then love, then back to diss Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop is mentioned by his real name throughout the book(as if he and Kent were best friends), yet the second he acts in a punk manner and whips out the organ and pisses on a dissenter, all of a sudden, Kent pronounces him as "annoying." It just seems to smack of favoritism. Nick Kent, a professional music writer for NME for many years, just can't seem to seperate professional from personal here, and I believe the book suffers because of that. Any other time, this sort of book, would've entertained me. I just had to keep setting it down and coming back to it, because it so annoyed me, the petulant tone throughout. If you have nothing nice to say, overall, why write a book about it?
November 23, 2023
What do Iggy Pop, Keith Richards, Led Zeppelin, Sid Vicious and Chrissie Hynde all have in common? Turns out the answer is Nick Kent.
A thrilling account of the appalling and fascinating lifestyles of some of rock n' roll's most legendary villains, as well as a few of the industry's more redeeming features. One of thread of Kent's story includes bringing Malcolm McLaren up to speed with the seventies, kickstarting one of the decade's most iconic bands and then facing ultimate betrayal and deadly consequences on every London street corner.
A thrilling account of the appalling and fascinating lifestyles of some of rock n' roll's most legendary villains, as well as a few of the industry's more redeeming features. One of thread of Kent's story includes bringing Malcolm McLaren up to speed with the seventies, kickstarting one of the decade's most iconic bands and then facing ultimate betrayal and deadly consequences on every London street corner.
September 27, 2019
Nick Kent loomed large in a time when rock journalism not only meant something but when some of the more established scribes enjoyed or fell victim to the same trappings of fame as their subjects. The good thing about reading a book written by an old journo is that it is likely going to be well written. That is no exception here where Kent takes the reader on a bare knuckle ride through his rise to fame and, in turn, his junkie fall from grace. Although prone to maybe taking a little too much credit for shaping the decades musical output, Kent nonetheless tells a cracking tale and gets to drop the names of rock royalty that most of us could only dream about. Like any slow motion train wreck, Apathy for the Devil is both uncomfortable and compelling.
April 12, 2017
For a man who spent so long under the punishing fog of heroin and methadone addiction, he has managed to break free from it and produce quite an eloquent, forthright and outstanding piece of work that captures the mood and spirit of popular music in the 70s as well as any writer has in any other book on the era.
At one point he reflects on his situation, “Did I truly merit this sorry, sorry fate? Well, yes and no. Much of my bad fortune-specifically drug addiction and homelessness-I’d brought upon myself. They were nobody’s fault but mine. And I’d done a lot of bad things over the past three years. I’d been too arrogant and too vain, too immature and too judgemental, too wayward and too goddam hot headed-and that was just the short list. But I never ever let myself become one of those all the way bad people who lose all sense of personal humanity and conscience. My heart just wasn’t in it. My inner moral compass was still halfway functioning throughout this whole wretched era.”
It’s not just his own demons he has to contend with, there are no shortage of big, bold bands here. Kent was in amongst it, managing to get up close and personal with the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Stones and Iggy Pop amongst many others. This book is crammed with some brilliant and cutting analysis. Roxy Music are described as “Lord Snooty and his pals in lurex.” The Slits as “a bunch of talentless exhibitionists.” or what about his thoughts on Sham 69 frontman, Jimmy Pursey, “He represented everything I despised most in the late seventies: rank, vainglorious, talent-free opportunism masquerading as ‘the voice of the oppressed’.” He sums up his thoughts on the manufactured image of the sixties, “Woodstock and Altamont are seen as polar opposites in a mass media generated parable of light and darkness but they were just two ends of the same mucky stick, the net results of the same disease: the bloating of mass bohemia in the late sixties.”
“Action and interaction are what count if you really want to lead a life of surprises.” He insists and he certainly adopts this attitude during the early 70s when he relocates briefly to the States, getting involved with Lester Bangs with some memorable results. He also goes into quite some detail concerning his relationship with a Pre-Pretenders Chrissie Hynde (Hynde gives a differing and more concise and restrained account in her recent biography “Reckless”. that is, she rarely mentions it).
Kent does a good job of capturing the mood of London during the emergence of pub rock on the live circuit, which would eventually give birth to the likes of Dr Feelgood and Ian Dury & The Blockheads. I had no idea that Kent was briefly a member of the Sex Pistols for a couple of months during 1975. His (initial) friendship with the truly appalling Malcolm McLaren was also fascinating stuff and McLaren’s inevitable betrayal of him was sickening as it was cowardly. His squatting and frequent interactions with Sid & Nancy were interesting though also very depressing. At one point Sid boasts to him that he had recently overdosed 13 times within the last 12 weeks.
Overall this was a cracking read and Kent really manages a lovely balance of gossip, depth, darkness, light, intelligence and insight and it has that extra edge of intensity and conviction because he was there and involved with so many of the biggest and best bands of the time. He knows what he’s talking about, he isn’t afraid to attack any sacred cows and does it in a reasoned and informed way. Sure it has it’s cringe moments and you are not going to agree with everything he says, but that is beside the point, there is some great writing in here and this is a book that has many of the great attributes and ingredients that make for a cracking biography.
January 16, 2014
I had really enjoyed reading Nick Kent’s previous book, The Dark Stuff, and was looking forward to this one after the 16 year gap between them.
However, this is very different and feels more like a collection of anecdotes loosely put together and was ultimately disappointing. I was an avid reader of the NME during the ‘70’s, the 80’s and the ‘90’s and Kent and Charles Shaar Murray featured heavily as writers on it. However , with the onset of punk which swept away all before it, he became one of the old guard being attacked and ignored by Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons, the new enfant terribles on the block.
One of the reasons that I didn’t like this book as much as ‘The Dark Stuff’ is that Kent becomes almost a Zelig type figure who always present at every major gig, always part of the scene and whatever’s going on. But after a while it does become wearying and begins to read more like a pub bore’s tales.
Apathy begins in the ‘70’s after our hero’s conventional upbringing and then takes his first steps into journalism on the ‘alternative press’ before moving into music journalism. He was certainly one of the prettiest stars on the scene with his kohl rimmed eyed as he reveals escapades with the Stones, Bowie, Led Zeppelin and his short lived affair with Chrissie Hynde. Oh yes and he was very briefly part of the Sex Pistols. Somehow I couldn’t see kohl and studs mixing too well or Kent and Vicious for that matter. However, Kent paints a vivid portrait of the heady excesses of the ‘70’s, the slide into corporate stadium rock into the itunes world and X Factor sterility.
Kent is an onlooker, an observer of Spinal Tap silliness and I got the feeling that he would have loved to have been centre stage as a performer instead of in the dressing room, the wings or the audience.
If you run with the devil then eventually he will catch up with you and Kent acquires a serious heroin habit and hits the skids. But he manages to get himself out of its clutches and achives a happy ending in Paris.
I did find Kent’s writing style in this to be less involving than in The Dark Stuff as perhaps his focus on talents such as Brian Wilson and Syd Barratt was greater. These were well-researched, well written pieces on artists in which Kent seemed genuinely interested in as opposed to a collection of anecdotes. Mind you, I’d love to have his memories.
However, this is very different and feels more like a collection of anecdotes loosely put together and was ultimately disappointing. I was an avid reader of the NME during the ‘70’s, the 80’s and the ‘90’s and Kent and Charles Shaar Murray featured heavily as writers on it. However , with the onset of punk which swept away all before it, he became one of the old guard being attacked and ignored by Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons, the new enfant terribles on the block.
One of the reasons that I didn’t like this book as much as ‘The Dark Stuff’ is that Kent becomes almost a Zelig type figure who always present at every major gig, always part of the scene and whatever’s going on. But after a while it does become wearying and begins to read more like a pub bore’s tales.
Apathy begins in the ‘70’s after our hero’s conventional upbringing and then takes his first steps into journalism on the ‘alternative press’ before moving into music journalism. He was certainly one of the prettiest stars on the scene with his kohl rimmed eyed as he reveals escapades with the Stones, Bowie, Led Zeppelin and his short lived affair with Chrissie Hynde. Oh yes and he was very briefly part of the Sex Pistols. Somehow I couldn’t see kohl and studs mixing too well or Kent and Vicious for that matter. However, Kent paints a vivid portrait of the heady excesses of the ‘70’s, the slide into corporate stadium rock into the itunes world and X Factor sterility.
Kent is an onlooker, an observer of Spinal Tap silliness and I got the feeling that he would have loved to have been centre stage as a performer instead of in the dressing room, the wings or the audience.
If you run with the devil then eventually he will catch up with you and Kent acquires a serious heroin habit and hits the skids. But he manages to get himself out of its clutches and achives a happy ending in Paris.
I did find Kent’s writing style in this to be less involving than in The Dark Stuff as perhaps his focus on talents such as Brian Wilson and Syd Barratt was greater. These were well-researched, well written pieces on artists in which Kent seemed genuinely interested in as opposed to a collection of anecdotes. Mind you, I’d love to have his memories.
June 17, 2021
I guess given the trajectory of the author's life in the '70s, it makes sense that this book just gets more and more depressing as it goes -- but it also gets less and less interesting and engaging, as the glum and, frankly, pathetic, energy doesn't make for a very compelling story, and it loses most of whatever sense of humor it had earlier to become more maudlin. There's a kind of Zelig-like quality to the whole thing, as well. I can (just about) believe all of the times that Kent was connected to famous rock stars and such, but I don't know how much to doubt some of the influence that Kent (claims he has) had on rock culture. Maybe that's not really the point, as it feels just about as plausible as not. In the anthology of Kent's writing, "The Dark Stuff," we have a similar, undefinable blending of tall-tales, legends, and what are probably factual accounts. Maybe it's the retrospective distance that makes the stories here ultimately generate apathy more than pathos (as the title, of course, tells us up front!). I did enjoy a certain Dickensian-tone to the writing--even gleaned the difference between a fop and a spiv--and Kent's late revelation about discovering a bio of Thomas De Quincey, recast the book somewhat more favorably for me.
April 29, 2018
This book is three hundred and fifty pages of first person stories of debauchery and catty comments about famous people, all delivered with unapologetic boldness... And then it ends on a Come To Jesus moment? What the fuck?
I get that Kent had to stop doing cocaine with Keith Richards if he was going to survive. Obviously it's relevant to the story if he stops being a junkie and settles down with a wife and a kid. All of that is standard issue once-upon-a-time junkie memoir stuff and I can live with it. But the sudden shift into spirituality in the last chapter... That doesn't sit well with me. You can be a sarcastic dick and a family man simultaneously - but I have a harder time reconciling a newfound "the Lord moves in mysterious ways" attitude with a "my memoir should be full of dirty laundry airing and score settling" intention. It either means that the preceding three hundred and fifty pages were written in bad faith or it means that the last minute conversion is hollow and that's a lose-lose proposition.
Solid book but man it does not stick the landing.
I get that Kent had to stop doing cocaine with Keith Richards if he was going to survive. Obviously it's relevant to the story if he stops being a junkie and settles down with a wife and a kid. All of that is standard issue once-upon-a-time junkie memoir stuff and I can live with it. But the sudden shift into spirituality in the last chapter... That doesn't sit well with me. You can be a sarcastic dick and a family man simultaneously - but I have a harder time reconciling a newfound "the Lord moves in mysterious ways" attitude with a "my memoir should be full of dirty laundry airing and score settling" intention. It either means that the preceding three hundred and fifty pages were written in bad faith or it means that the last minute conversion is hollow and that's a lose-lose proposition.
Solid book but man it does not stick the landing.
March 24, 2013
One of the top rock and roll memoirs I've come across. It's simultaneously funny and tragic. Music journalist Kent is great writer with a dry sense of humor and during the 70s, he was a witness and participant in the escapes of David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Iggy Pop, Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols, and a cast of thousands.
He's also brutally honest about how his addiction to heroin and other substance undercut his creativity and personal life to a harrowing degree.
A terrific follow-up to his collection of articles, "The Dark Stuff"
He's also brutally honest about how his addiction to heroin and other substance undercut his creativity and personal life to a harrowing degree.
A terrific follow-up to his collection of articles, "The Dark Stuff"
January 21, 2013
Some interesting stuff in here. Overall, though, I really dislike Kent's style. He does have great stories, but is just full of himself. I give him points for being friends with Iggy Pop and having a serious relationship with Chrissie Hynde. And putting the music of the time in context is good. I didn't know much about what England was like in the 70s drugwise. Lots of heroin. That was interesting.
January 29, 2011
Bought this recently to put on the stack for later, but after sampling it, I could not put it down and it has taken over my reading life. I have never been that taken with Kent's music writing (I need to give it more time), but this memoir is insightful, hilarious, and necessary for American rock and roll fans in a way: it's always great to have a foreign perspective.
January 31, 2025
Cracked actor
Along with Charles Shaar Murray and Ian MacDonald, Nick Kent was one of the finest writers contributing to the NME in the early/mid 70's, and the quality of their prose - opinionated, scathing, funny, knowledgeable - was the reason I would excitedly await the appearance of the paper every week. Of the three of them, Kent always stood out as the most extreme: authoritative in his pronouncements, vituperative in his put-downs and casually allusive in his references to obscure bands or albums. He also appeared to have an intriguing life away from the paper: I remember his emergence as a guitarist with his own band, just at about the same time as Chrissie Hynde - another NME writer - was putting The Pretenders together (the fact that his band immediately sank without trace did nothing to detract from the way in which the ultimate transition from writer to musician appeared to be apposite).
This memoir allows us to see just how intriguing that life really was. He describes his childhood, his early encounter with rock music and London's underground scene, being taken on by the NME (apparently, he was never on the staff, preferring to remain a freelancer) and meeting up with the stars of the day: the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and Iggy Pop amongst others (including Chrissie Hynde, with whom he apparently had a brief romance). This is all good stuff (some of his articles have already appeared in his excellent collection The Dark Stuff), and he provides plenty of detailed anecdotes about his adventures (which continue into the latter part of the seventies, when he found himself briefly in an early line-up of the Sex Pistols). However, it isn't long before this theme gets subsumed by another: his drug addiction. This becomes the main topic of the second part of the book, and is clearly of less interest to the general reader, however fascinated by his life - as opposed to his work - they might have been. Although the stories of the privations he went through in order to get his drugs are pitiful, unsympathetic readers will find themselves losing patience with the way he continually throws his gifts and opportunities away for the sake of short-term stimulation. The pointlessness of it all is a view he shares as, towards the end, he describes the relief of finally getting clean (even including an experience of religious redemption which, given his image and reputation, is somewhat startling).
On the whole, I enjoyed reading the book, but was disappointed in the quality of the writing. The blurb describes it as being "long-awaited [...] sixteen years after [...] The Dark Stuff". I don't know if he's really been working on this book for sixteen years, but - even if it took only a fraction of that time - you'd've thought he'd have at least done something about his opening sentence (p1):
"When you get right down to it, the human memory is a deceitful organ to have to rely on."
Pointing out the fact that memory isn't an organ (it's an ability - like sight - which an organism possesses) might look like nit-picking at this stage, but the shoddy sentence construction continues throughout the book. Take, for example, this one (p291):
"One late afternoon I had cause to visit the place and found myself ambling towards the building in question when something else caught my eye."
Elsewhere, cliches are wedged into place without any thought being given to their applicability, and there are some awkward asides to the reader - e.g. "Did I tell you I'd recently become homeless?" (p275) - which look like lazy writing that wouldn't have survived a careful re-read. I found parts of this almost painful to read, given my memories of the effectiveness of his prose when he was on song in the old days. But the tales in the early part of the book - and his belated realization of the important things in life - make persevering through some of the sludge worthwhile.
Originally reviewed 3 November 2010
Along with Charles Shaar Murray and Ian MacDonald, Nick Kent was one of the finest writers contributing to the NME in the early/mid 70's, and the quality of their prose - opinionated, scathing, funny, knowledgeable - was the reason I would excitedly await the appearance of the paper every week. Of the three of them, Kent always stood out as the most extreme: authoritative in his pronouncements, vituperative in his put-downs and casually allusive in his references to obscure bands or albums. He also appeared to have an intriguing life away from the paper: I remember his emergence as a guitarist with his own band, just at about the same time as Chrissie Hynde - another NME writer - was putting The Pretenders together (the fact that his band immediately sank without trace did nothing to detract from the way in which the ultimate transition from writer to musician appeared to be apposite).
This memoir allows us to see just how intriguing that life really was. He describes his childhood, his early encounter with rock music and London's underground scene, being taken on by the NME (apparently, he was never on the staff, preferring to remain a freelancer) and meeting up with the stars of the day: the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and Iggy Pop amongst others (including Chrissie Hynde, with whom he apparently had a brief romance). This is all good stuff (some of his articles have already appeared in his excellent collection The Dark Stuff), and he provides plenty of detailed anecdotes about his adventures (which continue into the latter part of the seventies, when he found himself briefly in an early line-up of the Sex Pistols). However, it isn't long before this theme gets subsumed by another: his drug addiction. This becomes the main topic of the second part of the book, and is clearly of less interest to the general reader, however fascinated by his life - as opposed to his work - they might have been. Although the stories of the privations he went through in order to get his drugs are pitiful, unsympathetic readers will find themselves losing patience with the way he continually throws his gifts and opportunities away for the sake of short-term stimulation. The pointlessness of it all is a view he shares as, towards the end, he describes the relief of finally getting clean (even including an experience of religious redemption which, given his image and reputation, is somewhat startling).
On the whole, I enjoyed reading the book, but was disappointed in the quality of the writing. The blurb describes it as being "long-awaited [...] sixteen years after [...] The Dark Stuff". I don't know if he's really been working on this book for sixteen years, but - even if it took only a fraction of that time - you'd've thought he'd have at least done something about his opening sentence (p1):
"When you get right down to it, the human memory is a deceitful organ to have to rely on."
Pointing out the fact that memory isn't an organ (it's an ability - like sight - which an organism possesses) might look like nit-picking at this stage, but the shoddy sentence construction continues throughout the book. Take, for example, this one (p291):
"One late afternoon I had cause to visit the place and found myself ambling towards the building in question when something else caught my eye."
Elsewhere, cliches are wedged into place without any thought being given to their applicability, and there are some awkward asides to the reader - e.g. "Did I tell you I'd recently become homeless?" (p275) - which look like lazy writing that wouldn't have survived a careful re-read. I found parts of this almost painful to read, given my memories of the effectiveness of his prose when he was on song in the old days. But the tales in the early part of the book - and his belated realization of the important things in life - make persevering through some of the sludge worthwhile.
Originally reviewed 3 November 2010
June 7, 2018
For the most part, the book reads like a cross between Alan Partridge ("needless to say, I had the last laugh" and Father Ted's Award Acceptance Speech ("and next we come onto Liars").
So why the high rating?
It charts an entertaining life - warts and all - in a turbulent decade of change but high popular culture. And Nick Kent was at the very centre of it.
It's told year by year through the 70's - although focus is lost slightly as we reach the end of the decade. I'm also pleased that an afterword chapter details what Nick is up to through the following three decades. I really liked him on paper and pleased that he's doing fine. There's no way I'd allow him to crash in my house.
Nick was a desperately young writer in the golden age of the NME. Only 19 at the start of the decade, he had access to all the major and minor players on the pop scene - from the very top with the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin to having a formative part in the Sex Pistols before they shook up the industry in '76.
No doubt he could spot talent - promoting Iggy and Television when no one else did.
He mixes the story between the Super Groups and his own personal circumstances well - matching the bands drug for drug and forming relationships with all the stars and would be stars. These relationships range from a partnership with Chrissie Hynde to being bicycle chain whipped by Sid Vicious. He hasn't necessarily learned much from damning people in print. He'd probably be bicycle chain whipped by Jah Wobble for what he wrote about him here, if their paths ever crossed.
Highly entertaining and importantly, a gateway to other resources - with a year by year recommendation at the bag of the book on the key tunes. They're not at all obvious.
Will very probably move on to his other book the Dark Stuff.
So why the high rating?
It charts an entertaining life - warts and all - in a turbulent decade of change but high popular culture. And Nick Kent was at the very centre of it.
It's told year by year through the 70's - although focus is lost slightly as we reach the end of the decade. I'm also pleased that an afterword chapter details what Nick is up to through the following three decades. I really liked him on paper and pleased that he's doing fine. There's no way I'd allow him to crash in my house.
Nick was a desperately young writer in the golden age of the NME. Only 19 at the start of the decade, he had access to all the major and minor players on the pop scene - from the very top with the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin to having a formative part in the Sex Pistols before they shook up the industry in '76.
No doubt he could spot talent - promoting Iggy and Television when no one else did.
He mixes the story between the Super Groups and his own personal circumstances well - matching the bands drug for drug and forming relationships with all the stars and would be stars. These relationships range from a partnership with Chrissie Hynde to being bicycle chain whipped by Sid Vicious. He hasn't necessarily learned much from damning people in print. He'd probably be bicycle chain whipped by Jah Wobble for what he wrote about him here, if their paths ever crossed.
Highly entertaining and importantly, a gateway to other resources - with a year by year recommendation at the bag of the book on the key tunes. They're not at all obvious.
Will very probably move on to his other book the Dark Stuff.
November 6, 2020
Great read. Fascinating story about 10+ years in rock history by someone not just there but very much sharing the head table. Very well written in a nonchalent, self depracating style and howlingly funny in parts.
I've read a lot of music/artist books but this gave me a whole new slant and outlook on many of the most famous movers/shakers & stars from this period while dryly ripping the p*ss out of them for there often bizarre and hair raising antics.
Scary & violent in parts this is a must read warts n all. Thanks Nick, loved it.
I've read a lot of music/artist books but this gave me a whole new slant and outlook on many of the most famous movers/shakers & stars from this period while dryly ripping the p*ss out of them for there often bizarre and hair raising antics.
Scary & violent in parts this is a must read warts n all. Thanks Nick, loved it.
August 19, 2017
sarà tutto vero? chissà, intanto nick kent da un perfetto saggio di come si scrive quando si scrive un'autobiografia: pochi veri rimpianti, nessuna autocommiserazione, il giusto dosaggio di fatti propri e vicende che ruotavano attorno alla sua vita e soprattutto una notevole capacità di scrittura. e quando si arriva all'ultima pagina importa poco se è tutto vero: suona decisamente verosimile, e va bene così.
August 14, 2021
Kent wasn't just the 'enfant terrible' in the 70s and in that incredible few years of punk, I was fascinated to learn how far back his experiences went back at all. It was interesting to read about the inner workings and happenings in the early days of the NME, which was my bible growing up. Albeit, Kent had long gone himself, having somewhat crashed and burned.
If anyone needs a film written about their chaotic and intriguing lives, it's this fucking guy. Great stuff.
If anyone needs a film written about their chaotic and intriguing lives, it's this fucking guy. Great stuff.
July 10, 2022
I fetishize the 1970’s and so this memoir of that decade via the British music scene was always going to be my jam. Nick Kent is a good writer and knew everyone and this was able to bring the times alive. The world and music changed so much from 1970 to 1980 and his eyewitness take is super-compelling. Now I’m down a music rabbit hole though…
June 8, 2023
A fascinating first hand account of life in the rock scene of the 70s. Quite drug addled and became a tad slow for me at the end but I loved hearing the stories of Nick’s interactions with these big names - The Stones, Sex Pistoles, Zep. My favorite part is the end where he lists all his albums from each year with explanations.
September 6, 2019
Self indulgent and piteous recollections of a decent writer. He instigated far more than given credit for , punk etc. Just wish it had carried on further down the road. The music writing at the end is ace.
December 15, 2019
A tale of the 1970's ftom the perspective of Kent's rise and fall personally and professionally.
Provides a captivating alternative view on the punk years, via his involvement with the Sex Pistols from their earliest days.
Provides a captivating alternative view on the punk years, via his involvement with the Sex Pistols from their earliest days.
May 6, 2024
Nick Kent inserts himself into every key event in music history. Lots of name dropping. Very repetitive language. Nick Kent's favorite word seems to be "zeitgeist" as it appears on nearly every page. Generally a very pretentious memoir.
October 11, 2025
A music writer based in London, the first half is his experiences with The Stones, David Bowie, etc. The second half is the punk movement, which I did not enjoy nearly enough, do not know that as well. And then his personal journey through drugs. Very conscious of his own importance throughout.
January 7, 2018
A really good account of 70s rock music. Nick Kent's prose is poetic and informed, but engaging throughout.
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