Nick Kent was the “Zeitgeist-surfing dark prince of seventies rock journalism”. This is how he describes himself with only the vaguest of self mockery in his memoir of the decade entitled Apathy For The Devil.
The title is taken from a quip by Bob Dylan after being asked his opinion of a lacklustre Rolling Stones concert. It’s a highly quotable line but not a great book title and the cheapskate cover image by Jon Stevens for the Faber & Faber edition is pretty crap too.
Don’t let either of these details put you off though as this is a fantastic book.
Like many of my generation (I was born in 1958), I grew up reading NME cover to cover and Kent’s pieces stood out as writing that was both passionate and committed. He has always maintained that to write meaningfully about music it is not enough just to listen to the records and analyse the lyrics. He approached rock journalism in the same way a war correspondent covers conflicts, by braving the heat of the battle or what he calls entering “the belly of the beast”. This involved him being a kind of rock writer in residence on tour with bands like The Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Faces and Jethro Tull. Unfortunately, part of this full immersion into the rock star lifestyle meant he emulated his heroes to the point of being stoned out of his skull for most of his waking hours. He snorted heroin for the first time at the tail end of 1973 aged 22, opening the door to a “world of hurt”. The fact that he was able to produce good copy in this state is as miraculous as the fact that he has lived to tell the tale now.
His best pieces have already appeared in The Dark Stuff. a collection of illuminating essays about artists who feature prominently in these memoirs : The New York Dolls, Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop & The Stones. The presence of David Bowie and Led Zeppelin also loom large as does Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders with whom he had a short but intense relationship.
The chapters are divided by year and while this was a decade full of fine music, Kent’s spectacles are more often plastered with blood or vomit than rose-tinted. By his own account the tales of junkie lifestyles are those of “sordid people living sordid lives”.
There are great stories here though. Face to face encounters with iconic figures like Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Bryan Ferry, Rod Stewart, David Bowie and Iggy Pop give an insight into real lives lived behind the headlines.
What struck me most about his writing here is his honesty. In depicting himself as a sad fop for the greater part of the 1970s and for some time after, he doesn’t expect or ask for the reader’s pity. He comes clean about his vanity, arrogance and self-destructive temperament : “Much of my bad fortune – specifically drug addiction and homelessness – I’d brought upon myself. They were nobody’s fault but mine”.
Setting the record straight is one of his chief aims and this inevitably means ruffling a few feathers along the way. For example, Julie Burchill’s spiteful review of the book show that she didn’t take too kindly to Kent describing her as “Myra Hindleyesque” although this is as much as she deserves after describing Kent in her 1988 autobiography (I Knew I Was Right) as : “a middle-class wanker and a junkie and a freak to boot; rumour has it that Keith Richards was once copiously sick on his jacket after a prolonged smack binge and Kent never washed it again” .
Burchill’s ridiculous claim that Kent’s book is badly written is a clear case of sour grapes. His book may not be peppered with puns (title excepted) or smart one-liners but his words provide a genuine, warts and all account of what he calls a “hateful barbaric time frame”.
Needless to say, Kent categorically denies the vomit on the jacket rumour although makes no secret of being in thrall to Keith Richards’s by now legendary drug-driven lifestyle and iron constitution. Kent is not the first, nor sadly will he be the last, to emulate the darker aspects of rock stars’ lives where stories of high-profile casualties like John Bonham or Keith Moon are more numerous than tales of survivors like Richards and Iggy.
Another victim was Syd Vicious who has already been subject of a piece by Kent called ‘The Exploding Dim-Wit”. In these memoirs he is equally venomous, dismissing Vicious and Nancy Spungen a “scabby pair” who were fatally drawn to each other by mutual neediness. He is rightly scornful of the way they have subsequently come to be glorified as a latter-day Romeo & Juliet.
Kent’s rage and outrage towards Vicious is understandable. He gives a blow-by-blow account of the notorious incident in which Vicious attacked Kent with a bike chain at a Sex Pistols gig at the 100 Club. Kent is adamant that this attack was pre-planned as one of Malcolm McClaren’s publicity stunts. The irony of this is not lost on Kent : “All my professional life I’d been expecting this moment. But I’d always imagined it coming from someone I’d genuinely affronted. I’d never dreamed I’d be stitched up by people I’d helped and viewed as kindred spirits”. This act of violence probably goes some way to colouring his judgement on the punk era. Kent is a traditionalist in the sense that he does not see energy and attitude as substitutes for song-craft and musical prowess.
It was not until the late 1980s that Nick Kent finally cleaned up to get his life back on track again. He now lives in Paris with his wife and son. There’s a hint at the end that he may be planning another memoir to take us up to the present day. This would be worth reading, as everything by the man is, but will be a stroll in the park compared to the walk on the wild side he presents in this volume.
