Thursday, July 18, 2013

Nico Icon

The long drive back to London. If I'd had a CD, I might have suggested we all listen to some Nico who died 25 years ago today. 
What a strange, tragic life she led. Fashion model; actress (Anita Ekberg wasn't the only blonde in La Dolce Vita - but there were other roles, mainly in the 70s); one-time singer with The Velvet Underground; several solo albums - some good (Marble Index), some bad (Chelsea Girlwhich she hated: "The first time I heard the album, I cried and it was all because of the flute"); opening act for Tangerine Dream's 'sacrilegious' 1974 concert at Reims Cathedral in France; lover of Alain Delon, Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, Brian Jones, Iggy Pop... the list is endless; heroin addict - though she didn't died of it, she fell off a bike in Ibiza; and resident  of Berlin, Paris, Rome, New York, London and... Salford.
I have a haunting memory of Lutz Ulbrich, guitarist with Ashra and another one of her old flames, asking me in the mid-80s if I knew where she was living. This was her Salford period but I didn't know at the time. 
But Marble Index wouldn't have last 30 seconds. "What's this daddy?? Turn it off!"

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