Nico and Suzy Creamcheese; peas in a pod

July 8^th – There was a lot to like about the 60’s; and there was also a lot not to like as well. What’s that ‘T’-shirt slogan;

‘The older I get the better I was’

Well that’s also true of time revisited from the memory, from the lofty temple of old-age. My guess is that, much like difficult situations in the family when one is young, the brain filters out the bad stuff and what it can’t filter out it sort of shades out the sharp edges; that’s why the saying, ‘time is great healer’.

That’s very much the same with music from one’s youth and the personalities that go with it. It’s only on a revisit, assisted either by historical document or disconnected reportage, that you get the chance to understand what it was you were taking part in (willingly or no) and a comparison can be made as to what you thought was happening and was actually happening; let’s call it selective euphoria. The 60’s were cool, swingin’ times according to the pop media. Everybody shopped on Carnaby Street, ate lunch at Quaglinos, partied at the Troubadour and slept at the Ritz, it was champers for brekky and a mini (skirt or vehicle) was the preferred mode of transport…weeellllllll…not quite.

In essence the 60’s music industry was built on a shaky foundation of chancers, gangsters, sex and drugs. That saying abiut;

'If you can remember the 60's you weren't there'

is bollocks BTW. If you can remember the 60's then your drugs were pure, that's all. However, there was a level of excess and slight-of-hand going on in much of what was euphemistically called the happening generation. Remember Suzy Creamcheese?

I mentioned her at work (this is a theatre, you understand; you know, party of the arts) I mentioned her to a couple of the younger element and they looked at me gone out. I told them she was an American lady who was a member of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention band and was immortalised in a Frank Zappa song on the Absolutely Free album. She travelled the world organising Happenings, as they were called and I explained to my incredulous duo that a Happening was created by four or five hundred people standing still in Hyde Park with Suzy at the head of them and they would stay still until a Happening occurred, and it would be Suzy who would decide when and what that was (see what you missed). That was the sort of tomfoolery that went on, y’know, and I put Andy Warhol in amongst that set of generational hoodwinkers who clothed their work in a smokescreen of pseudo-intellectualism (Da-Da-ism, Cub-ism, the Theatre of Cruelty, etc) and, like the kings new clothes, if you couldn’t understand it then you were out, man; L7. And in the 60’s no one wanted to be considered out. What these self-styled movements circled around, like vultures at an abattoir, was sex and drugs and there were plenty of both and plenty of folk wanting them. We all know the famous fifteen minutes of fame quote from Mr. Warhol? Welcome to the world of life imitating art.

One of the defining bands of that time, a band that epitomised decadence, sexual proclivities of a decidedly unhealthy nature and a level of hedonism that was unparalleled until the late eighties/early nineties was Velvet Underground. Taken over by Mr. Warhol, they were manufactured to become the house band of Mr. Warhol’s scene – The Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI; snappy title, huh – Mr. Zappa had used the image in an earlier song of his called Plastic People…if nothing else, Mr. Warhol could utilise other people’s work to great effect) – Velvet Underground used simple song structures, drones and repeated chord structures to create a soundscape fit for the EPI events. Layered on top of these musical explorations, both Lou Reed and Nico (no other name, just Nico) flat-toned vocals (I use that word in its widest possible sense) and whispered, roared and droned over this music, in often indecipherable seldom comprehensible lyrics. The people flocked. Everyone wanted to pay money to see the king’s new clothes…

Nico (no other name, just Nico) Nico’s life story is interesting. She decided at an early age that she was going to become famous and so, according to her biography, which I read many years ago, she hung about outside a swish hotels near her home in Berlin hoping to get spotted. She did, got some modelling work and eventually came to prominence as Velvet Underground’s vocalist. This story is at odds with others concerning her and seems to have been a thread that ran through most of her life; smokescreen, subterfuge, tale-telling and alteration of the facts to suit her purpose, and a singular drive to succeed that transcended family and friends. A lot of this may well have been the result of her seemingly voracious heroin addiction but certainly, from what I can remember of the book, she was a troubled case from the get-go. She finally kicked the heroin habit in early 1988 and embarked on a life of healthy eating and exercise, particularly bicycle riding.

On this day in 1988, Nico (no other name, just Nico) was bicycle cycling in Ibiza when she had a minor heart attack, fell and struck her head. She died that night. Art imitating life right there.