Nick Kent
Author of The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings on Rock Music
Works by Nick Kent
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Kent, Nicholas
- Birthdate
- 1951-12-24
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- music critic
musician
author - Relationships
- Romance, Laurence (wife)
- Short biography
- From the author's bio in The Dark Stuff (Penguin, 1994):
"Nick Kent was born on 24 December 1951 in North London, where he spent his formative years. At the age of 19, while studying English Literature at Bedford College, London University, he began contributing articles and reviews to the self-styled British underground press and was quickly asked to do the same for the 'New Musical Express' (NME). There followed a long period of collaboration with the latter stretching through the 1970s, during which time Kent also enjoyed a career as a musican with the Sex Pistols and recording with his own group, the Subterraneans. In the 1980s he moved on to pen articles for The Face, Arena, the Sunday Times, Details, Spin, Vox and numberous other periodicals. In the 1990s he moved to France, where he worked as a scriptwriter for BBC2's Rapido. He currently works as both scriptwriter and director of two French TV shows as well as contributing a weekly column to France's daily paper Liberation. He currently lives in Paris with his girlfriend, writer and TV personality Laurence Romance, and their young son, James. Although his work has appeared in numerous published collections, The Dark Stuff is his first book." - Nationality
- UK
- Places of residence
- Paris, France
- Associated Place (for map)
- Paris, France
Members
Reviews
I bought this when it came out in 1994, but it fell apart ages ago, so I was pleased to come across a copy of the original edition - it was later expanded- in one of Edinburgh’s ever-excellent charity bookshops. There are countless stories about Nick Kent, not all of them disseminated by him, and some of them actually true: Kent throwing up over Keith Richard’s ‘welcome’ mat; fronting an embryonic version of the Sex Pistols; and being assaulted by a bike chain wielding Sid Vicious in show more the 100 Club. When he met Brian Wilson, the corpulent genius said: ‘Maybe I should interview you. You look more like a rock star than me.’
Kent was one of the enfants terribles on the New Musical Express in its iconoclastic 1970s heyday. A dandified, ridiculously tall and worryingly skeletal figure, a cross between Beau Brummell and Keith Richards, he became as famous as the rock stars he wrote about and hung out with (at least to music obsessed adolescents like myself who pored over his every word in the inky pages of the NME). As this book makes clear he embraced what was euphemistically referred to as the ‘lifestyle’ as enthusiastically as any of them.
This is essentially Nick Kent’s greatest hits. Many of the pieces first appeared in the ‘70s and ‘80s in the NME, The Face and other journals of record, but most of them have been remixed or extended. A cursory glance at the contents page tells you it isn’t called The Dark Stuff for nothing: Iggy Pop, Brian Jones, Syd Barrett, Sid Vicious, Lou Reed, Jerry Lee Lewis, Shane McGowan, the New York Dolls, Brian Wilson: a veritable Who’s Who of rock music’s mad, bad and dangerous to know. Kent’s ‘shtick’, to use a word much favoured by rock journos back then, was decadence, excessive behaviour and reckless abandon - the whole ‘live fast, die young, and have a good-looking corpse’ routine. Whether this collection constitutes a celebration of that ethos or a set of cautionary tales is a moot point. Given that the rock culture depicted here is now firmly consigned to the past we might as well regard it as cultural history, albeit with a strong mythic streak, and leave it at that.
Still, there is an alarming amount of serious drug and alcohol abuse going on between these covers. Readers of a sensitive disposition, however, will be relieved to hear that Mr Kent writes about other things as well: early death, mindless violence, relentless self-destruction, narcissism and megalomania, psychological disintegration, and crass stupidity in all its wondrously diverse forms. Stuff like that. Was he a fearless exposer of the tawdry reality beneath the shiny carapace of pop? Or an unashamed scandalmonger who recognised a good sensational story when he stumbled over one? A bit of both, probably, but there is no denying that he could write. (By the way, despite my use of the past tense, I’m happy to report that Nick Kent is still very much alive and living in Paris. As far as I’m aware he no longer writes about rock music.) His prose has been described as ‘baroque’, which might be a nice way of saying over the top, but he writes with considerable panache in a full throttle style which exudes a sort of disgusted relish for his often unsavoury subject matter.
This is much better than Kent’s autobiography which was scuppered by a narrative tone which combined self-justifying egotism with whinging self-pity to singularly unappealing effect. The Dark Stuff, by way of contrast, is a compelling Dionysian evocation - by turns scarifying, exhilarating and, let’s be honest, hilarious - of a time when nothing succeeded like excess. show less
Kent was one of the enfants terribles on the New Musical Express in its iconoclastic 1970s heyday. A dandified, ridiculously tall and worryingly skeletal figure, a cross between Beau Brummell and Keith Richards, he became as famous as the rock stars he wrote about and hung out with (at least to music obsessed adolescents like myself who pored over his every word in the inky pages of the NME). As this book makes clear he embraced what was euphemistically referred to as the ‘lifestyle’ as enthusiastically as any of them.
This is essentially Nick Kent’s greatest hits. Many of the pieces first appeared in the ‘70s and ‘80s in the NME, The Face and other journals of record, but most of them have been remixed or extended. A cursory glance at the contents page tells you it isn’t called The Dark Stuff for nothing: Iggy Pop, Brian Jones, Syd Barrett, Sid Vicious, Lou Reed, Jerry Lee Lewis, Shane McGowan, the New York Dolls, Brian Wilson: a veritable Who’s Who of rock music’s mad, bad and dangerous to know. Kent’s ‘shtick’, to use a word much favoured by rock journos back then, was decadence, excessive behaviour and reckless abandon - the whole ‘live fast, die young, and have a good-looking corpse’ routine. Whether this collection constitutes a celebration of that ethos or a set of cautionary tales is a moot point. Given that the rock culture depicted here is now firmly consigned to the past we might as well regard it as cultural history, albeit with a strong mythic streak, and leave it at that.
Still, there is an alarming amount of serious drug and alcohol abuse going on between these covers. Readers of a sensitive disposition, however, will be relieved to hear that Mr Kent writes about other things as well: early death, mindless violence, relentless self-destruction, narcissism and megalomania, psychological disintegration, and crass stupidity in all its wondrously diverse forms. Stuff like that. Was he a fearless exposer of the tawdry reality beneath the shiny carapace of pop? Or an unashamed scandalmonger who recognised a good sensational story when he stumbled over one? A bit of both, probably, but there is no denying that he could write. (By the way, despite my use of the past tense, I’m happy to report that Nick Kent is still very much alive and living in Paris. As far as I’m aware he no longer writes about rock music.) His prose has been described as ‘baroque’, which might be a nice way of saying over the top, but he writes with considerable panache in a full throttle style which exudes a sort of disgusted relish for his often unsavoury subject matter.
This is much better than Kent’s autobiography which was scuppered by a narrative tone which combined self-justifying egotism with whinging self-pity to singularly unappealing effect. The Dark Stuff, by way of contrast, is a compelling Dionysian evocation - by turns scarifying, exhilarating and, let’s be honest, hilarious - of a time when nothing succeeded like excess. show less
I was quite surprised with Kent's simple style of writing. At first, judging the book by its cover, it's true, it seemed like a simple rock 'n' roll take, but not so. At least not for the first half of the book anyway.
Kent tells of his life as a child, a teenager and getting smitten with hormones, non-moans and the likes. Gripes. Loves. His first tastes of music. The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. Getting aurally smacked by Led Zeppelin, seeing them in concert, getting backstage due to a show more mate.
School, moving away from home, starting out with writing about music and then, as the 1970s and Kent's youth really gets going, so does his writing. As stated, it's simple yet nothing's lost by that; it's a bit like Morrissey's lyrics; even though they're simple there is a lot behind it (even though this is actually short-changing Moz).
As Kent moves into writing for NME and getting his paws dirty in private with the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones plus getting his lingual traits in order, he meets with Lester Bangs and the Creem unit while visiting the USA for the first time. He also contracts STDs and starts doing heavy drugs.
A lot of the writing is about the waves of music during the 1970s; from the folk to the rock to the punk and into his heavy drug-use which inevitably turned him into a pathetic, homeless junkie.
Most of this book is very entertaining, interesting and funny; Kent jabs at himself with swagger as he should; the man is actually the reason why "Metallic KO" came into existing in the first place, and if that wasn't enough he actually was there during a lot of what happened; Iggy's getting into David Bowie, talking with Lester Bangs about interviewing Lou Reed, sticking around the making of "Exile On Main St".
Even though Kent does a good job at staying humble throughout most of the book, there is a bit of grumpy old man in here which doesn't suit the general taste of the book, and reminds me of how he's portrayed - and of how he portrays himself - in Julien Temple's "The Filth And The Fury": a belligerent, pompous person who tries to be somebody he's not. On the other hand: who's not, at some times?
All in all: a lot better than a bunch of autobiographies on music, but quite the way away from the poetic, autobiographic side of books, e.g. Patti Smith's radiant "Just Kids".
Get this and you won't be disappointed. show less
Kent tells of his life as a child, a teenager and getting smitten with hormones, non-moans and the likes. Gripes. Loves. His first tastes of music. The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. Getting aurally smacked by Led Zeppelin, seeing them in concert, getting backstage due to a show more mate.
School, moving away from home, starting out with writing about music and then, as the 1970s and Kent's youth really gets going, so does his writing. As stated, it's simple yet nothing's lost by that; it's a bit like Morrissey's lyrics; even though they're simple there is a lot behind it (even though this is actually short-changing Moz).
As Kent moves into writing for NME and getting his paws dirty in private with the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones plus getting his lingual traits in order, he meets with Lester Bangs and the Creem unit while visiting the USA for the first time. He also contracts STDs and starts doing heavy drugs.
A lot of the writing is about the waves of music during the 1970s; from the folk to the rock to the punk and into his heavy drug-use which inevitably turned him into a pathetic, homeless junkie.
Most of this book is very entertaining, interesting and funny; Kent jabs at himself with swagger as he should; the man is actually the reason why "Metallic KO" came into existing in the first place, and if that wasn't enough he actually was there during a lot of what happened; Iggy's getting into David Bowie, talking with Lester Bangs about interviewing Lou Reed, sticking around the making of "Exile On Main St".
Even though Kent does a good job at staying humble throughout most of the book, there is a bit of grumpy old man in here which doesn't suit the general taste of the book, and reminds me of how he's portrayed - and of how he portrays himself - in Julien Temple's "The Filth And The Fury": a belligerent, pompous person who tries to be somebody he's not. On the other hand: who's not, at some times?
All in all: a lot better than a bunch of autobiographies on music, but quite the way away from the poetic, autobiographic side of books, e.g. Patti Smith's radiant "Just Kids".
Get this and you won't be disappointed. show less
Want to read it but bought for Essi's birthday.
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- Works
- 5
- Members
- 462
- Popularity
- #53,211
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 4
- ISBNs
- 25
- Languages
- 2