Apathy for the Devil [Paperback]

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.

I finished this book in two sittings. Not because it's superficial, but because it's positively riveting, at least
to music lovers who came of age with the golden age of the NME. Nick Kent may not have the quirkiness of a Lester
Bangs, but he wields equal authority, as the inevitable --though always very welcome -- list of favourite albums
and tracks at the end confirms. He is also refreshingly honest and suitably circumspect about his personal trials
and tribulations. For those yet to discover the true delights of rock/popular music (Stooges, MC5, Beefheart, Can, Al Green,
Television, VU, etc.) this will be an education; for those who have, it will call them back to why they love it all so much.

At the beginning this is awful, him reminiscing on being a teenage virgin and smoking dope and all that kind of really unnecessary stuff. A lot of this feels as if dictated into a recorder for someone else to type up, so sloppy is it. It gets more interesting (well, it couldn't get less) when he becomes a famous rock hack and starts hanging out with the stars but it's undisciplined and lacks structure. It actually gets engaging when Kent starts reporting on how he was a homeless drug addict in the late 70s early 80s, hated by punks, held in contempt by colleagues, a man who has literally ruined his life. Kent kept on writing glamorous stories on druggy rock musicians into the 80s so it's only via him leaving the UK, drugs and the music scene that he has actually been able to get some distance on what happens to people who think it's cool to be "elegantly wasted" (a term he claims to have coined for his hero Keef).

His bitchy comments about Chrissy Hynde, Julie Burchill and others obviously come from a man who is upset that others he once mentored have enjoyed so much more success than him. The most disappointing thing about this book is that it is so sloppy and rushed. I know that advances for music books are small but surely Nick could have worked closely with an editor who would have insisted he concentrate harder, rewrite passages, dig further into his memories.