Here are two unrelated books which I have recently read, but because I am very lazy I am just tossing them together into one blog post. I am somewhat behind in updating this blog so I am going for quantity over quality now.
For the unlearned, Warren Ellis is a Ballarat born musician who fronts trio The Dirty Three (currently in hiatus) and more famously in recent decades as Nick Cave's main musical collaborator in the Bad Seeds. The book gets its title from the time Ellis lifted a ball of chewing gum from Nina Simone's Steinway after she performed a concert in 1999. The book, part bio, part homage to found things, charts the history of the gum which Ellis kept in his possession for 20 years.
We follow the gum's history in Warren's possession and how it comes to become an object of reverence to all who come into its orbit. It is reproduced as jewellery and sculpture and exhibited in an art gallery in Denmark. The gum seemingly takes on mystical qualities. Along the journey the book delves back into Warren's musical beginnings as a child, his love of Greek musician Mia Fora Thymamai and Beethoven, his collection of lead tyre weights from cars and his work with Nick Cave.
The book is full of wonderful photographs by Bleddyn Butcher of Nina Simone from the 1999 concert and the restoration process of the gum. We even get screenshots of messages exchanged with Nick Cave discussing exhibiting the gum. It is a thoroughly enjoyable read this book. Warren is no Camus, but he holds the reader's attention and drew me into this story.
Not such an easy read, but ultimately satisfying is Kristin Hersh's tribute to Vic Chesnutt who died on Christmas day 2009 after a suspected suicide. He was 45 years old.
Vic Chesnutt was rendered a quadriplegic after a car accident in his late teens and endured chronic pain for the duration of his life as a result. Despite this difficult start to adulthood he started composing and singing his own songs in the early eighties before being noticed by Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in Athens Georgia. Stipe went on to produce Chesnutt's first two albums. Many critically acclaimed albums followed right up until his death.
Kristine Hersh is an accomplished musician, being one part of the Throwing Muses and a solo artist. Her and Chesnutt toured together extensively for a good part of the 1990's with their respective partners. Hersh's book is written directly as one friend to another in an attempt to understand everything that happened. Hersh's use of language is vivid, creative and sometimes difficult, perhaps reflecting their friendship.
Kritin Hersh's book is a sad letter to an old friend. Vic Chesnutt was a brilliant and sometimes troubled soul, but the author's love for her subject shines through in this book.
Until next time, peace and love.
