OMG!!
If my current lady friend knew how besotted I was by Julie Burchill she would never let me near Brighton.
Not much to look at nowadays but damn is that woman a fantastic writer.
So with all the will let me stick myself right at the periphery of Burchill’s trashing of New Musical Express (back when it meant something) 1970s colleague and co-writer Nick Kent’s new biography “Apathy For The Devil”.
I haven’t read it but I have read a lot of Kent’s writing and liked him lots and lots at time. His Brian Wilson interview sets the standards in rock profiles, bested only by Lester Bangs on the road with the Clash. Kent’s review of “Marquee Moon” does the album justice.
And he writes better about music than Burchil ever did.
But
Burchill is a million times better writer than Kent will ever be and he is fighting out of his weight when he takes her on.
Here is Burchill on Kent: “He looks like a 6ft 3in lizard, standing up on its two back legs and dressed head to toe in leather – one of those naturally weird-looking people who have decided at some point that it would be pathetic and pointless to try to pass as normal, and so have made themselves even weirder… He wears no underwear and his behind hangs out of his leather trousers. He’s a middle-class wanker and a junkie and a freak to boot; rumour has it that Keith Richards was once copiously sick on his jacket after a prolonged smack binge and Kent never washed it again…”
Yep that’s our Julie.
As for Nick. In an interview with Vanity Fair he claimed there is no new bands he would want to interview. He sounds like Hugh Hefner without his vigara prescription. Not apathetic, impotent.