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SydArthur Festival 2018
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The Seth Man
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SydArthur Festival Day Day 12: July 18th - Death of Nico / Birth of Hunter S. Thompson
Jul 18, 2018, 20:24
Hunter S. Thompson and Nico: apples and oranges.

Aside from being stoned immaculate outsiders, one thing Hunter S. Thompson and Nico both shared was their partnership with other artists whose sympathetic crystallisations further developed their own works into high water marks of the late 20th Century: Specifically, Thompson's books with illustrations by Ralph Steadman and Nico's albums with arrangements by John Cale.

Both Steadman and Cale elaborated on their partners' specific art, channeling them into directions already reached: whether Steadman with his graphic, bloodthirsty psychedelic insanity or Cale's alternating prickly dissonance with somber European charm, both associates contributed embellishments that not only both defined and refined their colleagues' stark observations, but also illuminated those dark visions into perfectly fused statements.

HST
I first read Hunter S. Thompson in the autumn of 1980 when "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas" was re-issued in paperback. I'd re-read several times throughout the eighties, as well as picking up copies of "Fear And Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72," "The Great Shark Hunt" and "Hell's Angels." So many quotable lines , some many psychedelicized perceptions and so many chapters to re-read over and over.

Weird to think it was nearly 30 years ago that I was at the Ritz November 8, 1988, on the eve of the US presidential election, watching Hunter S. Thompson onstage field questions, drinking and smoking and eventually producing a rifle during an pretty unruly Q&A session. It also didn't help that Thompson was incoherent throughout the proceedings, and the audience was vocal and for the most part, rude and looking for a night off reality by getting loaded and stoned in the presence of the good Doctor.
Having just read "Generation Of Swine" a few months previously, I just took it all in and thought, 'this is a tapestry that'll never be painted again.' I think I also thought of Conrad's line thompson used at the end of "Hell's Angels": 'exterminate the brutes.'

NICO
It was also in NY in 1988 -- July 18th -- that I first heard of Nico's passing. When I heard she fell off a bicycle, in Ibiza, I first thought it was maybe a rumour. I had it confirmed a couple of days later, in a record store by a longtime Velvets fan.

"The Marble Index" and "Desertshore" were two records that have continued to grow in stature with the passing of the 1980s into the 1990s and beyond. I listened to "The Marble Index" a lot in the final months of 2001 and appended onto the CD reissue was "Nibelungen," an vocal only outtake that greatly moved me, and the lines reverberated by Nico in the studio continue to reverberate in me to the present day:

'Symbols captured in a trance
Vanish from my glance
For the various defenses
I enforce a strike the alarm
For the various defenses
That choose to be here and there
And lose the direction everywhere'

It was the last song I listened to in 2001, having fallen asleep hours before midnight.
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