I finished the Nico biography. It’s surely a good thing that the author – Jennifer Otter Bickerdike – is so keen to rescue Nico from being viewed purely from the perspective of the famous men with whom she had affairs. Why then does she quote virtually word for word from a particularly pornographic memoir by an ex member of The Doors on Nico’s fellatio technique? Could it be that her editor at Faber advised her that a certain amount of lurid sex sells books? Talk about disingenuous. This is just the most egregious example. Elsewhere we have talk of how she apparently preferred taking it from behind and how her last manager ached to oblige her in this regard. Right…
In other respects, the biography is fairly standard. Bickerdike is to be congratulated for tracking down virtually everyone who ever had anything to do with her subject and for quoting from just about every interview she ever gave. Her writing style can be irritating. So many times she refers to Nico as “the blonde singer”, “the German chanteuse”, or just “the German”. Surely this is elementary tabloid journalism, unworthy of someone who brandishes her PhD in ‘Pop Culture’ in the first paragraph of the first chapter. Nevertheless, what emerges is a portrait of a person fatally damaged by her childhood growing up in the ruins of post-WW2 Germany. Stepping over rotting human corpses, stumbling through rubble, with no security at home or in her family – Christa Paffgen’s transformation into Nico the model, the singer, the Warhol Superstar, the film maker and eventually the helpless heroin addict is charted logically and with no small amount of sympathy. All of this is fine but what I cannot understand is why Bickerdike so studiously avoids making any attempt to discuss Nico’s actual music. Anyone who has paid any attention knows that “The Marble Index” and “Desertshore” in particular are extraordinary musical creations, quite unique and uncompromising visions of European Gothic high Romanticism. A glaring exception to Bickerdikes exhaustive index of quotes is Lester Bangs’s 1978 essay on “The Marble Index” which is, to my knowledge, the only serious critical attempt at understanding Nico’s vision. Surely this is more noteworthy than her list of lovers? I cannot believe that Bickerdike is unaware of this essay. Perhaps she is jealous that a grungy man could have had more perspicacity on her subject’s muse than she does (she is obviously deeply in love with Nico).
Anyway. I’m glad I read it but I won’t be referring to it often. For the record, James Young’s “Songs They Never Play On The Radio” remains by far the best book on Nico, whose unflinching music remains as elusive and timeless as it ever was.