It was fall 1986 and I�d recently moved back to my hometown after a year or so of working for the infamous We Deliver in Manhattan. We Deliver delivered marijuana, covered an area from 113th St to the Battery, and I�d been a messenger. I�d also gotten strung out on heroin and, although I�d like to say I left on my own accord, this is not what happened.
After some humiliating things, I found myself in a rooming house by the river and feeling low. The guy I call Sandman in my �Dollhouse� novel still lived downstairs in the rooming house and he was a record collector, said he was going to order some records, showed me the list from the distributor. I ordered some tapes. One was Nick Cave�s �Your Funeral My Trial�. I�d heard of Nick Cave when I was in the city but was, uh, busy with street life. This record blew me away. Nick was singing about things I felt but didn�t know how to put to song. It was infuriating in a way because I�d been trying with all these fucking bands for years but never quite got it right and, when I did, the bands fell apart or I fell apart. I then ordered �The First Born Is Dead�, which was the only other Nick Cave record available at the time from the distributor. I was a fan.
Later on, a friend gave me a copy of �Tender Prey�. I didn�t care for some of the songs much but that�s how it usually is. The songs that worked more than made up for the ones that didn�t. I am not nor ever have been up on everything people do. Nick�s novel didn�t work for me and he�s done many other albums, some that I�ve heard, some not. All I know is Nick saved my sorry ass when I was feeling low. He knew the places I knew and that�s something, possibly everything.
Lately, I�ve been listening to �Tender Prey� in this vehicle I call the batmobile. I covered Watching Alice in a drunken bohobait session but it didn�t make it to the e-albums I have posted on my bohobait site. I love that song. Also dig Sunday�s Slave mucho. But, �The Mercy Seat� is beyond greatness. Dig.
� Mike Boyle
Reproduced with permission
Mike Boyle writes from the middle of Pennsylvania, USA. His novel, Dollhouse, was recently published by Thieves Jargon Press and he has a chap called Laundromat Suite at Rank Stranger Press. His site/blog is at Boho Bait.
To read Mike�s story �The House of the Rising Sun� on the showcase section of this site, click here or for a review of his novel, �Dollhouse� on the New Review, click here.
