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Danielle Steel wrote His Bright Light in tribute to her son and as an attempt to understand his bipolar affective disorder (manic depression). Nick loved music: he wrote lyrics and became a vocalist. Despite being hit by a serious depression when his first band split, he found the impulse to set up a second. After a “brilliant gig”, at the age of 19, he overdosed on morphine, knowing that he had an adverse reaction to the drug. Nick left no note so Danielle Steel can only speculate about why he took his life.
Although His Bright Light briefly acknowledges that Nick had one variant of bipolar affective disorder, Danielle Steel does not mention other variants. She comments “His illness killed him as surely as if it had been a cancer… I’m not sure that in the minds of the public it is clear that bipolar disease… is potentially fatal.” and quotes the figure that one third of people with a bipolar affective disorder commit suicide. This means that two thirds of those with the disorder do not commit suicide, which suggests that the disorder is not a direct factor for the third of people who do take their lives, but an indirect or contributory factor and other considerations, such as living standards or perceived inability to cope, play a more significant role. Danielle Steel does not explore this, which casts doubts on her assertion that “his illness killed him”. Her comments are understandable, but this is a mother’s panic rather than reasoned analysis.
She also berates doctors for failing to diagnose Nick sooner, even though a psychiatrist explained the difficulty of diagnosing children with any certainty. While Nick is still a young child, she criticises her psychiatrist for telling her not to worry because she has a very gifted son. Once Nick is diagnosed, Danielle Steel pressurises his doctor to prescribe lithium, despite the doctor’s reluctance to give the drug to a teenager. Danielle Steel considers lithium’s side effects of kidney damage negligible. She does not list the other side effects of lithium, which includes possible liver damage. There is no attempt to consider alternatives.
The book was written in the 19 months immediately after Nick’s death. Danielle Steel states that she hopes the book will be of help to others facing a similar situation. However, there are no useful contact numbers or organisations listed, even though these exist. Her emotionally charged prose makes His Bright Light difficult to read. Danielle Steel writes about what she acknowledges as Nick’s “atypical manic depression”, the negative effects of this and her urgency to find a treatment at any cost. She does not consider the affect on Nick of constantly being reminded that he is ill.
His Bright Light would have benefited from a rethink before publication. With more focus this could have been a powerful story of an intelligent man who lived his short life to the full.
Emma Lee
The above review won first prize in Leicester Writers’ Club Review Competition
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Tags: Biography, Danielle Steel, Emma Lee Reviews, His Bright Light
This wonderful collection is infused with and sustained by an ebullience that, at times, is almost exhausting. Too grounded to be surreal, too substantial to be conceits, dense in content but light in touch, many of these poems are written in the style of comic magic realism. The sense of delight they carry, their wit, inventiveness and warmth, are overwhelming (from “Cold Storage”):
“We are currently seeking a Writer-in-Residence to spend six months
in Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey,
…You will be able to rhyme
‘crevasse’ with ‘ice age’ and make it sound convincing.
…Poets must know at least seven words for white.
You shall not quote from Captain Oates for the duration of your stay
and may only imitate Frankie Howerd on birthdays and feast days.
…Short-listed candidates will be invited to attend a selection centre
north-east of Kilbride, to test the effect of low temperature on rhyme.”
At first sight, this is a satire on poets, but it’s actually a satire on the circumstances poets are forced into in order to make a living.
Christopher James’s range is impressively wide, the breadth of his knowledge and interests equally impressive. Refreshingly, he clearly prefers the tongue-in-cheek and good-natured satire rather than irony, that dead hand that mars so much poetry, and so many poets, which is all too easy a mode to write in, and a trap. Take this, for example. “The Barn Conversion Owl”:
“prefers to perch
on the roof racks of red Suzuki jeeps,
makes its nest in cast-off Prada
and flaps its wings
when the underfloor heating
is set too high.
…It is known to have developed a taste
for Feta cheese, water biscuits
and Pinot Noir.“
There is some ‘cleverness’ of the sort produced by whippersnappers, that grizzled veterans get sniffy about, but I’d defy anyone not to be as beguiled as I was. From “Fire at the Ice House”:
“It was started, they said, on the Regent’s canal
on a barge laden with bottled Guinness,
by a child tied to the roof to stop her falling in.
Like a chill, it crept up the wooden spine
of the brewery, before making the leap next door.
At the Ice House, the ice well brimmed with water
like the world’s largest Scotch on the rocks“
That’s the sort of cleverness I like.
Occasionally, he is a tad obvious, but being Christopher James, obvious with style, from “Doppelganger”, “I…was sipping / a quart of plum juice when he showed up. / I was told my heart stopped for two minutes / during which time my left eye / turned slowly from green to blue: / the only thing that told us apart”. The collection also contains some duds. But then, I’ve yet to read a collection, by anybody, that didn’t. “Iceland”, for example, failed to excite his gift, which lapsed into travelogue-ese: ‘There is Old Icelandic to master / and sagas to digest in chilly bedrooms, / like the Voyage of Snedda, who / fathered a child in every village / in the country and could eat a whole / musk-ox without ruining his appetite. Ah yes, Snedda. Thank you.
Where he achieves brilliance, which he does in a number of these poems, is when he attempts to get inside another persona, and ventriloquize. In this mode, he rises to small miracles of empathy, his language stripping itself down to stringent necessity. From “The Travelling Player”:
“Now that I am a man,
I must walk beside the cart
checking the road for potholes and wolves
and avoid the temptation
to fill my pockets with pine-cones.
A sunflower is slotted in my belt.
There are days
when I do not recognise my own voice.
When I speak, my father speaks.”
I wanted to quote from nearly every poem in this collection. Whilst other poets only catch fire in single lines, single images, or single poems, Christopher James gives you the full blaze.
Paul Lee
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Tags: Christopher James, Paul Lee Review, Ragged Raven Poetry, The Invention of Butterfly
This album is spookier than sitting in a graveyard on Hallowe’en while listening to gutwrenching vocals by someone who cleans their tonsils in acid is an apt description of the review that appeared in “Sounds” on 17 April 1982. April may not be a kind month, but in his review muso Ralph Traitor made it sound exactly like the kind of music I wanted to listen to. Ralph Traitor’s review was of “Only Theatre of Pain” recorded by Rozz Williams with James McGearty (bass), George Belanger (drums), Rikk Agnew (guitar). Rozz drew the picture on the album cover, apparently loosely based on Hamlet holding Yorick’s skull, done in gold on black. The album was released in Europe by the French L’invitation au Suicide label. Shortly afterwards, this line-up split up. Rozz was actually 18 when “Only Theatre of Pain” was recorded, although it would seem that Christian Death probably started two years previously because newspaper interviews claimed Rozz was 16 at this time.
Originally Rozz described the name as a “bringing together of opposites. Christianity is so life-reinforcing, live by these rules you’ll go onto eternal life, and death is the complete opposite of that”. Quickly realising this opened the band to accusations of being pretentious or pseudo-intellectuals, Rozz began to refuse to discuss the band’s name. Later he said some band members had been throwing names into the air. One person had been wearing a Christian Dior tee shirt. The suggestion Christian Death came up. It suited Rozz’s dislike of organised religion. In interviews he often stated that any belief in God should come from the individual and be explored internally without automatic acceptance of churches’ creeds, “Learn to accept yourself for who you are and screw other people’s expectations of who you should be.” Rozz’s two spoken word albums and his collaboration with Gitane Demone had God on their thanks list. So Rozz personally did have a faith.
Rozz listed his influences as David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Velvet Underground Charles Manson, Throbbing Gristle, Current 93. He frequently read Rimbaud, Baudelaire and William Burroughs. Particularly in the nineties when the British label goth was taken up by the US music press and made a straitjacket, Rozz complained about being compared to The Sisters of Mercy when he wanted to be compared to bands that had influenced him and wanted musos to consider the whole range of his song-writing – rock, noise/ industrial, spoken word, pop and death rock. Death rock was a term Rozz coined to separate him from the more theatrical or vampire-influenced goth bands whose members claimed to be blood-drinkers. “I want to branch out and do other things. People should not limit their minds to one thing,” commented Rozz.
After “Only Theatre of Pain”, L’invitation au Suicide also released a series of outtakes, without consent, titled “Deathwish”. Although rejected for “Only Theatre of Pain”, the song “Desperate Hell”, was later revisited by Rozz. Valor Kand, Gitane Demone and David Glass, members of the band Pompeii 99, met Rozz at a party. “Catastrophe Ballet” followed. Initially Constance joined on bass, however, whilst on tour, Dave Roberts of Sex Gang Children replaced her. It was decided to continue using the Christian Death name.
At this time in the UK the Sisters of Mercy were trying to be Suicide after reading “The Waste Land” and ‘goth’ was a word coined in a review of Bauhaus, but hadn’t yet been exported. So, despite Christian Death’s traditional rock band line-up of drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, male vocal and female backing vocal, California couldn’t categorise them. “Catastrophe Ballet” dealt with states of depression, the story of “Electra” and queried faith. It highlighted a dark side to California’s climate of AOR and sunny, synthesised pop which generally didn’t go down too well although fans of post-punks 45 Grave and Community FK lapped it up.
For “Ashes”, Christian Death set up their own label, Nostradamus, which basically licenced the band’s recordings to other labels. After negative reactions in the US, mainly from religious groups, Valor, Gitane and David Glass settled in Europe, although David Glass soon returned to the US. Rozz didn’t want to leave California, so by staying put, effectively left the band. No formal agreement appeared to have been reached as to who owned the rights to pre-1984 Christian Death songs although Rozz held copyright and publishing rights to the lyrics he’d written. Rozz’s friends have suggested that Rozz asked Valor not to use the Christian Death name.
There was much speculation about what happened to Rozz at this time: that he’d got AIDS, that he’d dropped out with a bunch of addicts, that he’d OD’d. The only rumours that seem to have any basis in truth was that Rozz worked briefly as a washer-up in a San Franciscan restaurant.
In 1987 Rozz resurfaced in LA having teamed up with long-standing friend Chuck Collison to form Premature Ejaculations, a band that used samples of literally anything: TV/Film clips, sound effects, from crying babies to chainsaws. This was before the term ‘industrial’ was used and while Ministry were still trying to sound like Shriekback. Premature Ejaculations’ vocals were spliced together samples and all instruments were also sampled. The result could be disconcerting to listen to but was certainly original. It paved the way for RevCo’s “Union Carbide” track about the Union Carbide chemical plant disaster in Bhopal which used Premature Ejaculations’ method of grinding, heavy, machine-like rhythms with repetitive sampled soundbites or slogans.
Rozz’s lack of business skills meant that Chuck set up the Happiest Tapes on Earth which used the slogan “we just want you to see things as clearly as possible”. Chuck also dealt with the mailing lists and shipping orders. Rozz’s later attempts to set up a mailing list and newsletter for Shadow Project often got put on hold as the money was required to tour or for the next studio recording.
In addition to Premature Ejaculations, Rozz worked on a side project, also noise-based, Heltir. Through the Happiest Tapes on Earth Rozz released “Heaven and Hells” a compilation of remixes of Christian Death songs that he’d written and a couple of demo tracks, “Haloes” and “Spectre (Love’s Dead)”. By 1988, Chuck was talking about Rozz working on some material for another band, Shadow Project. Eventually Chuck licenced Premature Ejaculations and Heltir recordings to Cleopatra.
Between 1989 and 1990, Rozz and his wife Eva O worked on remixes of Christian Death songs that Rozz had the publishing rights to. “The Iron Mask”, “The Path of Sorrows”, “Rage of Angels” were released through Cleopatra and credited to Christian Death. Rozz and Eva also played gigs in California under the name “the original Christian Death”. Valor complained that he couldn’t sue Rozz for using the Christian Death name because Rozz “never had any money”.
Shadow Project probably represented the direction Rozz had wanted to take Christian Death in. It gave him the chance to write and play with experienced lyric-writers and musicians, who were allowed the freedom to take their own leads. Rozz became more open in interviews and happy to talk about what he was reading or listening too. In early Christian Death interviews, he used to leave the talking to Valor. Rozz also spoke of the childhood trauma of watching his mother have a nervous breakdown. Since his parents are listed in the thanks lists in his albums, Rozz did have a good relationship with them but it does seem that he cared for his mother during her illness. This was probably another reason for him staying in LA while Valor and the rest of Christian Death had moved to Europe.
Shadow Project’s original line-up was Rozz, David Glass, Johann Schuman. This soon changed to Rozz, his Eva, Thomas Morgan and Jill Emery with Paris joining to play keyboards. Eva and Jill had played together as punk rock band The Superheroines. For Shadow Project’s second album, “Dreams for the Dying” in 1992, the line-up changed again to Rozz, Eva and Paris plus William Faith (guitar) and Steven Gary (drums). After the “Dreams for the Dying” tour, Eva began to focus on Superheroines material and the other members took up side projects.
Rozz commented that after gigs he felt, “exhausted sometimes. It’s a nice feeling. It’s a nice feeling when people actually appreciate what you’ve done.” Before it became a cliché he’d occasionally come onstage in a coffin. For one show he and Eva wore hooded cloaks, for another he wore a straitjacket. It wasn’t unusual for Rozz to wear a vampish dress at one show then a suit and tie for the next. Both outfits complimented his slender body. Rozz took care of his appearance. He knew what clothes and cosmetics suited him: often emphasising his pale skin by using kohl and dark lipstick. Early Christian Death gigs saw him with the left side of his hair cut short and bleached while the right side was long and naturally dark brown or dyed ebony. Obviously temporary work in San Fransisco forced Rozz into having a reasonably sensible haircut. He grew out the left side of his hair to the same shoulder-length as his right side and left it dark brown or added blond streaks. He had toyed with the idea of having his Christian Death support Shadow Project but dismissed it as too exhausting.
In collaboration with Ryan Gaumer, Rozz made two recordings of spoken-word material, “Every King a Bastard’s Son” (1992) and “The Whorse’s Mouth” (1996), the latter containing the renowned “HEROnlysIN”. At this time Rozz became more open about his heroin use, that is, he didn’t deny it but didn’t openly talk about it, and made attempts to come off the drug.
James McGearty got in touch again asking if Rozz was interested in forming another rock band. Rozz initially expressed cautious interest then became convinced James was “involved in bullshit” and instead focused on Daucus Karota with Mark Barone (bass), Roxy (guitarist) and Christian Omar Madrigal Izzo (drums) instead. Daucus Karota only recorded one EP, “Shine”, with tracks “The Stranger”, “Angel”, “Love Lies”, “Father of Temptation” as well as featuring a cover of Iggy Pop’s “Raw Power”, which Rozz managed to persuade the Stooges’ producer, Hunt Sales, to produce for him. Rumour had it this particular track was recorded with the band on heroin, the song’s theme. This was dream come true territory for Rozz.
In 1995 Rozz got the chance to work with Gitane Demone again. Gitane had since left Valor’s band and had settled in Amsterdam. The result was “Dream Home Heartache”, with covers of Bryan Ferry’s “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” and Jimi Hendrix’ “Manic Depression” along with original tracks written by Rozz and Gitane. A brief European tour followed in 1996, where Rozz and Gitane sang tracks from “Dream Home Heartache”, then Gitane sang from her Demonix album, after which Rozz would perform from his spoken word material and the gigs ended with songs from Christian Death’s “Ashes”, such as “Lament, “When I was Bed” and a blistering version of “The Luxury of Tears”.
April was still to prove a cruel month. On April 1, 1998 Rozz’s body was found by his roommate Ryan Gaumer in their West Hollywood apartment. With hindsight it’s easy to trawl through lyrics for sections such as, “In willing suffocation / neck twisted, new cadence/…/ There is no season of birth / I am out on a limb which is broken, hanging / abundance of nightmares, my last words” (from “Zaned People”). Without a suicide note, no one can ever say for sure why Rozz decided to take his life.
His widow Eva released “From the Heart” a compilation of studio recordings that Rozz had completed with her before his death. These are mostly remixes of Shadow Project songs.
Cleopatra released remixes of Rozz’s cover of Bowie’s “Panic in Detroit” plus remixes of a few Christian Death songs, provided by bands such as Rosetta Stone, Numb, Die Krupps (Juergen Engler), Spahn Ranch (Matt Green), Leather Strip (Claus Larsen), Noise Box (Josh Helm) and Zero Gravity (Len Del Rio). Bands such as Wreakage, Bis Ende, Switchblade Symphony, The Shroud, Bloodflag and EXP have all claimed Rozz Williams as an influence on their music. Commentators often use Rozz’s Christian Death as a comparator or reference in music reviews.
Former band members Rikk Agnew, James McGearty, Gitane Demone have had varying degrees of solo success. David Glass now plays with Dave Roberts’ Carcrash International. Jill Emery played bass on Hole’s first album, “Pretty on the Inside”, after which she left to give more time to the Shadow Project then joined Eva O when the Superheroines reformed. William Faith formed Faith and the Muse. Paris now models and still occasionally plays keyboards.
Rozz’s own recording career had spanned 16 years. An output of some 20 albums with a variety of styles from extreme noise to spoken word.
I met Rozz backstage at the Hellfire Club in Leicester in April 1996. Here was a man who used and developed his talents by being open to new influences. This had earnt him a great deal of respect. Rozz could select any of a number of accomplished musicians and talented songwriters to suit whichever project he wanted to work on. He had a record company willing to back him. Yet, after an initial wariness, I found him friendly, open and unaffected by sychophancy and pretension. Rozz enthusiasically talked of meeting one of his own heroes, Hunt Sales, barely allowing me to get a word in edgeways. Although I wouldn’t have wanted to interrupt as I was more than content to just listen. When news of his death reached me, I felt as if I’d lost a friend. This is probably the best tribute I can give him.
Emma Lee
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Tags: Emma Lee Articles, Rozz Williams
The Light Forecast
The Light Forecast
” Here is the light forecast at 0600 BST.
Patchy light in the West
more general in the South and East,
some of it prolonged and heavy
leading to localised floodlighting.
(light shines in the darkness
even if the darkness cannot understand it).
Scattered darkness over Northern Ireland
and the West of Scotland
will give way to brilliance
gusting from the Southwest
at up to 50 lumens an hour in places.
This will flare to splendour later
and settle to a steady glow
just before a large belt of darkness
sweeps in from the East.
This should last for some eight hours.
We expect darkness at noon
in Northeast England and East Scotland
with comets, shooting stars, radiant angels
and fiery visitations to relieve the gloom.
Here ends the light forecast.”
Paul Lee
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Yellow Torchlight and the Blues
Yellow Torchlight and the Blues
(Bristol)
The Old Duke stands
between the Llandogger Trow and the harbour.
Inside Saturday night shines dull
on yellowed walls
through beer-fumed tobacco-fog.
Cramped in a corner
the drummer’s invisible
but the beat’s real
driving below
the pit of conversation.
Musicians appear as blind watchers
sensing their way through songs
viperous eyes all but closed.
She’s torchlit blonde
in a slimming widow-black.
Blue eyeshadow creeps into folds
it was carefully brushed over.
Lipstick bleeds into fine lines.
Only the sax would know her age.
Her cigarette-scarred voice
packs emotion into facile rhymes
as she sings
achingly
alone.
Suddenly time’s gained an hour
she’s faded from view
the bar shuts
walls sweat condensation.
Outside autumn lights a flare
and through the dark empty backstreets
The Floating Harbour
ripples blue accompaniments
to Billie Holiday’s Gloomy Sunday.
Emma Lee
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