Chinaski

by Frances Vick

  “I’m not going to lie, I’m disappointed about that,” he began, “I thought he, Carl I mean, was owed that,” and he let it lie at Sean’s feet to see what he’d do with it. The silence grew. It was long enough for Peter to nearly finish his drink, long enough to regret starting this game in the first place. Eventually Sean said quietly,

  “I don’t blame you. But...events,” he made a vague gesture. “The more I see of this stuff, fame and all that stuff, the more I think that Carl would have hated it anyway. And then I thought, if he’d have ended up hating it, what’s the point in doing a book to make him more famous. I mean, that’s even more disrespectful when you think about it.”

  “That’s pretty convoluted.”

  Sean passed his hand through his hair, “Yeah. Maybe I’m just trying to let myself off the hook. I don’t know. If I’d pushed it more with Chris, maybe it would have happened. But I’m not even too sure of that, really. I work for Chris, if I’m honest, not really with him, I mean I don’t have much sway over him, you know. It’s all...”

  “You just do as you’re told?”

  Sean looked hurt, then resigned. “Maybe. Yes. But then, we all do, don’t we? We all do what Chris tells us, when we’re with him. You guys did. Carl did. And maybe that’s it, why the book would be...dishonest in some way. You see, Carl did what Chris wanted for a while, and it all worked out well, but honestly, could you see Carl doing that forever? Bowing down? And Chris gets bored of the same people after a while, you know that. He doesn’t like to play the same game for too long. Doing the book would have been Chris’ deal, not yours or Carl’s. It was all about him making a star, I think he even came up with the idea before, before Carl – you know – died. But looking at it now, I really don’t think Carl could have handled getting more famous. And. Oh I don’t know. Look, if you want him to do the book I’ll do my best to make it happen, honestly. I will,” he rubbed his head again. He’s losing his hair, Peter realised, he looks older. “But, it is too late now to capitalise on – you know –”

  “His death?”

  Sean winced, and that was answer enough. Peter felt suddenly very tired. It always made him tired to think about Carl. The orderly files of his mind would shuffle themselves together, events magnifying, merging, and some disappearing completely. His internal narrative became muddled – was he a good guy? Had he grieved enough? At all? Had Carl used him, taken him for a fool? Was there still a debt owed? Or were they finally square?

  Sean was looking at him and Peter wanted out of the conversation. “Mate, don’t worry. It’s too late. You’re right. No use pretending it’s not. Tell Chris I said so, not that, you know, he’ll be worried or anything.”

  “Oh, Christ! Chris won’t be worried,” Sean laughed, relieved.

  * * *

  Pitchfork 2012.

  Exclusive interview with legendary journalist Chris Harris

  Chris Harris is the epitome of the 90s rock writer. Lean and nicotine stained, the companion of rock luminaries like Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder and Peri Farrell, Harris was one of the biggest stars of NME before he decamped to the United States in 1994 to forge a freelance career as Profiler Du Jour. His interviews with such disparate figures as Barbara Streisand, George W Bush and OJ Simpson have attracted praise and censure in equal measure. He has been tipped for the Pulitzer and, infamously, threatened with deportation live on Fox News by Carl Rove.

  It’s easy to get sidetracked by the peculiarities of Harris’ history – as well as the playful way he has of inflating or debunking the various myths surrounding him. Born Charles Christopher Transcombe-Harris, he is the son of a stockbroker and is the younger brother of Bernard Transcombe-Harris, conservative MP for Yeovil East. He kicked against his comfortable bourgeois roots from the start, expelled from Merchant Taylors’ School – he claims – for setting fire to the sports hall and being briefly jailed for shoplifting. Arriving at the now defunct Sounds magazine in 1985, he lied about his previous experience as a journalist and faked a letter of recommendation from Chrissie Hynde. Unfortunately his editor knew Ms Hynde personally and was quickly able to see through the ruse. Harris’ obvious desperation to get into music journalism impressed him, however, and he was taken on as an intern. Stories of Harris’ exploits at Sounds are legion and eventually he was sacked for filling the office with helium during an editorial meeting – though some claim that he was actually let go for tardiness and an increasingly serious drug problem. Harris was immediately taken on by NME, and began a career of nurturing up-and-coming bands, like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Oasis. At root, he is a tenacious and dedicated writer, currently preparing a book detailing his life (so far) as chronicler of what he terms as ‘the Outsiders Inside’. I caught up with him on a crackly phone line from his home in New York, to talk about his notorious past.

  You started as a rock journalist. What drew you to that?

  Oh I think sibling rivalry. My elder brother was the Good One. I had to carve some space for myself, and the only thing to do was go bad. And as luck would have it, I was very good at being bad. And, you know, being bad and rock and roll go hand in hand. Also at school I was a chorister and I think in a strange way that’s where my appreciation of music and hierarchy comes from. There is something beautiful in the collective working together, don’t you think? To produce a sacred sound?

  You said recently that you see yourself more as an archivist than as a journalist.

  I see my job as capturing the essence of the subject. It might look like a common or garden bug, until you see it preserved in amber. There are a lot of things that capture your imagination and you think, ‘Oh, God, I really have to pin that down for posterity’. Of course in the long run, you find yourself running down a lot of blind alleys, chasing rainbows, but there are some genuine points of light there, that I think I’ve saved for you ungrateful ingrates.

  In the early days you made your name first with a British band called Chinaski, and then later with Nirvana. Peter Hamilton, Chinaski’s drummer, has of course gone on to greater things as the guitarist in the multi award winning group Silencer. What was it that attracted you to Chinaski in the first place?

  It’s funny because Peter asked me this himself a few months ago when Silencer were over here. I feel like being a little more honest with you than I was with him. I think it was for two reasons. Chinaski were quite good, is the first. And the second was that, frankly, at the time, I fancied the idea of managing a band – seeing it through to being huge. It was pretty obvious that they were never really going to be huge, but they got pretty big.

  Thanks to you.

  Yes. Well, it was a bit of an experiment, and it taught me a lot. Not least that I loved journalism more than micromanaging teenagers. But I might even have stuck with it if the singer hadn’t died. But, of course, after that, the whole thing was shot. And then I fell in with Nirvana and experienced what a really huge band was like from the inside, and it was like living in a tank – very unwieldy, very claustrophobic and an easy target. And that experience put me off music management, not necessarily covering music, but being the boss, being responsible.

  I’m glad you’re being honest! What did you tell Peter Hamilton?

  (Laughs) Well, I probably said something a little less bald. Something about us all being young and idealistic. I imagine I said something like that.

  Nowadays, when you cover music, you cover the mainstream, even interviewing Barbara Streisand for Vanity Fair. What’s changed?

  My priorities darling. If it’s good, if it’s quality, then it stands the test of time. Hence U2, Coldplay, REM. And Barbara Streisand.

  And all the rest is...?

  Well – maybe not as valuable. If, say, Chinaski had been as valuable, they would have stood the test of time, whether the singer died or not. Just look at Nirvana – they still shift a tremendous amount of units every year, they’re an industry in themselves twenty years later. A band like Silencer, too, who appeal to a huge amount of people across the b
oard, from an industry point of view, they’re the gift that keeps on giving. They’re not exclusive, they’re not inaccessible, they’re just good. And that’s why they’ve done so well, because they have a very inclusive sound. I’m a big believer in meritocracy.

  And that’s why you live in America now?

  Why else? America is where the dreams haven’t died. They might be on life support, but they’re clinging on. Like me!

  25

  August. Years later.

  Over the years, Peter had come to hate award ceremonies. They were always the same: all the glitter and excitement kept carefully in camera range while the TV audiences never see the scuffed gaffer tape holding down the cables, the swaying sets, the camera rigs. They never see the queues for the toilets, the crumpled styrofoam cups in the pock marked green rooms, the scattering of cigarette butts on the red carpet, the drunks being led out through fire exits. When he was younger, and Silencer were first getting big, it’s true that he’d enjoyed them, because it had all been new. Even the seediness of them had a glamour to it. Now though, with six albums under his belt and a greatest hits compilation to promote, he’d had enough. Everywhere he looked he saw the same jaded eyes in the same faces. He’d seen the same fashions come and go, each more post-modern and ironic than the next. His interviews had become indistinguishable from one another; the same questions in the same hotel rooms with the same flowers and the anxious PA, the inflated room service tab, the bad mirrors that he swore made him look older than he was. He was tired. It made him tired.

  He was seated just left of the main apron, a little too close to the speakers that played havoc with his tinnitus. A drunk was sitting in front of him, looking for all the world as if someone had stuffed a vagrant into a Tom Ford suit. The drunk listed to the side, and shouted things in a hearty but cracked voice, attracting glances and disapproval. During the Best Video With A Message award, he had to be shushed; and later, during the Best Emerging Artist preamble, Peter saw him stumbling down the aisle on the arm of a teenage usher. Peter had already been on stage to give out the award for Best Single, had already mimed to a medley of hits designed to drum up enthusiasm for the compilation. By the time the man was escorted out, Peter was anxious to leave, have a few drinks, go somewhere quiet. God he was old. Was he old? He ducked out early for a cigarette.

  The designated smoking area was mercifully empty. There was only one other person there, the same man he’d seen leave earlier, but a few cigarettes in the fresh air seemed to have sobered him up. Not many of us smokers left, Peter thought, and he gazed at the man’s back, rippling with coughs now. Peter himself had tried everything – hypnotherapy, nicotine patches, those fake plastic cigarettes that were meant to give you the same feeling but without all the nicotine, but nothing had worked. He couldn’t shake the habit, and if anything it was getting worse. If he woke up in the night now, he’d reach for a cigarette without even turning on the light. He remembered, long ago, Carl Howell bragging that he was such an addict that he had to smoke in the shower. Carl had started Peter smoking in the first place, teaching him how to inhale, thumping him on the back when he coughed. Carl had bought him a packet of Marlboro Reds on his 16th birthday – wrapped up in shiny paper and tied with a dainty, ironic bow. It’s funny the things you remember, little things. He remembered too that he’d kept the box and the ribbon after he’d smoked all the cigarettes, hidden it away as a precious thing. Anything from Carl seemed precious when he was that age, seemed like it might become a relic. Christ, that was nearly thirty years ago. Lately he was thinking a lot about the old days, the beginning. The other day in some green room or another he’d found himself humming a Chinaski song. ‘Alloyed’, he’d noticed, had turned up in some Top 50 albums of the 90s list on Pitchfork. It was number 46. Everything comes round, everything reappears. Even things you thought you’d forgotten, surpassed.

  When the event finally ended and the smoking area began to fill up. Peter found himself pushed up towards the fire exit, next to the coughing man. A waiter came through, and the coughing man swiped two glasses of champagne from the tray without even looking – like he’d just sensed the alcohol near him, and struck like a parched animal. Peter managed to get one too, just as the waiter was moving away, but someone jogged his elbow and the drink slopped over onto his hand, soaking his lighter. Shit. It would dry out, but not for a while, and now he’d have to ask someone for a light and they might want to talk to him. The crowd pushed him further into the coughing man, not coughing now, but talking loudly on his phone, braying almost. Almost familiar, that laugh. Peter tapped him on the shoulder and asked for a light. If the man was busy on the phone then he wouldn’t want to talk to Peter even if he knew who he was. Which he surely wouldn’t, he was too old. Some industry investor maybe, or an aged producer.

  The man flapped an arm irritably at Peter, without looking at him. “Some cunt keeps hitting me. I’m serious!” And Peter, taking offence, poked his head over the man’s shoulder, mouthing ‘light?’ to show him that he wasn’t a cunt. He was, in fact, quite famous. And then he saw the man’s face, and it was Chris Harris.

  When had they last seen each other? Christ – five years? No, more like ten. More? Peter studied him, trying to peel off the years: his hair had receded more, but not by much; he was still reasonably lean. It was only the face, really, that was different. His eyelids dragged down, meeting the rivulets of lines running down his cheeks, sinking into folds at the neck. How old would he be now? 55? More? Peter waited for recognition to dawn on his face, but it didn’t happen, he just looked vague and annoyed. A tinny voice came out of his phone and Chris kept his dim eyes on Peter while switching ears.

  “I don’t know where they are, and I couldn’t give a shit. Frankly. I’ve been with those vapid bitches for a fucking lifetime and I’m taking a break.” Chris absently handed Peter his lighter, swapped ears again, “They didn’t have credibility when they were young. And thin. And now – no. I might tomorrow, but if I have to hear anything more about their dietary requirements or their fucking C-sections, I’ll shoot one of them. The fattest one. I’ll shoot her. You know I will.”

  Peter handed the lighter back, Chris took it and seemed to see him for the first time, “There’s someone here from my deep and dark past. I might call tomorrow. Might. Depends on whether I survive the night.” He put the phone in his pocket and stared at Peter, beginning to smile.

  “Peter.”

  “Yup.”

  “Christ on a drip! When did I see you last? All Tomorrow’s Parties in that dreadful holiday camp?”

  Peter shook his head, “That wasn’t me.”

  “Oh, I think it was, no?” Chris cocked his head. “Or someone else, perhaps.”

  They smoked in silence. Peter felt embarrassed, but was too hemmed in to leave comfortably. Chris had his eyes closed. His phone rang again but he didn’t answer it.

  Peter coughed. “How come you’re here?”

  Chris opened his eyes and swayed forward, “Some story I couldn’t get out of.” He mentioned the name of a popular girl group, now reformed. “They wanted the Mythmaker, asked for me. I owed a few favours and agreed. But it’s meant living with these people. Practically. For two days.”

  Peter remembered the girl band’s winsome appearance at the ceremony. They were hawking a greatest hits too. “Everyone’s reforming now,” he offered by way of conversation.

  Chris shuddered dramatically and lit another cigarette. “Horrible, horrible trend. You’re not I hope?”

  “Well, we haven’t split up.”

  Chris opened his eyes, blinked. “Peter.”

  “Yes.”

  “Chinaski?”

  “Well. Not for a long time.”

  “God, that band. Been thinking about them. You. That boy. Lately. Strange. Are you off to the after party? There’s two. One for the faces and one for hoi polloi. Guess who’s running the last one? Guess. You’ll never guess.”

  Peter smiled foolishly, feeling
the years roll away from him. Chris had always made him feel like a slow witted child. “I can’t guess.”

  “Guess!”

  “I can’t.”

  “Lydia! That lumpy girl! The one with the thing about Carl Howell, remember?”

  “Of course I remember.”

  Chris wasn’t listening, “Well, I remember her. I knew it was her as soon as I saw her. She did the pre-show drinks, with some company called Easy Tiger Events. Can you imagine? She was even wearing a t-shirt with a tiger on it for chrissake. Winking. I really think we should go. Both of us. Show our faces. Be fun.”

  “I don’t know –”

  “Well I do. I know. It’ll be fun.” Chris opened his suit jacket and took out a tin labelled ‘COCAINE’ – “This might make a man out of you.”