The Counterforce No. 51

David J, Bauhaus, Northamptons, Steve Aylett, Thus Love, and more

With my recent Bauhaus kick mentioned last Counterforce, I decided to re-read David J’s memoir Who Killed Mister Moonlight?: Bauhaus, Black Magick, and Benediction. One of the few autobiographies I have read more than once. The others being Miles Davis’, which really was life-changing to read when I was 16, hitting me with such profound thoughts on life and music and how the two are one, and then getting just as much out of it a few years ago. And Julian Cope’s Head On and Repossessed, which I have recommended to people who have never even heard of The Teardrop Explodes and they loved those books. I find it a little odd to revisit lives like this, but then it’s really all about the story. I loved Who Killed Mister Moonlight? when it first came out and it was a true pleasure to read these dark entries again these past few days. So much so that, having finished it last night, when I woke up today I was a little bummed out not to have more waiting for me.

It’s about what the subtitle says - Bauhaus, Black Magick, and Benediction. And we get the story of Bauhaus from the beginning till their disbanding after recording Go Away White. Now, being a huge Love and Rockets fan, at first I was a little disappointed that their wasn’t much of their tale told within these pages. Earth Sun Moon is one of my all-time favourite records, with Seventh Dream Of Teenage Heaven not far behind. Earth Sun Moon is so good that their big hit from the album over here - No New Tale To Tell - isn’t even close to my favourite song on the record. Mirror People is just phenomenal (one day I will hear it live). Here On Earth and Waiting For The Flood up there too. And of course, later on, So Alive is such a fantastic single. But the L&R stuff within this book is kept to how it relates to the Bauhaus story, including the fire at Rick Rubin’s mansion during the recording of Sweet F.A. that destroyed all their equipment. There’s a little substory in here about Genesis P. Orridge mysteriously receiving a voodoo doll at this time and the couple sentences of denouement years later is really rather wonderful. One day I hope Mr. Haskins does write his Love and Rockets memoirs but for now one can’t fault the intrigue value of this book when these L&R years are told with a focus on his explorations in the world of magick, including a few rituals conducted with the master mage himself, Mr. Alan Moore.

I remembered a lot of the story from the first time around, standouts being their meeting Iggy Pop on their first trip to NYC and after hanging out most of the night, Iggy asking Daniel Ash to leave their hotel room because he and Mick Ronson were going to do some ‘dangerous drugs’. Their consulting the I Ching but not taking it seriously and three times in a row getting the result of ‘Youthful Folly’. And after a particularly large latterday blowout, Peter Murphy blowing rose petals in their faces by way of reconciliation. One scene I had forgotten about was a complete joy to revisit, told as it is with comic precision. For the 1998 reunion tour almost didn’t happen at all because, as they had to confess to their and Peter Murphy’s managers, “Daniel doesn’t like Pete’s trousers”.

So yeah, great stuff. I highly recommend reading it. There’s also some rather lovely bits about finding a way back in from dabbling with the unseen forces, as well as it being an in-depth history of a great band. And they really were. The Passion Of Lovers, She’s In Parties, and Kick In The Eye have all spent time stuck in my synapses lately and I’ve really come to appreciate how powerful they are as songs. I mentioned last Counterforce about loving the band’s sonic and stylistic explorations, but also these, and others, as songs - from both writing and emotional perspectives - are top notch. And I’ve always felt that All We Ever Wanted Was Everything was almost too good of a song. It came back to me about 10 years ago when I heard Burning Peacocks cover it

Burning Peacocks were quite a good band from Paris. The project of David Baudart & Alma Jodorowsky. Yes, the great Alejandro’s grand-daughter. Of course I was intrigued. They put out some good EPs and one album. And took their name from an old moniker of My Bloody Valentine.

I remember in the late 90s learning that David J and I share the same birthday, and it was probably this that led me to seek out his solo stuff. That and the fact that I thought Crocodile Tears & The Velvet Cosh was such a cool name for a record. Which I promptly found at In Your Ear in Boston. Last year Astrid Swan gave a lovely rendition of that title song on the Glass Remade/Remodelled comp, which was one of my favourite releases of 2023. My Quietus review here. Glass Records, what a great label. And on that comp. David J also does an awesome version of Dave Kusworth’s It’ll All End Up In Tears. I think my favourite of his solo records is 2011’s very strong Not Long For This World and song-wise 1990’s New Woman Is An Attitude has always stuck with me

I’ve also been reading Steve Aylett’s latest, The Book Lovers, out December 2nd. I can’t write too much about it because I’m reviewing it for another website, but let’s just say that Aylett is in top form, possibly his best work yet, and the rave reviews from Alan Moore (“In the whole of language there is nothing like Steve Aylett, and The Book Lovers is his most relentless assault yet on our prissy synapses”), Michael Moorcock, and Robin Ince on the cover are spot on. In the confluence of The Book Lovers and Who Killed Mister Moonlight?, it occurred to me that the only time I’ve ever been to Northampton, England - where Bauhaus are from - was to see a screening of Aylett’s Lint The Movie.

I arrived at dusk on an autumn evening, and strolling through those shadowy stone streets was perfect for a lifelong Bauhaus fan. It was rumoured that Alan Moore might show up that night and even though in the end he did not, the event was enjoyable nonetheless. This is how it is in my memory anyway. Checking my old journal I wrote this about it:

Chatted with Steve and he ended up sitting down and we had a long conversation about Devant, books, editing, getting things done and The Fall (Mark E. Smith still doesn't know about The Caterer and Steve doesn't think he'd like it). Met a chap named Jim too who I rode the train home with and had a long talk about art and literature. There was nothing really to do in Northampton though. I'm glad I saw it, having read Alan Moore's writings about it made it more interesting but there wasn't even anyone really about, on a Friday night too. Went to the one used book shop I found online and then to the comic shop, which was pretty cool, I had met the guy who runs it at the Dodgem Logic night, and then just wandered around for hours looking for somewhere to eat, growing more and more cranky as nothing really appealed and it was more expensive than London.

But the Northampton connection persisted in my mind, and I remembered when my old band Rockets Burst From The Streetlamps played at the Iron Horse in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1999, on the drive down from Boston the rest of the band outed me as a ‘closet goth’. I was very ill for this gig and as I lay in the dressing room pre-show with an 102 degree fever, I came up with the idea for a band - Aug’s Gone Goth!?! With my fevered delirium and anyways constant love of puns, I began to think of songs titles for the albums Pornaugraphy and Andraugyny. Such classics as Savings Bondage, Does It Hurt When I Do This?, Mourning Sickness, and All Dressed Up And No Place To Die. Years later, at my first ever Swedish solo show, an impromptu acoustic gig at a bar in Varberg the night before the first proper gig in Gothenburg, I busted out a bunch of rarities and played German Art School Girl for the first and only time. Remembering all this, I was overjoyed to work an old title into the P.G. Bauhaus story I mentioned last Counterforce. When our main character Peregrine Goodby goes to his first ever ‘gothic music club’, the band onstage are Cruel Tea, performing their new single One Lump Or Two? Very pleased with how this story is turning out

I was ill this past week too, rotten cold, didn’t eat solid food for 73.5 hours, and one night up with a fever I stumbled across this very cool documentary about UPA Studios. I loved those cartoons when I was a kid and the art is simply wonderful. Their use of colour and pushing the image towards what can be done with constraints as opposed to a more realistic look. The phrase ‘what can be done with constraints’ always reminds me of the band Can and, well, look what they did with it…

Last night, someone on Twitter hipped to the fact that a new Thus Love album came out last week! Awesome. And it was so cool that this person took the time to message me about this, knowing how much I like the band. That’s what the internet is for, really. Thus Love were one of my favourite musical discoveries of 2023, a hugely melodic post-punk force

Primitive Painters has also been stuck in my head this week. What a tune! I was very pleased to pun on this in the Discography of The Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass with Rudimentary Rembrandts

And also for the month of November, my publisher Sagging Meniscus and I will be donating $1 of every copy of Sporting Moustaches sold to the Movember charity to raise awareness and funds for men’s health issues such as mental health, suicide prevention, prostate and testicular cancer. Check out the press release here. I’ll also be donating 50% of the sales from my events this month to the charity

Saturday November 16th – Breakwater Books, Guilford, CT – 1-3 PM – SIGNING
Sunday November 17th – Hidden Gem, Wallingford, CT – 4 PM – READING

I recommend getting the book from Bookshop.org to support independent bookshops. I also have some signed copies at my Bandcamp page

If you liked this post, please consider Buying Me A Coffee or purchasing any of my books, especially Sporting Moustaches this month