JOURNAL FOR PLAGUE LOVERS

The band have suggested that this entire album, due for release in 2009, will consist of lyrics written by Richey Edwards.

Includes: 'Peeled Apples?/'Jackie Collins Existential Question Time?/?Me and Stephen Hawking'/'This Joke Sport Severed'/?Plague Lovers'/?She Bathed Herself in a Bath of Bleach?/?Facing Page: Top Left'/"Marlon J.D.'/?Doors Closing Slowly'/?All is Vanity'/?Pretension/Repulsion?/?Virginia State Epileptic Colony?/?William?s Last Words'

[1] The Manic Street Preachers' song '1404', which was an extra track issued on the 2007 single ?Autumnsong', web based on the Owain Glyndwr revolt and the melancholy of what might have been had he succeeded. Nicky Wire was also reported to have considered writing a screenplay based on Glyndwr?s story

[2] Richey Edwards has passed the chasm into literature several times with Landor's Tower, Rue Britannia, 2000AD, Rock'n'Roll Suicide and Thin Air being just some of the examples where his myth burrowed him further into popular culture.

[3] Surprisingly, Cardiff had only been Wales twenty-fifth biggest town in 1801. Half a century later it was the fourth, after Methyr, Swansea and Newport. By 1881, it was the biggest

[4] The Durutti Column actually did use a sandpaper sleeve for their 1979 album The Return of the Durutti Column on Factory Records. Members of Joy Division apparently helped in assembling these awkward sleeves. It's unknown whether Edwards heard about the Debord idea first or came to it after reading about The Durutti Column

[5] Other pre-Richey gigs by the Manic Street Preachers in 1986 included shows on 6 June (Six Bells Workingman?s Club), 27 September (The Level, Ebbw Vale) and 4 October (The Little Theatre, Blackwood), all as support for Funeral In Berlin

[6] DOA was a film about the Sex Pistols? tour of the USA with other bands, such as the Dead Boys and Sham 69

[7] A listings and entertainment magazine covering the South Wales region, published is Swansea

[8] The Sex Pistols famously held a photo-shoot at the gates of Buckingham Palace in a fake contract-signing stunt

[9] The Membranes put out eight post punk-punk-inspired albums between 1977 and 1990, with an ever-changing line-up

[10] ?I was freelancing for Sounds at the time and writing about loads of new bands,? says Robb. ?I did the first interviews with the Stone Roses and Nirvana, and accidentally came up with the phrase ?Britpop?, which was on use even back then in the early eighties!?

[11] Paul Cannell started out doing the artwork for Flowered Up and designed logo for Heavenly Records before working with Primal Scream. He committed suicide in 2005

[12] The footage had been filmed on 6 December 1990 at London?s Town & Country 2 venue

[13] Gilbert?s Syndrome is a failure of the liver to detox certain substances

[14] Having previously decorated the tour van with collages, Edwards would continue to do the same in the hotel rooms and recording studios

[15] The live review was a full page under the headline ?Blood on the Tracks?, but little of the text concerned the actual show

[16] The band were also in debt to Philip Hall who had loaned the band £45.000 of his own money, such was his belief in them

[17] Rodin?s I Am Beautiful sculpture showed a man lifting a bundled woman into the air. Serrano?s photograph Piss Christ featured a plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of urine. Dali?s 1951 painting Christ of Saint John of the Cross shows Christ on the cross from above but the figure is hanging without any blood, nails or crown of thorns in the picture

[18] Arthur Rimbaud, mentioned here by Edwards for the first time, would become central to the Richey Myth

[19] Traci Lords shot to fame when it was revealed that many of the pornographic films she starred in had been made while she was underage

[20] The Wildhearts went through many personnel changes before splitting up in 1997. They re-formed in 2001

[21] This, In turn, had been a cover of the 1965 version by The Four seasons

[22] A burning book section of the video seems to show (or show a book that mentions) Emile, Jean-Jacques Rousseau?s 1762 musings on the philosophical nature of man

[23] Nicky Wire to Melody Maker: ?In a bar in Portugal he started doing the moonwalk in front of all these people, and I remember thinking, ?He?s not tortured tonight, he?s pissed!??

[24] James Dean Bradfield was keen to let each band member concentrate on their individual strength. ?People should do what they?re best at,? he said. ?I?m not going to let Richey try a solo just because I think it?ll do his self-esteem a load of good, because he can?t do it.?

[25] Times Square ? now a cult-classic, but once a box-office bomb ? was oft-referenced in the Manics? career, although most of the seminal soundtracks (The Ramones, The Cure, Lou Reed, XTC, Talking Heads and Roxy Music, among others) didn?t filter into Manics? music. The exception was the unexceptional ?Damn Dog?, which they?d covered on Generation Terrorists. ?Roses in the Hospital? was taken from a scene in the film in which one of the characters actually eats roses in the hospital

[26] Primo Levi survived the Holocaust but chose to take his own life in 1987

[27] The case eventually went to court but no one was convicted

[28] The last two songs that Philip Hall heard were called ?Masoleum? and ?Die in the Summertime?. ?On, thanks for that,? he said after listening to the early demos, demonstrating a sense of humour even though he was seriously ill by then

[29] The twelve steps can be summarised as follows. The patient:

[1] have to admit they are powerless compared to their addiction and their life has become unmanageable

[2] should submit to the fact that a power greater than themselves could restore their life

[3] has to decide to turn over their will and life to the care of God as they understand Him

[4] should make a ?searching and fearless? moral inventory of themselves

[5] must admit to God, themselves and another human being the nature of their problems

[6] should be ready to let God remove the defects of character

[7] must humbly ask God to remove their shortcomings

[8] must make a complete list of all the people who they ready have hurt and be ready to make amends with each one

[9] must make amends to these people except if this would injure them or others

[10] should continue taking personal inventory and admit when they are wrong

[11] should seek improved contact with God, as He is understood, through prayer and meditation, while asking for knowledge of His will

[12] must try and pass this message to other addicts and practise these principles in all areas of their life

[30] The blurb for Earnie Larson's book reads (in part): ?Meditation for every day of the year, complete with an inspirational quote and a thought-for-the-day. It addresses such subjects as: Why self-esteem seems so fragile; how to define ourselves in terms of our own standards and values; why attitude is so important when we make mistakes; the difference between conceit and self-approval; how self-doubt triggers unattractive behaviours; and how self-esteem blooms when we have a sense of purpose in life.?

[31] In the 1780s, Jeremy Bentham designed a prison, or Panopticon ? a circular design with all cells open to the centre of the building where guards could be housed to watch all of the prisoners easily

[32] Finding your own self-worth and admiring yourself for it, whatever that involves. Kate (Moss), Kristin (McMenamy), Emma (Balfour), Karen (Sky Agony Aunt) were the women listed in the lyrics

[33] Richey Edwards also found basic day-to-day skills hard to master ? taking laundry back for his mother to wash even though he owned a washing machine in his own flat, for example

[34] Ian Curtis? widow Debbie has commented on the repeated haircutting that he underwent before his suicide

[35] Equus starred Richard Burton as a psychiatrist investigating a seventeen-?e??-?ld youth responsible for the blinding of horses with a metal spike. The young man has serious issues with religion (he was forced to read the Bible as a child), his own sexuality and horses, who he sees as the eyes of God. In Naked Mike Leigh presents viewers with the grim tale of Johnny (played by David Thewlis), who runs away from Manchester after raping a woman in an alleyway. He ends up in London and comes across a parade of unusual and sometimes seedy characters before heading out into the world again. While not explained explicitly, Johnny seems likely to be suffering from manic depression or a similar mental illness

[36] Lori Fidler was also mentioned in a telephone call to the police in early March 1995. A Philip ?een, of Irvine, Scotland, told them that he thought Edwards was staying at Fidler's apartment on East 21st Street in New York. He also sent a fax to the NME with the same suggestion but he didn't seem to have any proof to hack up his claims

[37] Requests to the Metropolitan Police as to details about this box were, perhaps unsurprisingly, rebuked. The reason given was that it could infringe Richer Edwards' human rights, even though this was after he had been declared legally dead

[38] Mike Hedges' work with The Cure and Siouxsie and The Banshees brought him to the Manics' attention

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 174