The legendary Nico, the blond, Germanic Ice Queen who fronted the Velvet Underground before darkening her image with heroin, motorcycle boots, and a leaky harmonium to become the Godmother of Goth, lived and loved in the Chelsea Hotel over several stretches in the sixties, seventies, and eighties. Check out this month’s issue of the Brooklyn Rail, where I review Jennifer Otter Bickerdike’s enjoyable and revealing biography of this enigmatic, misunderstood, self-destructive underground Icon: You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone: The Biography of Nico.
The list of Chelsea Hotel characters who appear in Bickerdike’s book is a long one indeed, and includes: Lou Reed; John Cale; John Waters (when he asked Nico to sing at his funeral, she said, “Call me when you’re dead”); Gerard Malanga; Andy Warhol; Bob Dylan (he wrote “I’ll Keep it With Mine” for her); Edie Sedgwick; Billy Name; Jimi Hendrix; Leonard Cohen; Jonas Mekas; Barbara Rudin; Iggy Pop; Rene Ricard, Susan Bottomly (International Velvet); Mary Woronov; Jim Morrison; Paul Morrissey (“I mean it would literally make you want to slit your wrists. . .” he says of her music); Victor Bockris (quoted extensively in the book); Jim Carrol, Valerie Solanis; Joe Bidewell; and Viva (she had the misfortune of rooming with Nico, who shut out the light with heavy curtains, burning candles and singing funereal dirges as she practiced her harmonium long into the night).
Additionally, Chelsea Hotel fans will find a review of Rene Ricard's God with Revolver and an essay by Raymond Foye in the October issue of Brooklyn Rail.
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