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| Jamie Nares and Thurston Moore holding up the hastily printed-out photos of the Harry Roskolenko chopped up death mask sculpture: “I called it The Poet Is A Book.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
At the Ecstatic Peace Library Rock ’n’ Roll Round Table inside the Oak Room of The Algonquin on September 12, during the James Hamilton Linger On: Unseen Portraits of The Velvet Underground exhibition, music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman introduced me to Thurston Moore (co-founder with Eva Prinz of the Ecstatic Peace Library) and filmmaker/artist Jamie Nares (featured in Celine Danhier’s Blank City as James Nares).
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| Jamie Nares with Ed Bahlman and Anne-Katrin Titze on natural timing: “I’d say that the rhythm was the strongest characteristic of my guitar playing.” |
In the first instalment with Jamie Nares we touch on Rome ’78 (starring David McDermott with Eric Mitchell, Lydia Lunch, Kristian Hoffman, Bradley Field, John Lurie, Anya Phillips, James Chance, Patti Astor, Pat Place, Lance Loud, Judy Rifka, Mitch Corber), Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Valentino couture dress for Jamie, a party for Andy Warhol’s Athletes series, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Joseph Chaikin and Merce Cunningham in Westbeth, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute, exhibiting at the upcoming Frieze in London, and being in and out of the Contortions.
Lisa Rosen’s great-uncle Harry Roskolenko and The Velvet Underground book authorship was the main topic of the evening for Nares at the Ecstatic Peace Library Algonquin Round Table, along with CUNY Graduate Center professor Kyoo Lee’s poetic essay Candy Darling Can Be Daring. The well-attended event was hosted by Thurston Moore.
In the Seventies and early Eighties Nares was not only an instrumental force in the film community but a contributor to the music scene as well, playing guitar in James Chance’s early Contortions line-up and as a percussionist for The Del-Byzanteens (Phil Kline, Jim Jarmusch, Philippe Hagen, Josh Braun, Dan Braun, including some lyrics by Lucy (Luc) Sante).
From Upstate New York, Jamie Nares joined Ed and me on Zoom for an in-depth conversation.
Anne-Katrin Titze: Hi, good to see you again!
Jamie Nares: Hi, yes!
AKT: We spoke on Monday [at The Algonquin] about the beautiful Valentino Haute Couture show Fall/Winter 2021 featuring the Nares dress. We also talked about The Met projecting your film Street outside. Do you go to the Costume Institute exhibitions?
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| Jamie Nares with Ed Bahlman inside The Algonquin Oak Room: “There were a few of us there, the tall peoples.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
JN: Yes, but I haven’t been in a while. They [at Valentino Couture] made me a dress which I think I should give to The Met, because it’s too good to wear.
AKT: Did you ever wear it?
JN: I did, I went to The Met wearing it once, for the Recent Acquisitions Gala. It’s an astonishing dress they made.
AKT: You should wear it some more and then give it to The Met. Have you been to the In America: An Anthology of Fashion exhibition?
JN: I haven’t been to the most recent one. There’s something I wanted to see, I can’t remember what it is, though.
AKT: Did you go to Camp: Notes On Fashion?
JN: No. Was it good?
AKT: Yes, I do like them all. I liked very much About Time: Fashion and Duration, right in the middle of the pandemic, which had a Virginia Woolf feel and theme. With Camp, I thought of your Rome ’78. Ed is here, so he will join us to say hi!
JN: Hello Ed, how are you?
Ed Bahlman: Hello Jamie! I loved your recounting on Monday of The Velvet Underground book authorship, that was hilarious.
JN: I was slightly unsure even as I was reading it what the outcome was going to be. I had been upstate where I am now, then Bobby Grossman had called me if the event was free that night, if he could get in. And I went: “What event?”
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| Jamie Nares with Thurston Moore: “I look up to Thurston in more ways than one. He and I can just speak eye-to-eye, you know.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
And I leapt into my car and drove in high speed back into the city and made it just in time to print out the emails from Lisa [Rosen] which I hadn’t read closely. I was almost in a state of suspended discovery as everyone else.
EB: It was a thriller. What’s the title of the two drawings that you and Thurston held up near the end?
JN: They weren’t drawings, they were badly-printed-out photos of a sculpture I made using Harry’s [Roskolenko] death mask, chopped into slices. I called it The Poet is a Book. Because it felt like a book with great chunky pages.
EB: Great.
JN: It’s one of the many objects I make. He was Lisa’s great-uncle.
EB: I looked him up and saw that he was pretty famous in Australia. Right after World War II.
JN: Oh really, I didn’t know that. You know, I think that’s where his daughter was living and she didn’t want to come back, that’s how we were in the apartment in the first place.
EB: In Westbeth?
JN: In Westbeth in his apartment.
EB: Did you know Joseph Chaikin? The theater director who worked with Sam Shepard?
JN: Oh yes, that was a very active theatre.
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| The beautiful couture dress made for Jamie Nares, based on her artwork, presented by Valentino Creative Director Pierpaolo Piccioli. Photo: courtesy of Jamie Nares |
EB: They used the ground floor for rehearsing. And Merce Cunningham?
JN: Yeah, I looked right down onto Merce Cunningham’s studio because it was to one side of the building.
EB: I would go to a lot of the after-performance parties there.
JN: Oh how nice.
EB: In Blank City on the films showing at your New Cinema [cofounded with Becky Johnston and Eric Mitchell] Thurston talks about how “the whole No Wave scene was really funny.”
JN: It was.
EB: And on Monday night your timing in your performance, which I thought of as a performance, was so hilarious. You caught every nuance of the funny and presented it to us; it was perfect.
JN: Well I have to say, it wasn’t rehearsed, it was off the cuff.
EB: That’s the natural timing you have.
JN: I guess so, I’d say that the rhythm was the strongest characteristic of my guitar playing.
EB: I did see you of course. Why did you leave the Contortions?
JN: Because I never really felt comfortable being on a stage as myself. I didn’t know that I could create a persona. I much preferred to be onstage or performing as somebody else. It was easier for me to pretend or something. Plus it was a difficult time in many ways.
EB: You looked great Monday night.
JN: I looked great at the thing?
EB: Absolutely.
JN: Thank you, that’s always nice to hear.
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| Ed Bahlman catching up with Thurston Moore in The Algonquin Oak Room Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
EB: And it’s always nice for me to be around tall people.
JN: There were a few of us there, the tall peoples. I love being with Thurston because he is taller than me and I love looking up to somebody. And I look up to Thurston in more ways than one. He and I can just speak eye-to-eye, you know. When I first arrived in New York, I went to this Warhol party. He’d just done his series of the athletes [Athletes, 1977].
And there was a party for the opening of the show that had all the athletes there at it. It was in an apartment uptown somewhere. And I was in a room suddenly with these people and everyone was taller than me. They were all basketball players and football players and all towered above me and I felt so good. For a tall person it’s hard looking down all the time, it’s bad for the neck.
EB: Yes, definitely. Do you have an exhibition coming up in New York?
JN: Not in New York, I have this one Frieze in London, which will be wonderful for me because it’s going to be the micro version of my Milwaukee retrospective and it’ll also be my kind of homecoming to my country of origin. I left in 1974 when I was 20 years old.
EB: You’re definitely going then?
JN: Oh yeah, I’m really looking forward to it because I think people will get the work in a nice way, in a different way than they get it here. There’s a quality to my work which is still English in a way. I can’t say exactly what it is. The love of patina maybe.
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| The enthusiastic Ecstatic Peace Library Rock 'n' Roll Round Table audience Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
AKT: That expresses it beautifully. I think it comes in waves when you don’t live where you grew up. It comes in waves the connecting to aspects of where you came from, doesn’t it?
JN: Yes, I agree. And they come in unexpected ways also.
EB: What music did you listen to when you were in England?
JN: In England? Kind of the same that anyone of our generation listened to, Rock ’n’ Roll, Bob Dylan, all the biggies, Velvet Underground.
EB: What about Marc Bolan?
JN: Marc Bolan I didn’t listen to so much, I kind of liked his sound. Funny enough I got into Marc Bolan in the last few years. At the time he was in the glitter scene. We weren’t into the glitter scene, my circle of friends. We were into David Bowie. Somehow Bowie seemed much more serious than Marc Bolan. He was sort of like teenybopper, that’s what it seemed like at the time.
EB: It’s 100% true. There was a documentary on him that covered that phase where performers recreated his songs, including Nick Cave.
JN: Great, the songs are really good. He’s great to listen to.
EB: He’s sneaky good.
JN: It sneaks up on you, yeah.
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| Ecstatic Peace Library in residence at The Algonquin Rock ’n’ Roll Round Table with Kyoo Lee and Jamie Nares invitation |
EB: Because it’s such power guitar. [Jamie does a power guitar sound impression]. 20th Century Boy. We all used to be that. It’s great talking with you, Jamie.
JN: It’s lovely to see you again. It was a wonderful evening that we shared together. Have a great weekend! Bye!
Coming up - Jamie Nares on Street and coming to New York in the Seventies.
At The Algonquin, the Ecstatic Peace Library Rock ’n’ Roll Round Table Surrounding the Velvet Underground with Richard Hell, Ariana Reines, Katherine Faw, and Sampson Starkweather will take place inside the Oak Room starting at 7:00pm on Monday, September 26.
Jamie Nares at Frieze Kasmin Gallery: James Nares No. 9 Cork Street October 6 through October 22. Film screenings during Frieze: Tuesday, October 11 at 4:00pm - Street (2011); Suicide? No! Murder (1977); Waiting For The Wind (1982); Game (1976); Drip (2007); Primary Function (2007); Pendulum (1976) - Saturday, October 22 at 11:00am and 1:00pm - Pendulum and Street.
