My name is Everett True. I released the first record on Creation Records (My Bloody Valentine, Jesus And Mary Chain, Oasis, Pastels). I was the first music critic to write about Sub Pop Records. I founded two self-published magazines in the 2000s—Careless Talks Costs Lives and Plan B Magazine. Entertainment Weekly reckoned I was “the man who invented grunge” (1992). Kurt Cobain called me the “biggest rock star critic in the world” (check the video). Jonathan Donahue called me “our generation’s Lester Bangs,” but frankly I’m better than that.
I have written several books, a couple of which are still in print (Ramones, Nirvana).
The Electrical Storm (illustrations by reclusive French genius Vincent Vanoli is a collection of stories from my life, Some of the names have been omitted to keep me from having yet another target on my head (the list is legion), but in some of the cases if you think about it enough you can put together the clues of who the story is about. I started out by doing my own fanzine, and have long been a proponent of DIY culture. Hence this crowd-funding enterprise: an attempt to raise enough money to publish my memoirs, which come as a collection of short stories in the style of William Saroyan.
If you like this story, imagine another 100 or so of them, and donate at the link below to help get this book published.
Otherwise known as Grunge: My Part In Its Downfall, being an attempt to recollect a life probably best forgotten, the life of Everett True. Sad racy stories. Downbeat enthusiasm. Funny, cruel, clever, brutally honest … once you’ve read this, you will never be able to take music criticism seriously again. Like you ever did.
Calvin
We meet him at the train station. He’s playing with a yo-yo, and casting eyes at my girlfriend. (Even then, I didn’t mean the “my” to sound so possessive.) He feels dangerous: the type of performer who will leap down off the stage and confront a heckler. Eyes like Johnny Rotten. Salacious, and uncomfortably so. A charmer. A snake charmer.
He walks up to my girl and says, “Would you like to rub my belly?” Voice deeper than Lee Hazlewood. Voice deeper than Satan.
We play a show in a village hall in Hertfordshire. His band, they all switch instruments and clatter in a ramshackle daze: He sings songs about comforting beverages and necrophilia, false seasonal starts. The music sounds so poignant, aware. Perfect. The local band are composed of scurrying critters, throwing off odd angles and shadows in the deepening dusk. They play, too. So scratchy. So sweet. I soundcheck solo—my bandmates long gone, set adrift by my self-obsession and nausea—and realise my electric guitar sounds better not plugged in so that’s how I leave it. I sing soft and sweet. For once, my guitar is not the point of contention. Every song is a minor epiphany, a revelation. Not just mine or his, but everyone’s.
He makes eyes at my next girlfriend, too, and the one after that. The “my” is never possessive.
He sings songs about death and confrontation. Most people don’t read that much into them, but there again most people don’t realise the Cramps are the greatest band ever. He laughs, never carelessly. He is supportive, very. He used to drive the bus.
We play a show in a pub in Brixton and no one shows up. Everyone is dazed, hurt.
Years and years later we play a show in Brighton and the next evening he steals my backing band. Again, the “my” is misleading. I mean, think about it. Me—in control of musicians?
One time he answers the phone when he’s staying at my house and his nemesis—my lover/friend—answers it, and I don’t know what is said (both sides are protective of me, perhaps figuring me to be the innocent), but when I get on the line she says she’ll punch him next time she sees him.
And she does.
We go to any number of all-night dance parties and never bother with the alcohol. We don’t need it. His hometown is my safe place, a place in which I hide. We go for walks in forests and along railroad tracks and down by the lake and up by Capitol Hill. Not just him and me, of course: numerous others. Nikki. Lois. Tae. Al. Tobi. Slim. Bake sales and swap meets and water fountains and snow angels just when you thought it couldn’t get any sweeter. Cassette tape upon cassette tape. Vegetarian breakfasts with Tammy Wynette. Empty movie theatres. Performances like you will never experience because you were never there.
He cuts out shapes from paper, not because he can, but because it’s fun.
The smell on the stairs is fenugreek. I’m sure of it.
Everyone is a prime mover if they choose to be. Some simply have a bit more charisma.
You can help crowdfund and order advance copies of the book here.
You can find out more information about the book company here (includes the now-legendary first volume of 101 Albums You Should Die Before You Hear).
