by Mark Lanegan
“Holy shit, Lanegan, this is great! Let me help you finish it. Come out to New York. I know a great, kind of weird studio off Times Square we can get really cheap for a couple weeks and get it done.”
We booked the studio for November. Already cold and icy in the city by then, it was a minor ordeal to get down to the Lower East Side to score each day and then back to Times Square by noon or one to start working. I had to be to the studio on time, lest I unleash the beast in Agnello. He was a hilarious cut-up but when it came to recording, he was an adrenalized machine you dared not fuck with or hinder.
The routine to score on the street in those days was a fairly sophisticated affair. There would be a certain street and on it, in one of the buildings, a doorway where you would buy bindles of coke and dope. Addicts would walk around the block until the dealer’s lookouts, stationed at both ends of the block, would signal to the guy assigned to the door that the coast was clear. Then it was his job to quickly line everyone up at the door. Another guy would appear in the now-open doorway to collect the money. You would give them your order, say “ten d, five c,” meaning ten bindles of dope and five of coke, then give the money to the guy inside the building. Another person wearing a full-face ski mask would then distribute the drugs. If there was a sudden warning from one of the lookouts, the door would close and the guy outside would tell everyone, “Get the fuck out! It’s hot!” All the junkies would go back to circling the block, waiting until they opened for business again. Sometimes it all went smoothly. Other days, it turned into a much longer, frustrating grind.
Once, I had just handed over my money when the sharp whistle came down from the end of the street to signal danger. The door closed and the line scattered before I’d gotten my dope. I nervously circled the block for what seemed like an hour, sure my dough had been lost and I had a dopesick twenty-four hours ahead of me. But when they opened up again, the doorman hustled me to the front of the line and gave me my shit first. A first-class business operation.
One freezing cold, icy day, I circled the block with my money already in my hand, both hands shoved deep in my coat pockets. I stepped on a patch of ice and, in a second, my feet were above my head. I barely had time to pull my hands out of my pockets to partially break my fall instead of taking it full on the head. My money flew out of my hands, and not only did I have to instantly spring back to my feet after this painful mishap but then had to quickly run around and scoop my money off the frozen ground before the bitter wind blew it away.
The owner of the recording studio had an apparent fetish for, of all things, cookie jars. The place was filled with a huge collection of every different kind you could imagine. Shelf upon shelf upon shelf of the fucking things. But other than that it was a good, solid-sounding room. Fueled by John Agnello’s infectious and enthusiastic energy, we set about trying to actually finish this record that had long since become a millstone around my neck.
Mike Johnson was staying in the city at the time and John gave him a call to see if he’d take part in these final sessions. Mike wanted none of it and instead sent my old friend J Mascis and Kurt Fedora, another musician from J’s hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts, down in his place. They set to work with Mascis overdubbing some drums and percussion and Kurt laying down bass on a few tracks. I spent much of my time either in my Times Square hotel room getting loaded or at the Lower East Side apartment of Justin Williams, my former coworker from Seattle who had turned me on to all the music that now informed the record I was making. He shared his apartment with his girlfriend Sally Barry, who was a drummer of some renown in NYC at the time.
It was a constant battle for Agnello to get me to and keep me in the studio as my mind was tightly focused on getting loaded. One morning, Sally insisted I let her wash my filthy clothes. As I sat around their apartment in my only clean pair of boxers and a tight kimono of hers to try and stay warm in what was then brutal November weather, a call came from John.
“Lanegan, if you don’t get your ass down here in the next twenty minutes, I’m shutting this thing down and going home. I need you here to help me make decisions. For fuck’s sake, it’s your fucking record, now act like you give a shit! Twenty minutes!”
“How long until my clothes are done?” I asked Sally.
“An hour, hour and a half, why?”
“Because I have to go now. Fuck! Do you guys have any clothes that will fit me?”
They both started laughing. She was a small woman and Justin was rail thin. Wearing their clothes was an impossibility but I knew from Agnello’s tone that he was dead serious. I had no choice but to go as I was. My jacket only came down to my waist and it looked as though I was wearing a woman’s slip beneath it with sockless boots on my feet.
“Go!” she said. “We’ll bring them down when they’re done.”
I walked out into the freezing street where cab after cab refused to pick me up. I went back inside.
“One of you has to grab the cab, then I’ll jump in. No one is gonna stop for me. I look like a freak.”
I stood behind a car as Sally hailed a cab. When she opened one door as if to enter, I jumped in the other side and barked out the address as she closed the door and waved goodbye.
J and John both laughed themselves sick when I arrived in my women’s attire. To amuse himself in my absence, J had carefully perused the vast collection of jars and had found one that gave him a particular thrill.
“Hey, Lanegan, check this out,” he said with a huge grin in his distinctive slow drawl. “This is perfect for your record.”
He held a cookie jar shaped like a hobo leaning against a light pole, the hobo’s hat its lid. When he turned the lid, it began to make a whistling noise, the song of the bum. That delighted Mascis and he entertained himself playing with it for a long time. In the meantime, Agnello was mixing “The River Rise,” the song that we planned to have open the record. J, now tired of the cookie jar, started fucking around with a primitive synthesizer and came upon a sound like wind blowing through an alley.
“That’s it!” he called out. “The wind plus the whistle is a winner. You gotta put it on the record, Lanegan!”
“Will you guys please shut the fuck up? I’m trying to actually work here, in case you two clowns haven’t noticed,” Agnello said with an edge that told me he meant business.
“But John, it’s genius, don’t you hear it?” Mascis insisted.
“Okay, if you guys won’t let me work, then get the hell outta here. Lanegan, go back to whatever drag-queen bar you dragged yourself out of. And you go home,” he said to J.
“Okay, hold on a minute. How much will you give me to put it on the record?” I asked Mascis, a notorious penny pincher unlikely to foot the bill for anything frivolous.
“Umm, twenty bucks?”
“Fuck that. I’ll do it for fifty.”
“You got a deal, mister!”
He cackled with delight while John stared at both of us with hollow-point bullets firing from under his incredulous and irritated brow.
But after further cajoling, Agnello agreed. When the record opened, the first thing you heard was a mixture of J’s simulated-wind synth noise combined with the whistling hobo cookie jar. As I’d anticipated, he never paid up for it, but it did bring him great pleasure and it felt oddly appropriate to me once it was finished.
Later, Sally and Justin showed up with my clothes and I was glad to be dressed again. She ended up singing a beautiful part on a song called “Sunrise.”
A couple weeks later, a jubilant John Agnello gave me a huge hug and said, “See, asshole? I told you we could do it!” After making me insane for over three years, the record was finally, completely finished. Even though I had lost my way in a million different directions during those difficult years, when it was said and done, the final result was close to the way I had originally imagined it. A record a thousand times better than my debut, a self-contained, fully realized piece of work I was proud of. Having written every song myself and
gone through much angst and unnecessary headaches, for the first time I felt I’d actually pulled it off.
As soon as I returned home, I got together with Kurt and gave him a copy of Whiskey for the Holy Ghost on cassette. He called me a couple days later and said, “This is truly great, man. The best thing you’ve ever done. I’m not crazy about the title but this is a classic record. Congratulations, brother.”
19
SPANKING THE MONKEY
A month later, I got a phone call from someone I didn’t know. As I listened to him leaving a message, I heard him mention Sally Barry’s name and that he was a film director, then I quickly picked up, not wanting to miss out on some exotic opportunity.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Mark Lanegan?”
“Yes, it is. Who’s calling?”
“You don’t know me but your friend Sally cleans my apartment for me. When I came in yesterday, she was playing a tape of your new record.”
He was speaking superfast and excitedly. I wondered where this was leading.
“Let me cut to the chase: I am a screenwriter getting ready to shoot my first movie as a director and I would like to use your music in it.”
“What? Like a song or something?”
“No, man, I want to use your record for the entire soundtrack. I know you’re probably thinking who is this nut but I swear to you this is legit. In fact, I’d like you to come out and meet me in New York and help me arrange the songs so that they play throughout the entire movie.”
“What’s it about? And I’m sorry, what is your name?”
“My name is David O. Russell. The movie is called Spanking the Monkey, it’s sort of a classic coming-of-age story. Did you happen to see that lame car commercial a while back with the kid comparing a car to the Ramones’ music?”
I actually had.
“Well, it was terrible but the kid is a great actor and he’s playing the lead. I hope to get Faye Dunaway to play his mom.”
“Can you please send me a script so I have a better idea of what it’s about and how my music would be used?”
“Of course, man! And like I said, I would want you to come out to Massachusetts when we start filming and be part of my team putting the music where it would belong in the film. I can even find a part for you in the film if you want. And one more thing, you might think I sound like I’m full of shit but this is just the beginning. I’m gonna make a lot of movies and, buddy, you do this for me and I promise I will take you with me for the ride. I absolutely love your stuff!”
When I hung up the phone, I stared out the window. His approach had been rapid-fire and he had given me a lot to process, especially since I’d gotten loaded right before he called. But I was intrigued and called Sally to see what the scoop was.
“Oh, Mark, I’m sorry, I was playing your record while I was working. I know you asked me not to play it for anyone but I didn’t know he was home. But yeah, he’s totally legit and he flipped over your record. He’s written screenplays for movies but this is the first one he’s written that he’s also gonna direct. He’s sort of high-strung but really passionate about making movies.”
“Yeah, I got that impression. Well, I’m gonna read his script and see where it goes from there. Thanks, sweetheart.”
Just a day later, FedEx delivered his screenplay. Having had no experience reading one, I found it slightly difficult to follow, to comprehend how it would end up looking on-screen. When I got to a certain scene in the movie, I shuddered. The kid in the lead role is taking care of his mom who has a broken leg or something and they end up having sex. I tried to picture Faye Dunaway as the mom and realized when she had played Joan Crawford, she had reminded me of my own mother. The thought of fucking either one of them sickened me to the core. I realized, of course, it was just a movie and I myself would not be required to fuck my mom, Faye Dunaway, or anyone else, but the thought of it sickened me the hell out and I was suddenly turned off by the entire thing.
I was also deep in my addiction and did not like the thought of having to leave the ten-block radius around my house. Going to the Northeast for any amount of time raised a multitude of problems in my mind. Instead of handling the situation like an adult, like a professional musician who gave a fuck about people, opportunity, and business, I instead simply never responded to Russell. He left several messages on my phone and always with the utmost respect. But like a self-centered child, I just never answered or returned any calls.
The movie was eventually released to great acclaim. The music of the band Morphine was used and the film catapulted them to great heights. I later saw his second picture in a theater and found it quite funny and interesting. Over the years, I watched with some selfish regret as David O. Russell became one of the biggest directors in Hollywood. Not because of his success, but because he was obviously a talented artist who’d wanted to collaborate with me and I had callously blown him off, missing out on what could have been an eye-opening and life-changing experience for me. Not that it mattered to him, I’m sure. To be in that business took a tenacity and thicker skin than almost any other corner of the entertainment industry. People in the movie world had to be bulldogs. I’m sure he already had plans B, C, and D waiting in the wings if using my tunes didn’t pan out.
I was a drug addict first and foremost. My main issue had been leaving my comfort zone for an unknown place where I’d be forced to find a source of heroin when I could just stay home and be fine. I turned down many opportunities in those days for the same reason. But he was right, it was just the first one, there will be lots more. Words that were to haunt me for years to come.
But it was my habit of avoidance by not answering the phone when I wanted to hide from something that was soon to really haunt me. Not in regard to this, but something much deeper and closer to home, with much more devastating results.
20
PARASITE CHILD
In early November of 1993, shortly after I’d finished Whiskey for the Holy Ghost, Kurt asked me if I wanted to do a version of the Lead Belly song “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” with Nirvana on the show MTV Unplugged. That was the song we’d recorded for our aborted blues project and I had ended up using on my first solo record. He was always looking for ways to shine light on my talents and lift me up, but his ideas often struck me as slightly embarrassing, inappropriate charity, if you will. It just felt weird to me as a relatively unknown singer to come out and do a song with the biggest band in the world during a taping of what was a very popular show. I respectfully declined.
“Okay, I’m gonna sing it, then,” he said. “Just like you did it, brother, if that’s cool with you.”
Flattered, I had responded, “You sing it however you want, I didn’t write it. I only sang it like that because your guitar playing inspired it.”
He asked me to meet him for lunch on Capitol Hill and pick up some heroin for him on the way. I had enough dough to cover it and met him for lunch at a bar. By that time, it was an unusual occurrence for him to meet me out in public in daytime, but on this occasion he did and in the gray, dark midafternoon, no one seemed to take notice of us as we drank Cokes and half finished some sandwiches before he said he had to go. As I turned to walk south toward my place on First Hill, he asked me to walk with him up to the ATM.
I thought nothing of it because for years while out in public, even long before Nirvana was on the map, he had acted as though he were uncomfortable walking around with me out in the world unless I were right at his side. Whenever we were out together, he had a tendency to stay very close to me, walk right beside me. As though I were his bodyguard, big brother, or boyfriend. He had always been somewhat skittish in public those times we’d been out and about together, and I felt a natural impulse to protect him and would have done so at all costs if it had ever been necessary. After the worldwide explosion of popularity had hit, he had sadly confided in me at one point: “You and Dylan are the only real friends I have. You guys are the only people in th
is world I trust anymore.” I felt an ache of guilt upon hearing that. Not only did I feel sad and worried for him but I thought, What kind of friend am I, really?
I had watched from the wings as what I’d always predicted and had tried so hard to convince some unbelievers of had actually come true. Now he was one of the biggest, most recognizable rock stars in the world. Even though he had his angry and sometimes petulant moments, he remained to a large degree just as normal a guy as the day we’d met. He had always had an ironclad will and intense drive. He had a capacity for cruelty like anyone else and I had witnessed it in action before. A sensitive, nonsocial, and thoughtful, quiet guy, highly intelligent with a wicked, biting, and sometimes caustic sense of humor, he was capable of slicing someone up or leaving them standing dick-in-hand feeling the fool if he turned it their way. But he had always been highly, if not overly, cautious to treat me with more kindness and respect than anyone else I knew, even if I was only delivering dope or performing some other task he did not want to do himself. He made me feel like a favored uncle or older brother.
He was disgusted by the pedestal he’d been set atop and the ass-kissing sycophants he encountered at every turn. His natural urge was to rebel against those things he considered the ugly, weak, non-punk aspects of mainstream stardom. He had strong opinions on what was cool and what wasn’t when it came to music and, with few exceptions, they lined up largely with my own. He craved isolation and yet often sought my company. He was much more comfortable getting high with one or two friends and listening to records or playing his guitar than he ever was in the raging spotlight of superstardom.
Once we got to the ATM machine, I stood watch as Kurt drew money out of several different accounts, what must have amounted to a few thousand dollars. He counted out a couple of hundred, stuck that in his pocket, and went to hand me the giant stack of twenties left over.