The Singer by Cathi Unsworth Read Free Book Online

Sylvana was back at Vincent’s side and maintained a Yoko-like presence there during the rest of the torturous month-and-a-half long session. In that time, Mullin was arrested for drunken disorder, Kevin Holme was hospitalised for injuries apparentlycaused by the rest of the band, and Lynton Powell began quietly following in Sylvana and Smith’s trackmarks.
    Even so, the resultant ‘Butchers’ Brew’ (Powell’s idea, now that he was seeing more clearly where Miles had been coming from) remains a post-punk masterpiece, up there with Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’ and PiL’s ‘Metal Box’. Whatever conflicts they endured only seemed to galvaniseBlood Truth into even greater musical feats. On the week of its release, late in May 1981, it entered the UK national charts at 25 and the band headlined the Lyceum Ballroom, their biggest London date and a total sell-out. Smith and Mullin managed to keep it together for what aficionados generally regard as the greatest gig of the band’s career.
    Sadly, this triumph was to be short-lived. Threeweeks later, after a violent argument with her husband, Sylvana Smith took a fatal overdose in Paris.
    Blood Truth never played together again. The split was so acrimonious that Mullin vowed he would never so much as step into the same room as Smith again, blaming the singer not only for putting a woman before his friends to the cost of his band, but also (and with some justification) for turningPowell into a junkie. Smith remained in Paris for six months after Sylvana’s death, depressed and alone. Finally, he packed up his belongings from their shared apartment in Montmartre and disappeared into the night on New Year’s Eve 1981, never to be heard of again.
    In this post-Richie Manic world, Vincent Smith’s exit from the music business would have been spectacular, ensuring for him enduringnotoriety and endless front cover features on every anniversary of his moonlight flit. But in 1981, a nearly-popular goth/punk band were never going to be the stuff of such legend. Smith remained a curio for the next couple of years, like his hero Elvis he popped up in supermarkets and bars on three continents, but it didn’t take long for everyone to move on to something else. The Birthday Party,Southern Death Cult, The Sisters of Mercy – skinny young men with black hair and mysterious personas were a booming genre.
    Today it is likely that Alien Sex Fiend have left a more lasting impression than Blood Truth, which, like the rest of this tale, is atragedy. Anyone moved by this Gothic Love Story is urged to seek out the compilation
Shots
, released by Exile on CD to an indifferent worldin 1997, and listen to the future as it could have been.
    My heart was pounding by the time I reached the end of all this.
    Fuck.
    Who was the author of this piece? It was signed MG.
    I scrolled back up to the top of the web page, looking for elaboration on these credits. There was a little editorial box on the side of the page, listing contributors: David Burbeck, Andrew Hain, Sara Spedding,Kenneth Cox, Annie Hanson, Mick Greer…
    Mick Greer
. The name rang a vague bell somewhere in the memory vault.
    Sweating now, I pulled off my overcoat and scarf and threw them onto the sofa.
    Fuck. Mick Greer. I knew that name. About to punch Granger’s number into the mobile when it came to me.
    Greer was Granger’s old partner in the
NME
days. The one that provided most of the ink that went withhis images – the John Lydon piece, the Ian Curtis, the Siouxsie Sioux. Of course. They must have done their Blood Truth pieces together, the two Gs.
    Fuck. What if this Greer cunt had already had the same idea that I did? What if he had it ages ago? If he already had a book deal? He knew the fucking band, for Christ’s sake…
    Back over to the sofa, rummaging for my fags in my coat pocket. Onlya book of matches swiped from the Market Bar to light them with, fumbling to rip one off with sweaty palms, practically