Tiny moments…

Little flecks of time, seemingly inconsequential touches or thoughts that set a lifetime in motion.

I remember living in Perth Western Australia,  I had just decided that I was going to be a musician instead of a painter thanks to University killing any love of art I had at the time, “Do you mean that in a post modernist post post feminist sense or a post feminist post post modernist sense?” Music was great you didn’t have to justify anything to anyone, it just was. The music went boom and I went boom. Spit, blood, bruises and smiles.

Anyway, Perth, I walked into a record shop called 78’s that had some books, I loved Henry Rollins after seeing him perform on the ‘End of Silence’ tour so I picked up a few of his books and read them. I thought they were great. He was just out there doing it and as Brendan Behan would say “Fuck the begrudgers!”

So I discover he has his own publishing company called 2.13.61 and I went back to the shop and picked up a book that had the 2.13.61 logo on the spine. It was Tricia Warden’s “Brainlift“.  It picked me up and smashed me into little pieces. It wasn’t poetry or prose, it was like a thousand jabs straight at the nose. I loved her writing. I mean LOVED. I read and re read over a few days. I still love her writing and am hanging for her next book or project. (Check out Attack God Inside in the mean time, the review on Amazon is mine)

I remember writing a letter ( yes on paper) to her via 21361 (I think) and she actually replied. We traded a few letters and I met her in New York when I was over to visit me old man.

She turned out to be just as amazing and intense and brilliant in real life and radically changed how I viewed the world as an artist. After a million intense and brilliant conversations about life and art over cinnamon coffee’s (have been drinking since) I was fired up in the belly like never before. I was going to go home and start a band that expressed what I felt inside, the rage, the beauty, the energy, despair, hope. I said I would have a record out in six months on a label I liked.

As she and Joe her partner dropped me off in the car  on my last day I mentioned that I was stuck  for a name for this band.  She casually turned and  said,  “Non Intentional Lifeform”. That was it, I went home on fire, I could barely keep still on plane home, I started Non Intentional Lifeform/N.I.L, signed to Roadrunner records and had a record out in six months. From there on in there was now way out or back, and nor did i want to take a step back. It has been a blast since. All because I randomly picked up a book in a shop on a 38c day in the most isolated city on earth.