JOHN NIVEN : KILL YOUR FRIENDS AND SECOND COMING

 

 

 

I discovered John Niven's books in a peculiar way. Last October I went to see Joe Pernice play a gig in a small pub called the Wilmington Arms in the Clerkenwell area of London. At some point Pernice introduced a song by telling a story that John Niven (a friend of his) had told him prior to the gig that night. The story dating back to Niven's days in the record industry involved him choosing too sign long forgotten britpop combo Menswear instead of taking some shares in Yahoo. A Month and half later I was down in Brighton for the week-end. While we were waiting in the cinema before the screening of Art Will Save The World (review here : http://craigchaligne.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/art-will-save-world-film-about-luke.html), who enters the cinema with Mr Haines : John Niven (he's one of the talking heads in the movie too). I said to myself if this guy keeps popping up everywhere with musicians that I like, his books must be worth a read...

I went for the two novels featuring music mogul Steven Stellfox : Kill your Friends and Second Coming. 

 

The first one features Stellfox as an up and coming AR guy struggling to get a hit record. The book is set as the end of the 90's just before the music industry meltdown. We follow Stellfox in his crusade for fortune, which includes murdering colleagues, securing a distribution for a rather "crass" german dance record and spending an entire music convention locked up in a hotel room in Las Vegas taking drugs. Niven's insider knowledge of the music biz is really what makes the novel works. His description of the Midem convention that takes place every year in Cannes is mightily funny. Even though, the music business is described through Stellfox cynical eyes, you get the feeling that his views on the workers and artists must be pretty similar to Niven's (minus the musical tastes and absolute lack of any sense of morality). A very enjoyable read.

 

Second Coming is a different beast altogether. The main protagonist in the story is Jesus Christ sent back on earth by his father (God) to try and sort out the mess made by humans while he was away on a fishing trip (7 days in heaven time, 450 years on earth). We follow Jesus as he tries to spread his "Be Nice" theory while being an unsuccesfull musician in New York City. One Day he gets convinced by his bandmates to enter an "American Idol" like show where the main judge on the pannel is Steven Stellfox... Although quite differemt from Kill Your Friends, it shares one similarity with it : Niven doesn't mince his words with what he doesn't like (mainly about religion in this opus). You get plenty of music references (I'm sure Joe Pernice will appreciate the one on the Scud Mountain Boys) and it's still very funny (albeit slightly less than Kill Your Friends as the subject matter is less trivial)

I've just bought Amateurs, hope it's as good as these two.