Nikki Sudden R.I.P. : July 19 1956 - March 26 2006

Nikki Sudden Eulogy by Andrew Bean

There are several different ways I could use this opportunity to celebrate Nikki's life. I could go with the factual approach, and list his achievements. I could tell some amusing anecdotes, but this isn't really the place, and besides, some of them can be found in his autobiography. Instead, I'd like to concentrate on three aspects of his character that I found most endearing: his gregariousness, his charm, and his self-belief.

Firstly, I'm thinking of how he would be happy to spend time with fans, and make friends with them. With me, this was apparent from our first encounter. When I sent off for my copies of the first Swell Maps releases, I'd get my records with laboriously hand-written lyrics, chord notations, and long letters. If everyone else who sent off for those records got the same treatment, it's not surprising that he and the band built up such a loyal following of friends and fans.

At live shows, Nikki was never unapproachable, and always happy to meet fans, stay & drink with them, and generally treat them with more courtesy than is often expected from touring musicians.

Some years later, when I was playing drums in Nikki's band, I also noticed that we were treated rather differently by club owners while in Europe. I'd certainly never before been to a club where the promoters invited the band round to their house for breakfast the next morning, or paid for an extra night's hotel so we could stay over on our day off, look round the city, and then see the band who were playing at the club the following night. This relationship Nikki had with promoters clearly often went beyond mere "networking", thanks to his great charm.

He also loved to work musically with anyone who crossed his path, whether it be more well-known names like Peter Buck or Rowland S. Howard, or a non-musician friend like myself, who he tried to use three times before he finally found an instrument I wouldn't embarrass him with.

Nikki loved being English, but also loved to travel. For all his good-natured griping about being unable to speak or understand German despite having lived in Berlin for the best part of a decade, he enjoyed being an Englishman abroad. He remained firmly rooted by means of the things he loved, whether it was historical novels, glam rock, English boys magazines from the first half of the 20th century, Biggles books, folk music, prisoner-of-war films, or 'Thunderbirds'.

He wasn't so happy about the Americanisation of other cultures (or, as he put it, 'the world sloping down into eternal tourism'), but loved country & blues music. He also liked some more unexpected American imports…I remember him repeatedly trying to get me to watch 'Dallas', for some reason, and among his favourites appeared a couple of disco records…and not just the ones by Rod Stewart & the Rolling Stones!

Nikki had more self-belief than anyone I've ever met. Whether this manifested itself by Swell Maps paying for and releasing their first single independently, before it became relatively commonplace to do so, or Nikki's perseverance despite being effectively dropped from Rough Trade because his first solo records didn't sound enough like Swell Maps, Nikki always did everything his own way.

If he said he was going to get a former member of the Rolling Stones or the Faces to play on his record, it didn't seem like an unlikely scenario to him, and he'd do it. If he said he was going to write his autobiography, he'd do it. He remained positive even when it looked like there might not be funds for a recording session, or if a record might not get released…he never accepted the possibility that he wouldn't succeed, and he never gave up.

Despite not achieving major success by conventional standards, he still managed to release a constant stream of music, maintain his online journals, and play regular concerts all over the world. More recently, he also completed his very honest and extremely detailed autobiography, and a book about Ron Wood.

Nikki actually provided the best way for me to remember him on his MySpace web page. While the page now also has a great number of tributes from fans, there are also lists of Nikki's favourite music, books & films, and biographical details. Along with the jocular untruths about his age and his place of birth, it reads: "Occupation: Rock & Roll Star".

Nikki Sudden Eulogy by John C.Barry

Man on a mission.

Years ago I met the Faulk brothers. They were responsible for bringing Bob Dylan over to play at the Isle Of White pop festival in the1960`s. Nikki enjoyed me re-telling their story, not only because he was a big Dylan fan, but also because the tale had something of a bucaneer taste to it, involving as it did the twin brothers crossing the Atlantic with a suitcase full of booty.They were, after all,men on a mission, cut from the same cloth he was... and when they met the unenthusiastic Dylan,they opened the suitcase which was full to the brim with cash......and Dylan agreed to play the festival.`Money doesn`t talk it swears´,Dylan once wrote. I don`t think Nikki got to see that many suitcases full of cash during his musical career, though that is not to say he wasn`t sucessful....because he was.

Ever since the emergence of rock `n´Roll in the `50`s , boys have come together to share instruments,songs and dreams.Most don`t even make it past the first hurdle and of the legions of hopefuls, few get to go on tour or have a record released.Nikki did.He did with his first band Swell Maps, he did with The Jacobites ...and he continued touring and releasing records as a solo artist. For thousands of aspiring musicians out there, Nikki`s life must look like a dream come true.He played just about anywhere-there was an interest in Rock`n´Roll,all over the world: bars,gallery openings,club concerts,festivals,radio shows,television.He was a man on a mission.

For those of you present who have never been `on the road´with a band, (and I think there might be at least 2 or 3 who haven`t here today), allow me one minute to explain what it was like for Nikki and his merry band of men,and often Barbara ! Most of the time is spent in a kind of cocoon on wheels.This is known as the band bus,the interior smell of which varies depending on how much importance each musician pays to his own personal hygiene.Nikki sometimes liked to think of it as a kind of ship sailing an asphalt sea on it`s way to a new adventure.Yes that is a romantic notion, but we all know Nikki was a romantic kinda guy. Many hours are spent confined in this cocoon listening to music, talking, reading or briefly falling asleep,..and yes this did sometimes include the driver.But in the evening all the hours of confinement are forgotten when it`s time to do what you came for,...when it`s time to play! The band takes to the stage and launches into whatever song Nikki has chosen as an opener, and suddenly everything is well with the world. He was a good band leader ,a good Captain was Nikki.....but sometimes incorrigible, impossible in his own way !

A musician friend of his recently told me of how he`d been on tour with Nikki in the 90`s.Carl and Phil Schönfeld were in the band at the
time.They all had a very long drive in front of them. Nikki, who was usually responsible for the selection of music in the band bus, had only two casette tapes with him.The first tape contained 14 different mixes of the same Nikki song. He listened to all 14 versions as his fellow musicians grew more and more restless, but then with mutiny in the air,...he finally agreed to play the second cassette. This second tape was devoted entirely to the songs of....... Shirley Bassey.

So,..incorrigible on occasion? Yes.Vain ?...well that`s no secret is it.Wrapped up in his own Rock`n´Roll world ? Yes, very much so ! But we are here today to celebrate him because he was also a very DECENT man, a LOYAL person, someone who LOVED his parents and treated his friends with RESPECT... and showed KINDNESS to strangers. An HONEST man, a FAIR person, a GENTLE man and gentleman.

Although Nikki left no children,he did leave a large community of friends and fans behind,..spread all over the globe. Some of them are here today but many more are wishing they could be,.. here with us in this Church.Nikki had a great talent when it came to bringing people together, and many of us have found friends through him.For this, we should be thankfull,...as well as for the many good times we all shared with him. No-one can take these memories away from us.

I would like to finish with a short quote from one of his favourite authors, James Nelson.It`s from a book on pirates entitled `The Only Life That Mattered´.Nikki was very fond of this little line and repeated it on many occassions : `A short life but a merry one´.

We all hope you found your Treasure Island Nikki, rest in peace.

Well, this time, I was wrong. Sadly enough. Last time I spoke to Nikki was in October 2005. He phoned me just to let me know that Dave K's gig in Berlin was absolutely brilliant and I had to go (Nikki sometimes sounded like a rock'n'roll father when he spoke or mailed to me about popular music, well, sometimes he had good advices, but I will never like the Stones that much...) to see Dave here in Muenster. As I anyway helped organizing Dave's show in Muenster ("Monster", as Nikki used to call it), I obviously went there, it was a very fine show. Plus, it was great seeing Dave again. I thought, Nikki should have been there, but he could not make it. So that was the last time I was in contact with Nikki.

The first time did exist tow times: The first first time was when a German radio DJ played "Kiss at Dawn" in the 1980s. I loved this DJ and the things he played, a bit like a German John Peel. When I listened to "Kiss at Dawn" I thought... ...nothing... because I f-e-l-t this very intense moment of feedback driven romanticism or whatever. I immediately l-o-v-e-d Nikki's style, this kind of bohemian loser-winner-shoegazer-touch. I went to 'my' local record shop, started getting in touch with Nikki's and later Dave's stuff. Obviously "Robespierre" early became a 'record for the island' as you say in Deutschiland.

So Nikki and Dave 'accompanied' me a couple of years and all through my first experiences with women. Strange they were there all the time without being physically there, in my sweet moments of first love as well the bitter ones of hate and loss. Their music (and this one goes out to Dave as well, old pal!) helped me out so many times! Thanks for that, blokes!

Second time I really met Nikki was after a show in Muenster around 1990. I went to the merchandising desk first. A couple of drinks later I went into the tour bus and went to Düsseldorf being the new merchandiser...

The most important aspect about Nikki the way I used to get to know him is that he always was a very polite, very british guy, maybe this was why he hated it when people called him a punk rocker (and because of this disliking being called a punk he w-a-s a kind of punk rocker to me). When he stayed at my flats in Muenster several times years ago, he cooked some tea and we had a lot of conversations about music, literature, arts, and society. He sometimes was so wonderfully anti-rock'n'roll! Well, he was just an ordinary guy with glasses, and that was the side of him I liked very much. I mean, please do not get me wrong, but several aspects of the so called rock'n'roll-lifestyle always seemed strange to me. But anyway, Nikki, whatever you did, I most of the time felt it was authentic. Your death, to me, was not hanging over you, you always seemed to be so busy, having so many plans. The busy quick-stepping man crossing the road, me trying to follow him. This I will always keep in my mind.

My heartfelt sympathies go out to Epic's and Nikki's parents who I only met once - at Epic's tribute show in London. I feel so sorry! What a waste the brothers crossed the line both now!

Because Nikki invited me, I have been to Epic's tribute shows in London and Berlin years ago and played some of his songs with my old pal Joerg. We called ourselves "The Fallen Downs". I would have loved to join the Nikki tribute show in London the same way but unfortunately I have to be at a big conference in Istanbul this time. If I had the chance I would come to London and play a version of "Ambulance Station" - I would call it "In the Ambulance Station Never Again"... This time, it has been the kiss of death.

Nikki: Thank you so much for getting in touch through you with so many nice people, especially Jeremy, Dave K, Glenn, Carl, Epic, Marky, Max-the-roadie, Max Décharné, Phil, Paul and Kevin.

R.I.P. Nikki and sorry for my lack of communication over the last months... Christoph Pissed-Off (well, this is how Dave K calls me!)

June 16th, Christoph Jacke, Muenster/Germany

P.S.: One more oddity: "New York" always was one of your songs that I really liked the most. I always asked for it when you played a show to make you a bit angry, because you never seemed to like to play it...

The next time I went record shopping, I bought as much of Nikki's stuff as I could find. It slowly crept up on me and I found myself listening to it almost every day. Another incorrect assumption was that the Jacobites had split for good. Upon reading an NME, it appeared that they were back together and that a new album, Howling Good Times, was due to be released. Soon, I found myself on the Cheapside newsletter mailing list. I'm really not sure how, but it happened anyway. Whilst placing an order for some bits and pieces, I included a letter, as they'd been incouraging people to correspond with them. As luck would have it, Nikki wrote back and from then on, we always kept in touch, exchanging letters and eventually some of my own music, which Nikki was very encouraging about.

Shortly after Nikki's brother, Epic Soundtracks died, we arranged to meet up in a pub in Leamington just before Christmas. He arrived and handed me a copy of a Cheapside issue in progress that had originally been intended for Epic. We hit it off and wandered around the town. Every so often, I had to remind myself that this was Nikki Sudden I was walking around with, not just one of my friends! Both Nikki and Dave were heroes of mine, who ended up becoming my friends and just happened to be two of the best songwriters there's ever been. Another trait I had in common with Nikki, was our ability to hear an entire arrangement, note-for-note, of any new song that either of us would write, prior to recording. He was the only other person I knew that could do this and told me that I was the only person he knew that could do it, too.

We got to work together on one or two things and I spent many hours watching Nikki work in the studio. I caught up with him over Christmas and again at the beginning of the year, as he put the finishing touches to his new album. I remember telling him how strong the new songs were and how good his vocals were sounding. We shared his tin of baked beans and my Mum's Christmas cake and mince pies. That was to be the last time I'd ever see him.

My thoughts are with Nikki's parents, who have now lost both of their incredibly gifted boys. Also, his friends and band mates past and present, especially Dave. I know that Nikki was very proud of his songs - in particular, his lyrics, which he tirelessly edited and revised until he was finally happy with them. His music is every bit as wonderful as that of his own influences and deserves to be recognised as such. When I listen today, it sounds more beautiful than ever and the songs don't really make me sad. I just miss my mate.

Sweet dreams

Tim Chaplin

My mind flashed back to over a decade and a half of incredible scenarios that I had been lucky enough to share with this great man.

We first met around 1990 when he came around my house with some white-labelled vinyl records that he had just recorded with some of the members of REM. He was going on tour of Europe with Glenn Tranter playing bass, and needed a driver - I offered.
We went - I started out as the driver, and I returned as the bass player with Glenn as the guitarist and Felix on drums.

It was the beginning of what most musicians would have considered a dream - in fact, I cannot believe we actually got paid for doing what we did. I feel very privileged to have shared the next 15 years with Nikki. He was certainly a very unique character. Wherever he went, telephones rang, people turned up from nowhere - he was just about to jet off to do that solo gig in some far away country - to be back again to start the 3 month tour of Europe in two days time. I remember feeling enchanted by his songs and was quite in awe of the enigmatic life that he led. We toured, and recorded, as both Nikki's band with various line-ups, and as the Jacobites which had a stable line-up. We went to many beautiful countries and cities. We met many interesting people.

Nikki was a good person. He was always was fair - he would automatically help people wherever he could. An amazingly warm character, he had a unique and charismatic 'aristocratic' charm that is a rare commodity in any person. It was this charm that shined through in so many of the great songs and gave them that extraordinary individual quality, which any artist would find impossible to upstage.

Nikki was an incredible person - he would just never run out of energy. With his baroque style of dress, and a boyish fascination with all things Rock n Roll - mostly the Rolling Stones - he carved his own little niche out of the music world. A genuine and unique niche that was a far cry from the cardboard cut-out commercialism that has dominated the face of music for so long. Nikki was his own cottage industry - a song smith, an author, a poet, an organiser, an actor and an icon - he just had this knack of seemingly being able to achieve the impossible, wherever creativity beckoned.

Nikki would churn out song after song, all fuelled with that romantic charm that embellished his life and gave him that special gift, which others simply could only wish that they possessed. With songs like the heartstring pulling 'Cathy', and the haunting 'Death is hanging over me', to epics like 'Big Store Orig', and the unforgettable ' Midget Submarines', the unique talent that earned the respect of so many people worldwide never failed to create a work of art.

Nikki managed to attract a passionate fan base that would seem to turn up no matter what obscure place we happened to be playing. He was a magnet for beautiful adoring women that would just appear from nowhere, wherever we went.

I guess you could never really capture such a unique and charming character in a few lines. To sum up Nikki, you would need a whole book. He was a true Rock 'n' Roll troubadour.

I had the privilege of playing with many fine musicians as part of both the Jacobites - Nikki, Dave, Glenn, and Marky - and Nikki's band, which included Phil Shoenfelt, Kevin Juniour, Freedy Linx, Kevin Lymn, Max Decharne, Terry Miles, Anthony Illarde, Stephan, Robbie Schmidt, (rhythm God) and Felix - amongst others. I'm sure that all would agree with me when I say that we were part of something very, very special.

It is with great sadness that I say farewell to my dear friend - it really does feel like I've lost a member of my family.

Goodbye Nikki - may you rest in peace.

Carl Eugene Picot

Sadly many venues here, and in Bloomington were unwilling to have Nikki play. Radio, Radio, The Melody and second story (in Bloomington) just to name a few. I was going to provide the drink, food, give Nikki a little spending money, and pay his air fair and let him stay at my house.and that was just fine with him. He was that kind of a free-sprited troubadour. We were even going to work with my small studio and record some songs together while he was here.

Nikki was not a rock star, he was not pretentious, He was a beautiful soul, he had a beautiful and bruised heart and live in the beauty that he created. (and he created it like no other could.) I did not know Nikki as well as many of you did, He was never to busy to write me or to IMPORTANT to write me, all the way until the last time I heard from him just a few days before his heart breaking death.

In an email dated just days earlier he said, "will be in N.Y. in a day or two, hope to see you there." (I had missed the N.Y. show in '04) My heart is truly heavy and it goes out to everyone from Dave K, to Nikki's parents and all of you who knew and loved Nikki as much as I did.

I just want to say one last thing to my great friend Nikki:

"You were bruised and beautiful in life as I'm sure you will be in death, Tonight I drink you to my old friend, it's not the first time nor will it be the last" Tell Epic hello for us all. Sweet dreams Nikki."

Bill Bruton.

On behalf of David, Darrell and myself I would like thank everyone who came to the 12 Bar Club last week to lend their support in what has been a difficult time for all of us. It wasn't a tribute concert or a memorial, it was a Jacobites gig to which one of them unfortunately didn't make it. Anyone who ever knew Nikki, knows that the show always goes on. Dave knew this too, so with a moments notice Darrell and myself stepped up to support our old and dear friends. We rehearsed until six in the morning and were all very tired and emotional, but as soon as we went on the audience gave us great energy and appreciation, I hope Nikki didn't have too many criticisms.

It was the first time I had played the 12 bar since playing with Nikki in 1997, with Max Decharne and Carl Picot. He broke a string on the second number and put the guitar down for the rest of the set, when I was trying to follow the changes.... there will be a few players out there who know how that feels! It made Wednesday a little more poignant for me personally.

Ten years earlier I had found the 'When the Rain Comes' single in a Virgin bargain bin in Sheffield, I bought it unheard because I liked the ray-ban death mask cover. It all started there for me. I would meet Dave a year later and play in his band for a time in the nineties. Through Dave I met Nikki and my flat in North London became a regular stop-off whenever he was in town. It was somewhere he could relax and didn't feel the need to impress, drinking brandy and coffee while reading my Rolling Stones books through ridiculously thick glasses. Looking up occasionally to ask me what was this shit we were listening to - that's Pavement.... and they are children of the Swell Maps so he had better get used to it. Epic knew....

I have been thinking this week about the huge part Nikki played in our lives and how he was the link between countless friends, fans and players. I explained this much to Lois and Trevor when I finally raised the courage to call them, one week on. I met my bass player Tetsuo while playing with Nikki, he also introduced me to another dear, dear friend Kevin Junior, who has also rarely left my thoughts over this
last week and I dearly hope will read this.

My lasting memory of Nikki will be of him completing his diary after gigs and before the digital revolution caught up with him. Never resting, always thinking and with lightning fast responses, he made everything happen for himself never waiting for a red carpet or a big car. There is a lesson for all of us here. He was a truly independant boy, a cottage industry of free and uncorrupted rock 'n' roll, of which he was his own diligent archivist and biographer. And if the reality was a little too drizzly to bear, he would just make it up a bit. And there is nothing wrong with that.

The sadness is unbearable, that Lois and Trevor must live the rest of their lives without their two boys. For many of us, this was our immediate reaction on the news of Nikki's death. I sincerely hope it will be of some comfort to say that their lives were well lived, they were good people; both very important musicians and their hard work and commitment to what they believed in is there to be heard in every one of those many records. There has been an extraordinary and scary number of deaths, immediately surrounding this music and we must resolve again as we did after Epic left and more recently (Desperate) Dave Burns - to appreciate and look out for each other and not to
judge too readily.

Many people have been asking after David, he is obviously very upset but is okay, except sounding a bit fluey on my answering machine tonight. He has lost his long time writing partner and co-conspirator of their unique brand of music. They could fall out but always came back together and continued to be a great influence on the following generations of players and songwriters including myself. To me they will always be my mentors, my Captains.

Paul Caton, London. 5th April 2006

I first met Nikki at a Jacobites gig in December 2003. I’d seen posters for the gig, and the name Nikki Sudden seemed to ring a bell. For some reason it made me think of Johnny Thunders; it is possible I had read something Nikki’d written about Johnny. Anyway, I decided to go to the gig. I arrived at 11 p.m., much too late, or at least so I thought. Nikki and Dave (Kusworth) had already started playing. I jotted down in my notebook things along the lines of ”This is the strangest concert I’ve ever seen; they refuse to play complete songs and when they do, most of the lyrics are but muttered or not sung into the microphone at all! They are dressed like residents of the Chelsea Hotel, ’round 1970.”

When the boys got off stage I went up to Nikki and asked him if that was it! He replied: ”That was only the sound check!”, which explained a lot, really! I didn’t speak more with Nikki that night, although I had him and Dave sign a copy of Robiespierre’s Velvet Basement for me (still one of my favourite Nikki records). I was probably a little browbeaten by Nikki and Dave’s ”rock star aura”, and thusly didn’t dare to approach them further. I needn’t have feared: I later learned Nikki to be wholly unpretentious.

Around the same time, I had read on Nikki’s website that he had arranged hootenannies at the Bellman Bar and on my first night there; in walks Nikki with company. He sits down by the piano and plays a little ditty (perhaps what would later become ”All This Buttoning and Unbuttoning”), then rises to go sit by the bar. ”Hey, Mr. Sudden! I really like your music,” says I. Nikki says "thanks" and sits down by my table. I tell him I saw him with Kusworth and we get to talking, finding a wealth of mutual musical favourites: Dylan, Fairport, the Stones, Bowie, T. Rex. From when we later sat together by the bar, I have a very clear visual recollection of looking at Nikki and myself in the mirror behind the whiskey bottles and thinking I'd come upon a person that'd be important to me.

Nikki was my rock 'n' roll professor. When I went into the studio to make my first album in February last year, he was there for me, sharing his experience from his 30 odd years in the business, helping me with lyrics, arrangements and playing guitar. From the very start of our friendship, if I ever wanted to borrow a guitar, a record or a book, he would always say "yes" immediately. In fact, on the night he died I was playing his Telecaster at a club here in Berlin, opening up for Nikki's friend Hugo Race. Hanging out backstage with several people from the eighties Berlin music scene, I kept thinking Nikki should have been there, too, but I knew he was happy when he was touring and he loved New York City. I learnt the sad news the day after.

During the course of 2005 I did several sessions with Nikki, not only for my own album, but for his soon-to-be-released new record The Truth Doesn't Matter. I am immensely proud to have played on that record, and the memories from the often hilarious, and always rewarding sessions will be with me forever. So will the memory of a friendship that changed my life.

Three days before Nikki died his brother Epic Soundtracks would have celebrated his 47th birthday, but Epic passed away in 1997. Nikki loved and missed his brother so much. He told me of a dream he had shortly after Epic died in which Epic came and asked Nikki to join him. Now they're together.

My thoughts go out to Trevor and Lois Godfrey, and the rest of Nikki's family and friends. Rest in peace, my dear Nikki.

Your pal Einar

Taken From: http://www.einarstenseng.com

It is with sadness we report the death of songwriter and musician Nikki Sudden, an early friend of The Waterboys, who died after his show in New York on Sunday night, 26th March. Cause of death has not been announced. Nikki and Mike Scott spent a lot of time together in London in the early 1980s, and Mike, Anthony Thistlethwaite and early Waterboys drummer Kevin Wilkinson all played on Nikki's 1982 album 'Bible Belt'. In fact, Mike first heard Anthony play on Nikki's 1981 song 'Johnny Smiled Slowly'.

The Waterboys' version of Nikki's song 'Cathy' is on the remastered version of 'A Pagan Place', issued in 2002, and Nikki features as "Augustus" in Mike's song 'The Late Train To Heaven', on the same record. In recent months Mike and Nikki were in correspondence, sharing memories for Nikki's autobiography. We offer our sincere condolences to Nikki's family.

Taken from http://www.mikescott.com

The first time I met Nikki in the old "Rock On " record stall in Covent Garden, London, for example. It must have been early 1978 because Nikki was there with a box of "Read About Seymour", the first single by Swell Maps that would later top the UK independent charts and end up selling 25,000 copies. He was trying to strike a deal with Stan and Phil, the owners of the shop, by offering to let them have a few copies on spec. I'd heard of the Maps through the music press, of course, but I had no idea that the guy selling the records right now was their singer and guitarist. I was just aware of this intense young man standing beside me whose mental processes seemed to be moving at the speed of light. As I found out years later, this intuition proved to be correct: Sudden by stagename, Sudden by nature, the guy never slowed down for a minute. We swapped small talk for a few minutes, yakking about the groups we liked, then went our separate ways. I moved to New York in 1979, where I formed my post-punk band Khmer Rouge, and though Nikki also spent time in the Big Apple we were destined never to meet there.

Khmer Rouge came and went, and by the time I moved back to London in 1984 I was living in heroin hell. Much of that period is a blur to me now, there are a lot of black holes in my memory. But when I next ran into Nikki in 1993 I'd finally managed to kick the monkey off my back, and I remember the occasion well. It was at a party in west London, in the flat of Annie Nightingale, the Radio One DJ whom Nikki was dating at the time. I'd just released my second solo CD, God Is The Other Face Of The Devil, and the Jacobites' Howlin' Good Times was about to be released on the same label. Dave Kusworth was also there, and I recall that at one point Annie had a tantrum over something or other. Nikki tried to calm things down - not too successfully, as it happens - but with that expression of arch humour in his eyes that I came to know so well a few years later.

It's 1996, and I've relocated to Prague. I'm standing in the audience at the now-defunct Bunkr Club, watching Nikki play a blinder with his Czech backing band the Golden Angels. With an ash-laden cigarette dangling from his mouth, bandanas and bangles everywhere, he looks like the ragamuffin younger brother of Keith, Johnny and Marc. A Rock & Roll Gypsy; the last bandido on the block; the living embodiment of the scatter-gun polemics of Lester Bangs and Nick Kent. I'm impressed, I'm jealous, I'm blown away, I wanna play in his band. His guitar solos are ripping through the air, raising the hairs on my arms and neck. If this ain't nirvana, then nirvana ain't worth having.

Later, I go backstage to get reaquainted and we end up hanging out. Plans are made to write some songs together, and a few weeks later Nikki shows up at my place in the Prague suburbs. My wife Jolana christens him The Little Prince, and while we get down to work she cooks some goulash then goes out to buy a bottle of Jack. Only it isn't work, it's a game. He writes one line, I write the next, and it's a big competition to see who can come up with the most outlandish images. It's a little like that game school children used to play before they discovered Playstation and MTV. Nikki throws out lyrics and chord progressions at an amazing rate - between thought and expression just a momentary flash - and after two days of this we have about twenty songs written down. Some of them are great, some not so great, but we're having a lot of fun. On one of his subsequent visits Nikki plays as special guest of Southern Cross, and we try a few of them out in front of 20,000 people at the annual Trutnov festival.

Another memory hits me. Nikki has booked some recording time at a studio in the back room of a pub on top of a Moravian mountain. God knows how he found this place - probably through the Golden Angels - but we drive down there in my old green Skoda which overheats all the way up the mountain. Finally it breaks down a kilometer short of the pub, so we end up lugging the guitars the rest of the distance. We record a few songs and Nikki does a quick mix onto DAT, and all things considered the session sounds pretty good. One of the songs, Broken Glove, ends up on Egyptian Roads, a rare Sudden CD released by the Czech label Indies. I don't know what happened to the other songs, and I guess I'll never find out now.

November 1997, and I'm on tour in Germany, playing guitar in Nikki's band. Carl Eugene Picot of the Jacobites is on bass, and Berliner Robbie Schmidt is behind the drums. By now Nikki has moved to Berlin on a permanent basis and is touring constantly. It's madness, it's mayhem, it's Rock & Roll excess - sex-mad women everywhere, all of them trying to get a piece of the action. Mad Frau Disease, as Carl charmingly calls it. Robbie has a bit of a drug problem, though. This means we have to stop at the train station before each gig, so he can jump out of the van and cop something to get himself straight for the concert. One night there are 20 people in the audience, the next night there are 300. Nikki doesn't seem to give a damn as long as there is some kind of crowd, a gathering of people who know his songs and are willing to join in the party. And they do. Everywhere we play there is a great outpouring of love, even when we're totally destroyed and ramshackle. Nikki remembers every face he's ever met, and strikes up conversations with obsessed fans he encountered on some previous occasion. If they want to buy a totally obscure demo tape he recorded in his bedroom ten years ago, no problem. He jots down names and addresses, takes orders, and promises to post the stuff on when the tour is finished.

Each night we return to the hotel totally smashed. That is, when we can find it. Sometimes Nikki disappears into the night with the map still in his pocket, having neglected to hand it over before being kidnapped by some exquisite young beauty. Up in the morning at 8am for another 700 km drive, all of us half dead and nursing devilish hangovers. All of us except Nikki, of course, who claims he never gets them. While the band tries to grab a bit of sleep, he's working away on his laptop, writing up his tour journals for the day before or working on his novel-in-progress, Albion Sunrise. This is a huge sprawling tract set in eighteen century London, and somehow Johnny Thunders and Jerry Lee Lewis keep turning up in the narrative - by time-travel, I guess - swapping gory tales in some low East End dive with the notorious hangman Jack Ketch. I can't follow the plot, it keeps mutating all the time, each day there's another 10,000 words that Nikki insisits I read and pass comment on. He wakes me up out of a troubled dream and encourages me to record my impressions of the previous night's gig while he gets to work on some chord charts. Yet more songs from his extensive back catalogue to be learned in soundcheck and performed at tonight's gig. And so it goes, and so it goes, you get the general picture. As an artist Nikki was totally driven, never allowing the pace to falter or slow down, and he pushed himself to the limit in order to communicate his vision to others.

Right at the end of this tour Nikki gets news that his brother Epic Soundtracks has died in London. The exact circumstances surrounding his death are unknown, and remain so to this day, but as the body wasn't discovered for over a week it all sounds pretty horrific. Nikki jets out of Berlin to comfort his distraught parents and to organise the removal of Epic's possessions from the flat in which he died. I can only imagine what that must have been like. Sitting there in the room of death, sorting through the thousands of LPs, CDs, demos, books and diaries that his beloved sibling had accumulated over the years. He takes it upon himself to organise Epic's estate, compiling and sifting, cataloguing and enumerating, choosing songs for future release on labels he's already begun to contact. There's legal shit to sort out, copyrights and publishing deals, agreements and record contracts to negotiate. But he's determined that his brother's name will live on, that one day the whole world will be made aware of the wonderful music he left behind.

Then it's January 1998 and we're back on the road for another three week European tour. No one knows how many tears Nikki has shed in private, but he's not the type of guy who expects tea and sympathy. Apart from Johnny and Keith, Marc and Jerry Lee, his other main role model is Captain W.E. John's "Biggles", the World War II flying ace familiar to schoolboys of my generation. Biggles would never have allowed personal loss to stand in the way of what had to be done, and Nikki is of a similar turn of mind. Very British somehow, in an old-fashioned kind of way, very stoical and self-contained. Nevertheless, it's hard going this time. Nikki is tired, worn out in fact, which means he's a little less insistent about us filling in the infernal tour diary. He still keeps himself busy, though. There's an achingly beautiful new song, Elizabethan Balladeer, that I assume is about Epic, and gradually it becomes the centre piece of the set.

Nikki has already organised a memorial concert in London, and now there's to be another one at Roter Salon in Berlin. Swell Maps reunite for the gig, with Robbie sitting in on drums, and the place is packed out with friends past and present who have flown in from all over Europe. Nikki is emotionally drained after the concert, but he insists on setting up a recording session in a Berlin studio to capture the vibe of the tour before it's lost. Two days later we start laying down tracks with Dugald Jayes as engineer. The standout piece, for me, is a 26 minute version of Hanoi Jane that mutates into Can's Mother Sky by way of Midget Submarines. It's all recorded at deafening volume, and Dugald is in despair as Nikki pushes the faders to the max. But to my ears it all sounds great, huge howling maelstroms of guitar feedback interspersed with heavy riffing and solid basslines from Carl. The drums are a bit out, it's true, and Nikki isn't happy with his vocal performances, but what the hell, this is Rock & Roll! We record quite a few of the songs we'd written together a year or two before in Prague, and again Nikki isn't happy with his vocals. We agree to wait until a later date and see what the great John Rivers makes of it all, then mix it at Woodbine studios in Leamington Spa. Of course this doesn't happen, and Golden Vanity is put on indefinite hold. There's no money to re-record the vocals, to do all the editing that needs to be done and to mix the monster into a coherent whole. And anyway, Nikki is already writing new songs for the next CD, maybe a Jacobites reunion album. As someone once said, Nikki Sudden has made more unreleased CDs than most other artists make in a lifetime.

The last installment of this odyssey for me is the gig in Athens on February 26th 1998. Southern Cross has been booked to play the AN club, and Nikki is to fly down with us and play a set of his songs with Southern Cross as his backing band. Both of us love playing in Greece. The audiences there are so passionate about the music, and they know all your songs backwards. The first time I played there, at the Rodon club in February 1996, I was totally taken aback. About 800 people showed up, huge posters were everywhere, and I wasn't aware that my song "Only You" had become something of a hit on Greek radio. I hadn't even bothered teaching the song to my band. We'd only just started playing together a couple of months before in Prague, and for some reason that song had got left off the list. Emilios from Hitch-Hyke Records was shocked. "For God's sake, you have to play it," he announced, "otherwise the crowd will lynch you!" I ended up playing a solo acoustic version, which wasn't ideal but at least served the purpose of saving my skin.

This time the AN club is packed to the rafters. Demetra from the booking agency has a private fantasy about seeing Nikki in full make-up, so she spends a couple of hours before the show applying pancake and nail varnish, mascarra and eye-shadow. All this, together with Nikki's golden frock coat, makes him look like an eighteenth century rake, straight out of Peter Greenaway's "The Draughtsman's Contract". Either that, or some kind of Rock & Roll Mozart. Nikki plays a great set, then I take over the proceedings to do my own thing. At the end of our set a completely inebriated and ecstatic Nikki clambers back onstage, picks up my spare guitar, and proceeds to completely massacre "The Gambler". That song is a little depressing anyway, and his contribution certainly livened things up.

As I arrived back in Prague, completely exhausted, I said goodbye to Nikki and crawled into bed to recover for a few days. He, meanwhile, went back to Berlin to continue on his never-ending, multi-faceted, ever-evolving world tour. I never played in his band again, though I'd see him frequently in Berlin whenever I was up there playing with Fatal Shore. Quite often he'd get on stage and do a few songs as special guest, because that's exactly what he was: a very, very special guest that the angels had allowed down to earth to visit us all for a while, to bring a little cheer into our humdrum lives. Nikki was probably the purest soul I've ever met in my life, he didn't have a mean bone in his body. He was charming and urbane, with a wicked sense of humour, competetive in the best sense of the word, and immensely supportive of anything he thought worthwhile. He wrote a wonderful recommendation for my novel Junkie Love went it came out in English a few years back, and was also instrumental in getting it published in Italian. He also wrote some great sleeve notes for my double compilation CD Deep Horizon, referring to me as "The Parfidad of Prague", whatever that might be.

But I'm just one out of hundreds of people all over the globe that he spent a little time with, collaborating on some project or other before taking off again on his own preordained trajectory. I haven't met his parents yet, only spoken to them on the phone a few times, and I can't begin to imagine how they must be feeling right now. But they must be a remarkable couple indeed to have produced two such special people, two wonderful sons who generated so much love and affection in everyone they came into contact with. My heart goes out to them, and to Dave Kusworth too, Nikki's long-time cohort and musical collaborator. And to all the far-flung friends across the world who feel, like me, that a light has gone out from their lives. Writing all this has somehow calmed me down, but now I'm feeling like I've been kicked in the guts again. I think I'll finish now and go off to cry a few more tears, confident that Nikki is up there with Epic looking down on this sad earth and laughing his ass off.

Phil Shoenfelt, Prague, 31/03/2006

http://www.philshoenfelt.de
http://www.myspace.com/philshoenfeltsoutherncross

Some people are part of your life all the time, some of them appear and disappear and come back again, still others are just about your life itself, and for me Nikki is one of the latter. Although the time of our real closeness as friends goes back twenty years and more, Nikki has always been important to me as a fellow traveler and artist whose work with me has been perhaps my best and also most representative. Nikki it was that made the line-up and locale for the recording of our "Buffalo Bill" sessions possible, and Nikki it was that - with Rowland S Howard - wrote with me some of my best songs, ranking with anything I have done with The Barracudas as my finest minutes.

In "Gallery Wharf", which Nikki wrote and we recorded, "What's done can never be put down" , and that says succinctly what another ten thousand words can't and won't. There are many memories of Nikki that I could share, but then that is true for many of us, for he touched many, many lives personally, as a performer and of course purely through his amazing music.

I will share one memory, though. Shortly after I had been informed of Epic's death - which shocked me terribly and was I realise now the start of a procession of friends and colleagues who would be taken young from this place - I was meditating one night and felt his presence very clearly. He was happy, I knew. We weren't to be concerned for him. I called Nikki thereafter and, with some circumspection, told him this. Now, Nikki, having lost his beloved sibling, immediately went into the studio. He listened to me and replied, "I know, he's been here all week." Nikki is still here, too, and when I put my vocals to the songs he wrote with me late last year for inclusion on a further "Bufflao Bill" I am certain he will be with me. Happily I have his excellent guide vocals, too, and will therefore be able to duet with him, a prospect that makes me feel some justice is possible in closing our long history.

Nikki Sudden dedicated his life to the pursuit of hipness, and he found it, God knows. We will all remember him with love and respect, not least for his art, but perhaps yet more for his spirit that shone so brightly. There is no doubt that we are missing him. The road goes on forever, though, and we are all still on it together. If you look ahead, you will see him, waiting.

I am shocked and saddened to report the death of Nikki Sudden, who died last Friday (3/24/06) following his show at the Knitting Factory in Manhattan. No cause of death is reported in the notice appearing at Billboard.com.

At around 6:00 pm that same day, I'd spoken to Nikki for the first time in at least 20 years when Josh Rosenthal and I attended his acoustic in-store performance at Cake Shop, a cafe & music outlet on Ludlow Street.

As soon as I extended my hand and gave my name, Nikki replied: "Oh, hello, Andy--I was just thinking about you the other day." These words were spoken with genuine warmth and not a trace of irony.

[Later, a still-amazed Josh said: "It was like he'dlast seen you the day before yesterday instead of in 1985!"]

Nikki recalled--with great affection and remarkable clarity--his first visit to New York in 1980. After a day or two spent hanging around the offices of my magazine, New York Rocker, Nikki was duly assigned an interview with one of his rock & roll idols, Johnny Thunders. Their conversation became a NY Rocker cover story, split 50/50 with a companion piece (by another writer) on Alan Vega of Suicide.

Our conversation touched on the subject of Nikki's late brother Eric a/k/a Epic Soundtracks, with whom he co-founded Swell Maps in 1977. Epic took his own life on November 6, 1997 and Nikki noted that Friday (3/24/06) was the day after what would have been his brother's 47th birthday.

[For more on the life and music of Epic Soundtracks, see: http://elvispelvis.com/epicsoundtracks.htm#bio]

Nikki's performance on that chilly spring evening was imbued with the charm, sincerity, and intuitive musicality that characterized all of his musical endeavors. His Wikipedia entry lists 14 solo albums (!), and this figure is doubled by his releases with Swell Maps and the Jacobites.

I was unfamiliar with most of the songs that Nikki sang at Cake Shop, with the exception of Jimmy Reed's "High and Lonesome" (Reed's first Vee-Jay single, from '53). But the first tune was a touching invocation of Nikki's youth: listening to T. Rex and Mott the Hoople, his first attempts to play music with Eric, etc. Coincidentally, I'd just presented Nikki with a copy of the new Sony Legacy reissue of the classic 1973 album 'Mott.'

Nikki also played an original Delta-style blues tune, noting that critic Robert Palmer (1945-1997) had praised the song in the pages of the New York Times.

Nearly an hour after he'd begun, Nikki was still playing and taking requests when I left, in what Josh Rosenthal affectionately called "the longest in-store performance in New York music retail history" (possibly tied with a 1998 Willie Nelson appearance at Tower Records Uptown).

Rest in peace, Nikki Sudden...and Rock On.

Andy Schwartz
NYC NY
Gramercy7@yahoo.com

Official Web Site: http://www.nikkisudden.com
Record Label: http://www.secretlycanadian.com/

ROBERT PALMER ON NIKKI SUDDEN (all quotes from the New York Times)

(1) "THE RAGGED SCHOOL by Nikki Sudden and Dave Kusworth (Twin/Tone Records) is capable of sending folks who like the acoustic side of the ?60s Rolling Stones and the rock ballads of Johnny Thunders into convulsive ecstasies." (6/18/1986)

(2) "Rock Album of the Week: KISS YOU KIDNAPPED CHARABANC by Nikki Sudden & Rowland S. Howard (Creation/Relativity)...After working together on several of Mr. Sudden's recent albums, these two poets of existential extremity have produced a penetrating, persuasive collaboration. Mr. Sudden's four songs achieve an economy and clarity that are most welcome
after the rambling self-indulgence of some of his recent work...This opaquely titled album handily eclipses the recent work Mr.Sudden and Mr. Howard have been doing individually. That makes it essential." (12/11/1987)

(3) "THE BRIDGE: A TRIBUTE TO NEIL YOUNG (Caroline/No.6 Records 1374) - Soul Asylum, Victoria Williams, Flaming Lips, Nikki Sudden, Loop, Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, the Pixies and B.A.L.L. offer selections strong enough to compare favorably with Mr. Young's original recordings." (10/15/1989