From Eternity to Her: Remembering Anita
I exchange eyes with the Mad Queen the mirror crashes against my face and bursts into a thousand suns all over the city flags crackle and bang fog horns scream in the harbor the wind hurricanes through the window and I begin to dance the dance of the Kurd Shepherds Harry Crosby, Assassin Anita Lane has left the stage. Although her moments in the limelight were fleeting, and her body of work is quite small, she cast a long shadow on the Melbourne music scene and beyond, for which I believe she received far too little recognition. I do not claim to have known Ms. Lane, but I was cast into her orbit once, many years ago backstage at a Birthday Party show in Denver. Mercury Cafe, April Fools Day of 1983. It was the Birthday Party's first foray (Note: Mick Harvey corrected me on this - the band had done a brief tour in 1981, playing the Northeast and Chicago) into the US, and, as it turned out,...