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, their last.  I published a small fanzine at the time called Rocky Mountain Fuse, and was working as a dishwasher at the Mercury Cafe, so I was able to finagle my way backstage before the show.

It was quite a scene. Nick Cave, Rowland S. Howard, Tracy Pew, and Mick Harvey - pale, black clad, with stringy, spiky, dyed hair. Dressed in khaki, wearing an Aussie outback hat, and sporting a thick mustache, Tracy looked more like a member of the Rat Patrol than a member of the Birthday Party.  They all seemed simultaneously larger than life and completely out of place in the heart of the Rockies. 

Although I don’t remember Rowland, Tracy, or Mick being backstage, it seemed that every employee of the Mercury Cafe wanted to meet the band, so random people were slipping in and out of the dressing room throughout the evening. There was only one dressing room, so members of my Funeral, the opening band, were hanging out as well. Nick kept asking who all these people were popping in and out of their dressing room.  I had intended to interview the band for the Fuse, which was my pretext for being and remaining backstage.  However, given how hectic it was back there, nobody seemed to be in any kind of mood to do an interview, and it seemed like it would have been indelicate to ask.  

Anita, who was at the time Nick Cave's muse and paramour, was there too.  As I remember her, she had long, uncombed hair that was dyed to a reddish tint. Her friends tell me she was 5 foot 8, but I remember her as tiny and elfin and mischievous.  She seemed to be poised to verbally pounce on every phrase or turn of word that came up in every conversation around her. 

Anita and Nick circa 1983. 

Photo: Peter Milne

Jello Biafra, lead singer for the Dead Kennedys, former Boulder resident, and huge music fan, happened to be in town. It was his first time meeting Nick Cave and he seemed very excited to be meeting him. He was literally bursting with questions for Nick.  The two frontmen didn’t seem to be at all on the same wavelength - at least not on that April evening - and the conversation started going sideways almost immediately.

Since I clearly wasn't going to be able to do a formal interview, I asked Nick and Jello's permission, to switch on my Walkman to capture the historic first meeting.  If I recall correctly, we were sitting around a table: Nick, Anita, Jello, Jeri Cain Rossi and Susan Francis of Your Funeral, and myself. 

Anita, who in hindsight may have been under the influence, was parroting Nick's words. Jello asked Nick what Australian bands he liked, to which Nick replied “Nothing”. Jello began to enthusiastically name off Aussie bands like Radio Birdman, and the Lime Spiders. Nick cringed visibly and snarled back that they were all crap, and he didn't like any of them. Like some kind of twisted echo, Anita began repeating words out of the conversation. “Radio Birdman - do you like them Nick?” Undaunted, Jello started talking about an obscure Radio Birdman single he had found. Nick cut him off: “I don’t own any records”. Jello asked him what he did listen to. Nick replied that he mostly listened to just whatever was on the radio, mostly the oldies stations. And he liked Elvis. “Yes, Elvis” gushed Anita.  

Nick said he was planning to go on a pilgrimage to Memphis to see Graceland and to go to Nashville. “Oh, you shouldn't bother with Graceland,'' said Jello, “just go straight to Nashville”. It was clear to everyone else in the room that the conversation was degenerating, but Jello soldiered on. “All of the country stars have set up tourist traps, and put their families to work there. You should go to Dollywood and be greeted by her nephew! Or go to Conway Twitty's house and see his guitar-shaped swimming pool!”  “Nick, do you want to see Conway Twitty?”, cooed Anita. Nick's responses became more and more guttural and monosyllabic. 

At some point, I think Nick asked if anyone could find him some dope.  Heroin was notoriously hard to find in Denver in the early ‘80s, so the answer was likely no.  “Booze and pills killed Elvis!”, chided Susan. “Best steer clear!”  Sound advice, but judging from Nick’s growl, unwanted at the time. As a consolation for the lack of opiods, one of the Mercury staff asked if they wanted to smoke some marijuana, "Ooh Nick, would you like to smoke some merry-waaanna?" Nick's gutteral, monosyllabic response made it clear that he would not be smoking any merry-waaanna that night.

At times, Anita would zone out - was she going on the nod? - and suddenly, a word or phrase or thought would strike her, and she’d jerk her head up and say something poetic and profound and prophetic.  Something completely out of sync with the current conversation, yet utterly oracular and spot on.

She spoke in riddles and rhymes: her Melbourne twang high-pitched and sultry, ironic and mocking, but playful and never cruel, although you could sense the talons curled under her velvety voice. 

That night, I realized where much of the inspiration for Nick’s trademark frantic raving disjointed stream of consciousness lyrics came from - he was channeling Anita.  Although Nick acknowledged her contribution, I don’t think the world has ever given Anita Lane the full credit she’s due as Poet, Muse, and Femme Fatale.

I gave up doing the Rocky Mountain Fuse around that time in order to focus on promoting shows, and never transcribed that tape.  It wound up on a shelf in my living room, and I only listened to it a couple of times in the ensuing years.  Then, like most of my artifacts from those days, the interview tape burned in my 1996 house fire.  So now, all I have left is my fading memory of that remarkable enchanted unforgettable evening briefly in the orbit of a remarkable enchanting and utterly unforgettable woman.

And do you remember the guy with a boxful of wind?
Or maybe it was a cassette
I don't really
I don't know either, or was it me?
Anita Lane
Subterranean World (How Long...?)