<\/p>\n
Y<\/span>ou won\u2019t necessarily have heard of Adele Bertei: she was a member of experimental jazz-punk band the Contortions from 1977 and recorded the pop-house single Build Me a Bridge. But her memoir is an essential slice of New York\u2019s bohemian pizza pie, and works in part because she is a relative unknown, not weighed down by her own cultural baggage.<\/p>\n Following a troubled, itinerant upbringing, she arrives in Manhattan in 1977 to find a city on its knees. The big apple was in the red, both literally (fires were a regular occurrence) and monetarily (there was a municipal debt crisis). But pre-Aids and post-Warhol\u2019s avant garde grip, it was also a place that was creatively open.<\/p>\n Searching for her artistic self, Bertei throws herself into the alternative scene, and as she zigzags into future counter-culture icons, her writing recalls the hip, young gunslinger era of the NME: Joey Ramone \u201cresembled an anorexic hermaphrodite, replete with sex appeal\u201d; Alan Vega from Suicide is \u201cAl Pacino dolled up as a gay hustler on 53rd and Third\u201d. She starts hanging out with infamous music critic Lester Bangs and Pere Ubu member Peter Laughner, and her writing nails the deadly dichotomy of their pain and non-stop drinking and drug taking. They are \u201cacutely sensitive to the beauty and terror of life and time,\u201d she\u00a0writes, \u201cconstantly reaching for a\u00a0blanket of numb to dull the sting of the\u00a0night.\u201d<\/p>\n Bertei\u2019s own creative awakening comes via the \u201cno wave\u201d music scene that eventually birthed Sonic Youth, which she describes as being like \u201cDada brutalism\u201d and a \u201cnegation of every way that had come before\u201d. Intrigued (and repelled) by the sounds she hears, she joins the Contortions on keyboards. Band leader James Chance is a provocateur who would sometimes leap out and slap audience members. Revered A&R man Clive Davis (who signed Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin) comes to see them and bolts after one discordant song.<\/p>\n But the challenging nature of the music was an expression of a darker collective reality. \u201cI looked around the\u00a0club at the kids like me,\u201d Bertei writes, \u201cwe all seemed so young, vital\u00a0curious and cocky \u2026 life had already beaten the hell out of us and now, we were beating back.\u201d Bertei\u2019s own childhood was shadowed by her\u00a0stepfather\u2019s physical abuse and mother\u2019s schizophrenia. \u201cWe all tended to operate on automatic when it came to dealing with \u2026 past hurts, ramming any pain down into the deep,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n Bertei shows how femaleness and queerness were still barriers to entry. Although things were slowly changing (the no wave scene featured many bands with female members), the sexism and homophobia of the music industry was undeniable (\u201cGayness and the appearance of gayness was verboten\u201d). She rejects femininity, developing a\u00a0persona \u2013 a \u201ctough boy gamine with an attitude\u201d \u2013 which at every turn is questioned. \u201cMusiking girls were not supposed to be outspoken or wild like\u00a0our rock and roll brothers,\u201d she writes. Through relationships with photographer Nan Goldin and designer\u00a0Anya Phillips she attempts to\u00a0expand her personal parameters, only to have any revelations squelched by drink and drugs. \u201cEmotional intimacy terrified me,\u201d she writes, \u201cI\u00a0was afraid I\u2019d be discovered as the broken hearted, unloved girl lurking inside my skin.\u201d<\/p>\n Eventually, the spread of heroin, emergence of Aids and gentrification conspired to kill no wave (\u201cartists not savvy or moneyed enough to buy properties were forced out\u201d). And if\u00a0the energy of a wildfire burns through the beginning of the book, it\u00a0loses spark as the focus shifts. Post\u00a0no wave, Bertei is no longer at the\u00a0heart of the action, merely a\u00a0witness to subsequent cultural moments. A series of near misses and\u00a0almost-weres (she has a screen test for\u00a0cult classic Times Square but\u00a0doesn\u2019t get cast; is briefly in competition with Madonna with her first solo single; works as a personal assistant for Brian Eno but doesn\u2019t make music with him) mean the memoir fades out slowly \u2013 just like the\u00a0scenes she lived through. Regardless, her vivid, visceral account\u00a0is essential reading for anyone\u00a0with even a passing interest in\u00a0alternative music.<\/p>\n