Chewing gum is not the most distinguished habit to have, which is probably why I loved doing it in the most unsuitable places as a prepubescent before it was taken over by the despicable indulgence that is smoking, which in my book looked way cooler, preferably in combination.
The core protagonist of this book used to indulge in both as well and given her iconic and undisputed status, the enthusiastic reception of her oeuvre and her feisty demeanour, was never running danger of being scolded for it.
The author Warren Ellis is commonly revered as being a fulminant musical artist in his own right with many of his emissions and incarnations having etched themselves into quite a few of my all-time favourite lists.
Needless to say, the two of them convening at the Nick Cave curated Meltdown Festival at the dawn of the new millennium was going to leave an impression, which Warren Ellis captures in this tome, centred around a piece chewing gum Nina Simone planted on the Steinway piano as if it belonged there before she channelled her alchemy in a thunderous performance.
It would not be Warren Ellis if he did not venture to pick up the relic to keep it ever since in a bid to effectively turn it into a spit-infused totemic talisman that would accompany his own achievements, only to then cast it in silver and gold as a gift to present to his friends.
Sounds like a great premise for a book that essentially documents the life and times of Warren Ellis via the objects he collected along the way to then imbue them with at times transcendental significance and assign borderline mythical meanings?
You bet.
Having witnessed the man tell the story of Nina Simone’s gum numerous times while incarnating both as a constituent of the Bad Seeds as well as during his monologues during gigs with him heading the Dirty Three and his other projects, it is fantastic to see this book come to fruition,
Framed by a foreword courtesy of Nick Cave and enriched with photographs along the way, Nina Simone’s Gum proves to be the sticky (pun intended) common denominator that creates a complex, never not inspiring, spiritual whole of musings and anecdotes that culminate in much more than what the individual contributions – and the unlikely journey of an abandoned piece of chewing gum - would have you think, i.e. a metaphor for creative energy, subversion and artistic defiance.
An ode to serendipity in book form.
