Femme Fatale

  1. All Tomorrow's Parties (5:36)
    Cargo Recording Studio, Rochdale, Lancs., 1982-01-00
  2. Procession (4:49)
    Cargo Recording Studio, Rochdale, Lancs., 1982-01-00
  3. Frozen Warnings (4:07)
  4. Sãeta (5:07)
  5. Purple Lips (3:17)
  6. These Days (4:12)
    København 1983-10-05
  7. I'll Keep it with Mine (4:45)
    København 1983-10-05
  8. Heroes (8:34)
  9. Procession (3:44)
  10. 60/40 (6:22)
    København 1983-10-05
  11. The Sphinx (2:46)
  12. König (1:43)
    Translation
  13. Femme Fatale (3:01)
    London The Venue 1982-01-18
  14. I'm Waiting for the Man (6:49)
  15. Orly Flight (3:21)
    Amsterdam 1983-01-08 @
  16. Secret Side (3:49)
    København 1982-02-14
  17. Femme Fatale (3:15)
    London The Venue 1982-01-18
I'm Waiting for the Man

I'm Waiting for the Man
(Lou Reed)

I'm waiting for my man
Twenty-six dollars in my hand
Up to Lexington 125
Feeling sick and dirty, more dead than alive
I'm waiting for my man

Hey, white boy, what you doin' uptown ?
Hey, white boy, you chasin' our women around ?
Pardon me sir, it's furthest from my mind
I'm just lookin' for a dear, dear friend of mine
I'm waiting for my man

Here he comes, he's all dressed in black
PR shoes and a big straw hat
He's never early, he's always late
First thing you learn is that you've always got to wait
I'm waiting for my man

I'm working at it

Two Brownstones, up three flights of stairs
Looks like nobody's pinned you, but nobody cares
He's got the works, gives you sweet taste
Ah, then you've got to split because you've got no time to waste
I'm waiting for my man

Baby, don't you holler, darling don't you bawl and shout
I'm feeling good, and I'm going to work it on out
I'm feeling good, I'm feeling so fine
Until tomorrow, that's just another time
I'm waiting for my man

Walking home

Walking home

Walking home

Walking home

Femme Fatale UK CD Jungle FREUDCD069
UK CD Jungle FREUDCD069
2002-04-22
« Details »

01. Recorded: Cargo Recording Studio, Kerion Street, Rochdale, Lancs., 1982-01-00 [?]
P: Martin Hannet. E: John Brierley. Arranged & performed by The Invisible Girls
Nico: vocal, Indian pump organ
The Invisible Girls:
Martin Hannett: guitars, bass. Rick Goldstraw [Eric McGann]: guitars. Steve Hopkins: keyboards. Paul Burgess: drums
First released: UK 1/2 Records 1/2 REC 1, 1982-10-02 (mastered off record)

02. Recorded: Cargo Recording Studio, Kerion Street, Rochdale, Lancs., 1982-01-00 [?]
P: Martin Hannet. E: John Brierley. Arranged & performed by The Invisible Girls
Nico: vocal, Indian pump organ
The Invisible Girls:
Martin Hannett: guitars, bass. Rick Goldstraw [Eric McGann]: guitars. Steve Hopkins: keyboards. Toby Toman [Phillip Tomanov]: drums
First released: UK 1/2 Records 1/2 REC 1, 1982-10-02 (mastered off record)

03-15 Recorded at The Venue, 160-162 Victoria Street, London, 1982-01-18 [+ The Blue Orchids];
Het Paradiso, 6-8 Weteringschans, Amsterdam, 1983-01-08;
and Muziekcentrum Vredenburg, Vredenburgpassage 77, 3511 DL Utrecht, 1982-03-00
Saltlageret, Skt. Jørgens Sø, København, 1983-10-05
Engineer: Peter Hooker. Originally released on En Personne en Europe UK MC One Over Two Cass2 (distributed by Jungle Records), 1983-00-00

Nico: Vocals Indian pump organ
Lyn Arthur Oakey: electric guitars & acoustic guitar
James Young [James Edward]: piano & synthesiser
Rick Goldstraw: bass guitar
Toby Toman [Phillip Tomanov]: drums
Mike King: 12-string acoustic guitar
Sam: saxophone & flute

15. Nico: Vocals, piano — Recorded Het Paradiso, 6-8 Weteringschans, Amsterdam, 1983-01-08
06, 07, 10 Recorded Saltlageret, Skt. Jørgens Sø, København, 1983-10-05

Nico: vocal, harmonium
The Blue Orchids:
Martin Bramah: guitar, backing vocals
Rick Goldstraw [Eric McGann]: guitar
Una Baines: Yamaha Synthesizer
Steve Garvey [Steven Patrick Garvey]: bass, backing vocals
Toby Toman [Phillip Tomanov]: drums

06-07 Nico: Vocals
Lyn Arthur Oakey: acoustic guitar

17 Recorded London 1982-01-18, originally released on Do or Die! Nico in Europe 1982 Diary US MC ROIR A117, 1982-11-15
Producer: Phil Rainford [The Duritti Column]
Engineer: Phil Rainford [The Duritti Column]
Production coordinator USA: John Hanti

Nico: vocal, harmonium
The Blue Orchids:
Martin Bramah: guitar, backing vocals
Rick Goldstraw [Eric McGann]: guitar
Una Baines: Yamaha Synthesizer
Steve Garvey [Steven Patrick Garvey]: bass, backing vocals
Toby Toman [Phillip Tomanov]: drums

16 — Recorded Saltlageret, Skt. Jørgens Sø, København, 1982-02-14, originally released on Do or Die! Nico in Europe 1982 Diary US MC ROIR A117, 1982-11-15
Producer: Phil Rainford [The Duritti Column]
Engineer: Phil Rainford [The Duritti Column]
Production coordinator USA: John Hanti

Nico: vocal, harmonium
with Samarkand:
Vaskin & Mahamad Hadi (mastered off record)

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Liner Notes:
Nico Femme Fatale

by Nina Antonia

Given Nico's dark and melancholy mythology, which she spun about her like a glittering black web, it's difficult to imagine that she ever was a child. That her voice might once have been light and playful, that she ever skipped and sang nursery rhymes, or that she even had a name that connected her to a family. Of course every story must start somewhere, and Nico made her debut into the world in a hospital in Cologne as Christa Paffgen on 18 October, 1938. It was a terrible time and place to have been born. Trains bound for Auschwitz rattled past her house. In 1969, she told a German Magazine, Twen, "Yes, remember the war years very well. But that was not me, that was another girl. I seem to myself to be a criminal who spends her entire life with faked documents. I can't identify myself with the past. Life consists of experiences which one accepts or refuses; you are formed by the things you accept. My memory consists of shreds and short flashes, never the whole picture." The dislocation from reality became a constant motif, and her early career as a model only encouraged it. By 1956 she had metamorphosed into Nico. An anagram of icon, it was like a magic invocation and everything else followed: Berlin, Paris, Ibiza, Rome, Vogue, Elle, dancing, amphetamines, a role in La Dolce Vita. She mingled with film stars and directors, could have married into money or cavorted with playboys, but Nico wasn't meant to wander down the sunny side of the street. Indeed, she once told a journalist 'I'm a nihilist so I like destruction...'

Knowing that modelling couldn't sustain her forever, she took acting classes in New York, but the course of her life was altered when a liaison with French heartthrob Alain Delon culminated in the birth of her son, Ari. The actor abdicated from all responsibility, and little Ari was left in the care of relatives while Nico made her way around Europe picking up parts in art house movies and sending money back home. Despite the emotional set back, it would seem that the languid blonde with the flawless bone structure as steep as a mountain precipice, was always exactly where she should have been. Just as she was nearing the end of the road as a model and the films had failed to generate bigger and better rolls, she was introduced to Bob Dylan in Paris. He wrote her a song 'I'll Keep It With Mine', which she included in her repertoire when she started performing in a New York club called the Blue Angel. her voice was a stunning combination of austere drawnout Teutonic phrasing with the timbre of a haunted cello. She sounded like the sandman's lonely sister.

By 1965, Nico was ensconced in London on a modelling assignment. She had hoped to find morer work in the capital but the Quant look was in and there was little opportunity for a woman of 28 with the appearance of a world-weary aristocrat amongst the flocks of wide-eyed teenage Twiggys. Instead, she fell in with the Rolling Stones. Brian Jones was captivated by her, while the Stones manager, Andrew Loog Oldham signed Nico to his own Immediate label. If Oldham had foresight and zest when it came to the biys who entrusted their careers to him, the same could not be said of his approach with Nico, and the result of their collaboration was one folksy little single 'I'm Not Sayin'/The Last Mile', notable only in that Jones played guitar, and Jimmy Page wrote the b-side. Oldham tried to mould her into what she was not, a plaintive waif, bue her next mentor, Andy Warhol, was far more sophisticated.

Warhol knew that all he had to do was present Nico in the right surroundings and set her up with his latest protégés, The Velvet Underground. It was as great a match as placing the Sphinx in the golden desert. Although Lou Reed by most accounts wasn't particularly pleased at having to share the spotlight with a guest chanteuse, he did write a brace of extraordinary songs for her to perform including, 'All Tomorrow's Parties', 'I'll be Your Mirror' and 'Femme Fatale'. She also wanted to sing Reed's shady ode to scoring 'I'm Waiting For The Man' but he wasn't giving up the composition. Instead she started living out the song's theme. Initially, her commitment to heroin was fleeting. Besides, she was in a more prominent position than ever before. As well as appearing in Warhol's latest film 'The Chelsea Girls', her first significant outing on vinyl - The Velvet Underground and Nico - was released on the Verve label. On the strength of all the press she was garnering, Verve then signed her for a solo album. Although she had just been extradited from The Velvets both Lou Reed and John Cale were involved in the project. The record stands as an impressive testimony of her collaborators of the time; as well as reviving 'I'll Keep It With Mine' she also covers numbers by Cale and Reed, and Jackson Browne's reflective 'These Days'. In many aspects 'Chelsea Girl' is her most accessible release, her solemn voice in competition with the occasionally flowery arrangements, but it is also a departure point.

Nico spent he summer of 1967 fitting between paramours Brian Jones and Jim Morrison. According to Richard Witts in his superb biography 'Nico - The Life and Lies Of An Icon', Morrison encouraged Nico to start writing her own material. Using the Morrison method of drugs, dreams and visions, she set sail into her own chilled and swirling psyche. Becoming musically independent, she also purchased a harmonium, a wheezy little organ with the desolate ambience of an abandoned church. Nico grew darker along with the decade, or rather it could be said that the Sixties finally caught up with her, all colour snuffed out and in mourning for what had been lost. Appropriately, her next album (for Elektra) was entitled 'The Marble Index'. Once again, John Cale was drafted in, and like a guide to the sombre vista of Nico-land, he orchestrated her compositions. Of all the strange and wracked numbers on the record, 'Frozen Warnings' is quintessential Nico; lyrics that convey a sorrowful atmosphere and little comfort in the melody. Elektra didn't know how to promote the record, the critics couldn't fathom it and 'The Marble Index' vanished like a phantom in daylight.

At the start of the Seventies, Nico fully emerged in her final and most enduring incarnation. With her hair now hennaed the colour of dried blood, she was Lady lazarus, funereal goddess. Her famous lovers went to watery graves and her closest consorts were heroin and the avant-garde filmmaker, Philippe Garrel. 'Desertshore' her third solo album, features a cover shot of the chanteuse astride a white horse, taken during the filming of Garrel's latest cinematic enterprise 'La Cicatrice intérieure', which happily translates as 'The Inner Scar'. As her tryst with the director deepened, she moved into an apartment with him in Paris, which they painted black. There was no electricity, no heating, no furniture, nothing but candlelight and heroin. A review of 'Desertshore' in Rolling Stone magazine enshrined her sepulchral legend forever: 'Make no mistake, my friends, for this record is dark, dark. Its dominant mood is Gothick: guttering candles sputtering black wax on cold stone floors as the sound of Nico's harmonium drifrs in from another room. It doesn't have a beat and you can't dance to it...' And neither did her next album 'The End'.

As had become ritual, she resumed her working relationship with John Cale who had endeavoured to get her signed to Island records, with whom he had a deal. Accompanied by Cale, Eno and Phil Manzanera, Nico assumed the role of spiritual widow for her fines LP thus far, which includes a harrowing rendition of The Doors' 'The End.' While Jim Morrison slumbered in Père Lachaise cemetery, Nico drifted around Europe playing the occasional show and continuing to feature in Garrel's films. However, as the decade slipped into its second half, Lady Lazarus hit the concert trail to maintain her habit. Gradually she built up a following of mainly pallid aesthetes, and with the advent of Punk was heralded by the likes of Siouxsie Sioux and Patti Smith. When Nico's harmonium was stolen, Smith bought her a new one. In 1978, Nico supported Siouxsie and The Banshees on their first major tour. Alas, if the figureheads of the new movement were able to appreciate Nico's gloomy reveries, their audiences couldn't, and she was subjected to a hail of beer cans and spittle.

Self-containment had always been Nico's best form of defence and she continued upon her lonesome trail of solo gigs. Eventually she crossed paths with Philipppe Quilichini and Antoine Giacomoni, two young Corsicans enamoured by her myth. Despite her now reduced circumstances, Nico remained the archetypal femme fatale. It's not beauty that lures men to thir doom, but the seduction that promises oblivion. Nico relocated to London, where Quilichini and Giacomoni whiskey her into the studio. They had hoped to make an album, but the tapes from the sessions were waylaid in a void of contractual confusion and allegations of piracy. In the ensuing fall-out, the lives of Nico's Corsican cohorts spun out of control and into tragedy, and Lady Lazarus would up down and out in Manchester. Although one can imagine Nico being more at home in a ruined castle in the Carpathian Mountains, Manchester offered some respite in the form of entrepreneur Alan Wise who became her manager. After Wise dusted her down, and found her somewhere to stay, she commenced touring with a band. her son Ari, no longer a child, occasionally joined her on the road.

Nico's latter-day adventures from 1980 until her death in 1988 are strongly chronicled by her keyboard player James Young in 'Songs They never Play On The Radio'. Similarly, this 'Femme Fatale' CD stands as an artefact of the last bloom of Nico's career that fuses the past with the present. As well as containing live material captured in concert in Europe, 'Femme Fatale' includes a version of David Bowie's 'Heroes' in which Nico overcomes the heavy handed backing by warrant of her ever stately vocals. A souvenir of the Manchester connection, the CD also features two tracks produced by Martin Hannett who had risen to prominence through his work with Joy Division. In Hannett's care 'All Tomorrow's Parties' manages to tread lightly yet maintains the quality of lamentation, while 'Procession' conveys the full dread of the best of Lady Lazarus. Sublime Gothic, no one ever bettered Nico, she was someone shadows were made for and every song was an elegy. One wonders if the little harmonium, lost in a dusty attic somewhere ever strikes an inexplicable and ghastly note deep in the starless night.

Nina Antonia is the author of published biographies on Johnny Thunders, Peter Perrett, and the New York Dolls. Further info at Jungle Records

A comprehensive NICO website with complete discography, filmography, biogs and lyrics is available online at Nico | Web | Site

© 2002-2011
Serge Mironneau