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Nicole Blackman |
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Nicole Blackman |
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you don't trade money here you trade information and skin right now there are thousands of forgotten people trying to remember you children are killed because they write an enemy's name backwards on the wall young girls tie ribbons around their slender throats trying to keep their heads on chocolate boy walks to ice cream truck for vanilla cone is shot dead three times this city kills its young T H E A M B I T I O N S A R E This isn't spoken word. It's broken word. Nicole Blackman won't tell you what's fiction and what's fact in her work. "Everything is real, not all of it is true," she explains. She's the vocalist/lyricist on the darkly disturbing new Golden Palominos album Dead Inside and she's featured on the new KMFDM album Xtort ("the best industrial release since Nine Inch Nails' Downward Spiral" - Rolling Stone). Her edgy work straddles the uncharted territory between page and performance, leaving the audience sometimes amused, more often unsettled, with pieces that are funny, poignant, edgy and disturbing -- sometimes all at once. "Everything I write is a bit burnt around the edges." Blackman has produced two chapbooks, Pretty and Sweet, to be followed by Nice in 1997, rounding out a trilogy of three words she says are "back-handed compliments for women." Her next project is "Word Of Mouth," a city-wide NYC spoken word festival this fall, featuring writers and poets from around the country. "We have fashion weeks, music series, and film festivals, but nothing for new writers," she explains. "Now that I opened my big mouth with an idea, everyone's coming up with ideas and sponsors -- I'm delighted to give something back to the community that's given me so much." She was the November 1994 poet on the PoemFone line (212-631-4234) and is currently "writing" with tape recorders to move poetry from the printed page to graffiti, answering machines, t-shirts and chain letters. She poisoned the minds of thousands of young Americans from Lollapalooza's second stage in 1994 and looks forward to doing more damage. Blackman was featured on the nationally-syndicated MTV spoken word radio series, SPIN Radio, Request On-Air; she opened for KMFDM (spring 95 tour), Stereolab (a show at Lollapalooza 94) and Space Needle (Tramps NYC). She appears at the third annual outdoor Indie Rock Flea Market (with Versus, Trans Am, Lida Husik, Labradford) in Arlington on August 10th, and Tribe Magazine's Insomniacathon (with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Andrei Codrescu, Robert Palmer, Edward Sanders) in New Orleans on August 17th. She has exclusive material for KCRW radio (NPR California) and often appears on Liza Richardson's "Man In The Moon" spoken word show, as well as on REV 105 (Minneapolis) and WBAI (NYC). Her poetry appears in Aloud: Voices From The Nuyorican Poets' Cafe (Holt), Revival: Spoken Word From Lollapalooza 94 (Manic D Press), Verses That Hurt: Pleasure and Pain from the Poemfone Poets (St. Martin's/April 97), Excursus, New York Quarterly, Cups, Bust,The Fuse, and Carbon 14. She's covered the spoken word scene for CMJ Music Monthly and Foundations, and she's featured in the upcoming documentary "Women In Music." Blackman has also performed at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The Kitchen, The New School, St. Mark's Poetry Project, Fez, The Cooler, The Tunnel, Knitting Factory, and Art Around The Park ('94 and '96). She did a surreal poetry video for "Holy" with director Laura Carriker; she curated/performed at CMJ's 1994/95 "Word Association" and the 1994 Philadelphia Music Conference. She awaits the day when poets headline Shea Stadium, and she answers all of her fan mail.
KMFDM/Xtort (TVT) The last couple of albums by these German experimental industrialists fell somewhere in that "I wanna sound like Nine Inch Nails to sell some records" area. That logic never was something I could understand. This time, they invited friends like Chris Connelly and William Rieflin (Revolting Cocks and Ministry), F.M. Einheit (Einsturzende Neubauten) and Nicole Blackman to participate and possibly created one of their finest albums to date. They abandoned the Pantera/Ministry style industrial to return to what they do best, dance oriented industrial like the old days. They brought back the vacuums and the drills for that ill wicked effect, like on "Son Of A Gun", Sascha's fantasy superhero song. And yes, there is a song that mentions their name, which is "Inane". Definitely check this one out. Pressed Links
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