My name is Everett True. I released the first record on Creation Records (My Bloody Valentine, Jesus And Mary Chain, Oasis, Pastels). I was the first music critic to write about Sub Pop Records. I founded two self-published magazines in the 2000s—Careless Talks Costs Lives and Plan B Magazine. Entertainment Weekly reckoned I was “the man who invented grunge” (1992). Kurt Cobain called me the “biggest rock star critic in the world” (check the video). Jonathan Donahue called me “our generation’s Lester Bangs,” but frankly I’m better than that.
I have written several books, a couple of which are still in print (Ramones, Nirvana).
The Electrical Storm (illustrations by reclusive French genius Vincent Vanoli is a collection of stories from my life, Some of the names have been omitted to keep me from having yet another target on my head (the list is legion), but in some of the cases if you think about it enough you can put together the clues of who the story is about. I started out by doing my own fanzine, and have long been a proponent of DIY culture. Hence this crowd-funding enterprise: an attempt to raise enough money to publish my memoirs, which come as a collection of short stories in the style of William Saroyan.
If you like this story, imagine another 100 or so of them, and donate at the link below to help get this book published.
Otherwise known as Grunge: My Part In Its Downfall, being an attempt to recollect a life probably best forgotten, the life of Everett True. Sad racy stories. Downbeat enthusiasm. Funny, cruel, clever, brutally honest … once you’ve read this, you will never be able to take music criticism seriously again. Like you ever did.
Camden Underworld, London, 1991
She starts screaming my name.
I’m standing near the back, taking a breather. The shots are expensive but I’m on expenses. Punters walk round wearing homemade “Fuck Everett True” T-shirts, most of them coloured by reprinted quotes. Everyone knows Thurston wants to rip my head off. My friend Delia—she’s tiny, but furious when roused—has spent most of the concert kicking at the ankles of territorial men grotesquely lurching from side to side. The singer leaps—tumbles, rather—off the stage in a spirited imitation of Mark Arm, seemingly oblivious of the territorial men and hence straight into their lurching, grotesque arms.
She starts screaming my real name.
The arrogant shithead men lift her above their heads, hands inside her dress and her knickers, clawing and fingering and feeling. Apparently, women don’t stage-dive. Apparently, women need to be taught a lesson. A lesson that only scummy indie boy/men can teach them. My female friends—and many of my male friends too—are near apoplectic, kicking out and scratching.
She’s screaming my name.
Later, everyone’s looking for us. She’s hidden underneath the dressing room table, refuses to come out unless someone finds me. I’m confused, conflicted. Not by what’s just happened—there’s no confusion there—but by the storm of emotions swirling round in my thickened, smoke-filled head. Get me a fucking drink, I command. Someone does.
Someone always did back then.
Later, everyone’s looking for us. No one knows what’s going on. There’s a rumour going round we’re having sex in the bathroom. There’s a rumour we’re making out underneath the dressing room table. She gives me a ring to wear on my middle finger. It breaks three days later. It’s a crackerjack ring. She lets me try on her lipstick.
You can help crowdfund and order advance copies of the book here.
You can find out more information about the book company here (includes the now-legendary first volume of 101 Albums You Should Die Before You Hear).
