RFI: "A Skin to Few: The Days of Nick Drake"

http://www.cinemavillage.com/chc/cv/images/movies/277.jpg

http://www.nickdrakefilm.com/

Indeed. There is *nothing* worse than a crowd of Nick Drake fans sitting quietly in a dark room.

I realized I had the DVD of this, came in the vinyl reissue of the Fruit Tree box set (his 3 studio albums packaged together)

watched it and was very impressed, so beautifully shot and nice slow moving shots of the english countryside, so many new music docs are so poorly filmed and gimmicky w/animation

another blessing: aside from about 30 seconds of paul weller NO talking heads droning on about drake's genius, every one interviewed knew him, joe boyd, his sister (a gorgeously severe looking and intelligent woman who I'd like to see have a movie of her own frankly), recordings of his father and mother talking about nick, a friend from cambridge, other engineers, etc

i didn't realize until now that there was no footage of him playing live

definitely adds rather than detracts from the mystique, but there also aren't many answers, he seemed to be somewhat of a stranger to even those closest to him

his sister has a lot of good insights but i think even she is speculating

the whole film has a really haunting vibe

also reminded me of what a fantastic guitar player he was, people tend to focus on him as a songwriter but he was such a strong and inventive player -- to track those songs live with guitar and vocals at the same time i can't even imagine

yeah his guitar playing is superhuman. obviously inspired by jansch/renbourn/graham, but a pretty different vibe overall. the recently released peel sessions show off his skills nicely.
i remember skin too few being good, saw it so long ago -- got a lot out of obviously limited resources.
anyone read the new book that just came out?

no was that his sister's book? she's so interesting i would totally read that

i didn't know he did peel sessions!

yeah he's not outside of the prevailing UK folk that was going on but there's a sort of...uh...diffuse, cloudy quality to the chords or relationships to notes that feels different to me than those guys. and those guys i'm always really conscious of "damn these motherfuckers can PLAY" and with drake it tends to sound so effortless and part of the music i don't realize notice the complexity until i really try to pay attention to the actual playing

yeah parts of the peel session floated around for a while, but they finally unearthed the full thing. totally great
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1kPyXQzMxM

wow that's great

btw probably false but found this, a ghost walks by at a folk festival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZFnCdTCSXw

haha yeah, not sure if i buy it... but maybe?!
may as well leave this here: http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/395-invisible-hits-the-unreleased-nick-drake/

oh and yeah -- this is the book - http://www.amazon.com/Remembered-While-Nick-Drake/dp/0316340626
looks pretty good...

it would almost be too perfect but man, that guy's build/height/even that outfit is straight out of a drake album cover....& that's so how you would imagine him to walk

Gabrielle's tone has changed now to try to give a more complete picture of who he was, I guess.

Did you guys ever read this article published last year?

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/15/i-want-to-complicate-the-nick-drake-story

That image of Nick Drake as too beautiful for this world (like the Van Gogh of Don McLean’s song Starry Starry Night) has proved enduring even if, as Gabrielle tells me, it misses the stubbornness and steel of her brother: “I used to find him incredibly frustrating, obstinate and difficult, but I cannot remember ever not loving him or not admiring him,” she says.

it's just too sad.

The maybe comforting thing is that there were and are a lot of people who felt and feel home is a prison but the only place they had or have, so they can relate to him even more now. And hopefully find some type of comfort in his music.

Wow, like that "Place To Be" demo.

I'd never heard the early, rejected Richard Hewson-arranged recordings. No wonder Nick didn't like them! A well-know anecdote is was how he told (producer) Joe Boyd he had a college buddy who could do much better, Robert Kirby. Joe Boyd normally wouldn't turn the job over to an unknown with zero studio experience, but he was so stunned at Nick's uncharacteristic assertiveness that he allowed it. Kirby's arrangements on the first two Drake albums continue to floor me every time I listen to them. Although he went on to bigger things, he remained a tragically underappreciated producer/arranger. His remembrances of Nick also tell of a side of him others didn't see that contradict the depressed-loner image others mostly have.

yeah kirby's stuff on five leaves and bryter is so good -- the hewson things are definitely weird/bad. seems like kirby understood that drake's guitar was pretty central and built the arrangements around it.

The "too beautiful for this world" bit, related also to Van Gogh, reminds me that his brother Theo wrote about Vincent's stubbornness and being one tough SOB in his way, to accomplish so much despite all odds.

Have y'all heard this? Album-length collection of recordings by Molly Drake, mother of Nick and Gabrielle:
http://mollydrake.bandcamp.com/

yeah that is great!