SOUNDTRACK: MANIC STREET PREACHERS-“Die in the Summertime” (1994).
I really liked the Manic Street Preachers in the late 90s. Perhaps ironically, I learned about them after the strange disappearance of lyricist and guitarist Richey Edwards, and really liked the first few albums that they put out without him. I went back and listened to their older stuff later, but I still prefer Everything Must Go.
Nevertheless, The Holy Bible (where this song comes from) is a pretty great album. And “Die in the Summertime” is really cool. It opens with tribal drums and a nifty almost Middle Eastern sounding guitar riff. When it kicks in after a brief intro, it’s more raw and heavy than their later stuff–was that Edwards’ influence?
I listened to this song a few times and will clearly have to dig out The Holy Bible for another listen.
Obviously Edwards looms over the band and clearly looms over this story.
The guitarist vanished on 1 February 1995 and is widely presumed to have taken his own life, but a body was never found and there is no definitive proof that he died by suicide.
[READ: May 31, 2021] The Forevers
This was a fairly simple (and familiar) story, but it was told in a very interesting way.
Ten years ago seven friends (or maybe not friends exactly) made a pact. They performed a ritual asking for fame and fortune. And it worked. They have all become very successful.
Each chapter has a title from a song. The first is “Die in the Summertime” (3:07) [by Manic Street Preachers].
Ten years later we cut to Jamie Ashby–a strung out superstar singer (who looks an awful lot like the Irish guy from Lost, who was also a strung out rock star). He is in a bad way.
Then we meet Daisy Cates. She is a successful model, But the person who takes her home does not have good intentions for her.
I liked the way their two stories paralleled on the same page with a different background wash of color.
Jamie does a show and when an old geezer says he’s washed up, he punches the guy and makes tabloid headlines, We find out in the next chapter that the geezer was Robert Plant–ha!
Chapter 2 is “The Drugs Don’t Work” (5:05) [by The Verve].
It opens with the silhouettes of the 7 friends. One is red (deceased) another is half red (presumed deceased).
The presumed deceased person is Carl Doherty, bandmate of Jamie. He’s been missing for years and was last spotted near a bridge.
After the Robert Plant incident, Jamie is sent to rehab. But he is released when Kate winds up in the hospital. They were an item, but success drove them apart. But now that she was badly hurt (her limo’s brakes failed), he realized that he loved her.
They are interrupted with news that their friend, tech billionaire Bronson Pierce needs to speak to them. He says someone is trying to kill the seven of them. He was attacked in his home last night.
Chapter three starts with two dead and one half it is called “The Beautiful Ones” (3:50) [by Suede].
This chapter is the story Zachariah and his Kurt Cobain-like life. Lots of drugs. Then having a baby but not not feeling anything because he was on heroin. Then attempting suicide with a shotgun. But Bronson uses his AI tech (named Daedalus) to assess that it wasn’t suicide.
We learn what happened to Carl. He gets his own chapter where he met someone who knew about their ritual because he felt the magick when they did it.
Then the most important part of the equation is revealed–as each of the seven dies the rest get more powerful. Is one of them trying to harness the power for themselves?
I really enjoyed Eric Pfeiffer’s painterly style of art for these pages. Although there were many pages–mostly action sequences–where everything just felt like a blur of colors. Maybe that was intentional, but it seemed to muddy the storytelling somewhat.
The ending in particular was very confusing. If not for the little post scene I would never have guessed what happened. I’m also unclear if the final page is a flashback (which would be very sad) or a flash forward (which would offer hope).
I enjoyed that this story was set in our world and the deaths of famous musicians were mentioned and even drawn attention to.
It says this is Vol 1 which suggests more but it seems like it wrapped up pretty well.
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