The Art Of Falling Apart

On February 1, 1995, Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. Six years on, Stuart Bailie looks at the extraordinary life and strange disappearance of rock's most famous missing person.

It is mid-April, 1994. The Manic Street Preachers have almost finished their third album and are in the midst of a photo session on London's Fulham Road. Richey Edwards, who has authored many of the new songs, passes some spare time by filling in a questionnaire for a regional magazine. The second answer concerns the issue of suicide, wanting to know if Richey has given it some thought lately. Apparently not. "Never have," Richey writes. "Self-mutilation is a very differnet issue to suicide. It is a controlled pain personal to you, allowing you to live/exist to some degree."

These are the questions that Richey has routinely answered for the past three years, ever since his habit of self-laceration became public. The interest has been quickened by the recent suicide of Kurt Cobain. Richey watchers also understand that he is mourning the death of his co-manager Philip Hall. The Manics played a charity tribute for him in London in March, bringing Bernard Butler, late of Suede, on for a few songs at the Clapham Grand. What isn't generally known is the fact that a college friend, Nigel, has just taken his own life. Richey's mood is blackened further by the fact that his old dog, Snoopy, is going blind and is losing control of its back legs. Edwards is also depressed by the growing trend of historical revisionism. He even makes a point that Schindler's List is dangerous in its attempts to "humanise" the Holocaust.

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I found the following article a couple of years ago and bookmarked the site. I just re-read it and forgot how wonderful it was. Thought I would post it to share with others of like mind. To see the original, go to Leper cult disciples of a stillborn Christ


'Leper cult disciples of a stillborn Christ': Richard Edwards as meaningful in his fans' constructions of their identities
By Francesca Skirvin


Introduction

In May 1998 the Manchester Metro News carried the following headline: 'Why Did Chris Follow Richey To His Death?' The story concerned a seventeen-year-old from Marple who drowned in the River Severn after making a 'pilgrimage to the scene of the pop stars disappearance'. His mother was quoted as saying 'I feel that it should be publicly known that teenagers are so influenced at this age. Christopher has copied this pop star. He has just done it because he got the idea from him. It is just wrong.' The coroner said 'clearly Christopher was influenced by this media pop idol and undoubtedly he was in a very disturbed state…probably following what he had read about this idol.'

This article affected me in many ways. In addition to my anger at the usual knee-jerk reaction from the press and its seeming inability to consider any other motive for a person to take their life other that the influence of a 'media pop idol' there were more personal reasons. I live in the small village of Marple, I have spent the majority of my teenage life in awe of the same idol and I visited the Severn Bridge a few moths before Christopher 'following what [I] had read about this idol.'

Richard James Edwards (Richey James) was the guitarist, lyricist and 'Minister of Information' (Shutkever,1996:51) for rock band Manic Street Preachers . The band first came to prominence in 1990 and as their lyricist and spokesman, Edwards remained the figurehead of the band until his disappearance in February 1995. Since then the band have continued without him and have achieved huge mainstream popularity.

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I can't believe it but after what seems like an eternity, I finally have my dsl connection for my computers. FTPs look out. By the weekend, I am going to have my Manics FTP back up and running plus I plan on starting another one for my Depeche Mode collection which has become fairly extensive - video wise at least. I still need more DM mp3s but I have got time!!!

OK I am finally going to enter something. For the last month I have been suffering from an extrreme case of apathy and I can not seem to shake it either. I think it all started about the same time that I started battling my internet provider...still not resolved so still really bummed out. I am pretty much fit to be tied. I have been patiently waiting about 2 and a half weeks for the place that I work for to set up my high speed account. They even gave me my modem to take home so I was good to go as soon as the phone line was provisioned. I knew that the person that was processing my info was shaky at best and I knew that I should have been more persistent a few weeks ago because today I find out that none of my paperwork has been even processed so I am pretty much still another two and half weeks away from my high speed connection. I am going to go mental... On a lighter note, I have been playing around with some buttons and banners so that I am good to go with my site as soon as I get my connection back....

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Here is the main title that I have been working on for the ftp. I wanted to enter it with the previous entry but for some reason, each time that I tried to enter it, it would not show the picture. It did not matter how I tried to enter it...I don't know what I was doing wrong but hopefully this will show up the way that I want it to...I am continually drawn to the purple and white combo but have been playing around with black and white also...Don't know what colours yet that I plan on going with...

It has been awhile since I have had a chance to write anything. I have been busy at work learning all sorts of new stuff and it has been pretty hectic in the office for the month of April. I can't belileve that April is almost over. It has just flown on by with barely so much as a blink of an eye.

Work is still pretty nifty. I have been trained fully on this new position that I am in the middle of taking over. I guess by the end of this month, I will be completely trained and able to take on these new responsibilities on my own - pretty cool, I guess. My boss has also approaced me with the offer of taking on a team lead position too. This one won't start for another month or so but I told him that I would most definitely be up for the challenge. What this means is that there would be a group of employees that would answer directly to me. I think that each team lead at this company ususally looks after about 10 to 12 employees. If they have any concerns, requests, suggestions, etc they would go to me. I would ensure that our schedule is adequately covered, that everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing when they were supposed to be doing it, etc. Kind of like a grown-up babysitter. The people on my team wouldn't only come from the department that I work in either. I guess the thought behind this is that we all then have a chance to see what other people in the company do and then can become really familiar with all aspects and not just the one area that we work in. Makes sense to have as many people cross trained as possible. That way if someone is away, it is a lot easier to find someone to fill their vacancy and work can stay pretty much current without falling too far behind.

Enough about work!!! I am still having a fight with my internet provider so I have completely cancelled my cable and am now just on regular dial-up which really sucks big. I am getting high speed dsl but that won't be for another 8-10 days still. Hopefully it will be worth the wait because I want to get my web site back up and want to start running my ftp again. Combined with the problems that I have been having with my ISP, I have been having a terrible time with one of my computers. It got some sort of virus on it back in March and I have had to reinstall the OS so many times since then that I have lost count. Many of my files were damaged severely. A lot were backed up but there were a significant number that weren't so it has been bloody hell trying to recover these corrupt files - it was a 160GB hard drive so even if only 10% were crap, that still translates to 16GB of files that I have to attempt to repair manually. A lot of these damaged files were my Manic Street Preacher's ftp files so I have about 900 plus mp3s that I have to go thru one at a time to figure out what they are, etc. There are a whole boatload of other files that I have to sort too. I have been procrastinating doing this as well because it isn't the "funnest" job in the world but I don't think that I can procrastinate much longer because I am approaching the two month anniversary of the ftp being down and that isn't fair to those that want to get at these Manic files. I was thinking of creating a folder for the damaged files and seeing if I could get a few members of the ftp to download a bunch of files and check thru them and then re upload them back to the ftp once they were all fixed. Mostly all that they would have to do is rename them and make sure that the correct file extension is included. All these files were rewritten with an MS-DOS file name i.e. MANIC~1, MANICS~2, etc. All the extensions were dropped so I have about 600 mp3s that appear to be titled the same. The only good thing about this is that I am so anal retentive so over 90% of these files had correct mp3 tags so if you have a proper program, you can extract the tags and use the tags to rename the file. Even so, the process is extremely time consuming and tedious. I will think more of a solution later.

I am at work right now so this will be all for now. Went to see a really good band on Saturday night - Alexisonfire. Two of my friends were in one of the bands opening for Alexisonfire which was tres cool. I have some pictures that I will post in the next couple of days too...ok work beckons so must go for now...

Here are some of the new graphics that I have been working on for the ftp:

Emma Davis is one of my favourite artists. I have made some icons out of her artwork.

Tomorrow will mark the end of my fifth full week at this job. I know now that I have made the right decision. This is definitely the place for me. I kind of knew that all along, I just haven't had the chance to really sit back and access the situation. I am glad that I quit that other job even though moving to this one meant over $120/week less to start - or about $500/month less. In the long run, this job will end up paying me back more than I would ever have earned at the other. For one thing, at the other place, the chance for advancement would be no where near what it will be here. Company Reject had over 1000 people while this place has about 150. It is so much easier to shine here. I would have been barely a number at the other place.

In fact, a week ago today, my boss took me aside to offer me another position already. He said that this position would give me a higher profile within the company, guaranteed job security and would mean that I would never have to work evenings or weekends again. Sold. I am game for anything. So the last week has been kind of crazed as I was barely finished my training for what I was originally hired to do. Newest training combined with my original training while my department attempts to launch two new projects spells dizziness. I mean, I normally enjoy a fast paced environment but there is fast paced and there is fast paced. Right now I am somewhere off the radar!!!

If that wasn't enough, I was just starting to feel comfortable with my new duties when my boss approached me today to let me know he was going to give me even more responsibilities because he felt that I had shown how mature and levelheaded I was under pressure. Tomorrow is a holiday, thank goodness, although I have to be in the office because we are a 24/7 office. My boss is not back until Monday so he said that we could sit down then and really thrash out what I would be doing in the future. I assume that more than some thrashing will be done because no matter how levelheaded, etc he thinks I am, I am so anal-retentive that I know that I will demand more structure than there exists currently. I am thinking this is a minor detail in the greater picture as I get the impression that it will be up to me to determine the final "structure" so I can be as anal as I want to be...

Anyway, now that I am at home and have finally stopped holding my breath, I guess I can breathe a sigh of relief. It has just been an absolutely crazed week that I haven't had a chance to let any of this sink in. I know I should be really excited and probably proud of myself but nothing yet. Nothing a nice glass of wine won't solve, I am sure!!!

I should be going off to bed right now but I am not really sleepy. Even though it is Sunday, I said that I would come into the office today for an extra days work because we are behind on a project. That means that I will be working six days this week but the extra money at my next pay cheque will come in handy. I ended up spending $159 on Friday that I had not budgeted for so I need to make that up soon. Even though that is a lot of money right now to me, I feel really good about my purchase 'cause I got something for my bestest friend in the whole wide world and it was such a surprise to her that she cried. I am so glad that something I did made someone so happy.

We have been friends for almost 14 years and her birthday is next month plus she graduates school in June - finally. One of her favourite bands is Good Charlotte - I know and we are still friends - and they are headlining this years Edgefest in Toronto. The tickets went on sale on Thursday but I only found out Friday and I don't think that she even knew that they were even on sale yet. The rows were disappearing fast so my boss let me take an early lunch to go get the tickets - thank goodness there is a Ticketmaster outlet right across the street from my office. We hadn't even talked about going to the show 'cause she knows that I am not into this band so it was even a bigger shock when I gave her the present. I know that she wouldn't have been able to afford them because she just got her grad dress last week and she spent almost $200 on it - again something I would never do for any item of clothing but I sew so I would have made my own or looked around until I found some cool vintage item.

Long story short, she is over the moon and I am so happy that she is happy because she has always been there for me no questions asked. It will probably be a fun day anyway. It is at the Molson Amphitheatre which is a nice place and it is outside in the summer so the weather should be fine. So far the following bands are playing: Good Charlotte, Finger Eleven, Billy Talent, Jet, Alexisonfire, Something Corporate, Jersey and The Salads. There are still more bands to be announced too. It is not a terrible lineup but Good Charlotte couldn't be farther away from the Manics if I asked although I don't mind that video they do about suicide.

No matter what, by then we will have something worth celebrating so I am looking forward to it - my first summer event already planned and it is still only March!!!

I finally started another Live Journal. This one is dedicated to my artwork of the Manic Street Preachers and Richey Edwards. I had gotten carried away with joining all these graphic and icon communities that my original journal's raison d'etre was no more. I don't have a lot of friends within the community but the few that I have made were all lost amongst the clutter of these other journals. The reason I even ended up maintaining my journal was harder to find and the friends that I had added were lost amongst the zillion posts from the graphic communities. I really like the other communities and they have been a tremendous benefit to me but I didn't feel comfortable having stuff that I had written here spread out all over the place so I have made the break.

I am going to put all my Manics art type stuff over at my new journal and I added all the deleted communities from here over there. Much easier for this anal retentive person to function. This disorder of the last month has near put me over the edge!!!

If anyone wants to check out the other journal, they can go to http://www.livejournal.com/users/crucified_grace. Right now it has all of one post but hey, you gotta start somewhere. Doubt there will really be any entries other than when I add a new image anyway. The other journal is also going to function as a really good links tool for all the resources out there for digital artwork - the labrynth of links alone can get so twisted and confusing at the best of times.

Think I will take a rest from the computer now as my eyes are getting kind of heavy anyway...

Feeling better today - thank goodness. I came into work although the bus ride into the office made my stomach a little topsy turvey - a wee bit of motion sickness, I suppose. I barely made it to the bathroom where I quickly lost all of my breakfast but ever since then, I have felt much better. Plus it is Friday which is always a good thing. Only thing that would make it better would be if it were a pay week. Ah well...one more week for that still.

Didn't do much of anything yesterday - just rested. Around dinner time, I started to feel a little bit better so I was able to eat a bit of food - was lazy so I ordered pizza for delivery. It was such a beautiful day yesterday - extremely mild. Today is ok but it has been raining on and off since I got up. It is mild and muggy though which is better than cold and snowy any day of the week!

Just bored at work right now. It has been a slow day so I thought if I typed this up in notepad first and then cut and paste, it would give the impression that I was actually being productive when in fact, I am as far away from productivity as is humanly possible...

OK, enough slacking off now...the big guy is wandering around...will have to find something that is actually work related now.

Do not feel well at all today. Just feeling awful. So tired and every bone and muscle in my body feels as if it is going to explode. Hate when I feel this way. And it is such a nice day out there today also so I am also missing one of the nicest days this month. Went into work but escaped about an hour after I got there. I ended up just going to a friend's house 'cause it was closer than going all the way home. Yesterday three people called in sick and I was about to but I didn't have the right number to call in to report that I didn't feel well. Kind of glad that I didn't call in sick yesterday. Went in today even though I felt like crap just to see who was there. Once I saw that no one else had called in, I decided to go home. I did not look very well so no one questioned anything. I always feel so bad when I do call in - don't know why really, must be my Irish guilt or something just as dumb. But man, do I not feel well at all.

Work is going ok too which is fine. I got my first full pay check last week but one big bill that I had not paid took most of it. Now I am just waiting for my boyfriend to get to the bank so I can get the rest of the way home. I do not have enough money to take a bus home right now. I keep checking online but he hasn't gone yet. Don't know when he will be going but I hope it is not too much longer 'cause I really want to be in my own bed when I feel this bad. My stomach is pretty messed up too. My friend is looking for something to settle it down but hasn't found anything yet. Hope she has got something somewhere in her house. Right now she has another couple of friends over so she is a little distracted. I don't know how long they are hanging around for - hopefully they will be gone soon. I need some attention.

It is a rainy Saturday morn and I am stuck at work until at least 6pm although I did have yesterday off. I went shopping with my Mom 'cause my birthday is coming up and she wanted me to pick out a present. For some reason, she was feeling extremely generous so she bought me a sewing machine! Score! I am really pleased because the sewing machine that I use is about 40 years old - no word of a lie either. About two years ago, I found it in the basement of my boyfriend's parents house. I never even knew how to sew until I got my hands on this ancient machine either but it was something that I had always wanted to try so I figured this should do the trick.

Now I can not only sew but I am able to design my own patterns and make things that are actually quite good. The only problem had been the limited options available on the older machine - it couldn't do buttons or zippers. That became kind of irritating over a period of time so I have been dying to get a newer machine. I never expected that I would get a brand new one though. I am most excited. Of course, the one that I want is on backorder so I have to wait about two weeks before it will be in at the store. That is OK 'cause I've waited long enough anyway and I never expected to get a new one this year anyway - not able to afford one right now on my budget.

Anyway, actual work beckons me. Only another five hours or so to go until my weekend can officially start!!!

Well, my day kind of turned out to be crap. My own fault but still. I owed some money to my landlord - for awhile now - and it has now come back to haunt me. I have to pay by Sunday - OR ELSE!!! Ooops. I can but there goes my whole pay tomorrow. I pretty much deserve this 'cause I pushed my luck by not paying earlier. What can you do? This would have been my first pay from my new job too. I can kiss that $600 good-bye pretty fast. I may have $200 left over - all depends on how much they end up taking for taxes and stuff. Gotta love the government. Oh well...think I may go and drown some of my sorrows.