MARK LANEGAN – CONFESSIONS OF THE NIGHT PORTER

18 Aug MARK LANEGAN – CONFESSIONS OF THE NIGHT PORTER

206 page, Hardback book… collective forewords, including – Nick Cave, John Robb, Danny Bland and Peter Hook…

This is the 4th in a series of custom made, books by Persian artist, Iman Kakai-Lazell – featuring icons of Arts & Entertainment in a way never, before seen…
Working closely with each artists, the books feature, collages, rare photos, manipulated with original lyrics & confessions..
Each release is extremely limited and will never be repressed…

This time I have enlisted the help of a few extra artists, to make this release extremely unique & special…

Book 4 – I give you Dark Mark Lanegan…

ORDER HERE…

From the author…
“In These Series Of Confessions, Lines And Lyrics Desires Come Through In A Form Of Dreams, Events And More… The Individual Is Able To Express Themselves In A Way They Haven’t Been Able To… And More Importantly For Me To Add My Interpretation To Each Piece… I Hope You Love Reading These As Much As I Have Creating Them…

Mark Lanegan was born in Ellensburg, Washington on November 25, 1964.

The Devil was fairly profligate with the best songs, but rare was the singer blessed with His very own voice. Grunge pioneer Mark Lanegan sang like a southern swamp, a canyon catacomb, a gallows tree.

His enigmatic allure and voodoo vocals made him something of a post-grunge Zelig, if Zelig had defined every situation he cropped up in. Beyond his formative grunge work with Screaming Trees and 11 elemental solo albums, he collaborated with a vast array of figures including Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Breeders, UNKLE, Manic Street Preachers, Guns N’ Roses‘ Duff McKagan and former Belle & Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell, with whom he shared a Mercury Prize nomination for 2006’s ‘Ballad of the Broken Seas’.

Unlike most musicians who battled hard drugs for decades, almost lost an arm to heroin, spent a period homeless and underwent several stints of rehab, Lanegan retained the respect and admiration of his peers throughout his storied career. His loss marks the crumbling of one of the foundation stones of modern alternative rock.
Born in Ellensburg, Washington, in 1964, Lanegan’s was a life virtually suckled on rock’n’roll. His schoolteacher parents divorced when he was young and, according to his 2020 memoir Sing Backwards And Weep, his father’s drinking and gambling soon rubbed off on him.

By the age of 12 he was “a compulsive gambler” who was “reviled as the town drunk”, he claimed, and his hard drug use began aged 18, by which time he’d been arrested for theft, breaking and entering, insurance fraud, vandalism and spent a year in jail on drug charges.

He was also a punk fanatic, and joined fledgling Ellensburg band Screaming Trees in 1984 as drummer: “I was such a shitty drummer that they made me sing,” he said. The psychedelic hard rock of the band’s debut album ‘Clairvoyance’ (1986) was one of the key ingredients in the formulation of grunge, and as they developed the sound over three further albums on Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn’s label SST in the late-‘80s, they joined Mudhoney, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Nirvana as major players in the Seattle scene.

Cobain, who had first introduced himself to Lanegan as a fan after a show, would guest on Lanegan’s debut solo album ‘The Winding Sheet’ in 1990 – an influence on Nirvana’s ‘Unplugged’ concert and a record Dave Grohl would rank as “one of the best albums of all time”. Lanegan continued making solo records throughout the ‘90s, even as Screaming Trees signed to Epic Records and began forging inroads into the US rock charts with ‘Uncle Anesthesia’ (1991), ‘Sweet Oblivion’ (1992) and the singles ‘Bed Of Roses’, ‘Dollar Bill’ and ‘Nearly Lost You’, the last becoming the biggest hit of their career thanks to its inclusion in Cameron Crowe’s Seattle-based movie Singles.

Being close friends of Kurt Cobain, Mark witnessed an early incarnation of Nirvana perform at the Ellensburg Public Library. Their concert was shut down after only three or four songs. After the show, Kurt told Mark that he was a big fan of his. Two weeks later, Krist Novoselic phoned Mark to ask if he could join Screaming Trees…

The Night Porter…
In his memoir, Mark says ‘Night Porter’ was a nickname Kurt Cobain once used to describe Mark’s ability to deliver him heroin late into the night…

Beyond his formative grunge work with Screaming Trees and 11 elemental solo albums, he collaborated with a vast array of figures including Kurt Cobain, PJ Harvey, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Breeders, UNKLE, Manic Street Preachers, Guns N’ Roses‘ Duff McKagan and former Belle & Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell, with whom he shared a Mercury Prize nomination for 2006’s ‘Ballad of the Broken Seas’. Mark also authored several books — I Am the Wolf: Lyrics and Writings (2017); Plague Poems (2020); Sing Backwards and Weep: A Memoir (2020); Leaving California (2021); and Devil in a Coma in (2021), which detailed his COVID nightmare…

In June 2021, after finding out Mark was a fan of my confessions books and had purchased the first 2 in the series, I asked him if he’d consider being the next subject in the series and to my delight he agreed… over the last year its been an honour getting to know Mark and the breathtaking journey through his life…
Like everyone who is a fan of Mark, I was devastated to hear the news of his untimely death, which is still hard to believe…
and although I’m sad Mark will never get to see the final book, I hope all his fans & friends will enjoy this as if he was still here and take some comfort that projects like this are able to bring him to us still..

‘Dark Mark’ Lanegan, 1964 – 2022