The first in this series sees Brooke Taylor of Aganovich telling us about the music that has informed the working relationship of this uniquely talented double act:
When we fist met, Nana was the single most dangerous individual I had ever encountered (and by that time, as a rich-boy gone all kinds of wrong I was no stranger to the vagrant and violent); a porcelain-faced clown-angel with gossamer lashes surrounding a coal-black assassin’s gaze.
For myself, there is little doubt in my mind that the love of this woman saved me from a pitiful death or prison.
Rage is always linked to love. And the love we experienced, the complementary fury we shared, fuelled such a comprehensive and extended inferno that when we came out the other side we were welded together at an atomic level with nothing left but a pure residue of joy for the chronicle.
These are a few of the songs that soundtracked that era of courtship:
Ne Me Quitte Pas- Jaques Brel
I was managing a gastro-pub in West London when we met. The job came with a good-sized but hideously decorated boarding room on the first floor. Together we stripped it and hung my punching bag, sprayed a giant stencil of the infamous under-water image of Muhammed Ali on the floor, covered the room in goatskins and installed turntables. I used to play an old copy of JB’s gut-wrenching classic performing a karaoke rendition over and over again. Thankfully Nana didn’t laugh.
The purity of this song never fails to amaze. We still continue this embarrassing tradition in a piano bar in Montmartre where we pay the pianist to play it long in to the night once the restaurant is empty. As Tom Waits phrases it so nicely: “The piano has been drinking not me”.
Killing In The Name Of- Rage Against the Machine
A favourite of bank-tellers and middle-management worldwide, who can resist that most seductive of refrains: “Fuck you I won’t do what you told me!”
I’ve Got You Under My Skin- Frank Sinatra
Another karaoke favourite. I know every word of every Sinatra song ever made but this one remains the undisputed heavyweight champion of them all.
Sound of da Police- KRS One
I find a lot of parallels between Ali and KRS One. The big hearts. The lyrical flurry. The tightness and danger of the song combined with KRS’s lyrical wizardry easily recalls Ali’s butterflies and bees technique. We used to spend hours preparing our wardrobe before playing this song full blast and releasing ourselves to London’s nocturnal currents.
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