Nicole Blackman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nicole Blackman is a New York City-born performance artist, poet, author, vocalist, teacher, and former music industry publicist. She is also a top voiceover artist for television and radio.
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[edit] Literary Career
Blackman is an icon of the North American goth, spoken word and transgressive literature scenes, due to her visceral poetry and lyrics. Her live shows, either poetry readings or as a vocalist with a variety of musical collaborators, reflect her dark style and a fervent fan following. A series of performances in 2000-2002 featured her drenching herself in blood and cutting her hair, which led to a more disturbing performance art style of work.
Blackman self-published three now out-of-print chapbooks; "Pretty," "Sweet," and "Nice," (which she said were the most loathsome "compliments" for young women, and underscored by pink/blue/yellow pastel covers) and were collected in Akashic Books' [1] "Blood Sugar," the cover of which features her wearing a white tank top reading "I did it for you" written in blood. Blackman explained in an interview that the book's cover image appeared to her in a dream, but she couldn't read what was written in blood, and emailed a fan-friend in Australia for his suggestions. He wrote back immediately: I DID IT FOR YOU. The 'dream image' was soon re-created for the book cover. (The fan, Brian Duong, is described as a graphic illustrator and editor/publisher of the Silverlimbo art magazine)
Her work as a performance artist includes the disturbing "Bloodwork" at The Kitchen/NYC in 2000, where she debuted her blood performance (and shook hands with the audience, bloodying them too), slipped secret messages into the audience's coat pockets, projected text on the street and created visual/sound installations in the venue's bathrooms. Her most recent performances are the acclaimed, notorious "Courtesan Tales" which has been produced at PS122/NYC, The Andy Warhol Museum/Pittsburgh, venues in LA, Italy and Slovenia, and three years of sold-out appearances at the Fierce Festival in Birmingham England. The "Courtesan Tales" are immersive one-on-one performances Blackman describes as "tales of the senses for a blindfolded audience of one," and frequently sell out. She debuted "Harm's Way" (a multi-media performance of her email diary of working at Ground Zero) as a work in progress somewhere in New York this spring and is said to be developing that into a full performance expected to tour internationally.
She has appeared at the Fierce Festival in Birmingham England for the last four years, and was commissioned by the British Arts Council this year to create a new work: an audio tour of the Deritend neighborhood of Birmingham, available as a free podcast/mp3 download from the festival's site: www.fiercetv.co.uk Blackman has reported she's already been commissioned for another audio work from the British Arts Council, this time a site-specific piece listeners will experience as they travel through a river canal tunnel in Birmingham. Still apparently untitled, it's expected to debut in June 2007.
[edit] Music Career
Many of Blackman's poems have been recorded, a few on the now-defunct mp3lit.com, and are rare. Her first recording was a 7" single from Carcrashh (sic), the Cleveland label run by Alternative Press editor-in-chief Jason Pettigrew. Both tracks were recorded by Kramer (Bongwater, Shimmy Disc records). Some have been reworked into lyrics for songs, most notably on The Golden Palominos' 1996 album Dead Inside, for which she wrote all the lyrics and did vocals on all eleven songs. A few of the tracks were remixed by Raymond Watts of Pig/KMFDM, Mark Bell, Sean Beavan (of 8 mm, prod credits: Nine Inch Nails Marilyn Manson, Pantera) and others, but were released as free downloads for one month only from the Golden Palominos site; those recordings are now considered extremely rare.
Her vocal style leans more toward spoken word/chant rather than traditional pop music singing, and one of her most notable recordings was a collaboration with Alan Wilder's Recoil project on Mute Record. She contributed three songs to Recoil's 1999 Liquid album, which also features tracks by Diamanda Galás, and Dean Garcia of Curve.
Blackman opened on the 1995 U.S. Beat By Beat tour for KMFDM, and her piece "Indictment" was later re-recorded as "Dogma" on KMFDM's Xtort album (Wax Trax!/TVT), which is now out of print. She was a featured spoken word performer at Lollapalooza in 1994 (opening for Stereolab), collaborated with Scanner, John Van Eaton (prod credits: KMFDM, Nine Inch Nails), and Mark Blasquez (prod. credits: Death Ride 69,Tweaker, ) in Europe, where she opened at festivals for Nick Cave in Belgium and Placebo in the Netherlands. She's also done a number of small, low-key tours for her spoken word performances in the U.S. and Europe. Contrary to a number of internet citations, she never appeared with Ministry or performed as a back-up singer for KMFDM.
She refers to her style of spoken word "broken word," and in the late 1990s, she appeared frequently on Liza Richardson's "Man In The Moon" spoken word show on National Public Radio and KCRW in Santa Monica. She is frequently invited to perform and teach at poetry workshops around the world.
[edit] Selected Musical Collaborations
- Dead Inside by The Golden Palominos; vocals.
- Liquid by Recoil; vocals on the tracks "Breath Control," "Chrome," and "Want."
- Xtort by KMFDM; vocals on the track "Dogma."
- A track on Firewater's last album "The Man on the Burning Tightrope" in 2005 on Jetset Records.
- Hashisheen by Bill Laswell; voices on the tracks "Freya Stark at Alamut," "Hashish Poem," and "Assassinations."
- "What I Want For Christmas" on the compilation A Christmas Gift For You From Zero Hour records.
- Two tracks with the electronic music outfit Space Needle, who provided backing music on the spoken word pieces "You Will" and "Caroline," and her live performances as an opening act for KMFDM's 1995 US tour.
- Various recordings of her live spoken word performances with Scanner, some of which appear on the "Americans for Radio Diversity" compilation and website.
- Provided the vocals for a cover of the Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls" with John Van Eaton.
- "Indictment/You Will" 7" single, produced by Kramer, for the Carcrashh label.
[edit] Bibliography
- Pretty (chapbook 1993, out of print)
- Revival: Spoken Word from Lollapalooza 94 (1994, anthology)
- Aloud : Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (1994, anthology)
- Sweet (chapbook 1995, out of print)
- Nice (chapbook 1996, out of print)
- Blood Sugar (1997, Incommunicado Press/NYC. Later reissued in 2000 from Akashic Books/NYC). NOTE: Most of the works in Pretty/Sweet/Nice apperar in "Blood Sugar"
- Verses That Hurt: Pleasure and Pain from the POEMFONE Poets (1997, anthology)
- Will Work For Peace: New Political Poems (1999, anthology)
- "Poetry Nation" (anthology)
- "Brooklyn Noir" (2005, Akashic Books, short story anthology)
- Gargoyle literary magazine, multiple issues including the winter 2006 edition.
Said to be at work now on her next book, tentatively titled Pain Killer, publisher TBA.
