"So much like escape"

Nikki Sudden Waiting on Egypt (1982)

This week started with the death of Nikki Sudden. I have 23 different CDs of his various albums and collections. So you can say I'm a bit of a fan without fear of contradiction. I'm listening to the Swell Maps as I type (Vertical Slum from A Trip To Marineville) and no doubt I'll partake of his work solo, with the Jacobites and with Birthday Party guitarist Rowland S. Howard in the near future. I had brief and distant dealings with Nikki Sudden a few years ago. I wanted to buy some of his back catalogue, so I e-mailed his website and soon heard back from the man himself. There was some back and forth in the following days about how I might pay him. In the meanwhile, the albums in question arrived in a padded envelope that judging by the accretion of postmarks on it had already travelled between Spain, Germany and Taiwan. Yes, Nikki Sudden was the sort of guy who would mail $100 worth of CDs to a total stranger on 24 hours notice. He was either very trusting or totally disorganized. I did manage to pay him - to be more precise, he asked that I send the funds via PayPal to Secretly Canadian supremo Chris Swanson. Swanson was responsible for seeing a large chunk of Sudden's catalogue back into print, and I'm grateful for it. The man born Adrian Nicholas Godfrey a little less than 50 years ago will never be a household name, but he'll always be remembered by me for carrying the torch for rock'n'roll when too many others had dropped it. Rest in peace, Nikki Sudden.