THE LIBERTINES
“Horror Show”
UP THE BRACKET Doherty expounds on the virtues of self-destruction while his bandmates see who can play “Lust for Life” the fastest.
THE LIBERTINES
“Time for Heroes” UP THE BRACKET Bracket’s crown jewel matches some of Doherty’s sharpest lyrics (“Fewer more distressing sights than that / Of an Englishman in a baseball cap”) with some of his, let’s say, most idiosyncratic guitar playing.
THE LIBERTINES
“The Boy Looked at Johnny”
UP THE BRACKET
In the unruliest two minutes of his discography, Doherty blows a gasket over a mash of barely tuned guitars and hysterical drumming.
THE LIBERTINES
“Can’t Stand
Me Now”
THE LIBERTINES Doherty and Carl Barât bicker over the root of their band’s impending split; Carl says it’s because Pete robbed his flat, but Pete claims it’s his heroin addiction. Weirdly, this is one of their catchiest pop songs.
THE LIBERTINES
“Cyclops” B-SIDE TO “CAN’T STAND ME NOW” Pete slags off groupies and hangers-on while indulging his Clash-dub fantasies. This track’s demotion to B-side status was surely the result of impaired judgment.
WOLFMAN, FEAT. PE TE DOHERT Y
“For Lovers” SINGLE
The unlikely power of Doherty’s shaky croak saves his alleged drug buddy’s synth-soaked ballad from sounding schmaltzy— or worse, like Moby.
BABYSHAMBLES
“Albion”
DOWN IN ALBION
The centerpiece
of Babyshambles’
otherwise middling
debut plays like
an apocalyptic
“Waterloo Sunset”
with Doherty caught
between lamenting
and romanticizing
England’s underclass.
BABYSHAMBLES
“Merry Go Round” DOWN IN ALBION
A delicate acoustic ballad about unrequited love at a carnival; climaxes, naturally, with the sound of Doherty falling onto a pile of mic stands.
BABYSHAMBLES
“Deft Left Hand” SHOTTERS NATION Over guitars that alternately recall the Stooges and Oasis, Doherty eulogizes his former band. The most lucid and thrilling he’s written since he was a Libertine.
BABYSHAMBLES
“Lost Art of Murder” SHOTTERS NATION Sixties folk guitarist Bert Jansch pitches in on this spare ballad, while Doherty talks himself out of his hole: “Get up off your back, stop smoking...that / Change your life.” There may be hope for this guy yet. LANE BRO WN
T’S NOW EARLY DECEMBER, AND THE rain is pouring down on Doherty’s country home in Marlborough, an hour west of London. Doherty tells me he’s moved here to be closer to his rehab facility. The house is huge—nine bedrooms, several lounges, a stone floor kitchen, and, beyond the garden, rolling hills upon which gray sheep graze. When he rented the place, it was unfurnished. It still is. Walk from room to room, and you have to be careful where you step amid all the filthy flotsam of torn books and discarded clothes and shoes. In one room, there are piles of half-finished canvases, some in charcoal, others apparently in blood. Hanging in the hall is a gold disc commemorating 100,000 U.K. sales for Down in Albion, the glass frame smashed. There are kittens everywhere, seven of them, the stench of their shit overwhelming. (One of them may well be the cat he allegedly fed crack to in September.) He has christened the newest one Jimmy McShambles. Upstairs there are no beds, just floorboards and stained sheets. And out front sit Doherty’s three Jaguars, each in various states of disrepair.
Since Manchester, the man has been infuriatingly elusive. I did call him in Brighton, but he never picked up, and further appointments in Birmingham, Nottingham, London, and Glasgow were also canceled, due to what the singer’s camp referred to as “illness.” But at four in the afternoon, the Spin photo shoot just wrapped, he finally agrees to talk with me here at the house he likes to call Albion Towers. He approaches me through the calamity of the main corridor like a ghost, dressed in Dickensian pipe-cleaner trousers and a military-style jacket. With a midnight croak to his voice, he tells me we’re going for a drive. Not fit to get behind the wheel himself, he instead commandeers the chauffered record-company car that sits expectantly in the driveway.
As we travel down dark, rain-lashed country lanes, I ask him where we are going. But he has grown suddenly catatonic and can barely keep his eyes open.
“Meeting friends,” he wheezes. “Train station.”
Then, cell phone in one hand, lighter in the other, he falls asleep.
Doherty will continue to make the papers on a daily basis throughout December. Charges are filed against him for allegedly hitting a photographer; he is wanted for further questioning regarding the December 2006 death of a man who fell from the window of an apartment during a party Doherty attended; and he is increasingly linked with Amy Winehouse, paying 4 A.M. visits to the singer while her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, is in custody, accused of witness tampering in his own assault case.
Back in November, Doherty had told me that he and Winehouse had become friends and were hoping to record a song together soon: “When I first moved to Marlborough, she and Blake would come down a lot. We’d have a few drinkies and crisps and have a bit of a singsong. She had me in fucking [tears] when I’d just split with my missus, singing at me with this amazing voice of hers.”
Now, in the car, when he lifts his lids again, I ask whether the latest newspaper reports are true, that he is helping her through her own drug problems. He snorts with derisive laughter.
“I’M HELPING AMY WINEHOUSE WITH REHAB? IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE SARCASTIC?”
“I’m helping Amy with rehab? Is that supposed to be sarcastic? Anyway, look, I can’t talk about her; it wouldn’t be fair.” His head lolls forward. He is moments away from unconsciousness. “You’ve got to understand...these days I just can’t afford to get involved [with the press]. People—they turn on you... on me. They write horrible things, deliberately twisting my words.” For a fleeting second, he looks up, helpless and lost. “I know you are not here to shaft me, but...”
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