Anno Birkin
Encyclopedia
Alexander Kingdom Nik-o "Anno" Birkin (9 December 1980 – 8 November 2001) was an English
musician
. He came from a creative family, which included his grandmother Judy Campbell
; father Andrew Birkin, mother Bee Gilbert, brother Ned Birkin, half-siblings David Birkin, Barnaby Holm
and Lissy Holm; aunts Jane Birkin
and Linda Birkin; and cousins Kate Barry, Charlotte Gainsbourg
, and Lou Doillon
.
. When he was five, his parents bought an old farmhouse on the Lleyn peninsula in Wales
, and it was here that Birkin and his brother Ned spent most of their childhood, "living what friends describe as a Bohemian lifestyle where the house was forever full of friends."
, Charles Baudelaire
, Arthur Rimbaud
, T. S. Eliot
, Dylan Thomas
, and, latterly, Kenneth Patchen
. He was also heavily influenced by the Zen
philosopher Alan Watts
as well as Joseph Campbell
. His musical taste began with Guns N Roses, quickly moving on to Pearl Jam
, Bob Dylan
, Jimi Hendrix
, Led Zeppelin
, then into Radiohead
, Jeff Buckley
, Sonic Youth
, Fugazi and The Jesus Lizard
. He began learning the guitar at 12, and was soon composing his own songs, as well as writing poetry.
Birkin's first band
was called Midstream, which formed in 1994 with his school-friends Billy Scherer and JS Rafaeli, gigging in London until 1996 when it split up. Durango 95 was put together that same year, but split up in 1997. For the next two years, Birkin composed and played on his own as well as working with Scherer. While visiting his father on the film set of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
in 1998, Birkin fell in love with the actress Milla Jovovich
. They wrote and recorded a number of songs together. She later wrote, "I remember the absolute wonder I felt when he first wrote to me. I was bowled over by his choices, his words." His fiancée Honeysuckle Weeks
wrote, "I think what Anno was doing in his writing as well as in life was trying to separate the pure from the sordid. Like a lot of teenage boys, he felt guilty about his own desires and he tried to elevate them through poetry."
During the summer of 1999 Birkin wrote and recorded a number of songs, both solo and with Scherer; the two wrote Ultraviolence together, that led to a recording offer from Virgin
. They turned it down and in August formed Flying Mango Attack with bassist Lee Citron and drummer Christian Smith-Pancorvo (both formerly of Stony Sleep), recording the album Karmageddon. They briefly broke up after various drummers came and went, and once again Birkin and Scherer spent time recording together in Los Angeles
. In September 2000, Birkin, Scherer, and Citron met the Italian drummer Alberto Mangili, and formed Kicks joy Darkness (named after a quote from Jack Kerouac
's On The Road
).
Kicks joy Darkness (KjD) began performing in late 2000, and in December recorded an EP Ark, produced in Birkin's Welsh studio. The following spring, he travelled around India
, writing poetry and songs. He returned to England in April and embarked on a series of gigs with KjD, quickly building up a keen following on the London circuit. The band decided to record Method One — their first studio album — in Bergamo
, where Mangili had a recording studio. They gave their farewell gig at the Dublin Castle in London before heading off to Italy at the end of August. Birkin wrote to Weeks, "Everything has fallen into place around my skull thanks to this opportunity [of recording in Italy]. For the first time in my life I feel like I know what I'm doing, and I'm doing what I know. The fear and anxiety and excitement I'm feeling at the moment is bursting me."
. Birkin was one month short of his 21st birthday. A few days earlier he had written in his notebook, "Let the terminal sleep be a terminal dream, unperturbed by the meaningless noises of nature."
In 2003, Dreams of Waking — a 2-CD album of songs by Birkin and KjD — was released. Rock Sound
called it an "art-rock adventure with hints of early Radiohead and Sonic Youth. … Anno's lyrics are poetic masterpieces in their own right."
Later that year, a selection of Birkin's poetry — Who Said the Race Is Over? — was published and sold over 4,000 copies. Tom Payne
reviewed it in the Daily Telegraph as "this proud, fresh Romanticism. … Yet for all their brilliance, the poems feel unfinished. It is not just that the words have been left behind as a kind of consolation to those who mourn the author; it is as though they are still going about their tasks, asking the same questions and insolently refusing to settle."
The poet Robert Welch
(Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ulster
) wrote, "Anno Birkin's book is utterly devastating. This is a great creative energy, with the authority and force of Rimbaud and the same quality of total honesty. And yet there is nothing mawkish about the whole thing, because the fire of relentless self-interrogation flames continually, purifying the emotion. So what you get is not something raw, but something highly tempered, like Toledo steel. Energetic, flashing, devastating."
Another Magazine
published a selection of his poetry in 2005, commenting that "perhaps it is Withnail & Is writer and director Bruce Robinson
who offers us the best description of the sheer assault of Birkin's talent. He writes in his introduction to the collection, 'Anno didn't need death to be brilliant. … I love his rage, and truth, and he touches me like I was still young. Anno too is a great poet, a teenage poet, and we can only be amazed by what he could do with half a yard of ink.'"
Birkin was one of the two subjects of a BBC Radio 4
documentary
, The Lost Boys, broadcast in September 2006.
Rachel Davies of Esben and the Witch
has cited Birkin's poetry as an influence on her own lyrics.
and Sir Ian Holm, and helped raise funds for the next project which was carried out in South Africa during March and April 2008. Bee Gilbert, Billy Scherer and others from the Anno's Africa team returned to Kenya for further arts workshops in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The continuing arts workshop was the subject of a CNN
special feature on 11 April 2011.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
. He came from a creative family, which included his grandmother Judy Campbell
Judy Campbell
Judy Campbell was an English light comedy actress and occasional playwright, Noël Coward's muse. Her daughter is the actor and singer Jane Birkin, her son the screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin, and among her grandchildren are the actresses Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, the poet Anno...
; father Andrew Birkin, mother Bee Gilbert, brother Ned Birkin, half-siblings David Birkin, Barnaby Holm
Barnaby Holm
Barnaby Holm is an American former child actor. His best known role is as Peter, a young disciple of Damien Thorn , in the 1981 film Omen III: The Final Conflict....
and Lissy Holm; aunts Jane Birkin
Jane Birkin
Jane Mallory Birkin, OBE is an English-born actress and singer who lives in France. In recent years she has written her own album, directed a film and become an outspoken proponent of democracy in Burma.- Early life :...
and Linda Birkin; and cousins Kate Barry, Charlotte Gainsbourg
Charlotte Gainsbourg
Charlotte Lucy Gainsbourg is an Anglo-French actress and singer. After releasing an album with her father at the age of fifteen, more than twenty years passed before she released two albums as an adult to commercial and critical success...
, and Lou Doillon
Lou Doillon
Lou Doillon is a French model and actress. Her father is director Jacques Doillon and her mother is British actress and singer Jane Birkin.-Biography:...
.
Childhood
Birkin named himself Anno when he was three after his favourite book, Anno's Journey by Mitsumasa AnnoMitsumasa Anno
is a Japanese author and illustrator of children's books.-Background:Anno was born in 1926 in Japan, and grew up in the small town of Tsuwano. As a student at a regional high school, he studied art, drawing, and the writings of Hermann Hesse. During World War II, Anno was drafted into the...
. When he was five, his parents bought an old farmhouse on the Lleyn peninsula in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, and it was here that Birkin and his brother Ned spent most of their childhood, "living what friends describe as a Bohemian lifestyle where the house was forever full of friends."
Music
With adolescence, Birkin discovered poetry, in particular Walt WhitmanWalt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
, Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
, Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
, T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
, and, latterly, Kenneth Patchen
Kenneth Patchen
Kenneth Patchen was an American poet and novelist. Though he denied any direct connection, Patchen's work and ideas regarding the role of artists paralleled those of the Dadaists, the Beats, and Surrealists...
. He was also heavily influenced by the Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
philosopher Alan Watts
Alan Watts
Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York...
as well as Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
. His musical taste began with Guns N Roses, quickly moving on to Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
, then into Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
, Jeff Buckley
Jeff Buckley
Jeffrey Scott "Jeff" Buckley , raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He was the son of Tim Buckley, also a musician...
, Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
, Fugazi and The Jesus Lizard
The Jesus Lizard
The Jesus Lizard was an American alternative rock and noise rock band formed in 1987 in Austin, Texas. They were "a leading noise rock band in the American independent underground…[who] turned out a series of independent records filled with scathing, disembowelling, guitar-driven pseudo-industrial...
. He began learning the guitar at 12, and was soon composing his own songs, as well as writing poetry.
Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...
was called Midstream, which formed in 1994 with his school-friends Billy Scherer and JS Rafaeli, gigging in London until 1996 when it split up. Durango 95 was put together that same year, but split up in 1997. For the next two years, Birkin composed and played on his own as well as working with Scherer. While visiting his father on the film set of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc is a French/American historical drama film directed by Luc Besson. The screenplay was written by Besson and Andrew Birkin, and the original music score was composed by Éric Serra....
in 1998, Birkin fell in love with the actress Milla Jovovich
Milla Jovovich
Milla Jovovich December 17, 1975)is an American model, actress, musician, and fashion designer. Over her career, she has appeared in a number of science fiction and action-themed films, for which music channel VH1 has referred to her as the "reigning queen of kick-butt".Milla Jovovich began...
. They wrote and recorded a number of songs together. She later wrote, "I remember the absolute wonder I felt when he first wrote to me. I was bowled over by his choices, his words." His fiancée Honeysuckle Weeks
Honeysuckle Weeks
Honeysuckle Weeks is a British actress, best known for her starring role as Samantha Stewart in the British TV series Foyle's War, since 2002.-Background:...
wrote, "I think what Anno was doing in his writing as well as in life was trying to separate the pure from the sordid. Like a lot of teenage boys, he felt guilty about his own desires and he tried to elevate them through poetry."
During the summer of 1999 Birkin wrote and recorded a number of songs, both solo and with Scherer; the two wrote Ultraviolence together, that led to a recording offer from Virgin
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, Culture Club, Lenny...
. They turned it down and in August formed Flying Mango Attack with bassist Lee Citron and drummer Christian Smith-Pancorvo (both formerly of Stony Sleep), recording the album Karmageddon. They briefly broke up after various drummers came and went, and once again Birkin and Scherer spent time recording together in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. In September 2000, Birkin, Scherer, and Citron met the Italian drummer Alberto Mangili, and formed Kicks joy Darkness (named after a quote from Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
's On The Road
On the Road
On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951, and published by Viking Press in 1957. It is a largely autobiographical work that was based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America. It is often considered a defining work of...
).
Kicks joy Darkness (KjD) began performing in late 2000, and in December recorded an EP Ark, produced in Birkin's Welsh studio. The following spring, he travelled around India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, writing poetry and songs. He returned to England in April and embarked on a series of gigs with KjD, quickly building up a keen following on the London circuit. The band decided to record Method One — their first studio album — in Bergamo
Bergamo
Bergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...
, where Mangili had a recording studio. They gave their farewell gig at the Dublin Castle in London before heading off to Italy at the end of August. Birkin wrote to Weeks, "Everything has fallen into place around my skull thanks to this opportunity [of recording in Italy]. For the first time in my life I feel like I know what I'm doing, and I'm doing what I know. The fear and anxiety and excitement I'm feeling at the moment is bursting me."
Death
On 8 November 2001, after the band had spent the day rehearsing, Birkin, Citron, and Mangili were killed in an early-morning car crash on the outskirts of MilanMilan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. Birkin was one month short of his 21st birthday. A few days earlier he had written in his notebook, "Let the terminal sleep be a terminal dream, unperturbed by the meaningless noises of nature."
Legacy
Birkin had created a website for the band in August 2001. Following his death the site has provided a forum for his friends and fans.In 2003, Dreams of Waking — a 2-CD album of songs by Birkin and KjD — was released. Rock Sound
Rock Sound
Rock Sound is a British magazine which champions rock music. The magazine aims at being more "underground" and less commercial, whilst also giving coverage to more well known acts.-History:...
called it an "art-rock adventure with hints of early Radiohead and Sonic Youth. … Anno's lyrics are poetic masterpieces in their own right."
Later that year, a selection of Birkin's poetry — Who Said the Race Is Over? — was published and sold over 4,000 copies. Tom Payne
Tom Payne
Tom Payne may refer to:*Tom Payne , American basketball player*Tom Payne , English actor*Tom Payne , Brazilian film director*Tom Payne , Australian television newsreader...
reviewed it in the Daily Telegraph as "this proud, fresh Romanticism. … Yet for all their brilliance, the poems feel unfinished. It is not just that the words have been left behind as a kind of consolation to those who mourn the author; it is as though they are still going about their tasks, asking the same questions and insolently refusing to settle."
The poet Robert Welch
Robert Welch
Robert Welch may refer to:*Robert Stanley Welch , politician in Ontario, Canada*Robert W. Welch, Jr. , American anti-communist and co-founder of the John Birch Society*Robert Welch , British designer and silversmith...
(Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ulster
University of Ulster
The University of Ulster is a multi-campus, co-educational university located in Northern Ireland. It is the largest single university in Ireland, discounting the federal National University of Ireland...
) wrote, "Anno Birkin's book is utterly devastating. This is a great creative energy, with the authority and force of Rimbaud and the same quality of total honesty. And yet there is nothing mawkish about the whole thing, because the fire of relentless self-interrogation flames continually, purifying the emotion. So what you get is not something raw, but something highly tempered, like Toledo steel. Energetic, flashing, devastating."
Another Magazine
Another Magazine
Another Magazine is a bi-annual culture and fashion magazine for men and women. It was launched in 2001 under the umbrella publishing company Dazed Group....
published a selection of his poetry in 2005, commenting that "perhaps it is Withnail & Is writer and director Bruce Robinson
Bruce Robinson
Bruce Robinson is an English director, screenwriter, novelist and actor. He is arguably most famous for writing and directing the cult classic Withnail and I , a film with comic and tragic elements, set in London during the 1960s which drew on his experiences as 'a chronic alcoholic and resting...
who offers us the best description of the sheer assault of Birkin's talent. He writes in his introduction to the collection, 'Anno didn't need death to be brilliant. … I love his rage, and truth, and he touches me like I was still young. Anno too is a great poet, a teenage poet, and we can only be amazed by what he could do with half a yard of ink.'"
Birkin was one of the two subjects of a BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
documentary
Radio documentary
A radio documentary or feature is a purely acoustic performance devoted to covering a particular topic in some depth, usually with a mixture of commentary and sound pictures. It is broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD...
, The Lost Boys, broadcast in September 2006.
Rachel Davies of Esben and the Witch
Esben and the Witch
Esben and the Witch is a Danish fairy tale. Andrew Lang included it in The Pink Fairy Book. A version of the tale also appears in A Book of Witches and A Choice of Magic, by Ruth Manning-Sanders. It is Aarne-Thompson type 327B, the small boy defeats the ogre.-Synopsis:A farmer had twelve sons, and...
has cited Birkin's poetry as an influence on her own lyrics.
Anno's Africa
With the profits of Birkin's words and music, his parents initiated Anno's Africa, an alternative arts-based charity for Kenyan orphans and slum children, with the aim of giving them a chance to express themselves creatively. His mother Bee Gilbert ran a pilot programme in the spring of 2007, with volunteers (who included surviving KjD member Billy Scherer, Anna Nygh, Karen Nicholls, Marie Steinman, Marco Windham and Andrew Birkin) to teach art, music, dance, drama, film, and acrobatics. The Telegraph Magazine published a five-page account of the pilot in September 2007, and an exhibition of the children's art work was held in London which featured over 200 paintings and monoprints. The event was hosted by Joanna LumleyJoanna Lumley
Joanna Lamond Lumley, OBE, FRGS is a British actress, voice-over artist, former-model and author, best known for her roles in British television series Absolutely Fabulous portraying Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as parts in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, and Sensitive...
and Sir Ian Holm, and helped raise funds for the next project which was carried out in South Africa during March and April 2008. Bee Gilbert, Billy Scherer and others from the Anno's Africa team returned to Kenya for further arts workshops in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The continuing arts workshop was the subject of a CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
special feature on 11 April 2011.