34. Mark Lanegan
Flood Gallery
9 November 2013
How my friend and I ended up queuing outside a tiny picture gallery–come–framing shop in Greenwich Market on a damp November morning is one of life’s great unsolvable mysteries; like why anyone willingly listens to Sting’s solo albums. But there I was, coffee in one hand, drawn in by the promise of a rare sighting of Mark Lanegan, the gruff baritone of Screaming Trees, sometime QOTSA collaborator, and fully ordained High Priest of Unapproachable Bastards.
The occasion was a limited-edition poster launch, featuring Lanegan rendered as a stained-glass saint. A kind of nicotine-stained Jesus, canonised not for miracles, but for growling through four decades of musical gloom and going full exorcist on any journalist foolish enough to ask about his "creative process." Naturally, I needed it. That poster still hangs in my music room to this day, its hollow-eyed glare casting judgement on every questionable playlist decision I make.
The queue is a roll call of the committed and the quietly terrified. Die-hard fans, weather-hardened record collectors, and a few confused souls who clearly thought they were just popping in to get a print of “Greenwich Pier at dusk”. We shuffled forward like penitents awaiting punishment, clutching albums and trembling hope. At the front: Lanegan, hunched behind a signing table, wearing the facial expression of a human thundercloud. He radiated disdain at such a frequency it could have interfered with nearby aircraft.
By the time I reached him, nerves got the better of me. “Thanks, Mark,” I muttered, whilst looking at the artist and not Lanegan. “I’m not Mark” he said and I mumble something incoherent. The Dark Lord of Bastard looked up, very slowly, and delivered me a glare so blistering, it wilted the pot plant by the till.
Still, the man signed my poster and scrawled something unholy across a cherished copy of Sweet Oblivion, which he didn’t so much as glance at. I stumbled out, dazed, mildly traumatised, but weirdly elated. It was like being insulted by a rock 'n' roll dementor. Character building, really.
It didn’t stop there. my friend, running on pure blag, scored us wristbands for Lanegan’s “exclusive acoustic set” inside the gallery. Except, chaos reigned supreme, and Lanegan was clearly no easy charge, judging by the state of the poor intern tasked with organising the event, who was to be found trembling in a corner, likely after being subjected to the acid tongue of Darth Lanegan.
Presumably, ignoring the pleas of the hapless intern, he began the set early, because waiting was beneath him. By the time the news filtered across the market to us, mid flat white, we sprinted back to the gallery like caffeinated penguins, arriving just in time to catch the encore: a gravel-throated, soul-curdling version of “Mack the Knife” that somehow sounded like a funeral dirge being performed inside a haunted jukebox.
And then, poof, he was gone. Like a grizzled blues wizard exiting via smoke bomb, leaving behind one traumatised intern, a stunned crowd, and the faint smell of cigarettes and existential malaise. A drive-by gig. A hit-and-run hymn. But we had survived our brush with the Lord of Shadows, and I walked away with a signed poster, a scribbled-on album, and a story.