The Douglas Fir

The Douglas Fir can be read on my personal Substack here

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'Kristen Hovers At The Edge': Excerpt from 'I Know How To Live': The Life of Kristen Pfaff via 3AM Magazine

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This is the first chapter from  ‘I Know How To Live’: The Life of Kristen Pfaff  by Guy Mankowski  (with an afterword by Jason Pfaff). It’s 1993, and a teeming English summer afternoon. A crowd sways in front of the stage. The singer wears a guitar over her grey trench coat. Smoke flows through her hair as she waves her lit cigarette at the crowd. A man in the crowd shouts, with contempt, ‘she’s dyed her hair!’ There’s a woman next to her in a black miniskirt, carrying a black bass with the confidence of one who treats it as an appendage. The black hair that obscures her face is somehow more convincing than that of the singer, who doesn’t look at her. The singer strums, her singing inaudible at first and the woman to her right winds her mike stand, plectrum in her mouth. There’s a sense of growing conviction about her. Ear-splitting feedback. A sense of occasion, the clenched body language of a band determined to prove themselves to this huge crowd at The Phoenix Festival...
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Kristen Pfaff biography: representation for it, my TEDx talk, its first chapter and who has become a part of it...

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Now being at the point where the first chapter of this book is finally out in the world it is remarkable to think I was first inspired to write a book about Kristen Pfaff from Hole when I read her mother Janet's book about her daughter's life (available  here ) and it contained excerpts from Kristen's diary. An entry in which she describes as a young girl having a conversation with the sea was perhaps the most beautiful piece of writing I've read and it probably began all this work. I have been working on it with Jason Pfaff after I got in touch with him. Jason gives his side of how we decided to work together on  this  podcast. One reason the book has taken longer to write than anyone might have expected is revelations about Pfaff from people who knew her are still being offered to me. However much I know about Kristen the more news about the book comes out the more people come to Jason and me to talk and open up about their recollections of her. Jason Pfaff and I h...
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‘I Know How To Live’: The Life of Kristen Pfaff’- out 10/12/24

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Through this Substack, chapters from volume 1 of what No Treble magazine called the 'long awaited' biography of Pfaff’s life will be published from 10th December.  It will be shared in three monthly instalments for paying subscribers (who already are getting unheard media from Pfaff’s life- such as excerpts from her journal recordings and a previously unheard song she wrote). It is a biography that has been in progress for over five years, and draws, for the first time, from the archive Pfaff left behind her after her tragic death at 27 years old. This archive includes hours of Pfaff’s unheard diary recordings, as well as her writings, critical essays, and unseen photographs from her short but compelling life. This archive led to new interviews by those who knew Pfaff best- including some powerful new voices which have not been on record before, and who will change the story about Pfaff. The Substack will begin with the release of volume 1 of 2 in the biography of Pfaff’s life...
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