The sound of my shitty summer was a scuzzy two guitar, girl singer and drum-machine pop group called The Kills. Both their albums are great and I don’t buy into the I Like The Trux fuck The Kills mantra… though to be fair, they do sound quite similar at times, and their Fiberfib performance was pretty similar to Jennifer on stage. Ah shucks, but it’s good, rocking lip curling and eye rolling.
Stalking Pete Doherty, Channel 4’s 10 pm documentary last night was one of the oddest and most disturbing TV shows I’ve ever seen.Opinion on Popbitch and the C4 messageboard is surprisingly fairly united: Carlish is obviously seriously ill, and even ‘junkie scum’, grubby handed Kate Moss marrying rock singer Pete Doherty deserves some sympathy for the relentless pursual and harrassment he suffered at the lens of Carlish.
The film was essentially a documentary about the failed documentary that media studies teacher Carlish wanted to make about the Libertines’ ex-singer. It focused more on Carlish and his own increasingly disturbing quest to “have [his] moment of fame” than it did on the heavy drug use and erratic behaviour of Doherty. I was pretty shcoked to see footage of Carlish filming himself (this was actually about 50% of the film), shouting his love for Pete – over and over again, having a tantrum when he wasn’t allowed backstage with some students he’d brought along, crying and sobbing, dancing in his bedroom at his mum’s house to Electric Dreams, asking Pete how it felt to be “more loved than Kurt Cobain” – a highly questionable claim… the man is relentless after the sense of car-crash TV humour died off (about two minutes in), the uneasiness crept in.
I have to say that in retrospect, Carlish obviously needs care and attention, and that in some ways the film should not have been broadcast. Hearing him scream “I know Pete a million times better than you!” at one of Doherty’s friends, or doing his “Max – on Pete – in Kate; Max inside Kate – on top of Pete” bit wasn’t funny, it was pretty embarrassing and made me feel like I was at a freakshow, and should have known better.
Update: Comments closed on this post. While amusing, they were clearly off topic. Feel free to contact me if you feel you’ve got something relevant to add to this. Cheers.
The man at the centre of Pete Doherty’s arrest in January has put forward his version of events in today’s Guardian. Max Carlish, the down-on-his-luck documentary film maker admits that he sold photographs of Pete Doherty taking drugs to a national newspaper without the singer’s agreement.
In a slightly bizarre article, Carlish portrays himself as a sort of bumbling but lovable fool, enamoured with the image of the self-destructive rock star flying to close to the flame. His tone is most telling – it smacks of the sort of innocent, self-righteous bollocks we have come to expect from people who start a fight and then pretend they don’t know why the other guy is so upset.
Max Carlish is a man who has found that his main skill is a curious form of self loathing and self deprecation, as can be seen not only in today’s article but in work dating back five years or more. I find it hard to trust the word of a man who simultaneously asks us to trust his version of events and tells us he’s a bit sad. The victim role he plays is unconvincing, and the story lacks some key details, including Carlish’s arrest on drug offences shortly after he sold the photos of the man he professes to love.
Probably, Doherty will be found guilty in the forthcoming criminal case, because it does look as if he has broken the law. But to be fair to him, Max Carlish does sound as if he deserved it: what kind of man would do something like that and expect nothing to come of it?
See also, Max Carlish in Pete in Kate on Channel 4. (the comments are fascinating!)