Live med Leven

Half-page portrait ahead of Leven's tour of northern Norway in March 1998, largely assembled from British interviews (Q, Mojo) and memories of the Tromsø concert in 1997. Emberland begins with the image of the man with his own whisky, his own detox clinic, men's work and “more and coarser bawdy jokes than an entire Rorbua clientele”, and recapitulates the legend: start as John St. Field, “punk band” Doll by Doll, a choking attack in a side street in north London, heroin, the girlfriend who vanished with the Dalai Lama's bodyguard, then the “CORE Thrust college” with (alleged) support from Princess Diana.

On the whisky Leven's Lament he quotes Leven's stage joke from 1997 (the crate of samples disappeared at Fornebu airport) and – from Q – the admission that the whisky was bottled by his favourite brand and merely relabelled; after all, you can also have “Sting cognac and Tina Turner chardonnay”. Leven is a great fibber, but an even greater storyteller. Further: Leven as a kind of English branch of Robert Bly's men's movement; his own statements on Fairy Tales (fairy tales as stories for everyone, men who are mostly still boys, the “impoverished woman” in men) and a coarse stage anecdote from Tromsø 1997 about his partner Deborah. From Mojo: he loves telling fragmented stories on stage and seeing when people are really moved; from Q: heroin cost him a lot of self-confidence and he needs reassurance that he has not messed it up.

Outlook: Doll by Doll are slowly reuniting; in a month Leven goes into the studio for “Injured Women – The Leven Report”, due in the autumn, together with a Doll by Doll box of six albums including the unreleased “Last Flick of the Golden Wrench” and a regular best-of. Tour dates in the box: Huset, Hammerfest (Wednesday), Blå Rock Café, Tromsø (Thursday), Præstengbrygga, Kabelvåg (Saturday).