Know Your Indie Rock Idols

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The good boy Anthony Rossomando was a great friend to us when we first started touring the UK constantly and sometimes needed desperately to hear an American accent (even though Anthony's was a curious pan-Atlantic confection that resulted from a Massachusettsan living in London for several years). In those days he had an apartment in Shoreditch a stone's throw from The Griffin, his local (okay, that's probably not "Shoreditch," but whatever — these were the olden days, and the ink on maps smeared easily when soaked with beer), and we spent many a late night in that flat conversing loudly with Anthony's wide stable of hipster trash pals, stirring the pot of black despair in which his poor neighbors must've perennially been stewing. It was Anthony who taught us you could and should eat a pickled egg at a bar — The Griffin had a big briny jar that we must’ve mocked when we first noticed it, like rubes who had wandered in from the hills. And he modeled for us an incredibly winning vision of the indie rock expat, one that required an all-in, freefall commitment that we were never quite courageous enough to emulate, but for Anthony didn’t seem to be a choice —  this is how he did everything, and still seems to. When we first met him he was playing in The Libertines, and not long after that started Dirty Pretty Things with Carl, Didz, and Gary. He later did a stretch with the Klaxons, and has now, with the uncanny timing of a matador hanging up his cape just before his reflexes fatally weaken, returned to his home shores, leaving the touring life in favor of songwriting and producing (even has a little gold statue from his work on Lady Gaga & Brad Cooper’s “Shallow”).

That’s a good price. Also, “opposite center point” is a very British bit of orientation.

Anyway, Anthony texted us this pic yesterday, said Carl found it in a suitcase of his (Ant’s) in the back of the Libertines’ old storage unit. Reminded us of the good old days, of which Mr. Rossomando was himself an indelible part.