Deviation: 4Ever Delayed.

Original Size: Tabloid 11 x 17 (inches).

Software used: Macromedia Freehand MX.

Soundtrack:
Manic Street Preachers - Motown Junk (Single)
Manic Street Preachers - Generation Terrorists
Manic Street Preachers - Motorcycle Emptiness (Single)
Manic Street Preachers - Theme From M*A*S*H* (Suicide Is Painless) E.P.

Possibly the best lyricist of 90, musically with a small talent, but he was highly virtuous to write stunning words, I spent a long time working with this piece, and finally I'm done...

I have a lot of portraits without complete, I wish to finish many of this works, so, I think that my collection about "12 Maidens of Heaven" can wait for a little time...

If you like to see more pieces about Richey and the Manics, check these links:

Richey Edwards:


Manic Street Preachers:


CR__..


Richey Edwards.
Biography taken of Wikipedia:

"I talk to God but the sky is empty"
Sylvia Plath.

"Culture sucks down words
Itemise loathing and feed yourself smiles
Organise your safe tribal war
Hurt maim kill and enslave the ghetto"
Motorcycle Emptiness.

Richard "Richey" James Edwards (born 22 December 1967 in Blackwood, Wales, UK) (also known as Richey James) is the former co-lyricist and rhythm guitarist of the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers. Edwards has been missing since 1995.

Richey Edwards grew up in Blackwood, South Wales, where he attended Oakdale Comprehensive. Between 1986-1989 he attended University of Wales, Swansea and graduated with a 2:1 degree in political history.

Edwards was initially a driver and roadie for Manic Street Preachers, but he soon became accepted as the band's main spokesman and fourth member. Edwards showed little musical talent - his real contribution to the Manic Street Preachers was in the words and design. More often than not he was miming on the guitar during early live performances, but was, along with bassist Nicky Wire, principal lyricist.



"Blessed be the blades
Blessed be the sighs
Dionysus against the crucified"
Judge Yr'self.

In 1991 he gained notoriety following an argument with NME journalist Steve Lamacq, who questioned the band's authenticity and values, keen to ensure the punk ethic was not abused, after a gig at the Norwich Arts Centre. Edwards responded by carving the words "4 Real" into his forearm with a razor blade he was carrying. The injury required hospitalisation and seventeen stitches.

Edwards suffered severe bouts of depression throughout his life, and was open about it in interviews: "If you're hopelessly depressed like I was, then dressing up is just the ultimate escape. When I was young I just wanted to be noticed. Nothing could excite me except attention so I'd dress up as much as I could. Outrage and boredom just go hand in hand."

"Gets to a point where you really can’t operate any more as a human being – you can’t get out of bed, you can’t…make yourself a cup of coffee without something going badly wrong or your body’s too weak to walk."



"Roses in the hospital
Stub cigarettes out on my arm
Roses in the hospital
Want to feel something of value"
Roses in the Hospital.

He also self-harmed, mainly through stubbing cigarettes on his body, and cutting himself ("When I cut myself I feel so much better. All the little things that might have been annoying me suddenly seem so trivial because I'm concentrating on the pain. I'm not a person who can scream and shout so this is my only outlet. It's all done very logically."). His problems with drugs and alcohol were well documented.

After the release of the band's third album The Holy Bible, he checked into The Priory psychiatric hospital, missing out on some of the promotional work for the album and forcing the band to appear as a three piece at the Reading Festival.

Following release from the Priory, the Manic Street Preachers as a four-piece band toured Europe with Suede and Therapy? for what was to be the last time. Edwards' final live appearance with the band was at the London Astoria, on the 21 December 1994.

The concert ended with the band infamously smashing their equipment and damaging the lighting system, prompted by Edwards' violent destruction of his guitar towards the end-of-set closer "You Love Us".



"I hate purity
Hate goodness
I dont want virtue to exist anywhere
I want everyone corrupt"
Faster.

The Holy Bible was the third studio album by Manic Street Preachers. It was released on August 30, 1994 by Epic Records, a subsidiary of Sony Records, unlike their two previous albums which had been released on the Columbia Records imprint.

It peaked at number 6 on the UK Albums Chart. In August 2005 it topped Newsnight Review's 'Quintessential Newsnight Viewer' top 5 favourite albums poll, pushing Radiohead's OK Computer (a much bigger seller) into second place, and "Dark Side of the Moon" of Pink Floyd in a third possition. It is listed on the list of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2001 Q magazine named it as one of the 50 Heaviest Albums Of All Time.

It was the band's final album recorded before the disappearance of Richey on February 1, 1995. It is considered to be the band's magnum opus by many, although some critics prefer the band's next album, Everything Must Go, the latter demonstrating a different musical style and production outlook, reflecting the absence of the creative direction of Edwards.

Whereas lyric duties on the two previous albums were split fairly evenly between Edwards and the band's bass player Nicky Wire, Wire has said in interviews that Edwards wrote about 70-75% of the lyrics on The Holy Bible, which may explain why the lyrical themes on The Holy Bible were much darker than on the later Manic Street Preachers albums after Edwards' disappearance.

The song lyrics consisted of many diary/journal entries made by Edwards, and were, in essence, his final writings before his mysterious disappearance on February 1, 1995. In Q magazine's January 2006 100 Greatest Albums Ever! list, where The Holy Bible came in at #69, it was said of the album: 'Graphic, violent torrent of self-lacerating punk fury which infamously details the horrors in Richey Edwards' head before his 1995 disappearance.'

Edwards' lyrics took on a poetic nature (Sylvia Plath was a big influence), and the melodies are highly unusual, perhaps due to the fact that James Dean Bradfield was adapting the poems that Edwards wrote and wrapping them around the songs. Single words are stretched to fill a whole line and some entire sentences are sung very quickly, rendering them barely intelligible even when read from the complete lyric booklet.

Many of the songs contain obscure religious, political and literary references. The album embraced various philosophical mindsets including nihilism ("I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing") and misanthropy ("All I preach is extinction"). Edwards also wrote about weighty themes, such as the Holocaust, in an ambiguous style that borders on stream of consciousness.



"You have your very own number
They dress your cage in its nature
Once you roared now you just grunt lame
Pace around pathetic pound games"
Small Black Flowers that Grow in the Sky.

Edwards disappeared on 1 February 1995, on the day that he and James Dean Bradfield were due to fly to the U.S. on a promotional tour. In the two weeks before his disappearance, Edwards withdrew £200 a day from his bank account, which totalled £2800 by February. He checked out of the Embassy Hotel in Bayswater Road, London at seven in the morning, and it has been proven that he then drove to his apartment in Cardiff, Wales.

In the two weeks that followed he was apparently spotted in the Newport passport office, and the Newport bus station. On 7 February, Anthony Hatherhall, a taxi driver from Newport, supposedly picked up Edwards from the King's Hotel in Newport, and drove him around the valleys, including Blackwood (Edwards’ home as a child). The passenger got off at the Severn View service station and paid the £68 fare in cash.

On 14 February, Edwards' Vauxhall Cavalier received a parking ticket at the Severn View service station and on 17 February, the vehicle was reported as abandoned. Police discovered the battery to be flat, with evidence that the car had been lived in. Due to the service station's proximity to the Severn Bridge (which has been a renowned suicide location in the past) and Edwards' depressive state at the time, it was widely believed that he took his own life by jumping from the bridge.

Many people who knew him, however, have said that he was never the type to contemplate suicide and he himself was quoted in 1994 as saying "In terms of the 'S' word, that does not enter my mind. And it never has done, in terms of an attempt. Because I am stronger than that. I might be a weak person, but I can take pain."

The investigation itself has received criticism. In his book Everything (A Book About Manic Street Preachers), Simon Price states that aspects of the investigation were "far from satisfactory." He asserts the police may not have taken Edwards' mental state into account when prioritising his disappearance.

Price also records Edwards' sister Rachel as having "hit out at police handling" after CCTV footage was analysed two years after the disappearance. Price records a member of the investigation team as stating "that the idea that you could identify somebody from that is arrant nonsense." While his family had the option of declaring him legally dead from 2002, they have chosen not to, and his status remains open as a missing person.



"Life has been unfaithful
And it all promised so so much
I am a relic I am just a petrified cry
Wheeled out once a year, a cenotaph souvenir
The applause nails down my silence"
La Tristesse Durera.

As well as an interest in music, Edwards' has displayed a love for literature. He chose many of the quotes that appear on Manics records and would often refer to writers and poets during interviews. This interest in literature has remained as integral to the band's appeal as their music. Albert Camus, Philip Larkin, Yukio Mishima and Fyodor Dostoevsky are known to be amongst his favourite authors.

Edwards' lyrics have often been of a highly poetic nature, particularly on the band's third album The Holy Bible, and at times they have reflected his knowledge of political history.

His icons and heroes have affected his work and his sensibilities. Many of them, like Kurt Cobain, Ian Curtis and Sylvia Plath, committed suicide at a young age following a short but exceptionally productive life; J.D. Salinger became a recluse, living a hermit-like existence after releasing his novel, The Catcher in the Rye, now recognised as a classic. It was this interest in the unusual that helped shape Edwards's own career, particularly during the early days, with the promise of releasing one classic album and then burning out.