London Rain

Sex is full of lies. The body tries to tell the truth. But, it’s usually too battered with rules to be heard, and bound with pretenses so it can hardly move. We cripple ourselves with lies… I believe in a long, prolonged, derangement of the senses in order to obtain the unknown.
—Jim Morrison

Oliver Rain Coward II, “London Rain”

Clan: Daeva
Affiliation: Byzantium Coven
Role: Creative Director of Club Byzantium

Devilishly handsome with dark, searching eyes, sensuous lips, and a tangle of unruly hair, London Rain is every inch the sybaritic aristocrat, and exudes an animal magnetism that attracts sexual beings of all ages, genders, and orientations. With a proper rebellious attitude and deep reserves of rock-and-roll narcissism, he combines the distracted distance of Syd Barrett with the preening sneer of Mick Jagger. When he’s not draped in a silk kimono or prancing about naked, London Rain favors black leather pants, flowing silk scarves, and nineteenth-century frilled shirts. Somewhat taciturn for a rock star, his voice has the kind of posh British accent that pops open the buttons of a woman’s blouse and makes straight men feel strangely flustered. London Rain feeds indiscriminately during sex, but never kills—why lose a fan unnecessarily?

History

Born Oliver Rain Coward II in 1949, “London Rain” grew up the spoiled scion of a family that made its fortune on the eighteenth-century slave trade. Oliver’s paternal grandfather was a notorious war profiteer, his maternal grandmother was an American Confederate who wrote erotica under the pen name “Fanny Quimper,” and his father co-founded the British Fascist League. Oliver’s mother is unknown, but died during childbirth, and is rumored to have been a patient at a sanitarium where his father recovered incognito from a morphine addiction. In 1964, the elder Coward was assassinated by a Fenian veteran after publicly declaring that “Ireland should be dragged back to the United Kingdom and crushed like bloody Cromwell!” Oliver inherited the family fortune, and it wasn’t long before the expected squandering began. Moving to Ladbroke Grove, Oliver fell in with Lieutenant Samuel Trilby, a Brujah rake who set himself up as the leader of a bohemian sex cult. Oliver became Trilby’s ghoul, enjoying a life of hedonism and vitae in the heart of Swinging London. Discovering a black Telecaster and a hidden talent for songwriting, Oliver began making music, and soon rose to popularity under the stage name “London Rain.” Departing Trilby’s Spiral of Osiris once the bodies started dropping, Oliver purchased a flat in Carnaby Street and focused on his career as an rock star.

With his handsome, androgynous appearance and irresistibly louche demeanor, London Rain found a ready home in the burgeoning glam scene; but his sound was darker and more overtly sexual than Marc Bolan, David Bowie, or Bryan Ferry. Cultivating a sensual stage presence that reflected his ravenous pansexuality, Oliver began attracting a cult of devoted groupies, from teen screamers tossing panties to besotted rentboys, sulking by the stage door in skin-tight Mick Jagger silkscreens. Preternaturally sensitive to trends, Oliver had a knack for positioning himself at the cutting edge of the “next big thing,” moving from glam to disco to punk with an intuitive fluidity. By 1979, he had become as famous for his sexual exploits as for his music, and his reputation for excess was legendary.

One day on tour, Oliver glanced in the mirror and noticed a wrinkle. He immediately sought his old friend Lt. Trilby and asked to be made into a ghoul again. Recognizing in Oliver the raw material for a Daeva, Trilby brought the singer to the newly-opened Club Byzantium to meet Venus and Orchid. The introduction was a smashing success, and while Oliver’s rock star affectations were a bit obnoxious, his insightful suggestions on improving the atmosphere of the club were exactly what Venus needed. She quickly adopted Oliver as her “cambion,” and she allowed him to program the club’s music, select the DJs, and even redecorate rooms in the Pandocheia. It was Oliver’s idea to establish the Forum Tauri as an exclusively male area, and when Oliver told a meddling Archbishop Malachi to “fuck off and start your own bloody club,” Venus promised him immortality on the spot. On the final show of his tour, the coven helped “London Rain” fake a heroin overdose onstage at the Palladium. The following night Oliver Rain Coward II was Embraced by Mistress Naamah to the sound of  “Venus in Furs”—his request, of course.

Current Role

As Byzantium’s Creative Director, Oliver serves the coven as trendsetter and tastemaker, and his Cainite blood has acutely sharpened his ability to intuit patterns, sense trends, and predict the changing fancies of feckless mortals. Oliver has applied his “London Rain magic” to everything from the “transcendent excess” of Byzantium’s décor to booking unknown performers on the cusp of imminent fame. He’s also rather easy on the eyes, and while Oliver lacks the tantric abilities of his Sire, he’s never short of groupies, cambions, and Cainites ready to offer their veins

Sources & Notes

Although the banner picture of Oliver Rain Coward is obviously Syd Barrett, the character himself was inspired by Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius books, the Nicolas Roeg film Performance, and a touch of “Weasel” from Monty Nero’s comic Death Sentence Volume 1. I found the photo of Barrett to be simply irresistible. It comes from a series of photographs taken by Mick Rock in 1969 at Syd Barrett’s home in Earl’s Court. Rock opened the door to find Barrett’s roommate Iggy the Eskimo capering about nude. With the recently-painted orange and purple floorboards drying beneath them, Mick snapped some of the best pictures of Syd Barrett ever taken, so I borrowed one. There’s no other relationship between Oliver and Syd—I think of London Rain as the lovechild of Mick Jagger and Bryan Ferry, with David Bowie as midwife.

Author: Great Quail
Original Upload: 31 October 2000
Last Modified: 6 October 2018
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
PDF Version: [Coming Soon]