tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-208951522024-03-13T16:58:04.583+00:00Alternatives to ValiumKirk Elderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05301246188133213386noreply@blogger.comBlogger146125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-53569264420395326812023-07-17T09:24:00.001+01:002023-07-17T09:24:44.706+01:00I wrote an extended version of my interview with Jane Birkin in which she talked about Serge Gainsbourg, motherhood, and the subversive legacy of Je T'Aime.
https://open.substack.com/pub/alastairmckay/p/histoire-de-jane-birkin-an-english?r=695tp&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webAlastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-74429349512861647492023-01-29T10:27:00.011+00:002023-01-30T12:05:49.484+00:00This Case Is Closed: The Enduring Enigma of Tom Verlaine One of the great punk records is Marquee Moon by Television. Of course, that's a contradiction. There's nothing punk about Television really, except that they appear at the right time, in the right place, and Richard Hell is briefly in the band, and he has some claim to be the inventor of the punk look, with the spiky hair and the safety pins. But there is only one TV in Television, and Hell is Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-25101993850829937982022-12-07T16:41:00.008+00:002022-12-07T22:06:29.994+00:00The Soundtrack of a Valve: An Appreciation of Gordon Dair
A few weeks ago, when the news was bad, I sent Gordon an email. I wanted to say something; anything. Gordon didn’t want cards and had limited use for sympathy, so I emailed an apology. I had a nagging memory about a historical injustice dating from 1988. It was about punk rock. It was about Gordon.
Where were we? We were in a basement in Stockbridge, finding our voices. We were in the office Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-49276649895796603732022-10-11T15:02:00.016+01:002022-10-11T22:33:01.840+01:00Hungry Beat: How Scotland's post-punk revolution was inspired by Vic Godard's sandwich, Chairman Mao's military strategy, and Andy Warhol's tambourine I used to see Paul Morley in the street. He lived nearby, and occasionally could be glimpsed outside Sainsbury’s glowering intensely in his long coat, black turtleneck and post-modern trousers. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to thank him for his music journalism in the NME, which was passionate and pretentious at a time when being passionate and pretentious was the best thing going. I wanted Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-30317847099779645792022-09-11T16:14:00.005+01:002022-09-11T17:19:35.566+01:00"Punk was like amputating yourself from the culture you grew up in." - Bobby Gillespie and Jim Lambie on Primal Scream, Warhol, William Eggleston and the Rolling Stones In a white room above the alley where David Bowie posed for the cover of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Bobby Gillespie and Jim Lambie are discussing hair. “Do you ever get those days,” the artist is saying to the rock’n’roll star, “when your hair is just mental?” “Aye,” the rock star replies. “When I wash it and go to sleep, then I wake up and the front Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-69201261568872622402022-07-22T22:56:00.002+01:002022-07-22T22:56:22.742+01:00The Gospel According To Colin Vearncombe When I started Alternatives To Valium the idea was that the artists could supply their own material without the interference of a journalist. It quickly became apparent that - as much as they might complain about interviews - musicians weren’t great at interpreting themselves. One of those who tried was the late Colin Vearncombe of Black, who supplied this manifesto. I borrowed part of it for theAlastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-48812075539619482252022-07-13T11:42:00.003+01:002022-07-13T11:45:37.947+01:00Like A Rhinestone Ploughboy: The Gospel According To Sydney DevineInterviews prompt a question about questions. Just as fiction writers are often said to be writing autobiography, interviewers ask questions about themselves. Or - and this is where it gets complicated - they are asking questions about their imagined reader. The most successful newspapers have a very clear idea of who their imagined reader is. A hardboiled former editor of The Scotsman with a Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-1140267401257956622022-06-25T12:54:00.001+01:002022-06-25T18:49:56.129+01:00An Interview with George Melly, jazz singer, Surrealist, zoot suit enthusiastThe first time I see George Melly, at an exhibition of new paintings by Lucian Freud, he is dressed casual: suede cowboy hat, dark jacket, sponge-soled trainers and a black eye-patch, the result of a detached retina. “This,” he declares of the exhibition, “is a collection of bits.” The second time I meet him, in the daytime gloom of Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in Soho, he is in full plumage: Kirk Elderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05301246188133213386noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-81691502575154215382022-06-13T11:08:00.013+01:002022-06-17T11:29:54.216+01:00 THE SPITZFINDIGKEIT OF HOWARD JACOBSON: AN AUTHOR IN A MELANCHOLY RAGE The early reviews of Howard Jacobson’s Kalooki Nights have focused on the anger. There is a lot of it. There is anger about the Holocaust, about casual anti-Semitism, and the refusal of English Jews to make a fuss. But actually, anger doesn’t quite do justice to the complex of feelings conjured by Jacobson’s prose, because the fury is wrapped in black comedy. And while it is Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-40753117514983932712022-06-13T10:45:00.002+01:002022-06-13T11:35:12.471+01:00My Dreams, They Fade And Die (Confessions Of An Accidental West Ham fan)ForeverOriginally uploaded by Herschell HersheyI lost my innocence at an evening game between West Ham and Crewe Alexandria. Oddly, for such a prime fixture, my good friend Denis had a spare ticket. But there was an ominous gleam in his eye when he handed me the Season Card in a corner of the Green Street Café. Sipping a milky tea, he fixed my gaze and said: “Welcome to a lifetime of pain.” At Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-27312613938054879532022-06-07T10:03:00.007+01:002022-06-17T17:07:09.915+01:00The Waterproof Sexuality of Kylie Minogue: A bonus chapter not included in my book Alternatives To Valium The Edinburgh Playhouse holds a number of significant memories. As well as a giant concert venue, it used to be a cinema. I saw the Sex Pistols’ film, The Great Rock and Roll Swindle, there. I saw the Russian Elvis. Tom Waits, his armchair, his standard lamp and his under-stocked fridge. The Blind Boys of Alabama, doing a gospel opera. The Velvet Underground betraying their instincts. Barry Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-83669745180144993752022-05-24T10:34:00.005+01:002022-06-07T10:55:29.560+01:00Simply The Red: a bonus chapter from my book Alternatives To Valium: How Punk Rock Saved A Shy Boy's Life I am sent to review Simply Red at the Aberdeen Exhibition Centre. This is not glamorous work. The Aberdeen Exhibition Centre is nobody’s idea of a good time. It is a shed, and Simply Red are very popular. Normal people like them. It is a disgrace.I have to stay overnight. I check into a sad hotel by the railway station. I leave my flowery toilet bag and a bar of chocolate in the room. It is my Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-82454257897933283352022-05-20T14:10:00.012+01:002022-05-20T14:41:31.110+01:00Alternatives To Valium, the book. What it's like and where to find it. Plus, get a bonus fanzine and badge. My book, Alternatives To Valium: How Punk Rock Saved A Shy Boy's Life is out now, published by Polygon. Click on the links to buy directly from the publisher, or order it online or from your local bookshop. The Scotsman review said: "The early years are a blast, from McKay's views on his first teacher ('Does she even like children? If she does, it's a secret') to his memories of his first fanzineAlastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-41062712534346873762022-02-05T17:02:00.010+00:002022-02-08T11:46:05.972+00:00James Grant of Love and Money: "We don't look like extras from Ben Hur and I'm comfortable with that." Love and Money's classic 1991 album Dogs In The Traffic was recently reissued on the Last Night From Glasgow label. This prompted me to look out an interview I did with singer James Grant at the time, a version of which was published in Vox magazine. I've included material that didn't fit in the original story. For more stories like this - such as my encounters with Nirvana, Dolly Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-54011348030958176192020-09-06T15:04:00.005+01:002020-09-06T15:05:43.075+01:00Cinematographer Christopher Doyle interviews cinematographer Christopher DoyleWhen the cinematographer Christopher Doyle appeared at the Edinburgh film festival in 2008, he interviewed himself, because, he said, he would ask more difficult questions. Here are some of his answers. On film school. “Film school is only good for your sex life.”On his remake of Psycho with Gus Van Zant “A $24m art project” and “a celebration of shower curtains”.On himself.”The Keith Richards ofAlastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-67491284981865662722020-07-31T17:16:00.005+01:002020-07-31T17:39:16.978+01:00Alan Parker, from Nice One Cyril to Midnight Express. "I started making commercials. That was my film school."November 2003: Recently, Alan Parker was asked to name his five favourite films. He thought about this, felt the reflex twitch towards Citizen Kane, then realised he didn’t have an open mind when he first met Charles Foster Kane in Orson Welles’s masterpiece. Before encountering the wonders of Xanadu, he had read about Kane and understood it to be the best film ever made.So he thought again and Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-28899115843497688602020-06-26T12:31:00.001+01:002022-06-13T14:16:54.314+01:00A Southern Belle Dreaming of Fidel: the Freewheelin' Jessica LangeTwo days after opening night, and Jessica Lange’s Midwestern drawl has turned into a weary croak. She is, she confesses, “a little worn out. My voice has taken quite a hit. It’s that thing after the opening, your whole body wants to relax, finally.”The play is Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. Lange appeared on Broadway in a production that was mauled by American critics. London has been Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-55062619005340444922019-10-15T11:11:00.003+01:002023-05-03T11:50:49.826+01:00Succession's Brian Cox on playing Logan Roy: "Hitler was a human being, Mussolini was a human being. Donald Trump, apparently, is a human being."In a long and varied career, Brian Cox has specialised in flawed, powerful men. He’s been King Lear, Hermann Goring, Hannibal Lecter. He’s currently playing Lyndon Johnson on Broadway. As Logan Roy, the patriarch of Jesse Armstrong’s brilliant satire of the uber-rich, Succession, Cox has arrived at the perfect role. Roy is a media mogul, in the vein of Rupert Murdoch or Sumner Redstone (patriarchAlastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-77640858633553856122017-04-10T21:27:00.000+01:002020-01-04T17:00:24.450+00:00The Exquisite Good Taste Of Domino Records (From The Moment When The Arctic Monkeys Became A Thing)
Whenever he addressed business seminars on the secret of his success, Tony Wilson, the newscaster and former boss of Factory Records, liked to quote Sid Vicious. Sid was once asked his opinion of the man in the street. “Fuck the man on the street,” he replied. “The man on the street is a cunt.”
For Wilson, the quote had shock value. In a conventional business environment, where every decision Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-72816053245749350722016-12-19T14:21:00.000+00:002016-12-19T16:48:55.636+00:00In the fictional labyrinth of The OA (spoiler alert) the cure for death is doing the haka in the style of Pan's People
George Melly (centre) offers insights
into mortality and munchie science in
krrrrazy Netflix drama, The OA
Bloody noses. What is it with the bloody noses? In every dystopian, faintly futuristic serial, it happens. The blankly beautiful person with the extra powers, the super senses, the wonky circuits, ejaculates but does not coagulate, so the red stuff runs down their pretty face Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-58077726604920389922016-12-12T16:13:00.002+00:002016-12-12T16:15:24.621+00:00Sex and violence, stupidity and artificial intelligence: the beautiful numbness of Westworld
Visitors to Westworld were
allowed to dress up as Abba
The geeks, we know, shall inherit the earth. When they do, it will surely look a lot like Westworld (Sky On Demand/Now TV). That’s not to say that dystopian science fiction is created to a formula, but if you mix sex and violence, stupidity and artificial intelligence, and pack a riddle inside a fortune cookie inside an enigma, you’d haveAlastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-50988221068232422452016-12-12T16:08:00.002+00:002016-12-12T16:08:13.057+00:00Rillington Place: Tim Roth plays Reg Christie as a cross between Alan Bennett and Mr Benn
Alan Bennett (left)
How do you like your serial killers? In Britain, while the crimes are being committed, or prosecuted, we like them with a dose of old testament horror, bordering on titillation. In retrospect, the sensations are numbed, and vile evil is portrayed, often, as a morbidly fascinating puzzle. Rillington Place (BBC iPlayer), is based on the real case of the notorious serial Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-73354180775674430302016-11-14T14:52:00.004+00:002016-11-14T14:59:29.685+00:00Planet Earth Is Blue, And There's Something We Can Do: Root For The Baby Iguana As It Is Chased By A Racing Snake
Godlike genius: David Attenborough (far left)
David Attenborough has forgotten more about television than most people will ever know, so presumably he knows that he is playing God in Planet Earth II (BBC iPlayer).
It wasn’t always like this. In his younger days, Attenborough was more of an explorer than a celestial spectre. But the great communicator no longer gets down with the apes.Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-72179239029515121702016-11-05T10:23:00.001+00:002016-11-05T10:23:16.407+00:00The Crown Is A Slightly Subversive Tapestry About The Royal Family With A CGI Elephant And Enough Coughing To Startle The Fast Show's Bob Fleming
Doctor Who, left, and Her Majesty The Queenin the Netflix/Lockets drama, The Crown
The Crown (Netflix), like the royal family, is a faith-based endeavour. Dramatically, it poses a challenge, because the story is known, so the appeal of the enterprise becomes a matter of style and costume. Beyond that, it is about impersonation, and the willingness of the cast to test the old actors’ cliche/Alastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20895152.post-59833370899969125912016-10-31T16:23:00.003+00:002016-10-31T16:23:52.984+00:00Despite The Venom Of His Inner Numskulls, Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror Is Tales Of The Unexpected With iPhones
Kelly Macdonald (right) is a sweary Scottish cop
It’s an odd place, the inside of Charlie Brooker’s head. Reading his journalism, or watching Screenwipe, you’d expect his inner Numskulls to be venomous, splenetic creatures, firing bile through his nostrils and sputum through his eyes. But his television series, Black Mirror (Netflix), is oddly traditional in its approach. Though the six filmsAlastair McKayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03652654491260441697noreply@blogger.com0