Tenement Kid: Rough Trade Book of the Year

Product Information

Gillespie’s family lived in one room, sharing a bathroom with other families, later moving to a “room and kitchen” in the same tenement, with the then-family of four sharing a bedroom. A similar time shift from that date would have taken you back to the black and white days of Bobby Rydell, Adam Faith, and ‘Crackerjack’. Last month, he and old friend, author and fellow Scot Irvine Welsh, got together to discuss some of the book’s themes. In fact, it’s his detailed account of his pre Scream musical activity that makes for some of the best reading in the book.

Although Gillespie claims to be a lover, not a fighter, he revels in the chaos and was ripe for punk, providing an ecstatic description of the explosive effect of hearing The Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen.Tony Wilson claimed the 90s began on November 30th, 1989, when Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses appeared on the same episode of Top of the Pops. Funnily enough its the Primal Scream rock and roll stuff near the end that fades away, but a fascinating read from one of Glasgow's most archetypally dour exports.

No surprise when the posters on the kitchen wall were Che Guevara and the famous ’68 Olympics Black Power salute.His parents are staunchly leftwing, anti-racist and bohemian: there are abstract paintings on the walls of their flat, his dad runs a folk club.

Like all great autobiographies, it’s funny in places, honest and documents how rock became pushed aside to make room for Acid House.I had no idea that Gillespie was at school with Creation Records founder, Alan McGee (McGee was in the year above him) and the origin story of that relationship made for interesting reading. It sure makes me want to re-listen Screamadelica in its entirety which I will probably do at some point this weekend. We have a regular newsletter with the week’s new releases that goes out every Thursday or Friday too. We also use them to help detect unauthorized access or activity that violate our terms of service, as well as to analyze site traffic and performance for our own site improvement efforts.

There’s been a recent avalanche of books by musicians, including Sinéad O’Connor, Baxter Dury, Will Sergeant, Stevie Van Zandt, Carl Cox, Shaun Ryder and Dave Grohl, to mention just a few.Loaded, an Andrew Weatherall remix of a ballad from their unloved eponymous second album, puts them on Top of the Pops. He is best known as the lead singer, founding member, and primary lyricist of the alternative rock band Primal Scream. I liked all the little touches, talking about the fashion and influences which made me wish I'd got into Primal Scream earlier. The thing that heartened me is that throughout the book, Gillespie's political outlook and beliefs never changed. Leaving school at 16 and going to work as a printers' apprentice, Bobby's rock n roll epiphany arrives like a bolt of lightning shining from Phil Lynott's mirrored pickguard at his first gig at the Apollo in Glasgow.