Irvine Welsh
should not be connected with pop literature just out of compliment. Eventhough he created this genre with «Trainspotting» to some extent. That’s why he should just be considered one of the best contemeporary Bristish authors.
I remember the video, him camping around with Mick Ronson on «Top Of The Pops». Watching «Velvet Goldmine» recently makes me realise that Bowie saved a generation of sensitive working-class boys from the stigma of teenage virginity. You could act a bit fruity, pretend to be bisexual, and still have a bird, which was nice.
If you take the period from the end of punk to the start of acid house and then remove Shane MacGowan and Nick Cave, you've got next to nothing.
I don't particularly like it, it was just there at the time. Mind you it displaced one of the most depressing records ever to reach number one - UB40's «Red, Red Wine». I still have the odd suicidal twinge when I hear that one.
It reminds me of my mum and dad picking me up and throwing me about to that one. They loved the Beatles. I inherited that. You should rebel against your parents taste, but you can't really fuck off the Beatles, can you?
The last summer is always the greatest summer of your life. So it has to be «Music Sounds Better With You». It was burning up Ibiza when we were over there last summer at the Manumission Motel.
I associate it with the end of a nasty intense teen romance on the Friday followed by one of the worst/best (delete according to taste) pub battles when Hibs played at Motherwell in the seventies. I recall a jagged lump of concrete crashing through the window and whizzing an inch past my face as the juke box blared out «S.O.S.».
There isn't one thing and one moment, but when i was sixteen I was out pissed on the town with three friends. Only two of us came back alive. Ever since then i've been trying to make sense of things and i think a lot of the writing comes from that. If I had to pick a track, I think it would be «I’m Bored». When I started reading I was bored by most books and the touted writers. Iggy's songs always inspires me, some people see it as just petulance, but i see it, like punk, as a challenge to be yourself. Only boring people are bored for long, and bored people are always boring. It's in your own hands to sort it out.
