Tenement Kid, Bobby Gillespie
Tenement Kid, Bobby Gillespie
List: $27.99 | Sale: $19.59
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Tenement Kid
Rough Trade Book of the Year

Author: Bobby Gillespie

Narrator: Bobby Gillespie

Unabridged: 16 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: White Rabbit

Published: 01/27/2022

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

'Gillespie is rock and roll's Oliver Twist. A punk rock fairytale, razor sharp on class struggle, music, style, and a singular view of the world resulting in one of the world's great bands. Couldn't put down' Courtney Love

Born into a working-class Glaswegian family in the summer of 1961, TENEMENT KID begins in the district of Springburn, soon to be evacuated in Edward Heath's brutal slum clearances. 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. Filled with 'the holy spirit of rock n roll' his destiny is sealed with the arrival of the Sex Pistols and punk rock which to Bobby, represents an iconoclastic vision of class rebellion and would ultimately lead to him becoming an artist initially in the Jesus and Mary Chain then Primal Scream.

Building like a breakbeat crescendo to the Summer of Love, Boys Own parties, and the fateful meeting with Andrew Weatherall in an East Sussex field, as the '80s bleed into the '90s and a new kind of electronic soul music starts to pulse through the nation's consciousness, TENEMENT KID closes with the release of Screamadelica, the album often credited with 'starting the '90s'. A book filled with the joy and wonder of a rock n roll apostle who would radically reshape the future sounds of fin de siècle British pop, Bobby Gillespie's memoir cuts a righteous path through a decade lost to Thatcherism and saved by acid house.

About Bobby Gillespie

Bobby Gillespie is a singer, songwriter and founder member of the rock and roll band Primal Scream. The band's origins are in the city of Glasgow. They have released 11 albums including major hits, 'Loaded', 'Rocks', 'Country Girl' and 'Kowalski'.


Reviews

Get your rocks off! This is simply the best rock biography I've read in a long time. Learned a lot. I wished I'd spoken to Bobby about music at school, I thought the only thing we had in common was a love of Glasgow Celtic. Initially the book describes the Glasgow of my youth, a beautifully detailed t......more

Goodreads review by Jim

Imagine Rik from the Young Ones was in a band. And he hated "straights" and then he wrote a book. and took drugs and drugs and drugs. The early part around Glasgow was interesting as I knew some of the people mentioned from when I worked in a record shop also mentioned in the book. Did nobody fact che......more

Just a touch laboured in points with politics. We get it, you’re a socialist! Despite this, an interesting read for those interested in Scottish culture and British music- everything from working class life in 70’s Glasgow, to the Stones, Beatles, Pistols, Roses, Mondays, the Chain, McGee and Noel G......more

Goodreads review by Michael

Shame he dies in the end.......more

Goodreads review by Bob

Bobby Gillespie has some great stories to tell about his life and his artistic journey up to the release of Primal Scream's album "Screamadelica." He comes off as a decent bloke, fun to be around but a bit impulsive. It was quite amazing how often his musical tastes matched mine and how we discovere......more


Quotes

Gillespie is rock and roll's Oliver Twist. A punk rock fairytale, razor sharp on class struggle, music, style, and a singular view of the world resulting in one of the world's great bands. Couldn't put down

As hugely influential and inspiring as Bobby Gillespie's music is, we now know his genius includes the telling of this story and reviving the ghosts that brought the music to life

A righteous journey, an elegy for the transformative power of rock and roll told with heart and soul. The Gospel according to Bobby Gillespie

If they encapsualted the spirit of rock and roll in one person it would be Bobby Gillespie. The book is affirmative not just of a rockin' life but the beautiful working-class culture that made it. I felt like shedding tears of joy reading it, but also enraged about what we've lost

From Rottenrow hospital to the TOTP studio, this is the enthralling and vividly detailed story of a boy dreamed himself into a rock and roll star

Readers will be astonished by the detail in his memoir, the extraordinary rolling energy of his prose, and his warmth, gratitude and performerly wisdom . . . The way Gillespie writes about music's intoxicating buzz is inspirational . . . Tenement Kid's joy is in its undeviating belief in rock iconography Mojo

A fascinating story Guardian

An impassioned, elegantly written tale of self-realisation through fandom, along with plenty of doubts and insecurities The Times

An obsessive music fan who fulfilled his wildest rock star dreams, Gillespie has found an authentic voice to desribe his often hair-raising experiences, and the result is a rock 'n' roll epic Daily Telegraph

I can't recommend this book highly enough . . . the best music-related book I've read this year, and essential reading for anyone who loves and cares about alternative music Louder Than War