Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India is Rory MacLean’s retracing of the Hippie Trail that marked the beginning of the modern travel industry in the Sixties and Seventies, a six thousand mile trek that now leads through war zones and some of the world’s most chaotic cities.
Dan Rhodes: Gold
“…across all of Rhodes’s books, short fiction or novels, there’s a strong vein of humour closely entwined with brutality and tragedy…”
Abby Lee: Girl With A One Track Mind
“…it’s about time that a different – non-sexist, non-passive, progressive female – perspective on sexuality broke though into the mainstream, so the more of us doing it, the better…”
Niall Griffiths: Wreckage: Sifting The Wreckage
“…Despite having written five novels, selling thousands of books and having had his work translated into five languages, Griffiths has received little recognition in the city he was born – perhaps because of the controversial subject matter of his books…
Suhayl Saadi: Psychoraag
“…I see little point in attempting to mimic what’s already been done very well by others. But I mean, I didn’t write Psychoraag thinking, “Halleluia! Now I’m going to write the first Asian Scottish novel!”…”
Diablo Cody : Candy Girl – A Year In The Life Of An Unlikely Stripper
“…I found it to be cathartic, a very weird, twisted form of self-expression. I think I got addicted to just how subversive and how fun it was compared to my every day life…”
Trainspotting The Play: Harry Gibson: 10 Years On
“…Trainspotting keeps bringing new people into theatres; theatre managers cry out happily, ‘We’ve never sold so much lager’…”
Ralph Steadman: Gonzo: The Art
“Bloodsucking business men, venal politicians, dollar drugged gamblers, archetypal beholders of negation and power transmogrified into grinning reptilia… In the ferocious stroke of a few simple lines Steadman trans-atlantically expresses all the negative facets of the human condition to a terrifyingly hilarious degree.”
Erol Alkan: A Bugged Out Mix By Erol Alkan: Big Jesus Trash Can
“…Anarchic, eclectic and unique are some of the words used to describe dee-jay Erol Alkan, who’s been injecting his imagination and energies into his renowned club night Trash since January 1997…”
Christopher G. Moore: Gambling On Magic
“…I was at a bit of a disadvantage during our caffienated conversation as I have yet to read any of Moore’s books. He kindly gave me copies of the aforementioned Zero Hour, along with the Burma-set…”
Julie Burchill: Sugar Rush: Hurricane Julie
Ben Granger collides with Julie Burchill over several bottles of wine to seek out the dreadful truth on chavs, Stalin, Ariel Sharon and Morrissey “Never meet your heroes; they always disappoint” runs the old saying. Invited from my humble Lancastrian abode down to the Brighton realm of the greatest shit-stirring iconic hack of our […]
Tony Wilson: F4 Records: Fourth Time Lucky
Craig Johnson hears Factory Records supremo Tony Wilson on the rebirth of his record label, the upcoming Joy Division film, how he accidentally created Frankie Goes To Hollywood and why photographer Kevin Cummings is a miserable twat. ‘Wilson ya wanker!’ is a statement that has been bandied around Northern England for thirty years now. The […]
David Thomas: Pere Ubu : I Never Volunteer Information
Craig Johnson talks to Pere Ubu’s David Thomas Think of alternative rock in the 1970s and we immediately think of The Ramones, Talking Heads, Television as the major musical forces in those heady times. An under-rated band of that much pillaged and productive scene were underground rockers Pere Ubu – subterranean innovators of the new-wave/post-punk […]
Damo Suzuki : HollyAris : I Am Damo Suzuki
Craig Johnson meets the legendary member of Can who’s too busy looking into the future to care much about the past Does anybody ever go out on a Sunday night? I’m always too knackered to bother most weeks, but this particular night was an unmissable opportunity to see an unmissable psychedelic brain feast. I was […]
Dave Hann, Steve Tilzey : No Retreat : Street Fighting Men
Ben Granger talks to Dave Hann and Steve Tilzey, authors of No Retreat, a punchy account of their days fighting neo-Nazis in the North-West of England Back in the late 70s Manchester was a stronghold of Britain’s premier far-right party, the National Front. As factories and communities went down they went up, recruiting at pubs […]
David Sylvian: The Last Romantic: Adventures Of The Spirit
David Sylvian’s Religion: An Interview and Interpretation Darren J.N. Middleton discusses the spiritual road and its arduous rewards (1, numbers in brackets refer to the references below) I can offer nothing / This nothing’s everlasting / I could be Shiva lying / Beneath ferocious darkness / My heart’s devoured / Cover me with flowers. David […]
J G Ballard : Millennium People : Entertaining Violence
Chris Hall talks to JG Ballard about Millennium People, the middle classes and mail order Kalashnikovs It’s been 70 years since HG Wells published The Shape of Things to Come but there has been a far more astute chronicler of our contemporary reality living among us in the suburbs for more than half a century. […]
Patricia Duncker : Seven Tales Of Sex And Death : Dark Star
Chris Hall talks to Patricia Duncker about sex, death and sending porn through the German postal system Speaking from her home in Aberystwyth on the day of the Stop the War rally, Patricia Duncker is excitedly bellowing down the phone. “My niece called and asked if I was going on the march and I said […]
Peter Saville : Designed By Peter Saville : Graphic Sex
Chris Hall meets legendary designer Peter Saville “Peter Saville drives a skoda”. The appalling idea scared him off of renting one when it was offered in place of the VW Polo that he’d ordered. “I know everyone says they’re really good cars now, but I’m not gonna be in a test group for them. It’s […]
Patricia Duncker : Hallucinating Foucault : Insanity Clause
Chris Mitchell gets philosophical with Patricia Duncker about her novel Hallucinating Foucault “Madness, death, sexuality, crime; these are the subjects that attract most of my attention.” So said the late French philosopher Michel Foucault, one of the century’s most audacious intellectuals, who died of AIDS in 1984. Only Foucault’s books remain as a reminder of […]
Martin Millar : Love And Peace With Melody Paradise : Do It Yourself
Chris Mitchell talks to Martin Millar about his pro-traveller novel Love And Peace With Melody Paradise and how setting up his own website has brought him new readers What do you do if you’re an author who’s published several novels to widespread critical acclaim and then get unceremoniously dumped by your publisher? You’ve guessed it […]
Banana Yoshimoto / Michael Emmerich : Goodbye Tsugumi : Two Worlds And In Between
Jonathan Kiefer discusses the delicate art of translation with Michael Emmerich, English translator of Japanese novelist Banana Yoshimoto Here’s what it means to be a literary translator: If you haven’t heard of Banana Yoshimoto, you probably haven’t heard of Michael Emmerich. If you have heard of Banana Yoshimoto, you probably haven’t heard of Michael Emmerich. […]
Iain Sinclair : London Orbital : Width Of A Circle
Iain Sinclair walked the length of the M25 motorway to research his book London Orbital. Chris Hall hears why Listeners of Radio 4’s Today programme recently voted London’s M25 the worst of the “seven horrors of Britain” in a poll. One imagines that this refers to their experience of it as drivers; but perhaps if […]
Bruce Wagner : I’ll Let You Go : Loss And Reconciliation
Dan Epstein talks to Wild Palms creator Bruce Wagner about his new novel I’ll Let You Go I first met Bruce Wagner in Los Angeles around the middle of 1997. I was and still am a rabid David Cronenberg afficionado. I was walking along the Venice Beach walk when I passed two gentlemen wearing suits. […]
John Ridley : A Conversation With The Mann : A Real Comedian
Dan Epstein meets John Ridley, screenwriter and hard-boiled crime novelist John Ridley is a man of many talents and prolific with them too – stand-up comedian, screenwriter for Three Kings, Undercover Brother, Oliver Stone’s U Turn and author of Everybody Smokes In Hell, Stray Dogs, Love Is a Racket and, most recently, A Conversation With […]
