Alternatives To Valium

Blog URL:http://alternativestovalium.blogspot.com/
Blog Tags:film culture music
Country:United Kingdom
State/Province:London

Cultural musings of Alastair McKay



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on Jul 17, 2023

I 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&a...

One of the great punk records is Marquee Moon by Television. There is 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 inven...

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...

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...

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...

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 grea...

Interviews 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...







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