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Tenement Kid

Rough Trade Book of the Year

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 '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. Entertainment & Celebrities Music Celebrity

Critic Reviews

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)
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 (Mark Lanegan)
A righteous journey, an elegy for the transformative power of rock and roll told with heart and soul. The Gospel according to Bobby Gillespie (Warren Ellis)
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 (Irvine Welsh)
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 (Simon Reynolds)
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
A fascinating story
An impassioned, elegantly written tale of self-realisation through fandom, along with plenty of doubts and insecurities
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
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
Gillespie is a hypnotic writer and this self-aggrandising yet self-lacerating self-portrait is, on its own terms, brutally honest
Tenement Kid is a thrilling read laced with copious laugh out loud moments. This is a riveting account of how a tenement child of the Cold War era, and his friends, created a soundtrack for the hopes and dreams of a generation
This, as his enjoyable memoir Tenement Kid confirms, is a true believer steeped in politics and pop culture . . . The most arresting passages are those in which he captures the febrile, incestuous activity of Scotland's underground music scene in the Eighties/early Nineties . . . He also strikes an unforced yet tangible note of melancholy: we will never be so young and free again
All stars
Most relevant
A passionate, articulate, politically & culturally insightful memoir that perfectly captured punk - post-punk coming of age in the mid-late 80s. Thank you Bobby for this gift. I came to the book as an old Jesus & Mary Chain fan, appreciative of Primal Scream but not a die-hard fan,
and while I found his insider stories of these great bands amazing, it was actually the incredibly heartfelt and intelligent writing on everything B in and around these stories that cemented my love of this book. His outlining of the self-directed cultural education that some working class kids undertook in the 80s-90s through underground music - following the tentacles of film, literature, history, graphic arts that spread out from the fetishised album cover - could not be bettered by any writer.

I am SO glad that he narrated the book - how could you not? Hearing his voice seals the personal, authentic, and individual experience of the book. I did however listen to it at x1.1 to x1.2 speed for conversational speed!!

While the book stopped at the success of Primal Scream’s Screamadelica release I felt like there was more left to be said about Gillespie’s personal journey in life - as I would love to hear more of his full circle experience. A different book, for sure, but it would be good to hear his thoughts on coming to sobriety after years of hedonism as well as how culture & politics has evolved “post-rock” in neo-liberal world. He kind of presents a sunset view of drug use as wild and punk and liberating but we’ve all had to grow out of this or basically die or be ruined and while he hints at rehab or a bad trip I think if there’s one blind spot to the book it’s the lack of acknowledgment that at the end of the day extended use and abuse of drugs catches up with you - especially for fans who are not pop stars with royalties or connections or money for rehab. I get that that might not “fit” with the trajectory of the book nor necessarily be fun to write about but I can’t help thinking Gillespie would have something potent and interesting to say on the subject even if its conflicted.

Anyway overall a brilliant book!

B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T

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I loved listening to this book. The story itself is replete with all the entertaining excess one might expect of a musician’s life particularly for those of us coming of age in the late 80s / early 90s. But Gillespie’s frankness and gift for narrative lifts the book to the level of a significant work of literature in its own right, balancing careful description with an uncanny sense of purpose, as relevant now as it ever was in the time it recounts. Brilliantly done.

Powerful and insightful

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