Tenement Kid

Rough Trade Book of the Year

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.

Try for £0.00

More purchase options

Tenement Kid

By: Bobby Gillespie

Narrated by: Bobby Gillespie

Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £16.62

About this listen

'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.

Bobby GillespieBobby GillespieWhite Rabbit

Entertainment & Celebrities

Music

Celebrity

Thought-Provoking

Entertainment & Celebrities Music Celebrity Thought-Provoking

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

Most relevant

Gillespie somehow makes the most outlandish rock n roll stories seem totally relatable. From his urban upbringing in Glasgow with socialist, working class roots, right through to the release of Primal Scream’s seminal, double platinum album, ‘Screamadelica’, Bobby’s story is exciting and inspirational. His cultural, musical and stylistic references paint a vivid picture for the listener, spoken with intensity and unrelenting honesty. This story hits way harder than the average rockstar memoir - it’s hedonistic without being narcissistic. I want more!