Neil Diamond - May 1996 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - May 12th, 1996

Last month, as I was being served at the counter of north London’s fashionable Rhythm Records, the assistant suddenly clasped his stomach and rushed out into Camden High Street. “It’s all right,” said a second assistant, who took over, “he had a heavy night. It isn’t a comment on your taste.” I had just bought…

Spike Milligan - April 1996 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - April 14th, 1996

My interview with Spike Milligan didn’t exactly go as planned. I made an effort to arrive at his East Sussex address dead on 2pm, so I wasn’t too early, or too late, trying to learn from the mistakes of previous grail-seekers, whose ignominious fates I’d witnessed in a wedge of press cuttings. I did the…

Guided By Voices - April 1996 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - April 7th, 1996

To listen to Robert Pollard speak is to spiral at 45 rpm through the worn-out grooves of a mind so stuffed with obscure musical ephemera, you’d swear he was spieling rock-star cocaine-babble. Except that it’s 10am on a Monday in Dayton, Ohio, and Robert Pollard is a 38-year-old primary-school teacher with two teenage children who…

The Afghan Whigs - March 1996 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - March 1st, 1996

For the lazy journalist, the Cincinnati rock band the Afghan Whigs are “the Motown Nirvana”, a combination of soul melodies and post-grunge guitar squall. For the casual observer, their sharp suits, unashamed showmanship and, at times, downright funky sound represent a clean break from the alternative-rock peer group they themselves have described as “slovenly”. Their…

GIANT SAND - February 1996 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - February 4th, 1996

In 1989 some Hollywood producers rang up Howe Gelb, founder and leader of the Arizona band Giant Sand, and told him he had to come to an empty theme park north of LA immediately to teach Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter guitar parts for the movie Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It was a fantastic…

JOE PASQUALE - December 1995 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - December 1st, 1995

It is 1988 in some underground, underlit London comedy club. A prematurely aged Irishman stands on stage, dressed in a shabby long brown mac, all bloodhound eyes and a droopy Wild West moustache, and utters another in a beautifully understated seam of immaculate one-liners. “A lot of people say to me, ‘Hey you’,” pauses, makes…