Vic Chesnutt - November 1996 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - November 10th, 1996

Once a self-confessed “street bum, a complete drunk”, and wheelchair-bound since a car accident in 1983, Vic Chesnutt was first coerced into recording in 1988 by Michael Stipe, REM’s vocalist. Since then the 32-year-old songwriter from Athens, Georgia, has delivered five critically acclaimed, low-key and wryly humorous albums, and his big-label debut for Capitol Records,…

Dirty Three - September 1996 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - September 29th, 1996

September 1995, past midnight in an unlicensed downtown Los Angeles coffeehouse. The door is sealed with heavy wrought-iron work, and its front steps have recently played host to a drive-by shooting. The staff can’t recommend anywhere in the area safe enough to find a real drink, and the crowd affects a studied, West Coast indifference…

The Fall - June 1996 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - June 23rd, 1996

I am sitting in a pub in an industrial estate in Manchester with Mark E Smith, 36 years old and founder and leader of the Fall. Whippet thin and wiry, he’s dressed in a smart black designer shirt, speaks in a cautious whisper out of the left corner of his mouth, and, over the course…

Sex Pistols reunion - June 1996 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - June 16th, 1996

Anybody who’s ever been even peripherally associated with any news event knows that most journalists start with a story and then find a few facts to fit it. Going home from the tragedy of the Poll Tax March years back and watching London local news utterly fail to put the brutalised demonstrators’ side of the…

Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci - June 1996 The Sunday Times - By Stewart Lee - June 9th, 1996

“You can’t be trusted for a minute. That noise is unacceptable to the neighbours. Just moderate it a bit, will you?” Barbed Wire, from Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci’s first album, Patio, closes with the sound of an irate mother breaking up one of the bedroom recordings that, together with sessions culled from radio stations in their…

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…