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…

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…