Zerox Machine - Matthew Worley

ZEROX MACHINE -

PUNK, POST-PUNK AND FANZINES IN BRITAIN -

1976 - 88 -

MATTHEW WORLEY

Just as flyers and posters advertising concerts of the punk rock kind are ephemeral creations with but a singular purpose so too are fanzines also ephemeral though their purpose is manifold. Punk was always a myriad and diverse culture and therein was always its great strength which means anyone who cares to discuss such things, in a bid to find meaning they often end up rendering safe that which once enamoured and enthralled. For some, punk is a very uncomplicated affair and is easily described and even easier to understand and that's fair enough because - just as it can be for those who think punk is one of the most fascinating of cultures - even a basic understanding of it can be life-changing, life-affirming and worth its weight in gold. Likewise for fanzines.

For some, the fanzine medium is a very simple, very basic, almost primitive one but for others it's nothing less than a representation of the world turned upside down. Fanzines are history as recorded from below. They are the corpuscles in the bloodstream. An antidote to the mainstream. They are fragments of dream from a whisper to a scream. If as William Burroughs once opined, that language is a virus from outer space then a fanzine can not only be (as Tim Medlock of Bristol's 'Be Bad Be Glad' zine said) "a means to raise cash for booze" but also a form of biological warfare with the dominant culture.

For anyone who's ever written a fanzine, however much it might appear to be of little significance, the actuality of it is that in doing so it has fed into the great river flowing into the ocean of cultural fecundity, which in itself is nothing less than the expression of humankind that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Creativity is the spark that starts with scratches on the stone wall of the cave and proceeds to a rocket being launched to the stars. 'Art' isn't the right word for it as art comes laden with multiple contradictions. The only contradiction in creativity is that it's a destructive urge but then as arch anarchist Mikhail Bakunin said, you have to destroy in order to create. So right there is the perfect balance. The perfect totality. The perfect and authentic source of all things.

Of course, all of this that I'm writing here reads as just so much hyperbole in regard to what is essentially a few scraps of paper held together by some staples. And yes, that is exactly what most fanzines have always been but in that simplicity is a purity and on occasion that purity can be transcended, turning a fanzine into an inspired slither of inspiration. A fanzine can enthuse. It can excite. It can empower. It can move the reader to action.

One of the most well-known examples of this is 'Sideburns' fanzine from 1977 and its drawing of three guitar chords with the added words: 'This is a chord. This is another. This is a third. Now form a band'.

Who knows how many teenagers on reading that in their bedrooms were moved to start a band? Another subliminal message underneath, however, was even more powerful, made clear by simply having the imagination to change the word 'chord' to 'fanzine' as in: 'This is a fanzine. This is another. This is a third. Now write your own'.

Matthew Worley spent eight years writing Zerox Machine - Punk, Post-Punk And Fanzines In Britain 1976-88, and after ploughing through acres of tiny print that fanzines are notorious for, I hate to imagine the state of his eyes now. So has going half-blind been worth it? Well, seeing as how this is the most comprehensive book on the subject of fanzines that I've ever read, then I would say 'Yes. Without any question'. Matthew's book is definitive. For anyone interested but with little knowledge in regard to fanzines, Matthew's book is the go-to. For those already au fait with the subject there's an overload of information for your delectation here. So much so in fact that if you've ever written a fanzine between the allotted years as said in the title, there's a good chance you've been given a mention or if not you personally then the name of your zine. Hell, even my name is in there. Zerox Machine is comprehensive, to say the least.

Most people would probably agree that Mark Perry's 'Sniffin' Glue' fanzine is the touchstone and the point at which all this zine malarkey began although as Matthew rightly points out 'The fanzines produced through punk had tangled roots'. Sniffin' Glue was Mark Perry's response to the sudden sense of freedom that punk offered though apart from creating a fanzine (even if a seminal one) the question quickly arose as to what to do with that freedom? Pointed to the exit and given the keys it became apparent that freedom and even life itself is not black-and-white.

Punk was a freedom in itself of course even if it was only the freedom of the playground in between the tedium of the school lessons, and it was this freedom that Ripped & Torn zine revelled in. On a personal note, Ripped & Torn was where I first read about Crass in a review of their Feeding Of The 5000 EP, that in hindsight was a significant event not only for myself but also for Ripped & Torn's editor, Tony Drayton. 'This album's gonna split punk in two - those in it for the right reasons, and those who aren't', Tony wrote - and he was right.

Inspired also by the Crass phenomenon, Mike Diboll's 'Toxic Grafity' zine blew a hole in the fabric of fanzine production and expanded massively the potential for both political and mental liberation. Likewise for Tony Drayton's other zine 'Kill Your Pet Puppy', particularly his 'Ants/Tuinal/Crass' edition. These are some of the zines that Zerox Machine highlights as being significant players, and I'd agree. It begs the question, however, about what actually makes for a significant and successful fanzine? Is it a large readership? A transition from underground to overground? Transformation to hard covers? The truth of the matter is that there is no precise definition because once you begin thinking in terms of 'success' it means you've lost grip of the rope attached to the rising balloon you're hanging onto. It's the 'Withnail And I' analogy all over again but rather than selling hippy wigs in Woolworths you're selling product to be consumed rather than bullets from the front line and cultural missives from the heartland. 

Distribution and availability is important although it's not the be-all and end-all as just because something is easily available, it doesn't mean it's any good - and vice versa. These highlighted zines such as Sniffin' Glue, Toxic Grafity, and Kill Your Pet Puppy somehow found their way to Bristol where I was growing up so that's how I was encountering them although other significant ones that Zerox Machine also highlights such as Jamming! and Anathema and even Alan McGee's Communication Blur didn't make it there so they passed me by. A zine such as Bristol's 'Are You Scared To Get Happy?' on the other hand was obviously on my doorstep and is another that is highlighted as being a significant player and rightly so. In fact for the record, I'd say Are You Scared To Get Happy is one of my most favourite zines ever.

It's obvious from reading Zerox Machine that the subject of 'fanzines' is a huge one and as a book it offers much to think about and to discuss. Every other page opens up a new topic to explore in regard to notions of creativity, culture, punk rock and its diaspora, alternative politics, and - of course - music and the role it plays within society and in the life of the individual. 

There are insights galore into fanzines you've probably never heard of but will want to read after Matthew's synopsis of them. I knew nothing, for example, about the zine Final Straw and the arrests that followed its publication. And to my shame, I've never read a copy of 'anti-zine' Monitor either. There are names dotted about throughout Zerox Machine that are familiar such as Martin Fry (of ABC) Mike Scott (of The Waterboys), Miki Berenyi (of Lush), Fatboy Slim, Ian Astbury (of The Cult), Dave Haslam, Steve Lamacq, etc who all started out from writing zines and who all went on to so-called greater things, plus numerous others who 'progressed' from zine writing to becoming mainstream journalists. Matthew also offers insights into certain individuals who were once prominent figures in the world of fanzines and DIY punk such as Andy Martin of The Apostles, Jon Savage and Mick Mercer. All laid out, I should add with the text on each page in two columns rather than the usual full-page block, making for a much easier-on-the-eye read.

But back to hyperbole: If you understand the meaning of the lines from William Blake's Auguries Of Innocence as in 'To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour' and more importantly recognize these lines to be true, then you should also have the wit and the wherewithal to be able to apply these lines to the medium of a fanzine? Just swap 'grain of sand' and 'wild flower' for the word 'fanzine' or even 'a few scraps of paper held together by some staples' then you're there. 

And if you're able to do that then you should probably get hold of a copy of Zerox Machine because it's more than likely you'll really enjoy and appreciate it.

John Serpico

The Wild Boys - William S Burroughs

 THE WILD BOYS - WILLIAM S BURROUGHS

There is beauty in the writings of William S Burroughs. And that's the truth. Maybe not so much in some of his subject matter but in his use of words. His turning of phrases. In his opening up of language itself to reveal its very core. Its very essence. It's like lifting the lid on a boiling cauldron of soup and inhaling its smell but where a cook might think to add a sprinkle of another ingredient, Burroughs' particular soup is perfection and cannot be improved. His writing is like the smell of fresh cut grass. Of burning charcoal. Of the most sweetest incense from a Middle Eastern bazaar. 

I would argue that William S Burroughs even though at opposite ends, sits at the same table as James Joyce, Henry Miller and Fyodor Dostoevsky. He dines at the same banquet as some of the greatest and most important writers who have ever lived. There. I've said it. I've laid my guns on the table. William S Burroughs is a genius - be he dead or alive - and the world is still catching up.

I once had the idea that I would start reading everything I could by Michael Moorcock but hadn't realised he'd written quite so many books, so that kind of put the kibosh on it. It could be done but it would mean I would put a halt on reading other writers so I backed off. When it comes to William S Burroughs it's a slightly different matter. Though his canon is large it's not quite on the same scale as Moorcock's so to read all of Burroughs' is achievable and more plausible. The question, however, is might it be advisable?

Will reading too much of Burroughs all at the same time edge you into a sickness where you not only start trying to emulate his style of writing but you start to tune-in to his wavelength and start seeing the world as through his eyes? Too many sweets will make you sick and rot your teeth - every good mother knows that. Will too much Burroughs have you ranting like a madman: 'CUT WORD LINES - CUT MUSIC LINES - SMASH THE CONTROL IMAGES - SMASH THE CONTROL MACHINE - BURN THE BOOKS - KILL THE PRIESTS - KILL! KILL! KILL!'. Will it have you metaphorically strung out in heaven's high hitting an all-time low?

To get things done you better not mess with Major Tom, as Bowie's mum once proffered. So as not to fall unduly under his influence it's probably better to stagger your William S Burroughs intake, is what the angel on my shoulder whispers. Whilst the devil on my other shoulder whispers 'Read 'em! Read 'em all! Read 'em all now!' followed for good measure of course by a 'Burn! Burn! Burn everything!'

What's apparent from reading The Wild Boys is that rather it being gibberish from a fever dream, there is actually a method to Burroughs' madness. His writings are precise, composed and beautifully laid-out. There are recurring motifs that form a pattern that even when shaken like you would a kaleidoscope and altered irrecoverably, retain a pattern of sorts and to paraphrase another William (Butler Yeats) though mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, things don't fall apart and the centre holds.

The Wild Boys is a work of art.

John Serpico

Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes - John Jakes

 CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES -

JOHN JAKES

Back when I was but a callow, fragile youth - in between playing with my Action Man and chasing butterflies with a large net in fields of rape - I read the paperback novelization of Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes and was struck by its closing speech made by Caesar, the talking chimpanzee, following the uprising of the apes. The city is in flames and the city's governor is about to be executed. The governor's assistant is in chains and begs Caesar to bring to a halt what he sees as a futile rebellion:

'How can you possibly think this riot can win freedom for all your kind?' he asks 'Why, by tomorrow, the central government -'

'I promise you,' Caesar cuts in 'by tomorrow it will be entirely too late. If a small, mindless insect like an emperor moth can communicate with another over a distance of eighty miles, can't you see that - '

'An emperor ape might do slightly better?'

'Slightly? What we have done tonight every ape on earth will be imitating tomorrow.'

'Knives against guns? Kerosene cans against flame-throwers? Artillery? Jet aircraft? Missile submarines?'

''We will not win everywhere,' Caesar shrugs 'Perhaps not even in a majority of cities. But fire brings smoke and in that smoke from this night onward, my people will crouch. And conspire. And plot against the inevitable day of man's downfall. We both know that day is inevitable. The day of the writing in the sky. Look!' And Caesar turns to gesture at the ruined city. 'The beginning of that day is upon you even now.'

Great stuff. Particularly to a boy of 11 years-old or whatever age I was when I first read it. Radicalized, politicized, proselytized at such a tender age but in a good way! And great stuff still to this day though I suspect as a book now long lost to time and so far under the radar of younger generations that it's never going to be rediscovered.

Which means that Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes (as in the book more so than the film) is now simply an object of nostalgia. A curio from the 1970s to be collected rather than actually read. A book that has no remaining value apart from its attachment to the past. A problem with this, of course, being that to purchase a book for it only to sit unread on a shelf gathering dust is an act of utter meaninglessness because a book is not a Dead Sea scroll. A book is meant to be read or at least to be kept available to be read.

So here I am.

The immediately interesting thing about Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes (written by John Jakes based on the screenplay by Paul Dehn) is that published in 1974 it's set in the then far distant future of 1991. During this interim period all cats and dogs have been wiped out by a virus brought back by an astronaut returning from space. As a replacement for their pets, people start adopting small monkeys such as marmosets but on realizing how quickly the monkeys learn and how easy they are to train, the pets become larger until chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas start to be trained as servants - and then from servants to slaves.

This is the world that Caesar encounters on entering a city for the first time after growing up in a travelling circus, where the apes are kept subdued and controlled by gun and electric shock night-stick wielding police. For humans, or at least the richer elements, it's a life of near-luxury but for the apes - now doing all the menial jobs of the once-working class - it's a veritable Fascist state they are under, with the word 'No!' barked out relentlessly by police, bosses and masters day and night.

In real life, 1991 came and went and though the Gulf War started and the Soviet Union collapsed, apes were not enslaved and all the drudgery of all the menial jobs in the world remained the lot of the working class. In 1991 in real life there was no great revolution from below, ape-led or otherwise.

The comparison between the working class of the world and the enslaved apes is a far-stretched, tentative one at best but we're talking Planet Of The Apes here, not Das Kapital. To drill down into this comparison, however, the commonality is 'fear'. The apes are fearful of men due to the pain they can inflict via their cattle-prod truncheons and correction centres. Just as equally, men are also fearful of the apes due to knowing what they might one day be capable of.

'Why did you turn us into slaves?' Caesar asks the governor. 

'Because your kind were once our ancestors,' the governor replies 'You're the beast in us that we have to whip into submission. You taint us. When we hate you, we're hating the dark side of ourselves.'

'Kill him!' Caesar orders his ape insurgents. 

Might it be too much to suggest that in the real world the working class are fearful of the middle and upper class, or to be more precise they're fearful of the power the middle and upper class wield and their capability to take away what little the working class have and reduce them to homelessness and destitution? But that similarly, the middle and upper class are also fearful of the working class due to knowing what they might be capable of?

Is it possible I might be reading too much into what is after all just a stupid sci-fi book from the 1970s? Probably but then every good book should have a subtext to it or else it would be a flat drone or white noise at best. And Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes is a good book. It's sci-fi porn. It's revenge porn. It's revolution porn. Moreover, it's violent revolution porn.

'A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery.' as Mao Tse Tung once declared 'A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.'

Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes is in a very roundabout way, a reminder of that.

John Serpico

The Stooges: Head On - A Journey Through The Michigan Underground - Brett Callwood

THE STOOGES: HEAD ON -

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE MICHIGAN UNDERGROUND -

BRETT CALLWOOD

The Stooges, baby! Anyone who likes a bit of rock'n'roll always likes to get down and dirty with The Stooges but do they like to read books about them? I suspect not too many but that's alright because that's why I'm here. To do it for you. To read it on your behalf. To take one for the team. So to The Stooges: Head On - A Journey Through The Michigan Underground written by Brett Callwood that I at first mistakenly thought was a recently-written book but that on closer inspection can see it was actually published in 2011. What was clear, however, was that the subject matter was The Stooges as a whole - as a band - because if it was mostly about Iggy Pop then his name would surely be on the cover - and it's not. Iggy is in there, of course, because in a book about The Stooges how could he not be? It's just that he's not the main focus. If it's anyone, in fact, that the main focus is upon then it's Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton who passed away just before publication and just before The Stooges were inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame.

Like the Velvet Underground's debut album, even though it wasn't a big commercial success, The Stooges debut had a very deep cultural impact particularly upon the original punk generation of '76 and '77. The Sex Pistols covering No Fun is the obvious influence but by no means the only one. There's the influence upon The Clash, for example, and them naming a song '1977' like The Stooges did with '1969'. A single line from a Stooges song such as 'so messed-up' from Now I Wanna Be Your Dog being turned into a whole song by The Damned. More importantly, however, there's the influence in attitude where The Stooges proved by example and particularly through the guitar playing of Ron Asheton that to be in a band there was no need to be a stellar musician playing radio-friendly tunes. Instead, simply learn to play three chords and have an exhibitionist out-front on vocals and you're good to go - if not practically made it to fame and fortune already. This was the real power and influence of The Stooges and their debut album and in this the case can be made for them being the true godfathers of punk.

According to Iggy, Ron Asheton was a 'genuine, unique talent' and that his big contribution to The Stooges was in coming up with two 'world-class eternal riffs in No Fun and Now I Wanna Be Your Dog'. In a review of the debut album in Creem magazine, very presciently it was written 'This is probably the guitar style of the future'. And that's the nub of it. By coming up with these riffs, Ron Asheton was securing his place in Heaven where on entering the pearly gates he'd be met by Archangel Gabriel himself and shown straight to the VIP lounge. 'There's Jimi over there' Gabriel would say 'And there's Janis, and there's Mr Cohen talking to the Drake boy. And there's Elvis over there on his throne of course, and Hank and Buddy, and there's Brian by the swimming pool, obvs. Take your place, Ron. Pull up a chair and make yourself at home, man. The drugs are over there. There's no limit to them and they're all free. Welcome to Heaven'.

Brett Callwood's book is a labour of love, forged from countless sources and personal interviews. A labour of love to such an extent, in fact, that come the end of the book he informs us he's made the decision to permanently move to The Stooges hometown of Detroit because after researching The Stooges, their city and its surrounding area, it's all had such an impact upon him that he can't think of anywhere else he'd rather be. There have been plenty of books written about Iggy Pop over the years but none as far as I know about The Stooges, so there's really no other book to compare it to. Which means that if you like a bit of Stooges, Callwood's book is an essential purchase. Moreover, whilst writing about The Stooges, Callwood also enters into the subject of Ron Asheton's other bands, Destroy All Monsters and Dark Carnival both featuring the semi-legendary Niagra on vocals, with both bands never really achieving a lot of recognition or acclaim during their time and so probably deserving now of a reappraisal?

John Serpico

Victoria - Knut Hamsun

 VICTORIA - KNUT HAMSUN

Who makes the Nazis? What turns a man to Fascist? No-one is born that way because Fascism is not a natural human condition so what's the trigger - the spark - that leads to the burning down of one's own house and everything and everyone in it? Fascism as an ideology can unquestionably be described as evil because what Fascism leads to is certainly evil, as history has shown. There's no debate to be had. Evil begets evil - it's as simple as that.

During the Nuremberg trials, a US Army psychologist by the the name of G M Gilbert was assigned to watch the defendants and during the course of his work it became clear to him that the one characteristic that connected them all was the incapacity to feel anything toward their fellow men. Gilbert came to define the nature of evil as 'a lack of empathy' or in his exact words 'Evil is the absence of empathy'.

It's a point of view I agree with and as a guideline it's a useful tool to assess the state of play when it comes to individuals within your own personal life as well as institutions of power.

What then explains Knut Hamsun, the man who Charles Bukowski once described as being one of the greatest writers ever? What explains his collaborating with the Nazis during World War Two, becoming so close to them that he was even able to engender a meeting with Hitler himself? How can a man who is able to write what Arthur Koestler described as being one of the greatest love stories of world literature end up as a supporter and enabler of Fascism?

The book to which Koestler was referring to is Victoria, written by Knut Hamsun in 1898. Whether or not it is as Koestler proclaimed is for the individual reader to decide but it is absolutely a love story of great intensity, employing methods of post-modernism long before the term had even been invented. A story of unrequited love, thwarted not only by class and social mores but by life itself.  

To be able to write such a story the writer would need to know something of love and compassion, and even to have experienced both. To be able to write in such a way that Victoria is written, utilising streams of consciousness and deep insights into the thoughts and emotions of the characters, the writer would need to be able to empathise. 

It's very clear from reading Victoria that Knut Hamsun possessed these qualities at the time of writing it, so what happened to him? How did he end up as an ardent supporter of Hitler? How did he end up on the side of evil?

Does empathy wane over time? Can empathy be eclipsed by political naivety, denial, propaganda, stupidity and national pride? It would seem so. Which means that while Victoria is a lesson in love, the story behind it regarding its author is a lesson from history needing to be learned.

John Serpico

Astragal - Albertine Sarrazin

 ASTRAGAL - ALBERTINE SARRAZIN

Like a lot of other people, I first came upon Astragal by Albertine Sarrazin through Patti Smith's endorsement of it. Patti had written an essay about the book and it was a glowing one, singling it out from all the many other books she was fond of. Like David Bowie was, Patti Smith is a big reader and the list she composed some years ago of her favourite books is an exemplary one. So, for her to heap praise upon one book in particular was something to be noted.

Astragal is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Sarrazin whilst she was in prison. It starts with her escaping from a prison by jumping from a 30-feet high wall and ends with her arrest, presumably to be returned to the same prison? In jumping from the wall, however, she breaks a bone in her ankle and is rendered immobile, leaving her able only to drag herself to the nearby road where she is picked up by a passing traveller by the name of Julien. Sarrazin's flight for freedom lasts all of the few seconds from her jumping and her landing on the ground below. Unable to move, stuck out in the cold and the wet, she has simply exchanged one form of incapacitation for another. Hope, however, arrives in the form of Julien, an ex-con himself who rescues Sarrazin and deposits her in a series of safe-houses whilst her ankle heals and she's able to walk again.

The premise of Astragal is a promising one, with suggested shades of Jean-Luc Godard's 'Breathless', Jean Genet's 'The Thief's Journal', and even Bonnie And Clyde, the film version starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. What we get, unfortunately, is something completely different with two thirds of the book comprised of Sarrazin laid-up in bed ruminating over her broken bone.

It's all very well written but the actual subject matter and the non-stop internalising doesn't really make for an exhilarating read. Once her ankle is healed and she's able to walk again we're into the last third of the book and it's here that things start to liven up a bit.

Sarrazin is in Paris but still an absconder and there's no way to gain lawful employment so she turns to prostitution. She's very much in love with Julien - her guardian angel - but he's not exactly ideal boyfriend material due to him vanishing for weeks on end pursuing his own criminal career involving it seems a lot of petty burglary.

Finally, Julien is away for a lot longer than usual and in a bid to track him down Sarrazin discovers he's been arrested. On his release they meet each other and decide to spend the rest of their lives together in fugitive bliss but then Sarrazin herself is re-arrested and their dream thwarted.

Astragal obviously spoke to Patti Smith and touched her in a way some books are able to but very few do. Something about Astragal chimed with Patti but clearly on a very personal level. Was it something to do with chasing a fugitive vision of freedom? Chasing a fugitive vision of fugitive love?

The circumstances of Patti discovering Astragal are very similar to her first discovering of Seasons In Hell by Arthur Rimbaud. Desperately poor whilst living in New York, she found both books on two different occasions at a second-hand bookshop in the East Village. On both occasions she was attracted initially by the pictures of the authors on the covers; Rimbaud and that classic portrait of him as a boy, Sarrazin and her 'striking, remote face - rendered violet on black - on a dust jacket proclaiming its author a 'female Genet''.

Apart from both being of French origin, the two books couldn't, however, be more different. Whilst Rimbaud is poetry of a boy-genius able to tear away the veil and blow holes in the fabric of imagination, Sarrazin is feistiness disabled and reduced to helpless navel-gazing. Sarrazin is teenage rebellion curtailed and reduced to being a package moved from one 'safe-house' to another. Julien - her rescuer - her seducer, her co-dependent in captivity.

Astragal is ultimately an empty promise. A book and a story to inspire but paradoxically only through its failure to inspire. Its strength but also its weakness is in its lack of sensationalism though in this it's arguably very true to life. There's no-one wielding guns here, for example. What we have instead is a wrought, somewhat complicated affair. Astragal is a lesson in potential unfulfilled, both as a book and as the story of Albertine Sarrazin's  life.

John Serpico

Hell Is Round The Corner - Tricky

 HELL IS ROUND THE CORNER - TRICKY

The interesting thing to me about Adrian Thaws, AKA Tricky, is that he's from a once white, solidly-working class area of Bristol called Knowle West. Such a thing is of little consideration to most of Tricky's audience, of course, who view him as simply being from Bristol but I believe geography is important when it comes to art of any kind, and that the devil is always in the detail.

Knowle West is very much like any other working class council estate and is very much like the one that I grew up on, called Southmead, but on the other side of Bristol. Interestingly, Tricky describes Knowle West in his autobiography Hell Is Round The Corner as a 'white ghetto' which is a term that isn't often used to describe a council estate such as Knowle West. What is also interesting is that Tricky isn't describing it in this way for effect or for credibility but that he's being quite genuine in his choice of words.

When I think of the word 'ghetto' I immediately think of slums the like of which was once found in places like New York or Detroit. More locally, if anywhere in Bristol might be classed as 'ghetto' it would be St Paul's where the vast number of people of colour would always gravitate to live. Over time, the word 'ghetto' has become associated with coolness and street-wise edge but also danger. St Paul's was once in a lot of people's eyes a 'black ghetto' so when Tricky says his area of birth - Knowle West - was a 'white ghetto', it's to be noted.

Knowle West has always been deprived and populated by a lot of low-income families and has always been viewed as a 'dangerous' area through simply being poor, white and working class. There's never been a 'coolness' about it though, or ever had a 'street-wise edge' about it in the same way St Paul's has. It would seem, then, that there are different shades of 'ghetto'.

In his book, Tricky describes being born into a family of gangsters and on reading about his uncles it's obvious they were engaged in that world, particularly in their dealings when up in Manchester. Back in Bristol, every estate was known to have families who were notorious for being fighters, criminals or both. Where I grew up there were certainly some well-known families whose reputations went before them.

Certain members of these families were in the scheme of things pretty dangerous people who invariably would end up in Horfield prison alongside their like from other areas of the city. And so it goes. Whether or not Tricky's family - the Godfrey's - were at one time the hardest in Bristol is debatable though I concur, it's quite feasible they were. Reputation in such matters is all.

I was aware of who Tricky was from his early association with Wild Bunch and Massive Attack. I knew him by sight though not to talk to. To be honest, I was a little wary of him as he always looked to me as being volatile and of potentially being able to kick-off at the drop of a hat. Knowing that he was from Knowle West added another layer of caution as I knew what kids from my own estate could be like when it came to violence and Tricky fitted the part. From reading Hell Is Round The Corner, however, it seems I was totally mistaken and in actual fact Tricky was a shy kid who liked nothing more than having a good smoke and listening to music. Tricky, in fact, could have been the perfect friend.

I've always liked Massive Attack and so too Portishead and Smith & Mighty but to me, Tricky has always been the most interesting both musically and as a person. The reason for this is because I recognize where he's from and it's a place that has always been written-off, rejected, kept at bay and denounced as having nothing good or of any value coming from it ever.

Tricky is not only a riposte to this so-called rule but a total destroyer of it. The strangeness of Tricky's art, the innovation of his music - the uniqueness of it - is all very natural. Tricky is an autodidact, his only university being that of the street - or rather, to be more precise: the university of the council estate.

You can take the boy out of the council estate but you can't take the council estate out of the boy, and it's this quality that separates Tricky from most others. It's what separated Tricky from the other members of Massive Attack. It's a quality that may not equip you with confidence in the way a private school education will but it enables you to be upfront and very truthful in your opinions. A quality that does away with etiquette and middle class mores and enables you to walk straight up and cut to the chase. In Hell Is Round The Corner, it's this same quality - this aspect of the book - that makes it a good one.

For example, there's almost an orthodoxy when it comes to the mythology of the Dug Out club in Bristol and its importance to Bristol's musical culture, elevating it to the level of the Cavern in Liverpool, the 100 Club in London, and CBGBs in New York. I used to go now and again to the Dug Out myself and I was never impressed; its main attraction being that it was a late night place to go that would let you in without having to sport a stupid moustache, sensible shoes and a tie. I've always contended that there were other places in Bristol that were better and culturally just as significant: The Old England pub, the Moon Club, the Star & Garter, The Granary and the Locarno, even.

Tricky, it seems, is in agreement: 'The Dug Out has gone down in history as this legendary place where the so-called Bristol scene started, but I never saw that. For us, it was just a hangout place. It was a really grimy place - not ghetto grimy, because it wasn't ghetto people in there. Just a grimy basement club.'

And that's how I remember it: Full of students, an ultra- sticky carpet, and a screen on the wall showing Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video.

When it comes to the 'Bristol scene' and 'trip hop' in particular, again Tricky cuts to the quick and is able to see through all the hype.

'Who likes trip hop?' he asks the audience at his big Shepherd's Bush show in London to which the audience cheer and shout 'Yeah!'

'Well, fuck off home then!' Tricky tells them.

Backstage he's got David Bowie, Kylie Minogue, Naomi Campbell and Nicole Kidman all wanting to meet him. Tricky's audience has exploded beyond all expectations and he's captured what Julian Palmer of Island Records describes as 'coffee-table listeners, the middle classes, chin-waggers at dinner parties'. It's an audience that anyone from a working class council estate is going to have a natural antipathy toward because among many other things it's an audience that brings with it suffocation, recuperation, and significantly to Bristol as a city - gentrification.

It's not Tricky's fault, of course. He never asked for his audience or went chasing them. They came to him. And then they came to Bristol. Obviously, not just on the back of Tricky's music or that of Massive attack's and Portishead's but it was a contributing factor without any doubt. The gentrification of Bristol has been rising ever since.

For all that, Tricky to this day has remained an interesting and innovative figure and much to his credit has never forgotten his roots: 'I've always been proud of coming from Knowle West' he writes 'I always thought it made me who I am. Knowle Westers are individuals, and the place has many fond memories for me.'

Tricky is a Bristolian. He's a son of Bristol who for better or for worse has helped to make Bristol one of the most coolest cities in the UK. More importantly, Tricky is a Knowle Wester. He's a son of Bristol's mighty, working class council estates where very few students and gentrifiers still dare not venture. And like practically everything else that Tricky has ever produced, his book Hell Is Round The Corner is a very good one.

John Serpico