Alternatives to Valium

Welcome to our regular feature showcasing the talents of the nation’s best writers.

Istart to write for Cut magazine, which is changing shape from being a Scottish music paper into a music magazine for Britain and the world. I sell them an interview with the comedian Jerry Sadowitz but by the time they get round to running it I have had it published in the Scotsman under a false name. I get a job at Cut. The wages are terrible and the employment contract requires me to rent my own desk but these are the best of times. The editor, Allan Campbell, is an inspiration. He knows everybody. He knows most things. The desk I rent at Cut is next to the turntable. Allan’s hip-hop selections are interspersed with my own nervous dabbles into country music. I play a Lucinda Williams record. Allan informs me gravely that “it lacks the Gram factor”. He loans me a Gram Parsons album. It is the best kind of post-graduate study.

All of my journalistic opportunities arise from cracks in the fabric. Punk leads to fanzines, unemployment leads to community newspapers, community newspapers are made practical by the invention of Apple Macs. The designer of Cut (and guitarist of TV21) Ally Palmer uses a Mac at the Wester Hailes Sentinel and brings visual dynamism to the magazine. The new publishing technology leads to new newspapers, including Scotland on Sunday. SOS, as it is nicknamed after a faltering launch, employs Andrew Jaspan, a listings magazine editor from Manchester who almost made it in the music business when managing The Smirks but signed them to the doomed UK branch of an American label. Andrew tells me he witnessed the first performance by Magazine, after which he presented the singer Howard Devoto with a bunch of flowers and said: “You passed the audition.” It is very punk.

I write about music and television because, in the spirit of the age, I have monetised my enthusiasms. Increasingly I do interviews. Interviews are a form in which shyness can be a secret weapon. If you are familiar with awkward silences, you can use them. If you worry about having permission to speak, the interview is your friend. You have an excuse. You can’t say the wrong thing because the reaction is all that matters. If making friends is awkward, it doesn’t matter. Interviews are not about friendship. The worst thing you can hear when transcribing an interview is the sound of your own voice trying too hard to be pally. You can ask things you would never ask your close family or friends. You must. You can drill into your obsessions. You can meet your heroes and pinch the flesh. You can keep asking why.

Why do they matter? Because interviews are an interrogation of the great "what if?” Interviews are shy autobiography.

About the author

Alastair Mckay grew up in

North Berwick, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. He has worked for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Black Book, Out, Blah Blah Blah and The Independent. He lives in London. His memoir Alternatives to Valium – How Punk Rock Saved a Shy Boy’s Life, is pubished by Polygon on 7 April, price £12.99