Creativity Books

My 1998 book about British clubbing, based on my own experiences and on hundreds of interviews with DJs, promoters, musicians, blaggers and clubbers. The book traces the roots of the music in Chicago, New York, Detroit and Ibiza; the frantic, E-fuelled summers of 88 and 89 in London, Manchester and beyond; the huge illegal raves in southern …

I wrote this set of essays on women in pop with Sue Steward in 1984, when I was still at university, and very earnest and naive. We covered everything from the women who put vinyl into sleeves at EMI’s factory to screaming girl fans, managers to label owners.  There are interviews with a wide range of musicians, singers, …

Just after David Bowie died, The Guardian asked me to write a piece celebrating his style. As always with obituary pieces, it had to be written quickly, in a couple of hours, but I’d already done some interviews with designers who had worked with him, at the time of the V&A Museum’s big Bowie retrospective. Later, a …

My friend Gavin Hills was one of the most talented writers I ever worked with. But more than that, he was one of the loudest, funniest, opinionated, most alive people I’ve ever known. He died far too young, just after his 31st birthday, in an accident too absurd and upsetting to describe here. Trawling through his computer afterwards …