Irvine Welsh: its nae only tha acid house ya wee fuck

May 5th, 2007

Welsh is now touring to promote Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, a modern gothic parable that I have not yet read, but the plot of which, I understand, stretches from Edinburgh to San Francisco and involves a troubled restaurant inspector searching for the identity of his father. The event occurs at Books & Books in Coral Gables on Tuesday, May 8 at 8 p.m.

Acknowledged today as one of the most distinct voices of British techno youth culture through the 1990s, Welsh’s books are sort of snatched up by technoheadz, I think, because obvious, frank, and entertaining characterizations are made of drugs, clubbing, and techno that get beyond the boring moralistic hang-ups and stereotypical questions that were being raised in most of the other "lessons-learned" novels and media spin of the ’90s.

But that’s the easy part of the answer. Yes, I think people liked Welsh because they were cyber-druggies and he was the poster-child "cyber-druggy" author of the time. And also, yes, I think it is easy to say that people liked the abject stuff, the shit, the fucking, the nasty wounds, and gastro-intestinal descriptions that were grotesque but absolutely fun to read.

But more addictive, I believe, are his characters, which seem to match strengths and hypocrisies prevalent in the rave-culture of the mid-’90s. A pseudo-supreme-bullshit-PLUR optimism which smashed into the realities of how bad-ass and habitually weak people could become. Welsh’s characters on the one hand are good people that regularly do bad things. They build entire lives being good people that do bad things.

On the other hand, and equally addictive, are the sickening, unreal evil people in Welsh novels. These worms of society, sometimes characterized as bad cops like Welsh’s main character in Filth, receive some extra-special entertaining abuse and fuck-piggery. There is nothing better than Welsh taking one of his evil characters out back and really fucking him up with some deep-seeded, psychologically disturbed naughtiness. For a technohead continually distracted by cops conducting illegal sniffer dog searches, club raids, roadblocks, etc… there was a special satisfaction in the fun made of the bad cop in Filth, even though the novel had nothing extensive to say about the subject of techno or rave music, really.

Surprises, entertaining characters, convention-breaking yet oddly humorous, realistic stories. I’m not sure if Irvine Welsh will conduct a reading or whether he will simply kick-back and chat with attendees, but the guy deserves a hello while in Miami from his fans. Pick up a copy of one of his books at the library or second-hand when you get a chance if you haven’t heard of him.

Irvine Welsh on the Miami scene and the Winter Music Conference:
"Then there’s the Miami music conference. It’s more fun. Miami has gotten so big, that everything that is going to be in Ibiza is showcased in Miami first. All the hits. A lot of people are skipping Ibiza and going straight to Miami. They can hear what’s going to be popular in the summer. I’ve never been to Love Parade. They had one in Leeds which was supposed to be really good. I’ve been to Gatecrasher and T in The Park." Read the rest of the interview.

Welsh discusses his writing at the 2007 Prague Writers Festival:
Just the intro, but the whole thing is here.

Entry Filed under: All Posts, Video