Alternatives to Valium

The interviews are wonderful, peek-behind-the-curtain deconstructions of the creaky edifice of celebrity… It’s all killer, no filler – and it is all, as McKay himself might say, very punk' ~Roger Cox, The Scotsman

So entertaining ... so lovely to revisit that era of punk in Edinburgh' ~BBC Radio Scotland

Anyone who grew up in a small Scottish town at a time when music was a matter of life and death will find much to identify with' ~The Herald

A hugely enjoyable read' ~Glasgow Music City Tours

Brims with energy, enthusiasm and effervescence… totally from the heart.' ~Press & Journal

McKay’s big-ticket stars rarely disappoint – his account of a fractious meeting with the Pogues’ Shane McGowan is enthrallingly awful – but his tales of trying to be punk rock in “a Status Quo town” may be more resonant still' ~Uncut Magazine

Alastair McKay reflects on the incredible legacy of Seventies music' ~Evening Standard

Distils nostalgia so effectively that it doesn’t matter if you never shared any of it in the first place ... It’s great fun, and yet has a last chapter that is as powerfully elegiac and understated as anything I have read for ages. He’s a talented bugger, curse him, even if he can’t sing a note’ ~David Robinson, Books From Scotland

Bombastic when appropriate and pensive when required, McKay’s excellent prose carries the energy, opinion, and outgoingness that’s rarely expressed by the reserved personality he tells us of' ~Jo Higgs, Snack Magazine

Fans of Alastair McKay’s wry, thoughtful, precision-tooled writing… are in for a treat' ~Scotsman Arts and Culture Summer Edit