One reviewer wrote “if the Gallaghers were Scottish”, and my reply? Absolute bollocks. Certain rules forbid such rank comparisons - for more on this, check out Neil Kulkarni on Oasis. Sure, William and Jim Reid argued and fought like all brothers do but that was mainly because they were forging a music that was challenging and confrontational and transformed indie music (for want of a better term) forever. The sheer fuck-you effrontery of swathing everything in sheets of feedback, skirl and Spectoresque reverb was an absolute game changer. Go on, stick on the first singles and albums, turn up to eleven and believe me, in your bubble of sonic joy, you’ll lay waste and thrill your neighbourhood. One of the great things about Never Understood, which has been brilliantly marshalled by Ben Thompson, is that so much that was lost in the mists of inkie hyperbole, pre internet and social media conjecture is finally demystified and contextualised. How and why the records sound the way they do, why that process was often a bit of a rancorous and uncompromising scrap as the Reid brothers fought hard to produce music that mattered. Especially as the ridiculous arseholes from their record company tried to bland them out every chance they got. After reading this I now understand that these lads had ‘the spark’ in truckloads no matter how hard Alan McGee tried to shovel it away, “We’d got totally fed up with him (McGee) making incendiary statements ‘on behalf’ of the band in newspaper interviews and we made it clear to him that while we were happy for him to carry on being our manager, we would speak for ourselves”. This book’s strength is that it allows William and Jim Reid to put the record straight which they do with keen intelligence, honesty and wry humour. A music memoir of the best kind and one of the music books of the year. Published, of course, by the totally fabulous White Rabbit. Totally recommended.

Never Understood (The Jesus and Mary Chain)

– William & Jim Reid - published by White Rabbit - £25.00

Steven Long