It’s a nice touch too throughout the book how he makes a point of naming and thanking all kinds of people who helped or supported the group on the way up. and some of the finer details to do with bands and music are inaccurate too, which feels a tad lazy. It's an entertaining if somewhat bloated read, a good social history of the 1970's and 1980's and the music scene as it transformed.

Gillespie’s tribal response was to make his own scene as part of the collective which ran legendary Glasgow club night Splash One. There is a lot of sniffy musical one-upmanship: an incorrigible snob, he’s forever sneering at anything “the masses” like. Personally I was a fan of JAMC, my interest in Primal Scream was peripheral, coming late to the dance and acid house scene. Filled with ‘the holy spirit of rock n roll’ his destiny is sealed with the arrival of the Sex Pistols and punk rock which to Bobby, represents an iconoclastic vision of class rebellion and would ultimately lead to him becoming an artist initially in the Jesus and Mary Chain then Primal Scream. As a Glaswegian myself so much of this is familiar to me, from school aggro, to city centre clubs, and a thoroughly enjoyable read.Gillespie’s early life story – traced in this memoir up to the release of Primal Scream’s breakthrough album Screamadelica – is not especially remarkable but this son of a trade unionist and Collins employee has inherited his parents’ erudition as much as their left-wing politics and taste in music, so his diverse vignettes and cultural side-bars are eloquently argued. Ever since Primal Scream unexpectedly crashed into the mainstream consciousness in 1990 – after six years, two flop albums and several dramatic U-turns in musical direction – their frontman has perfected a piquantly preposterous interview technique. Those painful childhood memories we bury, that some of us try and drown out with sex, drugs, alcohol, gambling, all the usual crutches and distractions. The book ends on a cliff hanger with the band just finishing Screamadelica and waiting for the world’s reaction to the record. And there’s quite a lot of political rants (given his dad was a leading trade unionist) which get repetitive after a while.

His parents are staunchly leftwing, anti-racist and bohemian: there are abstract paintings on the walls of their flat, his dad runs a folk club.

Having recently read Spaceships over Glasgow by Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai, it's hard not to draw some comparisons. Last month, he and old friend, author and fellow Scot Irvine Welsh, got together to discuss some of the book’s themes. Tenement Kid is available as a standard hardback edition and Rough Trade in the UK have an exclusive “White Rabbit Collector’s Edition” which is SIGNED, hand numbered, has a lyric stamp, specially designed endpapers and comes in a bespoke slipcase.