Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Alternatives To Valium - Alastair McKay - # 11 Rod Stewart

 


I'm coming to the end of this so I'll stop here. It isn't a narrative of Alaistair's life anymore, just a series of excellent freelance interviews he made down the years so I'm not selling Alternatives To Valium short by taking my leave today.. 

Rod Stewart is an interesting one in that he's always been around, but I've never really ever thought about him much. There's a bloke in what I still call my local in Newcastle  but don't actually go to much now because I don't really drink alcohol much anymore.

Anyhow there's a guy who drinks there. Usually with his close circle on Sunday nights. I think of him as 'Rod Stewart' because he always puts a long string of Rod classics on the jukebox at some point on the evening and is always flying off to places, Las Vegas usually, to see the man in concert.

I was a child and became a teenager in Richmond Upon Thames. It was and is still a great place to be. One of the urban legends about Richmond is that Rod Stewart was discovered there. Singing drunkenly on a  Richmond Station platform early one morning. This episode is detailed here. Apparently it's true. The song if you're interested was Howlin' Wolf's Smokestack Lightning.

Rod comes across in the chapter here as good company first and foremost. Someone who loves football but never arrives before the kick off and leaves before the end. He never worries about anything. Well he's got enough money not to have to. He's a singer with a rare ability to inhabit songs. He doesn't see the need for a Faces reunion, reasoning that there are plenty of good bands. He reminds Alastair of George Best. When he tells him this, Rod replies, 'He's probably shagged some of the same women if we were to compare notes.' We'll start a new book tomorrow. I'll decide on the book later today.



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