A Guy Called Gerald
Trip City
Avernus

Future House

In the north-west of England, house keeps on recreating itself. A Guy Called Gerald, unconcerned that 'Emotions Electric', one of the tracks that he recorded for the John Peel Show, has now been bootlegged by the Italians, is releasing his music for the Trevor Miller club novel 'Trip City' (EMI). Flip it over to 'Valentine's Theme' for some genuine paranoid urban electricity.

[Reviewer: Unknown]

A Guy Called Gerald
Trip City
Avernus

WORDS: Trevor Miller SOUNDTRACK: A Guy Called Gerald

TOUTED WRONGLY as the first Acid House novel, Trip City comes with an accompanying soundtrack from Manchester's voodoo-beat doctor A Guy Called Gerald. The idea is fresh enough, whack on the music while you read the book, though they detract from each other.

Given that Miller is a sometime DJ - Doctor Love - and promoter in London, his evocation of the Metropolis is uncannily accurate, only the names have been changed. The tale concerns the sexual and drug misadventures of a burned out raver called Valentine.

Once a face on the scene responsible for throwing a warehouse party called Underground. Valentine has spent the past few years up north after ripping off his mates and music business cronies. Back in London he chances upon a promoter who wants to revive Underground.

Interwoven into this is a subplot concerning a new and devastating drug called FX. The most trippy substance yet devised, FX is free and dished out to top bods in media and art circles. Valentine cops some and from thereon goes out of his mind on squalid sex and FX.

As a piece of literature Trip City is at its best when dealing with Valentine's decay. There is, however, no way that Miller celebrates drug culture - Trip City serves as a warning.

In terms of style - short staccato sentences are irritating. Trip City begins with "It was a blue Monday" which nearly put me off reading the thing. What pulls the reader on, though, is a whodunit plot that threads through the pages of excess and which makes Trip City a bit like Ed McBain for the chemical dub generation.

The soundtrack by Gerald, meanwhile, is a cassette containing five cuts which all relate to aspects of the book and are just what you might expect from the creator of 'Voodoo Ray'.

[Reviewer: Jack Barron]