"The landscapes and all those guys getting wasted."

ALEX COX, maker of the astonishing Repo Man, director of the Pogues brown eyes in a bag video, planner of a film about the romance of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, describing his early fascination with film, particularly Westerns.

Alex Cox himself was described by a mutual acquaintance as 'big ears and a punk rock haircut'. I notice this is true as he sits on my sofa wasting a toasted cheese and marmite sandwich. He's wearing a pair of boots purchased in Guadalajara, Mexico and regretting not getting the silver supports for the heels necessary to protect the boot when one is driving one's Chevy. Alex's Chevy is back in Los Angeles "on loan, I'll probably never see it again."

Alex got his first taste of glamour by attending Wirral Grammar School, an institution where some years earlier Harold Wilson had been head boy. 'White Heat', in those days, had a connotation not linked with the Velvet Underground, "there was a great emphasis on being a physicist or a chemist and making Britain a competitive technological nation. I had no capacity for any of that."

Instead he found himself at Oxford studying law. "I was a law student but I didn't study much law. As soon as I went to my first lecture I thought this is the most boring place and the most boring subject known to man."

He almost left but then realised, "You didn't have to work! If you were half bright you could get by on a couple of hours a week. That's what I did. "

To continue reading this article and to discover many more (over 140,000 words-worth!), purchase Mick Sinclair’s Adjusting the Stars: Music journalism from post-punk London.