“Diminished Responsibility: My Life As A U.K. Sub, And Other Strange Stories” Vol 3. by Alvin Gibbs Out Now Via Earth Island Books

The third and final volume in the UK Subs bassist, Alvin Gibbs, excellent and insightful trilogy of autobiographies.With a Foreword by Gaye Black of The Adverts. 37 Chapters, as well as a comprehensive, updated Alvin Gibbs discography and bibliography.In excess of 130,000 words and 400 pages.Fully illustrated with photos and memorabilia from Alvin’s personal archive. Excerpt from ‘Diminished Responsibility, Vol 3’…

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“If you’ve followed my story from Volume I, through Volume II, and on to this final edition of my memoir trilogy, you’ll already be aware that my fascination with Rock music began in the 1960s, metamorphosed in the early-1970s to an obsession that overtook that of wanting to become a professional footballer and, in turn, saw me forming a school-based Glam rock band in 1973. Come the advent of Punk and my witnessing many of the renowned first-wave outfits of that genre, I became an active participator in the scene by means of joining my first Punk rock group in 1978, The Users.

Following a stint with The Users, I experienced touring at a higher level supporting The Police in Europe and Thin Lizzy in the U.K. with ex-Damned guitarist Brian James and The Physicals respectively. My becoming a U.K. Sub in 1980 raised the bar even higher: I initially recorded two albums and four singles with the Subs, appeared on Top of the Pops, and travelled all over the British Isles, Europe and North America to play and perform prior to swapping London for San Francisco and thereafter, relocating to Los Angeles.

Whilst living in the city of fallen angels I became Iggy Pop’s bassist and embarked on an eight month-long global tour with one of the seminal figures of napalm hearted Rock ‘n’ Roll. During that same period, I played a show with the actor Johnny Depp, became a friend of and hung out in New York City with Joey Ramone, spent time in the company of David Bowie, Alice Cooper and Michael Hutchence, as well as experiencing many other ‘pinch me’ moments.

Upon my return to London, I gigged in the U.K., Japan and Scandinavia and also supplied instrumentation and compositions for two LP records plus three single releases with the Hanoi Rocks’ spin-off band Cheap And Nasty. After four years of C ‘n’ N I returned to active duty with the Subversives, and subsequently played an inestimable number of world-wide tours, gigs, and festivals, plus contributed, both as a musician and songwriter, to a further nine studio albums and 11 single/EP records. Perhaps the biggest Rock band of the late-1980s/1990s, Guns N’ Roses, covered one of my songs for a platinum-level selling LP, the royalties from which paid in part for my house in France.

During the large slab of time these accumulated events took place, there were certainly other instances of Diminished Responsibility and enough additional Strange Stories to fill another three volumes. And, no doubt, there will yet be a couple of lapses of appropriate conduct and a twisted tale or two to be accrued in future days; but I’m satisfied with what is already available in the public domain and have no desire to keep ploughing the same literary ground beyond this final instalment. What a ride. What an incredible journey.”