I'm in the states, and I was able to get it for about $40 including shipping from a used bookstore in Australia a few months ago, which was by far the cheapest I'd seen. I found the listing through Biblio, maybe keep an eye out there?

ah fair enough, I'll set up an alert there too. thanks!

Lapinette wrote:

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i know it's anticlimactic but the kindle version was 11 bucks 

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True but I simply must have it in the flesh

Sure, but brace yourself. You're gonna like it, but not a lot...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Freak-Out-Squares-Russell-Senior-ebook/dp/B016MSRS44/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2TVPEF2H4D0G&keywords=freak+out+the+squares&qid=1698838233&sprefix=freak+out+the+%2Caps%2C89&sr=8-1


Kane 1381
4.0 out of 5 stars You're either a pop star or you're scrubbing crabs
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 October 2015
Verified Purchase
'You're either a pop star or you're scrubbing crabs', as Russell Senior said about Jarvis in the mid-'80s.

Russell hasn't lost his way with a quip and Freak Out The Squares is full of them. It's highly readable and very funny - and you don't have to be from Sheffield to get (most of) the jokes. Although if you never saw the catfish in the Hole In The Road, you'll feel like you did after reading this. Russell sketches '80s Sheffield in few lines, but captures it perfectly. Those crappy rehearsal rooms on Sheldon Row, off the Wicker? They really were like that. The Limit, the Hallamshire and Input Studios? They really were like that. Reading parts of this book is like being back in mid-80s Sheffield. If you're even vaguely interested in Pulp and the time and place that produced them, you should get this.

Most of the major incidents and anecdotes from Pulps history are here, all written very much in Russell's own distinctive voice. No ghost-writing here. Yarns such as Pulp -v- the Rugby Club, the River Porter expedition, pushing a wheelchair-bound Jarvis through town during a gale while wearing pith helmets 'for fear of falling slates', flat-sharing with Jarvis, firing Magnus and Mansell, The Day That Never Happened, smashing lightbulbs in the Leadmill and sneaking back in to replace them the next day, signing to Island, 'Je suis Bono', Glastonbury 95, Russell going to Scarborough and encountering his black and white cut out from the Different Class cover on the beach, etc, are all classics and they're all here. Don't look for many anecdotes about the others in Pulp, however, as Russell largely chooses a few sketches or a withering silence rather than putting the boot in. There's a couple of shakes-head-fondly/in exasperation accounts of Jarvis's escapades, some banter-between-mates laughs at Nick Banks' expense and several, rather more pointed, barbs at Webber, but others escape scot-free. No, I don't mean Candida.

Since walking away from Pulp in early '97, Russell hasn't been scrubbing crabs, but he has been polishing those glossy little pebbles you see for sale in new age shops. Not that he mentions it in this book. Or many other things, including how he once put himself on the electoral roll as 'Russell Pulp' or how an extremely well-endowed young woman once got so bored of him wittering on in the Limit that she snoke up behind him and draped her bare breasts over his head to shut him up. Or, more seriously, how much Russell hated Pulp's American manager and the idiot producer who criminally removed his violin track from She's A Lady. You also won't find out how he felt about Jarvis leaving Sheffield for London or how, after Russell's Stakhanovite work ethic drove Pulp through the 80s, he felt when his position was basically usurped by Steve Mackey - a bloke with hair like Keegan's and who, let's face it, was a bit of a spiv chancer who was far less interesting, less creative and much less visually striking than Russell. This is the main flaw of the book: most of the time, Russell tells you something happened but doesn't reveal how he felt about it. We all know Jarvis left Sheffield in 1988 - but most readers won't know how Russell felt about him going and he doesn't tell you here. By keeping these things to himself, the insider's perspective is often lost.

Revelations? There actually arent many new ones for the long-term Pulp-watcher, although Russell does reveal that it was Vicky (Russells girlfriend) who Jarvis sought to impress by hanging off the ledge over Sven Books, prior to dropping and breaking his hip on Division Street. Theres a good yarn about 'turning up the Yorkshire' when encountering a despairing Luke Haines in Pond Street bus station, too. Many of Russells long list of famous quips also make an appearance, including the killer line about hating the colour of each others socks worse than fascism. A shame you dont get his old quips about post-punk being a multi-coloured refraction of the white light, however, or the classic you can dance to Pulp, but it helps if youre a Cossack.

Like Mick Ronson, Ron Mael or Spock, Russell Senior is one of those people who make an ideal second-in-command or power behind the throne. This is why Pulp were crap before Russell got hold of them and were crap after he left. Whats that? So why did Russell Senior leave Pulp? Russells not telling. Yes, it was in danger of becoming Jarvis and backing band. Yes, Jarvis had reverted to writing twee little ballads on his own. Yes, it'd all got a bit North-South Divide, London-centric cocaine socialist. But you know that's just the stuff for public consumption. Russell says he could've written a whole book about the negative side of Pulp, 'but this isn't it'. So you wont read how narked he was when a member of Pulp introduced heroin into the band or how the nark became unbearable when that person persuaded another member of Pulp to use heroin to escape the pressures of fame at the height of Britpop. Ok, now I've just told you why Russell really left Pulp, so you don't have to look for the answer in this book.

Yes, I was hoping for more tittle-tattle, naming of names and settling of scores just to see it all out in the open at last. But, even without the grisly, all Pulp fans should still get this.
Its better than polishing pebbles and infinitely better than scrubbing crabs.

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FIN

I still need to read his book. 

Beta- I agree I find Steve as visually distinctive and creative as Russell, they both have excellent separate styles and ways of doing things.

It's pretty clear what that review is saying and who it thinks did what to who (let's just spell it out, it's alleging that Mackey introduced Cocker to heroin). It's the kind of cheap drugs tattle that was actually one of the reasons Russell left Pulp, all this business about drug wraps and who was taking what. Maybe there's truth in it, I wouldn't know, but it's worth pointing out that there is definitely a different error already in that review as Jean's pointed out.

There might have been secret smack dealings going on or whatever, but let's be honest, there's no need for Russell to have *any other reason* to leave Pulp other than those already stated. There's a litany of known and publicly-vocalised why Russell left Pulp already, all of which are generally understandable (he had a family, felt geographically disconnected from the group, had artistic disagreements, felt sidelined, couldn't fly, hated stardom, was on the verge of a breakdown... and that's before you lift the lid on all of the interpersonal drama, disagreements and resentments that, unlike heroin, Russell has alluded to).

If you feel that way if you can tick off about three or four of the things off that list I think you'd leave the band too. In fact Russell had already threatened to do so in years prior.

Also, Russell isn't the only one who considered leaving around 96/97 he's just the only one who went through with it. Candida, Steve and Mark have all said they were thinking of it. 

The notion that Russell is too 'gallant' and 'professional' to start talking about heroin is a nice idea. But it also doesn't mean that there actually was heroin.

(And besides: I think if there actually HAD been any heroin use... I think Jarvis would have mentioned it by now. He's been incredibly candid about the travails of Pulp's time in the limelight and the toll it took on him and so has Nick. I maintain that it would have slipped out, at some point. And I don't think this is the slipping out. You're free to disagree.)

You'll be able to read Russell's thoughts on the review soon.

Jarvis does admit heroin usage to Kirsty Wark here (13 minutes in) but also says he was never an addict:

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ufs6gGCfXI&t=810s

Just watched the whole interview for the first time in years. His comments on class and politics are disappointingly 6th Form. Good to see the Wark pull him up on them.

Lapinette wrote:

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it doesn't shock me too much tbh. for some reason heroin is the one that's almost a bit beyond the pale to talk about openly, so it makes sense nick nor russell would feel compelled to mention it in their books, esp if they weren't involved as i'd imagine it feels like airing someone else's laundry. (even if, in russell's book, he is not shy about mentioning their coke dealers etc lol)

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Whaaat????? coke dealers? 

And I'd suspect the heroin thing would be a touchy subject and why, if it happened, Jarvis and nobody else would have mentioned it or been hush on it. Dignity thing. That's a really hard, scary drug and addiction to go through. 

I suspect the real reason Jarvis spent in NYC was to get away from it all, not recognizable, and probably getting help to get off the substances and get his head together and away from all the chaos and publicity. Private and dignified. Sadly, the press would have been all over such a story and made things way worse. 

Lapinette wrote:

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Whaaat????? coke dealers? 

 

And I'd suspect the heroin thing would be a touchy subject and why, if it happened, Jarvis and nobody else would have mentioned it or been hush on it. Dignity thing. That's a really hard, scary drug and addiction to go through. 

I suspect the real reason Jarvis spent in NYC was to get away from it all, not recognizable, and probably getting help to get off the substances and get his head together and away from all the chaos and publicity. Private and dignified. Sadly, the press would have been all over such a story and made things way worse. 

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sorrrrry i dont mean to speculate too much on anyone's relationship with illicit substances, however i remember a few mentions specifically: one where they're touring in canada and trying to procure some, another when a dealer assumes the identity of a family member to take the guest spot and gain entry to one of their shows. kind of hazy on the exact details but i'm nearly certain this happened in russell's book. russell even jokes about it in that mid 2000's tv special they made about 'common people' when they all reunite in the pottery shop they once practiced in. they find some old sugar from 1995 and russell wryly says "i wouldn't be surprised if that's something else" lol 

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In all fairness, probably every single band has some kind of drug story or past.