Sarah Champion is that most unusual breed of pop culture commentator in that, rather than being a well-intentioned middle-aged academic, she is actually part of the culture she chronicles. With her baggy skater's gear and shock of peroxide white hair, she could belong to one of the rave music outfits she has opted to document.
In fact, she has made her name collecting together some of the most prominent literary figures and underground writers of the past five years. First came Disco Biscuits, last year's hugely successful anthology of writings from the “chemical generation” - names such as Irvine Welsh, Nicholas Blincoe, Alex Garland and Gavin Hills. This month sees the publication of Disco 2000, a collection of short stories set in the last hours of New Year's Eve 1999.
In Disco 2000 she has assembled some of the most cutting-edge and twisted minds writing today, including Douglas Coupland, William Gibson, vampire scribe Poppy Z. Brite, and cult comic writer Grant Morrison. “J.G. Ballard didn't have time to write one,” she says, “but he did send me a postcard written on the back of a photo of a motorway flyover.”
What, I ask, gives a 26-year-old girl from Manchester the chutzpah to ask J.G. Ballard for a short story? “Email - it makes it easy,' says Champion. “You know the person you're chasing is sitting in the comfort of their own home and is therefore more receptive to ideas."
Her unconventional approach applies to the promotion of her books too. “I don't do drinks parties with vol-au-vents - that's not how I want my books launched.” Instead Disco Biscuits (now in its 12th reprint) was taken directly to its readership with launches in clubs around the UK. "Once you've caught the attention of your audience, they really aren't as uninterested and illiterate as everyone would have them."
As a child growing up in Manchester, Champion's heroes came from pop culture: the Six-Million-Dollar Man, Wonder Woman. She never got around to going to university; her academic career was pretty much halted by the city's burgeoning music scene - dubbed 'Madchester' by the music press, it spawned Sean Ryder's Happy Mondays as well as the Stone Roses (the band that paved the way for Oasis). The 16-year-old Champion found herself reporting on it first for the New Musical Express, and later in her book And God Created Manchester published when she was 19. An article about US rave kids in the style magazine i-D brought her to the attention of Hodder & Stoughton. They promptly commissioned her to edit Disco Biscuits and her entry into mainstream publishing was assured.
Even the sharpest cultural commentator gets it wrong sometimes, however. Currently organising the Disco 2000 promotional club tour and an accompanying Disco 2000 CD of original techno music, featuring luminaries such as Bentley Rhythm Ace and Jimi Tenor, she is still astounded by the success of Disco Biscuits.
“Everyone looks
back at the Sixties and harps on about how important they were but really the
last 10 years have been pretty insane. Obviously I wasn't the only person who
wanted to read something they could relate to.”