This year's Eurovision Song Contest is an absolute wonky gem, populated as it is with metal-toothed Irish Gothic goblins evoking daemons on a pentagram, near-naked Slovenian songstresses howling about murder, a middle-aged Finn with a mammoth mullet running about in his pants, and a bunch of sexy British boxers writhing around in a dirty toilet. But it's still not a patch on the events dreamed up by punk rock drumming hero Roy D Hacksaw in his second novel Worst. Eurovision. Ever. – available now from Earth Island Books.
You've got church burning Norwegian black metallers, beer throwing Australian pub punkers, the drunkest Czech woman of all time, and an Icelandic chap who dresses up as a dog and howls a bit. And that's before we get to the book's hero, a willowy Moldovan goth boy who gets plunged into the heart of his home nation's first ever go at holding the big show almost by accident.
But Hacksaw's not just making this nonsense up off the top of his head. He might be a gnarly old punk famous for his work with Hacksaw, Cesspit Rebels and Chaotic Dischord, but he's worked backstage as a journalist at the competition for twenty-five years and knows full well the kind of lunacy that creeps into the contest's creases and the build up to the big night begins to grow. Indeed, he tells us that a good third of the unhinged incidents noted in this tome have actually happened in some shape or form. No really, they have.
So if you need something to wrench you from your Post-Eurovision Gloom once all the glitter has been swept down the gutter, and want to see the most accurate depiction of what actually goes on backstage at the world's biggest singing competition, you'd better snap up your copy of Worst. Eurovision. Ever. while you still can to make up for your loss. You'll thank us for it, pop fans.
