WHEN YOU WAKE YOU'RE STILL IN A DRUNKEN STATE.

That Kevin Bloody Shields from My Bloody Valentine has got a bloody nerve...

He's amongst residents of Hampstead who are complaining about a bar called Room 68 applying for a late licence to allow them to open until 1am.

On the grounds of noise nuisance.

Hmmm... yeeeeeees, Kevin. Let's hope that they don't crank the sound system up so loud that it damages the audience's hearing AND triggers the instinct in the human body that warns of imminent danger whilst all of the staff of the place are safely going about their business wearing earplugs.

You'd have thought that with all of his practice doing interviews that he'd have got the best soundbite in. Unfortunately not. The best Kev could manage was "I really object to being forced to listen to music I don't like while someone else makes money. The worst are Dido remixes". I can't say whether the newspaper edited out anything along the lines of "Her record company rejected mine" or not.

But he was beaten hands down in the quote stakes by local philosophy teacher Donald Hill who offered up "This is a conservation area - believe it or not - not a honky-tonk arena for idiots". I can't say whether the newspaper edited out anything along the lines of "Or ethereal, procrastinating guitar molesters for that matter" or not.

Kevin Shields : Careful! He's
been woken up again...

D'YER MAKER?

On the subject of when The Smiths were little (below), in the process of winding some metal kidz up today I inadvertantly found the MySpace home of one James Maker.

Who, I type that I can imagine you asking? He was the original go-go dancer for The Smiths until everybody involved pointed out that they really didn't need a go-go dancer/Morrissey decided that there wasn't enough attention to go round sharing it.*

He went on to sing in the band Raymonde and as I've been webstalking the man today, I've discovered that you can buy a couple of their old singles on eBay, or at least you could at the time of me smashing my hands about on this keyboard.

After that, he decided to have a crack at LA-style metal in what was at the time, as far as I'm aware, the first all gay heavy metal band. Legend has it that the people who signed them to EMI Records (only for Mr Maker & co to later reveal their sexual orientation) were so livid at being presented with the problem of marketing a gay rock band to what was then considered (despite the age-old homoeroticism of heavy metal) a very macho/straight audience that they washed their hands of the act. To the point that RPLA were banned from even entering the EMI building.

Oh his MySpace page are demos from 2000. There are four songs up there for you to tilt your ears towards.

Nowadays he goes under the moniker 'James Maker and Noko 440' and states his genre as pop/ambient. Newer material will see release soon either on iTunes or on that quaint old CD format that people used to go crazy for.

You might think that the picture below is amusing with it's 99p sticker, but you try finding a picture of RPLA, let alone one of The Smiths onstage with their go-go dancer on Google images...

RPLA : I see no reason why Saxon
fans wouldn't lap it up.

Shortly after my regrettable bout of recollecting it occured to me that I probably ought to write a book containing all of the old trivia that I know and save putting you, dear reader (singular) through it.

* - Delete according to which story you believe.

"WHY DO YOU HOLD FLOWERS WHEN YOU SING (YOU GREAT MARY-ANNE)?"

There's some curious old footage of The Smiths behaving decidedly less than effortlessly cool on The Tube here.

The resolution is a bit on the poor side so there are some good bits where Morrissey's face takes on an alien quality.

The cutting between the schoolchildren asking the questions and Morrissey or Johnny Marr is seamless as well. At no point did I get the impression that there was no way that they were going to get Steven Patrick to sit in a classroom full of grubby schoolchildren for real. To be honest, on reflection it now seems surprising that they got him to agree to stand next to that little lad when they did 'Panic' on Top of the Pops.

The best bit is possibly when they edit in the kids singing 'This Charming Man' in unison over the wrong part of the song.

Pesky Kid : Billy Liability

COR! THEY'RE SO LITTLE AND CUTE!

Anyone who knows anything knows how good the Japanese are at archiving stuff. Often pointless stuff, admittedly, but stuff nonetheless.

Go here to have a look at a superb collection of old compact cassettes. Then, when you've finally been drawn in and are shouting "I've got that one! I've got the second CUD album on that!" to an empty room, stop for one moment and take in fully the fact that you're getting excited about a load of digital images of cassette tapes. Then perhaps spend an hour or two seriously thinking about your life.

My second question about this collection, obviously after "Why?", is - how on earth did they get them captured in that resolution?

Tape : For the record, my favourite one