I, and a couple of others, got the chance to meet Linder at the recent Boz Boorer show in Manchester. I can honestly say, hand on heart, she was a wonderful person. Really nice and could of easily gone "Okay, enough about Morrissey, sod off now... leave me in peace", but she didn't. She answered my questions about my hero and didn't roll her eyes as if to say "I've heard these questions sooo many times", at all. Well, at least not to me!

A very intersting woman, with a hell of a lot of kindness.

Good luck with the book Linder!

Has Linder Sterling a webpage of her own?

If not, it's about time, cause she's a remarkable
and very interesting person, I mean het art
and music , and I really hope one day she
writes a book about her long-time friendship
with Morrissey [I doubt if there's anybody else
who beat Linder as one of Morrissey's longest
and closest friend which began late 70's]

I'm really curious about her infuence on Morrissey
and vice versa.

Do not see this post as a fact ot whatever, no
this was only a spontanious thought.

I have a question:

Would anyone in here or anywhere else for that matter, be even remotely interested in Linder Sterling's vaguely interesting career if it weren't for the bald naked fact that she is Morrissey's best friend?

The answer is: NO !!!

A few more pertinent questions come to mind.

If Linder and her band Ludus were so bloody scintillating or to use the words of Morrissey himself: "they (Ludus) perch uneasily on the fringes of all things bright and avant-garde. Being the only sensible recipe for the culturally damaged, theirs is a name destined to be in everyone's mouth, should justice prevail. Knowing that it very rarely does, Ludus are out to at least stretch their patience with the world to the very elastic limit. And it is never denied that their music is unlike almost anyone else's."

Oh right matey, if "justice were to prevail" then why didn't YOU offer them a high profile support slot when you were touring in The Smiths if they were that good? How come Geoff Travis of Rough Trade didn't sign them if you were so obsessive about their greatness as a stage band.

If anyone could have helped Linder and her band get a leg up the ladder of the music industry it was Morrissey & Co!

The last part of Morrissey's remark is quite telling: "And it is never denied that their music is unlike almost anyone else's." Yeah well you can say that about anyone's music from Shania Twain to Limpbiskit. It sounds like a bach handed insult. Perhaps he lied and really thought they were not up to much. Hollow words and empty gestures and all that.

The truth is, there were loads of pretentious
  wannabes like Linder around in the late 70's early 80's. She was one of many gals performing on stage in dresses made out of sausages, tampons and pigs' entrails. She may have been interesting, but then any old fool standing at the bus stop can be classified as interesting. Doesn't mean we have to go out and buy their avant gard esoteric song with obscure lyrics. The public gets what the public wants - and she obviously didn't make records that people wanted to buy and listen to.

It's quite telling that she did a cover of a Brigit Bardot record, suitably French and obscure, but then if you're living in a squat in Whalley Range with other wannabees then you can never be too French or too obscure! Singing in French in the early 80's was a way of saying how clever and well read you were. But then Bardot sang in French, was she clever and well read too!

After two years of obscurity in Belgium in the mid 80's (as everyone knows, Belgium is the arse of the world when it comes to pop culture - perhaps Linder felt she could fool the Belgians with her exotic foreign ways, delusions of greatness and her pretentious insularity unlike the home grown cynics of Manchester). She returned brow beaten nonetheless to Manc Land and ended up on the payroll as Morrissey's photographer - where else you might ask?

She's made a nice little career for herself playing the professional best friend. If Morrissey really had any faith in her as a singer/performer he would have given her a lot more work than a short stint on backing vocals on 'Driving Your Girlfriend Home'. Furthermore if her sleeve design and graphics work was so good how come it was Jo Slee and Karen Gough who ended up getting all the commissions?

Perhaps he never wanted her to be successful in the mainstream sense - and feared losing their precious friendship if her star went into the ascendant. He is more or less saying, write books and take pictures of me but don't ask me to do a duet with you - I prefer to do that with Siouxie Sioux. Is he saying "I'd prefer it if you stayed in the background, because I think that is where you belong."

Another example of this 'nice work if you can get it' business is to do with the publication of Michael Bracewell's book from a few years back called 'England Is Mine.' Michael turns out to be Linder's husband and yet

Read the rest of this comment...

I regularly visit this site because as a Smiths fan with an interest in Morissey's solo stuff it is a good place, the best place in fact, to find out what's happening. But these past few months I despair at the comments of people visiting this site. I am a Morrissey fan but from the comments I've read here, I'm starting to be ASHAMED of it. Are these malicious bitter troglodytes really my PEERS?

Firstly, Chris from ambitious Outsiders gets a battering for meeting Morrissey.

Secondly, Mike Joyce gets called some of the foulest and rudest comments I've read for daring to try and release rare Smiths outtakes.

Now, Linder Sterling gets it in the neck. Her crime? Being Morrissey's best friend since before he was famous.

Now I've never met/spoken to Chris, Mike or Linder, but I'd never stoop to the vicious, hideous mud-slinging that's gone on here. All these stories - Chris' meeting, Mike's site, Linder's book - are of passing interest to Moz fans, so what is the harm in reporting these incidents. The vicious slagging that goes on afterwards taints these pieces of news with a horrid aftertaste.

SO come on, who's next for the bitchy assaults at Morrissey Solo? Boz and Alain for daring to write songs with him? Johnny Marr, for daring to be in the same group as him? His mother for daring to give birth to him?

I'm all against censorship but, David T, I think you should seriously have a look at this current climate of HATE. It's horrible, it's ugly.

Haven't you guys heard - "it takes STRENGTH to be gentle and kind". Please stop the hate and leave innocent people like Linder Sterling alone. Where do some of you get off being so nasty and vindictive. This must stop.

so we dont have to leave our armchairs, does anyone know what else is on the free cd with the mag...........before we part with the astounding sum that a glossy mag costs these days............