I was reading the political stories in the Scottish broadsheet "The Sunday Herald" when mention was made of Barack Obama, on his UK visit, carrying a box of Cd's - including The Smiths - which the Tory leader had given to him:

As the senator swept out through Parliament's gates it emerged that he was taking with him a box of CDs of music by some of Cameron's favourite British bands, including The Smiths, Radiohead, Gorillaz and Lily Allen.

The Obama charm offensive tour plays Downing Street

Good to hear that one of the most inspirational politicians in recent years now possesses material of The Smiths, even if it was supplied by the detestable Tory toff.

I was recently gifted a collection of Smiths/Morrissey collectables and memorabilia from a Japanese acquaintance residing in Tokyo, Ms. Keiko Kondo. Included was a series of eight good quality b&w photographs of Morrissey doing an impromptu meet-and-greet with fans on the platform of Nagoya station, Japan, while travelling the country on the 1991 'Kill Uncle' tour. As far as I am aware these rare photos were never part of an official photo session, and have never been given a general release.

Although Ms. Kondo was present at the Nagoya meet-and-greet, she was not responsible for taking the photos; rather, she received them from another fan in exchange for some of her own photos. Ms. Kondo saw Morrissey perform in Nagoya, Osaka, Yokohama, and at the Budokan in Tokyo. On one occasion she and a friend bumped in Boz Boorer in a record store. She told me Boz showed her a list of CDs Morrissey had requested. One of the names on the list was Ludus!

The photos have been scanned and posted at my Morrissey website Lucky Lisp. To view, just follow the link.

Many thanks to Ms. Kondo for making these unique and wonderful photos available.

Enjoy!

Jason Collins, editor Lucky Lisp

Hi there,

I was browsing through the info on digital and I spotted Moz on the Benicassim highlights programme on 25th July at 11.15pm UK time on ITV2. I had a look on the ITV website and it says its at 10.15pm. Anyway, he's on TV at some point!

This one hour show is on ITV2 11.15pm.

The much-touted Heatwave Festival on July 29 featuring Morrissey, The New York Dolls and Siouxsie Sioux is showing signs of not being able to withstand the heat.

For starters, sluggish ticket sales prompted the promoters last week to move the show from the very optimistic Ganei Yehoshua at Hayarkon Park to the more confined outdoor area of the Israel Trade Fairs and Convention Center in Tel Aviv. And in the latest development, Sioux, formerly lead singer of the punk era Siouxsie and the Banshees, cancelled her participation in the show due to "bureaucratic reasons," according to the producers. Her slot will be filled by Israeli artist Assaf Avidan.

On the plus side, the Dolls announced a second show in the country, a night after the festival, at the Barbie Club.

mp3 available at the following link...

the bedroom covers:

1. crying - roy orbison
2. mother and child reunion - paul simon
3. why dont they let us fall in love? - the ronettes
4. lovefool - the cardigans
5. i won't share you - the smiths
6. he's a rebel - the crystals
7. marie - randy newman
8. fools rush in - johnny mercer/rube bloom
9. temptation inside your heart - velvet underground
10. dreams - fleetwood mac
11. pull up the roots - talking heads

hey gang,
here are a few tracks, that we are calling the bedroom covers. as you may have guessed, all these songs are covers… and yes, we did them at home in my room! the songs that you hear here are just songs we really really like. we didn't deliberate over which songs to pick. we didn't try to stick to a certain time period or genre. we just recorded songs we were going to be playing around the house anyway...

these songs sound the way they do, because we recorded them with a laptop and one mic. we used mainly acoustic guitars and shakers because that's what we had lying around, and we couldn't make much noise in our apartment anyway. we didn't spend time arranging any of these either. we learned the chords and the lyrics (which was pretty easy because we've heard all these songs hundreds of times), and we played 'em. what you hear at the basis of the recording is generally a first take.

The Red Radio is running a story and a download on The Morning Bender's cover of "I Won't Share You" from The Smiths.