Angela writes:

We've done an interview with Simon Goddard regarding his book, "The Songs that Saved Your Life."

If you recall his interview in 3AM magazine when the interviewer asked Goddard if he had approached Morrissey about the book Goddard responded "Morrissey, yes, I didn't expect to get, but he knew about the book and even passed on -- through an intermediary -- a four-worded message to me which was as sardonic as one might imagine (and no I'm not going to divulge what it said, but it was relatively clean!)."

In the interview we conducted with Goddard he reveals that the intermediary was Linder Sterling and that she tried her best to convince Morrissey to speak to Goddard regarding the book. He also goes on to reveal the four-worded message and speaks about researching his book.

And you thought Morrissey had problems escaping his past associations...

Link to an article in the Independent posted by Benton in a comment in a previous story.

Marr's Attacks - by Fiona Sturges, Jan. 10. Excerpt:

The in-fighting reached a head in 1996 with a highly publicised court case over royalties during which Morrissey and Marr were ordered to pay the drummer Mike Joyce £1.25m in back earnings by a judge who, it was reported, had never heard of Top Of The Tops, let alone The Smiths. However, Marr accepted the judgment but Morrissey appealed against it.

"It tied me up for a couple of years while I was trying to make a record," remembers Marr. "It's really hard because it weighs you down and puts you off the whole business of making music. I had no respect for the court case at all including my own side. Morrissey kept fighting it and fighting it and the consequences are still affecting me to this day. The drummer has now decided that, since Morrissey won't pay, he can exercise his legal right to get me to pay Morrissey's debt. It's a struggle to be positive with that hanging over me."
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booboomja writes:

www.magnetmagazine.com has recently posted an excellent interview with Johnny Marr. Senior Editor Matthew Fritch asks Johnny to give a "spot impresssion" of several luminaries with whom Marr was worked over the years. Surprisingly enough, he asks about Morrissey, to which Marr responds (excerpt):

[Fritch] Morrissey.
[Marr][Long pause] What can I say Morrissey is like, genuinely? I’ve never been asked to sum him up. Because there was so much emphasis placed on the differences between Morrissey and myself, most people haven’t stopped to wonder what it was that made us so close. The thing that brought us really close together is the essence of why he lives his life and why I live my life. And that is that without what we consider to be the art of pop music and pop culture, life doesn’t make any sense. And that understanding: He needed it like I needed it. It was a pretty serious, deep need. It wasn’t just the need to escape our social situation, because underneath it all, one of the things that makes us the same is that we’re both incredibly sensitive. There was this serious burden with serious mental problems that were taken care of by records.
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jtang writes:

In New York Magazine,

Johnny Marr & the Healers
Speaking by phone from his home in London, Johnny Marr may be “nursing a typical British cold,” but there’s little else about him that hints at his mopey past as the inventive guitarist for the Smiths. He takes shots at the Smiths’ vaunted catalogue (“we were good, but not that good”), wittily dismisses any notion of a reunion (“leave the corpse alone, please”), and even offers self-deprecating remarks about his psychedelia-prone new band, the Healers (“I’m cool with being labeled psychedelic, as long as it doesn’t conjure up film of people dancing naked around a muddy pond”). Truth be told, Marr never was a sullen Smiths soldier; in fact, pairing up with Morrissey wasn’t even his first choice. “The band I really wanted to be in was The The,” he confesses, “but I couldn’t afford the train fare from Manchester to London.” (Marr did eventually get his wish; he joined The The in 1988 for its album Mind Bomb.) Marr, however, isn’t fixated on the past; he’s more interested in the future with the Healers. “Rock’s at a weird place right now,” he says. “The British bands are too emotional, and the American bands are so concerned with attitude that they forget to write good tunes. I want to make big, loud rock that isn’t clichéd.”
Bowery Ballroom
6 Delancy St.
212-533-2111
January 21st.

C.S.I. is currently the most-watched TV show in the US (Nielsen ratings).

Gregg writes:

While watching the opening scene of CSI: Crime tonight (Jan 09 2003) "Cathy" had the line of "It's kind of like that Morrissey album Meat is Murder" while she was looking over a murder scene at a meat packing plant.
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An anonymous person also writes:

In tonight's episode of C.S.I., the opening scene was of a murder that took place in a meat packing warehouse. When taking photos of the arm protruding from a meat grinder, the Catherine Willows character stated "It's like that Morrissey album: Meat is Murder." A little later on, they investigate a restaurant named Jobriath where the victim supposedly worked.
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ojon1 also writes:

Did you happened to watch C.S.I. last nite? Morrissey got mentioned at the opening of the show when the C.S.I. team finds a body in a meat grinder and the girl says "It's like the Morrissey album Meat is Murder" O.K. maybe they got their references crossed! it was cool never the less.. Mozz @ National T.V. @ Prime Time on the # 1 Television Programme in the U.S.

Simon H writes:

There is a mention in the latest edition of Heat Magazine (UK) that Moz was spotted in LA - driving a convertable J A G - with a husky dog in the passenger seat - around Los Angeles. This amused me.

John Levon writes:

Top of the Pops 2 has a vote for which videos you'd
like to see on a future program. Vote here :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/totp2/vote/index.shtml

The vote ends tomorrow !

king leer writes:

Actor Kevin Spacey is the founder of a fairly new site called triggerstreet.com, where members can upload short films and feature screenplays for evaluation by their peers, with added exposure for the top-ranked submissions.

My screenplay, Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me (a bit shorter than the song title) is available for reading. It takes some of its inspiration and cues from The Smiths and Morrissey -- some of it literally, some thematically.

After you become a member, click on "search", choose "screenplays" and type in "Last Night I Dreamt" to pull up the page and d/l the script. And if you have time, please submit a review -- and check out some of the hundreds of other available screenplays and films.