I saw an ad in the latest NME for "Uncut" Magazine. The cover features Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner with the headlines "The agony and the ecstasy of Electronic" and "plus Johnny Marr on the secret history of the Smiths". The free CD with it also looks like it contains a track from Electronic. Magazine is out March 4th.

The next issue of Uncut magazine is going to have Johnny Marr on the cover & the main story is "A Boy Called Johnny. How Johnny Marr got from The Smiths to Electronic . . . via The The, Bryan Ferry, Talking Heads, The Pretenders, Kraftwerk and Oasis."

...can you claim what's true on possible Pet Shop Boys contribution on forthcoming Moz' album?

I know that Neil Tennant had a meeting regarding that and both PSB are very keen on it.

It was back in January when I read in the French magazine "Les Inrockuptible"s #179 an article about the French soccer player Jocelyn Gourvennec. "Il y a aussi des groupes dont je possède tous les disques: Throwing Muses, les Smiths, Morrissey, PJ Harvey, Ben Harper, Noir desir, Sugar, Radiohead..."

Translated: "There are groups of which I own every record: Throwing Muses etc.etc. "

Another snippet in this week's NME - The journalist Steven Wells attacked The Smiths again in a Blur interview. After Graham Coxon said "Youth culture died in 1979 when Thatch got in.", Swells said back,"Surely it was The Smiths that killed it?" Coxon, a Marr aficionado I think, replied "Well that was for the delicate people....". Swells hates The Smiths and I think blames them for the supposedly moribund state of today's music, like Rollins he also deliberately uses any opportunity to slag Moz, in a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion feature last year he went off in a tangent about 50's America, calling Pat Boone a proto-Morrissey, a white clean living figure who tried to stop rock'n'roll, despite being a Smiths-hater he is actually a very good, funny writer otherwise and has been with the NME since at least the early 80's. As for Blur, i used to hate them, all that mockney, character song shite, but I'm warming to them now, even so I always thought it was a very big step down for Stephen Street to produce them after The Smiths.

Q online reported Andy Rourke's bankruptcy:

>>>>
Smith's Bassist Bankrupt
[Feb 26 1999 3:23PM]
In a rather sad display of the values of patience former Smiths bassist Andy Rourke has declared himself bankrupt only months after drummer Mike Joyce won £1 million in back royalties. Rourke (who struggled with Heroin addiction while in the band) was unable to benefit from the ruling because he had already accepted an £83,000 out-of-court settlement.

Meanwhile ex-best pal Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr was recently estimated to be worth £2million while lead singer Morrissey's wealth was around £8million. (The 100 Richest Stars In Rock)