(Guest blogged by Howie Klein)

Last night Morrissey was David Letterman's guest on The Late Show. Morrissey's been touring behind his latest solo release, Ringleader of the Tormentors, but the LNMC decided to go way back and dig up a Smiths fave from Morrissey's early days as a galvanizing singer, songwriter and performer.

UPDATE: Looks like the video Howie had was removed, so enjoy this Smiths tune instead...

So a little contest tonight for Morrissey's legion of Crooks & Liars fans? Half a dozen simple questions about his songs. Just send the answers to and win something special to listen to that is somewhat Morrissey-related that can't be purchased in a store (a surprise).

1- What happens if a doubledecker bus crashes into us?

2- What is meat?

3- In what song does Moz claim to be the sun and the earth along with a need to be loved "just like anybody else does?"

4- Not having a stitch to wear keeps Morrissey from what?

5- Which Morrissey video has visual cues to Lord Byron, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, James Dean and "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out?" 6- Who was Hector?

And, by the way, congratulations to Craig Burney for winning the Armageddon Dildos contest last week

Your Arsenal
	Artist: Morrissey

Upbeat. Rockin. Whatcha listening to tonight, ma hunnies?

Morrissey's new album comes out on the 17th of this month, and if the rest of it matches the first single, "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris," it will signal a return to form displayed on 2004's You Are The Quarry, where Moz proved he is the only singer who can use the word "hamburger" convincingly in a song.

Coachella counts Morrissey, Bob Mould, and a host of other great acts that fall into the excellent-and-crotchety category among this year's performers, which is perfect for getting fans of similar crotchetiness, usually loathe to spend three days at an outdoor festival in the desert, to actually go this year. Have a glance at the lineup, it's a good one.

Morrissey covered "That's Entertainment" as a non-LP b-side of the single "Sing Your Life." He did the Jam's version, not the version from The Band Wagon. It was probably the Jam's biggest hit and it also became a live Moz staple. Do you have a favorite Smiths or Morrissey song? No? How about Skid Row?

Some Smiths fans love this and some find it sacrilegious. "Batyar" is the Ukrainian language version of the Smiths' classic "Bigmouth Strikes Again," from Rank. The band singing, appropriately enough, is The Ukrainians, a British band made up of musicians of Ukrainian descent. Do you have a Smiths or Morrissey favorite cover version?

In the early 80's Morrissey turned my boss, Seymour Stein, on to this Manchester band who opened a U.K. tour for The Smiths. The band was called James and eventually Seymour signed them. I loved their songs and we tried and tried to break them but, as well as they did in England, we just couldn't get to first base with them here in the U.S. It wasdn't until they switched labels-- as well as a drummer and turned themselves into a 7-piece-- that they finally broke through here with "Sit Down."

You don't want to know the number of intra-band disputes I've gotten involved in, usually as a court witness. Some of these have been given a great deal of publicity, like the disputes between Morrissey and the Smiths' bass player and drummer who felt their contribution to The Smiths was equal to Morrissey's. (A witless judge agreed, due at least in part to her dislike of Morrissey's sometimes prickly personality.) Even worse was how the musicians in the Dead Kennedys' were able to convince another witless judge to deprive Jello Biafra of the fruits of all his work-- a real tragedy. The cases I've been involved with which were eventually settled aren't allowed to be discussed publicly, like when O'Reilly and Fox paid $6.5 million dollars to Andrea Macris for their criminal behavior towards her.

As you may have heard, Violent Femmes bassist Brian Ritchie is suing singer Gordon Gano for various abuses, from allegedly being derprived by Gano of credits due him to being supplied with allegedly fishy accounting records, something very common in the music business, I might add. But the charge that most caught my eye was that Ritchie was furious over Gano's grant of permission to Wendy's to use "Blister in the Sun" for a commercial. How do you feel about bands' songs being used in commercials? Here they performing their biggest song live in London in 1984:

And here's the Wendy's commercial:

(guest blogged by Howie Klein)

There was definitely a time when my favorite music was what was then called "industrial." At the time I worked at Sire Records as general manager and we had one of the greatest of the industrial bands, Ministry. Ironically, when Seymour Stein signed them he had only heard a kind of proto-disco song they did called "Every Day is Halloween" and when he realized they weren't going to do more songs like that he fled from the project and left them to me. Long after disavowing "Halloween," I think they were the first industrial band to go gold. Seymour was so happy that he was amenable when I suggested we sign a whole industrial label, Zoth Ommog, based in Frankfurt in Germany.

You can imagine when I showed up at Warner Bros with a band from that deal called Armageddon Dildos-- one guy from Hannover (Dirk) and one guy from Sweden (Uwe). Although they went on to gain some acclaim with their brilliant cover of Morrissey's "Every Day Is Like Sunday" the following year, their first big breakthrough came from their 1993 release HOMICIDAL DOLLS and the single "Homicidal Maniac."

Tonight's contest is for a very rare promo-only 2 CD set, a package that was put together for a party to celebrate my retirement from Warner Bros. It was never sold and only 500 were ever pressed. It includes some rare tracks not otherwise available and among the artists on the discs are the aforementioned Ministry, Morrissey and Armageddon Dildos, as well as Ramones, Green Day, Body Count, Talking Heads, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Wilco, Enya, Depeche Mode, Lou Reed, Enya, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell... To win it listen to that Armageddon Dildos tune and write us a paragraph telling as an appropriate time to play that song in a public setting-- and why.Email downwithtyranny@aol.com with your entry.

(guest blogged by Howie Klein)

You know what happens when a band breaks up and the members start doing solo projects. Usually they're not as good, to put it mildly, as the original band.

The Smiths were on my label and they were an awesome band. I had some real anguish about Morrissey going out on his own. But how many years has it been? And he's still doing some of his BEST WORK EVER. Tonight's song is "First of the Gang To Die," although there are over a dozen incredible Morrissey solo songs that are better than anything that most songwriters ever get close to in a whole career.

And tonight's contest-- tell me your favorite solo artist who left a band and did great work. The winner will be someone who does more than just mentions Peter Gabriel or that drummer from his band. The winner will give us some good rationale why his or her answer merits the rare (not for sale) Bob Dylan Victoria's Secret LOVESICK compilation CD. Answers to downwithtyranny@aol.com