That commercial shocked me as well, as it uses "How Soon as Now" over text boasting of how the car contains something like "over 47 square feet of luxury leather" and in the States (though not it's original UK pressing) that song is the centerpiece of the "Meat is Murder" album. Then it struck me that since the Smiths aren't known for licensing music to commercials, perhaps that sample was from Love Spit Love's note for note recreation of the song. In that case, Morrissey/Marr will receive songwriting royalties but wouldn't have been able to stop it's use... On an unrelated note my most recent Pavement video for "Major Leagues" should begin airing in Europe at any moment, and the Pavement home video/DVD comes out in the states in late October. Mark Ibold wears a Study at Stowe shirt in much of the documentary footage, actually, so perhaps that counts...And although most listers probably shun such things, it may be worth watching some of the MTV awards ceremony Septemebr 9th. Around the time I made "Dirty Dream Number Two" I also collaborated with the Torrance Community Dance Group for Fatboy Slim's "Praise You." In addition to being nominated for four awards the TCDG will be performing with Mr .Cook at the awards ceremony. Wish us well as we are up against Britney Spears, Ricky Martin, the Backstreet Boys, Will Smith, and Korn, surreally enough. Lance Bangs

hi witty ones,

An inevitable end to my bad day yesterday was this:

On TV, the opening throes of The Smiths sacred "How Soon Is Now" began to play. I ran from the kitchen to see what was up. Turns out Nissan is using the song in their commercial for the new Maixima 2000. Johnny's reverb went on as a camera panned around the curves of the automobile. So that was pretty sad. But THEN I thought about the fact that the commercial ended sweetly enough EXACTLY before Morrissey's vocals were about to cut in. Now this gets me thinking: either they sampled and looped the guitar bit (see: SoHo's "Hippiechick", for which Moz/Marr recieved a whopping %75 of royalties for illegal use of the sample), OR...the ever money-hungry Moz/Marr wrote it out back in the early days so that they might be able to do such commercialism later on? Can you imagine Moz and Marr writing and playing along "I aaaaaam humaaaaan and I need to be riiiiiichhh...ER...I mean...lOOOVEEED..." ??? Being a Smiths affecianado, my trained ear told me that the music was NOT an afore mentioned "sample and loop", but in fact the real deal. If anyone's ever read the unauthorized musicology "Morrissey & Marr:The Severed Connection" by Jonny Roghan (whom Moz was quoted as saying "I wish he'd get run over by a bus."), they will read about how much grief the band has gone through regarding money.(see: court battle with ex-Smith members over royalties, in which the judge called Moz all kinds of nasty things like "vile" and "despicable" for his stinginess about turning over royalty money...hmmm...perhaps that's where "beware, I bear more grudges).

Jason D. "Panic on the streets of Toronto" Scott a.k.a. Barfly

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