***NME*** Steven Wells will be first against the wall when the revolution comes! I don't know if anyone who bought the Stuart M issue of NME got as far as the "Angst" page, but up at the top there is the statement "Come on Belle & Sebastian fans ... we're expecting you" I have this feeling that the NME *really* wants to make us look like fools. I don't know if anyone remembers this far back, but five or six years ago the Manics fan was the subject of derision and mockery by said magazine. However, since the Manics have descended from agit-punk to MOR pop (and before anyone starts sending me hate-mail, I *like* the Manics) their fans aren't such an easy target. ...... And then we come along. I just hope that of the mail NME receives feom the B&S camp, they print some coherent and well written letters, and not just silly ones to make us look stupid. I wouldn't count on it though. Matybe I should cancel my subscription to NME.com in protest. ***ILL FATED AUCKLAND PICNIC/MEET UP*** This is a good, but sad story. I met one of my best freinds on the notice board of the Belle & Sebastian website. Early last year I posted the simple message "New Zealand fans?" on the site, and waited for the replies to come flooding in. Ha! A week later I got an e-mail from a guy called Dave who happened to live 10 minutes away. We e-mailed or a few weeks and finally met, and have been great freinds ever since. Anyway, last year we thought we'd try tio organise a meet up. Borders had sold a fair amount of copies of "Tigermilk" (we used to check every week!) So we figured there must be some more fans lurking out there. So I made little posters, and set a time and place, and stuck them up in all the indie record stores in Auckland. The appointed hour came, and Dave and I turned up at the nominated cafe at the nominated time, him with his "Study at Stow" t-shirt, me with my B&S buttoms on my denim jacket. And we waited, looking furtively at anyone with a vaguely floppy fringe, hoping ... praying that we'd found some fans. And of course no one came. (sigh) And now Dave has gone to the UK. So my girlfriend has to pretend she's interested in pop music to stop me from going mad. Have a nice weekend, kids, Lawrence Mikkelsen http://www.akn.quik.co.nz/mikelsen/aboutme +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+