That was quite good.

And 142 gigs? On yersel' David! :D

David Tseng, 36
Computer programmer
In 1986 a friend of mine recommended that I try listening to this British band, the Smiths. I'd heard them on the radio a little and I liked what I heard so I went out and bought their most recent album, Hatful of Hollow, on a friend's recommendation. What I heard changed my life. Growing up in Orange County I'd been used to very upbeat music but here was this very cynical, very frank voice singing about stuff I'd never known. I think I learned a lot from Morrissey and the Smiths; they opened my eyes to ideas I'd never considered, such as vegetarianism (then not a fashionable trend in America), and taught me about the British culture, about which I knew nothing.

Sadly, before they could tour America again, the band split. But Morrissey kept recording and I kept buying the albums. I found him a fascinating personality and the way that he put himself into his music made it all the more meaningful. He's a real historian and fan of music himself, something I could really empathise with. I think a lot of people feel the same because at all the 142 gigs I've been to there's been a real sense of unity.

In 1991, myself and five of my friends started Sing Your Life, a Morrissey fanzine. We only published three issues in all, but selling it after gigs allowed us to go to all 53 US and European dates of the 1992 Arsenal tour. That was an exhausting time, with six of us travelling in the same car and sleeping in the same room, but it was fantastic because we were travelling the same route as Morrissey and we used to bump into him all the time. The fanzine folded in early 1995 but later that year we started the Sing Your Life website which evolved into www.morrissey-solo.com, the fan site that I now run.

From a musical point of view I suppose there just hasn't been anything since Morrissey that's filled me up in the same way. Although I'm not "16, clumsy and shy" any more, the songs still have real meaning for me.

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To simply give thanks to the users, moderators, and people who post news items? It's all about you isn't it? I won't even get into the factual errors you presented here because *I* little nobody that I am remember the boy in Orange County who offered to sell me a fazine which I bought. I ran with that crowd to David if only on the fringes, primarily because my parents could not afford to pay for me to go to Morrissey shows. You seem to be bragging here, you never mention Russ by name. And you never give thanks.

"I remember we discussed why he chose the picture of French actor Alain Delon for the cover of The Queen Is Dead, which books he was reading (mainly Oscar Wilde), and the fact that the rain was flattening his hair.

In 1987, the band split up. Shortly afterwards, I got a phone call at home from someone called Peter. I knew it was Morrissey, and he knew I knew it was him, but we spent the next few minutes playing out an odd game. I don't recall what exactly was discussed during this unexpected phone call, but I seem to remember him asking me advice about something, and it was never mentioned again. I can only assume that he was lonely and wanted to talk to somebody whose opinion he trusted."

Magic!