If The Smiths are your bag – and why wouldn’t they be? – then the recent BBC Radio 6 stuff surrounding the 20th anniversary of the release of the debut single, Hand in Glove is essential listening. After you’ve recovered from how old the whole thing makes you feel, there’s a few gems on the BBC site to reward your persistence.
The best is the two-part the Smiths @ The Beeb, which includes all the recordings the band made for the John Peel and David Jensen shows between 1983 and 1986, many of which were not on Hatful of Hollow or Louder Than Bombs and haven’t been heard before.
There’s also some great comments from Peel and a short interview between Morrissey and Jensen in the first section of the piece in which he sounds so young, camp and excited about the whole thing, just a year after he and Marr met. Top stuff.