BEEHIVE CANDY

You may have noticed a considerable amount of excitement in the mainstream media including The Word Magazine, Rolling Stone, NPR (American public radio) and the Los Angeles Times in the latter part of December along with a good number of fellow music fan sites regarding the 'release' of a double album vinyl bootleg called The Smiths - Unreleased Demos and Instrumentals. Indeed such was the quality of this material, my first reaction when listening to it initially, was to check out if this was an official compilation and someone was having me on, regarding the material being a bootleg 'release'. As a result of searching around online I have picked up a fair amount of additional information and my thanks go out to the many fans of The Smiths who have researched this (and whom I am unashamedly copying from in the details section below). The original vinyl rip was in mono and this is a vastly cleaned up version that improves the quality considerably. The 'informed

Regarded by many as the best The Smiths live bootleg (and vastly superior to the 'contractually obligitory' live album Rank) , this concert recording was from the second of two nights at the Los Angeles Universal Amphitheatre and performed on August 26th, 1986. Circulated as a silver disc by 'Big Music' and titled Thank Your Lucky Stars. (Big Music :: BIG091) the CD version uses artwork reminiscent of The Smiths own album covers. The NME reviewed this concert as follows - Los Angeles Universal Amphitheatre - August 25-26, 1986 Whoever said that misery loves company wasn't kidding - almost 12,000 people turned out for The Smiths' two-night stand in Los Angeles. What they heard were 24 perfect pop sparklers, exquisitely executed by maestro Johnny Marr, while the Most Miserable Man in Manchester camped around the stage, occasionally stopping to pose languidly across the monitors, nipples to the wind, to face his adoring public. But this was a wondrous jou