'Must we throw this filth at our pop kids?'

I've just started reading this excellent history of the New Musical Express.

I was an avid NME reader when I was at school in the 1970s. I used to bunk off games lessons and hide in the library with my friend Kay poring over the latest issue. In a time of no internet, mobile phones or multi-channel TV or radio, it was the source of all that was cool in music and popular culture.

The title of this blip refers to a headline in the Sunday People in 1973, prompted by Cliff Richard's declaration that he wouldn't have the NME in his house. Of course our answer to the question 'must we throw this filth at our pop kids?' was an emphatic 'Yes please!'

Re my comments yesterday about Van Morrison, there's a funny story about him in this book. An NME journalist went to Belfast to interview his group Them, and saw a 20 year old Morrison leaning against a wall outside the rehearsal studio, reading a newspaper. The journalist went over to introduce himself, only to have Morrison say 'Fuck off. Can't you see I'm busy?' No change there then...