I'm hoping that I've got the wrong end of the stick here, but I have reason to believe that Sébastien Favre passed away last night.

A little earlier, I was thinking that I should plug his show with The Zeros that is scheduled for Paris tonight. I've got a note out to Brother Patrick and will report back in due course.

Update @ 6pm

RIP - Sébastien Favre

I’m sad to report that this is indeed true. He had a heart attack whilst going down some stairs apparently. Terrible news. I never met him but enjoyed our correspondence, he was keen to arrange a Wreckless and Amy show. I looked forward to the day we could raise a glass together in Paris along with Brother Patrick who has this to say...

Tribute to a friend

All I can say is that Séb seemed to live the perfect rock’n’roll life and that he enjoyed every minute. A connoisseur of music, blessed with perfect taste. He spent his life globe-trotting, spinning records, he was one of the best dj’s in town, organising the best garage shows in Paris (including The Zeros tonight) .

People who love Séb can feel better, imagining him sharing a bottle of red wine with Lux, somewhere in heaven.

One of a kind and just a wonderful human being. Goodbye Séb.

- Patrick

As I haul poster tubes and large flat boxes down from the attic, Mr Percival has kindly supplied the following review of the Ian Dury biopic, "Sex and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll"...

"A good film - not a classic, but well worth viewing. It's almost as much the Baxter Dury story (Ian's son - the 6 year old child on the cover of New Boots and Panties) as it is Ian's with the young boy going off the rails whilst supposedly in the care of his father and his father's speed addicted minder.

The film is quite dark and it certainly doesn't make Ian out to be any kind of a hero - "a tricky customer" to use Dury's own words to describe himself. Andy Serkis is great as Ian Dury and Olivia Williams as his wife Betty and Namoie Harris as his girlfriend Denise are also excellent in their roles. Ray Winstone is the ideal choice to play the part of Ian's, rarely seen in every sense, father Billy.

The pressures of life on the road with the commercially unsuccessful Kilburn and the High Roads, combined with living with the after effects of polio, 2 children, a wife as well as a girlfriend with no real income from a music career that took many years before success came, all hit home. The story evolves from the young Ian spending time at specialist schools for the disabled to eventually releasing hit records.

The one potential flaw to the film is that to be able to follow the story line I suspect you do need to have an existing understanding of Ian Dury's life story as there is no attempt to present the events in a chronological sequence. The average film goer is not going to know this story and I'd be intrigued to hear what other people make of it. I suspect it could potentially be seen as a confused mess in the eyes of many. I enjoyed it though."

In recent times, I’ve been cleaning stuff out including years of correspondence. In amongst this material is all of the letters and Christmas cards from Stephen Patrick Morrissey and I’m thinking about selling them.

What do you reckon? There’s a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t part with too but I feel no real connection to this specific material anymore. Kind of promised myself that a start would be made on the zines and posters today too. Borrowed a camera to shoot the poster images when the good intentions were running rampant so I ought to get to it.

Look at it as weight loss, removing a dirty great albatross or whatever but it would seem that this kind of awakening is happening far and wide. There's no real clear indication of how I got to this point but there's a chink of light and I'm inclined to want to see more. CDs and records are not safe from this wave of enlightenment either let me tell you.

I already have given a pile of stuff away to decent homes. Places where they'll be enjoyed. Not stuck up in the attic in a box. I'm renouncing my status as a certified pack rat. No longer will I receive things just to save them from being thrown out. I mean it. Really.