Registered Historical Facts 2025

My Morrissey Books

And so I checked all the registered historical facts

When I was moving, I couldn’t bring everything with me. So, I thought the easiest thing was to leave my CDs, DVDs, and books behind. I figure I had already ripped all my DVDs and CDs, and, you know, I could always rebuild. I just didn’t have the room to bring everything with me.
Turns out, leaving books and CDs behind was one of the biggest regrets of my life.

Before they were donated or thrown away, I drove back in July and collected some of my belongings and brought it back to my new home.
I’ll have to say that I’m so glad to have these stupid little things back in my life.

I know I don’t have everything out there… for example, I guess I’m still missing Morrissey’s book James Dean is Not Dead. I’m sure they’ve reprinted it or I’ve seen it for sale, but I guess I just couldn’t justify the asking price. Having these Morrissey books back, I thought perhaps it might be fun to see if I can add more books to the collection. It’ll be fun to just go through used book stores and look around.

Part of the fun in collecting is just the hunt. For example, I picked up the New York Dolls book by Morrissey at either Rasputin’s or Amoeba Records in Berkeley. I can’t be for sure, because I tried to remove the price sticker. I remember the first time I got The Severed Alliance from Tower Records and poured through every page. These books brings back so much fond memories.

Anyway, once I had my books back, I was able to finally update the Morrissey Cancelled Dates with Smiths cancellations, using Johnny Rogan’s brilliant book The Smiths: The Visual Documentary. The book is basically a timeline of The Smiths, from start to finish. The best part is when they were on tour, the book broke up the year, day-by-day with setlists (if available). Rogan probably spent years doing research and listening and collecting fan recordings of the shows (if they exists). The book is highly recommended by me.

Chrissie Hynde
chrissiehynde.com

When I received the email about all the new upcoming albums coming out this year – the two I was most excited for was The Charlatans and Chrissie Hynde. What this usually mean, with a new album, is the potential tour and promotion for the album… in the case of Hynde, I doubt there will be a tour to support it.

I think she’s at an age (73) that it might be a rare thing to see her go on tour. Having said that, we were lucky enough to have caught The Pretenders play a tiny 7th Street Entry venue in 2023. That was a the concert of a lifetime, as far as I’m concerned.

Anyway, Hynde’s been busy putting together her new album, called Duets Special and billed as Chrissie Hynde & Pals. The album will come out on black vinyl LP, and CD on Friday, October 17 via Rhino.

As the title suggests, these are duets with some of her favorite singers and musicians, including k.d. lang, the late Mark Lanegan, Dave Gahan, Cat Power, Brandon Flowers, Debbie Harry, Shirley Manson, Alan Sparhawk, and more. I feel like this is a passion project for Hynde… and excuse to doing something nice with some of her friends.

Hynde says: “I never thought about doing a Duets album before. I think the idea came about in 2023. I was talking to Jörn, Rufus Wainwright’s husband, on the phone. I think we were recommending novels to each other, and for some reason, I said Hey, maybe Rufus and I should do something, and quickly scribbled out 10 songs off the top of my head. So Jörn asked Rufus, who was up for it, and that’s how it started. A spontaneous and what I thought would be a fun thing.”

One of the songs on the Duets album is a cover of Morrissey’s “First Of The Gang To Die” with Cat Power. I personally haven’t heard the song, but knowing Cat Power and her music style, I can tell you that it will probably be a very sad, slow version of the Morrissey song. I can’t wait to hear it.

Track listing:

Professor of Rock
professorofrock.com

I don’t really know much about the Professor of Rock, but he has a YouTube channel and breaks down musical history… Like the story behind the song.

In an episode posted August 4, 2025, about Improvisational songs.

The episode is the follow-up to last month’s popular Improv Songs (it got over a million views), and with this new video, the professor breaks six stories: Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Barrett Strong’s “Money”, Games Without Frontiers, Bob O’Reilly, and The Tokens…. all while wearing a The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead T-Shirt.