News from Ilene and Howie at Reprise
These are summaries of information from Ilene at Reprise [thanks Ilene!]

Friday, June 30, 1995

Sire received the master of Southpaw Grammar -- now there's a better chance of getting the album out by 12 Sept. They are still waiting on the cover art. "Dagenham Dave" will be the first single -- this is not the same as the Stranglers song. There will be videos from RCA of "Dagenham Dave" and "The Boy Racer." No tour dates yet. "Sunny" will appear on the Soundtrack for 'Friends' due out in October. The track listing for Southpaw Grammar is

The first song is really really strange and 11 minutes long.

July 7, 1995

Art problems: Morrissey wants to use a picture of a boxer from "Ring" magazine. However, we don't know who the boxer is or from what issue yet.

July 8, 1995

The UK album will have the boxer from "Ring" magazine. Morrissey cut it out a long time ago - he's pretty sure he's a boxer. The US release will have a photo of Morrissey from a session a few days ago. It appears the live video should be out at the same time as the album (Sept 12). The single in the UK will have a picture of the UK equivalent of football (soccer commissioner) as a child.

July 11, 1995

Morrissey wants the boxer cover really badly. He bought every issue of "Ring" he could find and found the boxer's name. Sire is waiting to clear it with his estate. His name is Kenny Lane, he's about 60 is he's still alive. The picture is from "The Ring" April, 1963, issue XLIII No. 3. Apparently he was a welterweight who wisely had a washing business or laundromat on the side. Also, track 8 - "Southpaw" ends abruptly with a distortion rip. It's on purpose. Morrissey said they played on until the tape ran out and the rip is the tape ending. "Dagenham Dave," (no date yet) will feature Terry Venables, a big time soccer commissioner in the UK, as a child as the cover star.

August 11, 1995

'The Boy Racer' will be the next single (U.S.?) with a video to accompany. The album is now due on Sept 26 and will not budge. The live video is due for Oct 3. No tour dates yet, but some may come soon.

August 15, 1995

'The Boy Racer' is just a radio single -- no commercial release.

August 24, 1995

The live video has been moved October 10th. There are some in-stores in Irelandsoon, but not for sure. Still no tour dates.

February 3

I have news maybe in a month. He's considering a US tour. The video will be out in April. Aside from that I cannot say -- yet.

March 11

So many questions, so little time! We haven't got the Enhanced Cd scheduled yet -- I don't know why but I think they have to assess costs, etc. It will include the video for Sunny if we end up doing it.
I have Morrissey's video as 5/14 -- yes, there have been problems with it -- it's been so long -- Oh, it's because of content, like he used images of famous people and their estates wanted lots of money we and Moz don't have for it....that sort of thing I think....anyway, it's moving along. I haven't seen the artwork.
There's been little Moz news of late, but if things progress I'll be sure to post.

March 12

Subject: Morrissey video
it just moved to 5/28.

March 21

Subject: Morrissey video
has moved from 5/28 to 6/11. FYI.
Ilene

March 26

Okay, I just got another message that Morrissey's video has bumped AGAIN to 7/9! Agh!
That's all for now,
Ilene

April 3

Then...I finally met him yesterday when he came by to play on the computer and be harrassed by me and Howie and then he went to see the taping of the season finale of Friends.
While he was here he did something really cool for the upcoming Enhanced CD of Sunny. Handwrote a lot of stuff for the CDs ROM part.
For those of you who get SPECIFIC with this stuff(because you know I am copying people here....), I will tell you that he wore a sharkskin suit with a yellow shirt open a lot. And that one of our employees started practically drooling on him and that was pretty funny.
So I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before he was gone, but there it is...............more info. later. And the impromptu and difficult contest on AOL yielded a winner already...unbelievable. Nice poster he autographed that even said God Bless on it. Hm.....
Ilene


These are summaries of postings by Howie Klien at Reprise.

November 24, 1995

Yesterday I ordered the parts and film for "Sunny" so we can release it in the U.S. Morrissey is hoping to tour here again in late winter and we're thinking of some kind of tour EP with "Sunny" and some other treats.

November 29, 1995

Hi. So far there have been two videos made for the new album: "Boy Racer," which MTV played, and "Dagenham Dave," which will probably come out as a single in '96 when Morrissey comes over and tours North America. (There is also a "Sunny" video almost done!!!!!!!!!!!!!) MTV didn't play "Boy Racer" more than a few times. We're not big on commercial singles in the U.S. INTRODUCING MORRISSEY will be out Januray 30. We did promote SOUTHPAW actively but without the artist's participation we didn't get very far. I'm still hopeful that we will get a shot with this. Morrissey seems more and more willing to get involved. As far as I know, he is NOT being dropped from the tour. Last I heard-- and that was last week when they were in Birmingham-- everything was going well.

December 2, 1995

I got the "Sunny" video today and we're hoping to release the song and video early next year in the U.S.
Morrissey has been talking about touring the U.S. in early spring. That's the first step-- him wanting to do it. However, as you probably know by now, he is unable-- for medical reasons-- to do the remainder of the Bowie dates in the U.K. No one knows yet if this makes plans for Europe, Japan and the U.S. moot.

February 10

The rumors of a spring tour were well-founded (and well-intentioned) but the window has closed and it is now official: no March tour of the U.S. Morrissey wants to play dates in North America but it looks like it will take a lot longer to get it together logistically than he had hoped.

March 3

I work at Reprise and we are trying to get the video out as fast as possible. The problem is that there are several small bits in it that are unclearable in a legal sense. We have finally gotten Morrissey's permission to substitute other bits for those bits and we are doing so now. I expect the video will be in the stores before summer. Sorry for the delay. The video is a masterpiece.

August 8

He was in a great mood and he looked great. I'm going to dinner with him Sunday. We are releasing INTRODUCING MORRISSEY as a home video in about a month. No "Sunny" enhanced cd because we are going to do a Best Of with enhancement in the future

October 18

This is forwarded from Howie Klein's post on a Reprise Message Board dated 10/17

So, here we are at Lauren's house in the middle of some strange residential section of L.A. and Morrissey is interviewing Joni Mitchell. For the past many hours a photographer and his team have been taking pictures-- lots and lot and lots of pictures. Jimmy D is here with his digital camera and he's going to sneak in and take a photo when no one is looking and maybe we can get a photo up on the RepriseRec.com site manana (an then you'll know I'm not making any of this up). Anyway, Morrissey just flew over from Manchester and he's jet-lagged a bit and reacting badly to the smog; it hasn't rained in L.A. in a few years so the smog is bad. Between photos, Morrissey told me and Jimmy that he woke up at 4AM this morning and turned on the tube. IMMEDIATELY he saw Ricky Schroeder screaming, "Morrissey is dead!" And young Schroeder is tossing things around the room-- including himself-- being quite hysterical, moaning how Morrissey was prone to depression and that he finally hung himself in his cell. Then other young actors came on screen carrying on that Morrissey was dead. Poor Morrissey! Anyone ever see this movie?