First guest in this month's BLABBER is Liz Fraser of the Cocteau Twins, moonlighting with fellow Cocteau Robin on Felt's new album. Her vocals on Felt's "Primitive Painters" single were apparently recorded first take, before she'd even heard the song in its entirety...

There is a fanzine for sale in Cologne called "One Hundred And Twenty Seven Things To Do Rather Than Listen To The Rock Dictator John Peel"...

The Wit & Wisdom Of The Press Officer, pt 27; overheard at the playback of a mega-Brit chart act's new elpee. "There aren't many, er journalists here, we ventured, eyeing the record company's complete tele-sales staff knocking back gallons of cheap vino. "Well," she says, "no. You see, not many journalists are interested in the music." Uh-huh...

Guest the second from other regions of One Two is John McGeoch; did you know Rusty Egan used to pay him £25 a night for Djing down at Blitz? More lucrative than the Armoury Show, we're prepared to bet...

Remember Adrian Legg's recent LP "Fretmelt"? That peculiar dismembered shape blurred across the neck of that guitar in the artistic and enticing cover photo? Australian reviewer Bob Hudson of the National Times had this to say about it: "It seems he has... found a way to overcome one of the great technical problems of the acoustic guitarist — the squeaking as fingers slide along the strings from note to note." Yes, yes... He wears a surgical glove on his left hand!" Interesting theory, Bob, but have you ever tried playing guitar with gloves on?...

Phil Collins, Phil Bailey, and Ray Parker recently spotted recording together at the Townhouse, source of the PC drum sound... Also in the studio were Iron Maiden, who spent three weeks finishing off their — ahem — live album. To be fair, Iron-lunged Bruce Dickinson says he only spent three hours of it re-recording...

Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, is scheduled to visit the UK sometime next year for an exhibition of his paintings at the Waddington Gallery. Which is a good excuse for a Beefheart blabber: the Captain wrote all 28 songs on "Trout Mask Replica" in one 8½ hour stint at the piano. When jokingly asked why it had taken so long, he frowned and replied, "Well, I'd never played the piano before, and I had to work out the fingering"...

Afrika Bambaata, recording with J Lydon as Timezone, has knocked off a solo version of the MC5's "Kick Out The Jams" which a) features no rap, and b) is heavier than the original. Weird...

Gene Simmons of Kiss has had the piece of skin under his tongue (the frenum) snipped, so as to be able to thrust it further out of his festering gob...

Talking of cover versions, REMhave been indulging in Television's "See No Evil", "Louie Louie", "Have You Seen The Rain?", and a peculiar marriage of "Wild Thing" with the lyrics of Wire's "12XU"... And Van Morrison doing "Send In The Clowns"? Apparently he did it very well. While rehearsing at Nomis recently, Van The Man was displeased to hear the Long Ryders torturing "Here Comes The Night" in the next studio. And yes, they did know he was there...

What Van The Person doesn't yet know is that the Icicle Works are now covering "Into The Mystic"...

The first use of the word "discography" in print was in December 1953 in Melody Maker (a musical publication)...

Jerry Harrison of the deeply deep Talking Heads has been producing the Violent Femmes new LP, currently rumoured to be entitled "The Blind Leading The Naked"...

In the wake of OTT's revelations about the interior of Liz'n'Robin's flat, Blabber can reveal that third Cocteau Twin Simon is both bassist and D-I-Y freak, and is said to be v. pleased with his new Habitat sofa...

John Cale and Nico will be performing at the same venue (Kentish Town Country Club) on the same night (Dec. 11th) with their respective bands... not coinciding with a visit to the UK by former Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker, scheduled for February... Nico's real name is Christa Paffgen...

Interesting insights into the economics of chart act tours were revealed by the recent collapse of the Thompson Twins' jaunt: the band's manager had budgeted for losing up to £50,000 on their British dates...