Thanks to kind reader Simon Aris who presented us with a huge pile of American magazines this month. So here's a few bits of Stateside blabber... for instance, did you know you can get Player Piano Rolls on floppy disk to drive MIDI synths via an Apple or Commodore computer? The interesting bit is, the rolls were made years ago by people like Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, George Gershwin, Liberace and so on. It's going for $49.95 including the MIDI interface and a sample disk, and can be got from Micro-W distributing, (Contact Details)...

oh, and the Mirage sampler is out in the US in rack-mounted form for $1395...

more great band names — what about Wounded Reagans, The Flippin' Nazis, A Flock Of New York Conceptual Artists Without Work, or The Ugly Genitals... or what about Millions Of Dead Cops, a hardcore ensemble who got stopped by the law one night but cleverly told them the initials on the van stood for Matt Dixon and the Confederates. Sadly, they had hundreds of MDC albums in the back and the resultant strip-search was suitably brusque...

One thing that's happenin' baaad on the US circuit is House Concerts, where locals throw open their homes to bands and audiences for a night. Next week, Motorhead at 37, Acacia Gardens, Penge... did you know The Alarm's Mike Peters is a superkeen jogger and has just signed up for next year's New York marathon? He ran and finished last year. Could The Spirit of 76 be about the Munich Olympics?

Bands that nobody's heard from for years department — The Blue Nile, the marvellous but reclusive Scots who made the album A Walk Across The Rooftops two years ago and then disappeared, are apparently planning to tour in the near(ish) future. Don't hold your breath, though...

Did you know that Django Reinhardt used a trouser button instead of a plectrum? Thought not...

Had a press release from Italian guitar manufacturers XGA (Xoanon Guitar Advanced). Pleased to see their representative at Frankfurt Music Fair is good old Luigi Bastardi...

Sadly, the rumoured tie-up between The Pogues and Tom Waits never happened, as old scrungethroat was working on his stage musical in LA at the time the Camden Guinness Posse were in the studio... did you know that the line in REM song "Little America" isn't about the state of America, world issues, or the like. It's about manager Jefferson Holt, whose van-driving is apparently so erratic that guitarist Peter Buck once set the road map on fire out of rage...