What's New?

21 May 2008 - First update in a while: Two videos from Distant Cousins - You Used To and Boo Hoo Hoo
30 October 2007 - Possibly less disappointing news: Amazon is now suggesting that Smirkology will arrive early in 2008.
13 October 2007 - Disappointing news: The release of Smirkology has been delayed indefinitely.
2 October 2007 - Three new posters - see OK-UK, promo page and the Travolta page. Thanks, Ceri
30 September 2007 - Poster from the famous April Fools concert in 1978
15 September 2007 - Information about the forthcoming commercial release of Smirkology on 2 CDs
18 August 2007 - A poster from the Groningen festival in the Netherlands
16 June 2007 - At last! Band Of Hope - the radio documentary about The Smirks and Distant Cousins. I never thought this would ever get here. So, many thanks to John for supplying it.
15 June 2007 - Two new concert reviews supplied by John - see "Smirking In The Poly" and "Smooth Smirks".
28 May 2007 - Some new gigs in 1980 and some revisions to lyrics of OK-UK, Rosemary, Angry With Myself and American Patriots. Thanks to John B for his help.
28 April 2007 - Much to my surprise, somebody has nominated the Smirks Against Travolta page at StumbleUpon.com - it has been visited over 800 times in the past couple of days! This makes April 2007 the site's busiest month ever...and most people will have the impression of The Smirks as an oddball anti-Travolta band. So that's alright.
23 Mar 2007 - Some new information about 1978 concerts - new information about the Free Trade Hall on 11 March, Rafters on 30 June and Alexandra Park on 15 July
23 Mar 2007 - A very little bit about RAR and ANL
13 Mar 2007 - Please support webmaster Ian, as he embarks on a springtime charity fundraiser.
13 Mar 2007 - Music Mondays at the Alamo Drafthouse, Austin, TX.
4 Dec 2006 - The lyrics to the first and second albums by Distant Cousins are now available on the site
22 Nov 2006 - Thanks to eBay, I now have a copy of Distant Cousins' Warm Hatred album, so I have added a little more about it
20 Nov 2006 - Added a geographical reference to the site:
14 Nov 2006 - created a shop for customers in North America.
14 Nov 2006 - information about the first album by Distant Cousins
5 Nov 2006 - corrections to To You lyrics
5 Nov 2006 - more about Distant Cousins including a sketchy discography, updated information about Radio 4 interview
5 Nov 2006 - put together the two parts of the To You review (and removed it from the "odds and ends" page)
3 Nov 2006 - added an RSS feed to the website:

31 Oct 2006 - some basic information about Distant Cousins
28 Oct 2006 - finally got round to creating an online shop for badges, shirts and bags. Added a couple of links. It's all go!
23 Oct 2006 - added transcript of Radio 4 interview, as well as adding information about its alternate title. Also, slight changes to gig information.
15 Oct 2006 - promoted at search now available
15 Sep 2006 - a list of all downloadable files on the site - over fifty files, over two and a half hours
14 Sep 2006 - labelled the site with most wanted Smirks material.
12 Sep 2006 - We have a page which gives brief and current information about Simon, Neil, Mog and Mike.
10 Sep 2006 - all the MP3s are now in directories for each type of music. Style sheets should give the site a consistent look and feel, even though that look and feel may be a bit odd for a while.
8 Sep 2006 - Started work on a major update of the site. I've noticed that over 80% of the people visiting have broadband, and that some of the MP3 files are corrupted. So, I've encoded all the MP3 files again, put tags on them that identify where there come from and loaded them all into new directories. Work is also starting on changing the site to use cascading style sheets, so that I will be able to change the design of the site if I decide to do so. This will take me a little while to complete.
7 Sep 2006 - From the early days, we have a promotional photograph of the band.
2 Sep 2006 - really did load the photos page this time...
1 Sep 2006 - new photos including the Oxford festival, fixed some links that didn't work
31 Aug 2006 - it's been a long summer...just got sent the Peel session and that kicked me into action. Also redeveloped the gigs page into pages for each year, thanks to the images and extra information I've been sent...again, many thanks to all concerned.
10 Apr 2006 - updated some lyrics, split up the interview pages, wrote some stuff to keep Streets fans just a moment longer.
31 Mar 2006 - The Smirks newsletters from 1978 and 1979 have just been added here.
29 Mar 2006 - Two new pages, one containing adverts for the band's records and another containing material that didn't fit anywhere else, along with new reviews, some new song titles and a few more fixes of typos.
28 Mar 2006 - A new pile of cuttings arrived last week, and I've started incorporating them in to the site. You'll see some ticket stubs and some new reviews of Rosemary. I've also added a fascinating throwaway about Beserkley that some music journo wrote. A couple of other things: a deleted file that Google remembers has been reinstated with a pointer to where the content really is, I've put a couple of pictures at the top of the front page so that first-timers aren't faced with a page of straight text, a few typos have been cleared up. I still have a few articles to add, along with some material I can't find an obvious place for. There are also possible leads for some more music.
6 Mar 2006 - After the flurry of activity last month, just a few notes and typos corrected. The main change is the introduction of the Flash player which plays the songs in on click without needing to load Winamp, Real or anything else. So far, this is on the main page, the album page and the live page, but I will add it sitewide. Mog's notes on the record of the week have been added, along with a line or two of Rosemary.
10 Feb 2006 - Information about American Patriots as the NME Record Of The Week; added a couple of songs; more reviews
9 Feb 2006 - A new collection of cuttings has resulted in more concert and record reviews and promotional flyers. Barbarellas, The Marquee, Nag's Head, Rock Garden etc.
8 Feb 2006 - At last a SITE MAP!
7 Feb 2006 - many thanks to Richard for sending me a load of press cuttings, resulting in lots of new features:
- Information about the band's relationship with the Beserkley record label is here
- Information about Rock Against Travolta / Smirks Against Travolta is here
- Information about a 1979 benefit concert and a very short review of another gig are on this page
- The press advert for Rosemary included on the song's page
- Press cuttings on the gigs page

30 Jan 2006 - first mention of John Scott, more gigs
27 Jan 2006 - lots more gigs, corrections to American Patriots lyrics, promise of more material to come
25 Jan 2006 - links and requests for translation for two foreign language pages
16 Jan 2006 - corrected information about the concerts on the Live page, added two newly discovered songs
16 Jan 2006 - started to promote thesmirks.com as part of the song links
3 Jan 2006 - added some notes about Spitballs
3 Jan 2006 - added a few links and things
1 Jan 2006 - added MPH banner on front page
30 Dec 2005 - added details of Marquee gigs
19 Dec 2005 - changed the headings of the lyrics pages to be more compliant with Google Music
14 Dec 2005 - raised the profile of Joe And His Mates on the front page, so that it is treated like the single it almost was. Removed the Java chat room that isn't working properly.
13 Dec 2005 - following on from the move of the site, fixed some links, added a 403 page, added a favicon so that when you bookmark the site you see a smirk-on-a-stick and I don't get a logfile filled with rubbish. Also updated some words for American Patriots - thanks Bluey.
6 Dec 2005 - Got carried away with the new facilities available and added a chatroom.
6 Dec 2005 - added MP3s of the two radio interviews, fixed a couple of images that got missed in the move, fixed a couple of typos and added a 404 page.
5 Dec 2005 - finally added the Smirkology album. Blew out my New Zealand web space, got some space in the UK (OK) and transferred the whole site across the world. Also updated some song names. Without hearing both, how was I to know that "Everybody" and "Joe And His Mates" were actually the same song?
3 Dec 2005 - added more gig dates, thanks to Mog; posted some live material, tanks to Jim and Mark
1 Dec 2005 - added Bernhardts pictures, thanks to links page and a woeful gigs page
22 Nov 2005 - added Captain Mog's songs, some information about Simon, the interview and a full song list.
18 Nov 2005 - finally got round to doing something with the site. All the songs from the first four singles are not in MP3 format - looks like Real Audio wasn't so popular with the great mass of people using the site. Plans for the short term: split the lyrics onto their own pages, have some memories around the place.
5 June 2003 - added photographs page, thanks to Mark, including pictures of the band at The Rock garden in 1980 and a few logos. Replaced the picture of the Travolta badge on the front page with Mark's better one.
8 May 2003 - added what's new page, scant information about the last two singles and album, page of fronts and backs of sleeves.
3 May 2003 - updated some words - thanks to Richard K

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Page last updated by Ian on 30 October 2007