Your band, the Adverts became famous in 77. It has been quite a while since and unfortunately I think the Adverts never got the success they deserved specially considering the quality of the two albums you released. Today, you keep on playing those songs and others as a solo act mostly. And your trajectory seems quite similar to Wreckless Eric ’s one. Do you feel any acquaintance with this other maverick of English rock poetry ? I love Wreckless Eric , and do feel that we have followed a similar kind of path. We both spent a period where we refused to play our old records live because it was too inhibiting and we both felt we had to be judged on our new material. Now for myself, and I think for Eric too, we have kind of proved ourselves as songwriters and are happy to play the old songs again - as long as it’s in the context of everything with done since. Last September you have been playing in the US for the first time I think. What were your impressions of the audience you found th...

  TV SMITH (Photo : Martin von Hadel) We've already told you a lot about him, and he even topped our Top Monstres list with an extract from Handwriting , his latest album. He was kind enough to answer a few questions... What's your relationship with France? Have you toured here often? Do you have any special memories of this country? I spent a lot of time in France in the ’90s, soon after I started playing solo.The label I was with at the time in the UK had a connection with a guy in Paris called Thierry Kherhornou, who formed his own little label called Datcha and released one of my CDs “ Immortal Rich ” on it. We spent some weeks together touring around France playing little venues and making in-store appearances, as well as playing a few festivals and a few supports - “Noir Désir” for example. I got to know France and the music scene there pretty well around that time, but it all kind of fizzled out and I’ve had very few gig opportunities there since then. I’ve always thoug...

TV Smith Adverts painting on Tim's office wall by Carol Penny of The TUTS. Later became a popular t-shirt. Tim, we got in touch with you thanks to Hugh and the FAN CLUB dedicated to the Doctors Of Madness . Can you tell us before talking about the ADVERTS and TV SMITH what this band means to you ? Doctors of Madness are my favourite UK band of all time. MORE ON DoM… Richard Strange and TV Smith are my favourite two singer-songwriters. Prior to finding Hugh Gulland’s Doctors of Madness website, I was considering creating a joint Richard Strange and TV Smith website. As things turned out I instead led the creation of the two informal fan clubs via a top twenty fans favourite songs charts. The fan clubs were called The Afterglow for the Doctors of Madness (Richard preferred this name over the other option of The Sons of Survival) and the TUTS (TVSmith United Tour Supporters) . The TUTS name came from a tut I made about TV playing more gigs in Germany than in the UK. What started ou...