We have been informed that this week's "Amateur Photographer" magazine includes a feature on the early days of the Stranglers, by Gary Coward Williams.

The following are confirmed gigs for Belgian venues. Management have asked us to post the following statement regarding these shows:

"As was originally intended and due to positive results in rehearsals, all the performances for the October Belgium gigs will be semi-acoustic. The band hope the fans will enjoy them doing their tracks a little different as much as they do!"

As always, these dates are subject to changes beyond the control of the band, their management, or agents. So, please check with the venue prior to travelling.

The following are confirmed dates for Italy. We have been informed by management that these will be regular live shows.

As always, these dates are subject to changes beyond the control of the band, their management or agents, so please check with the venue before travelling.

The EMI Germany site (www.emi.de) is reporting the release of "The Rarities" (catalogue number 5410792) on October 18th. The countries which will be targeted by the release, or the local release dates are not known at this time.

The track-listing for this release will be:

You Hold the Key to My Love in Your Hands; Cocktail Nubiles; Tomorrow Was the Hereafter; N'Emmenes Pas Harry; Sverige; Walk on By; Mean to Me (Celia and the Mutations); Mony Mony (Celia and the Mutations); No More Heroes; Peaches (Radio Edit); My Young Dreams; Goebbles, Mosley, God and Ingrams; Waiting for the Trees to Grow; Gone are Those Days; The Beast; New Day Today; Mr. Big; I'll Be Seeing You.

A CD of a recent recording by the band, which is claimed to be a promotional copy/test pressing, has apparently been doing the rounds, particularly via Ebay. Management have asked us to make it clear that this is an illicit copy. Sales of this item have been stopped by Ebay and two persons have been caught by the Copyright Protection Society for unauthorised bootlegging: as a result, all web traffic/postings regarding this issue are being closely monitored.

A short interview with Jet appears in the October 2002 edition of "Rhythm", a percussion and drumming magazine published in the UK.

Apparently, a cover version of "Always the Sun" is currently being used in a commercial spot on german TV for a toast bread named "Golden Toast".

For those who are able to read German, there is a recent interview on line at: www.prosieben.de/music/stars/interviews/the_stranglers_interview_mit_jj_burnel/

Amongst the subjects discussed are the next studio album and a possible JJ solo offering.

Over the past few days, we have updated the discography, track-listing and live albums pages, to reflect recent additions and re-releases. We have also replaced the original "Old Testament" page with one reflecting all the boxed sets that have been released so far.

All these pages can be accessed via our "Reference Articles" section.

We have the following dates for the The Faith Band's "Set In Stone" tour:

OCTOBER

7th - London - Stormy Monday Club
8th - Milton Keynes - Zacs
9th - Weymouth - Kiva Club
11th - Aylesbury - Police Social Club
12th - Barnstaple - The Reform
16th - Nottingham - The Golden Fleece
18th - Market H'boro - Kibworth Rugby Club
19th - Widnes - The Wellington

Baz will appear on the Julia Hankin show (BBC Radio Newcastle) on August 29th at 14.15 (U.K. time). Songs from Common Thread will be aired and Baz will be playing live in the studio as well as answering questions. For more information, go to: www.bbc.co.uk/england/radionewcastle/index.shtml

Baz's web page can be found at: www.bazwarne.com.

The following dates are CONFIRMED for the Stranglers' UK tour in November. Box office details should follow shortly.

Date 14 Nov 15 Nov 16 Nov 17 Nov 19 Nov 20 Nov 21 Nov 23 Nov 24 Nov

City Newcastle Manchester Glasgow Sheffield Bradford Bristol Birmingham Swansea London

Venue The Opera House University Queen Margaret Union Leadmill Penningtons Academy Academy Patti Pavillion Shepherd Bush Empire

We have received the following (unconfirmed) offer directly from Second Wave Promotions:

"Canterbury Fayre 2002 have kindly offered SIS readers a preferential rate of just £25.00 for day tickets to see The Stranglers on Sunday 25th August and just £65.00 for full weekend tickets (a saving of £10.00 on day tickets and £15.00 on weekend tickets!). No booking fee applies and to benefit from this great offer you must apply in writing to the festival organisers with an SAE quoting SIS and making cheques payable to: Brain Wave Festivals Limited, PO Box 431, Chesham, Bucks HP5 3WG, England. Full festival info can be found at: www.canterburyfayre.com"

Please note that this offer came to us unsolicited and that SIS have no commercial interest in this offer.

We have the following dates for Baz Warne. For more information, visit the official Baz Warne site.

As always, this information is subject to changes beyond the control of Baz or his agents. Please check with the venue prior to travelling.

AUGUST

Wed 7th: Buskers Evening, Sinatras, Sunderland.
Sun 11th: Baz Solo -- The Meadowhouse, Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Wed 21st: Buskers Evening, Sinatras, Sunderland.
Sat 31st: Baz Solo -- The Smugglers, Sunderland.

SEPTEMBER

Fri 6th: Baz Solo -- The Royal Tavern, Blyth.
Sat 7th: Baz Solo -- The Ropery, Sunderland.
Sun 8th: Baz Solo -- The County, South Shields (3pm).
Fri 13th: Sun Devils -- The Gunner, North Shields.
Sat 14th: Sun Devils -- The Office, South Shields.
Sun 15th: Sun Devils -- The Ropery, Sunderland (3pm).
Fri 20th: Sun Devils -- The Coach and Horses, Washington.
Sat 21st: Sun Devils -- The Wellwood Arms, Amble.
Sun 22nd: Sun Devils -- The Pemberton Arms, Cold Heseldon.
Fri 27th: Sun Devils -- The Heart of Oak, Peterlee.
Sat 28th: Sun Devils -- The Vane Arms, Silksworth (Sunderland).
Sun 29th: Sun Devils -- Sleepers, East Boldon.

The folks at the official merchandise site ( www.stranglers.co.uk) would like anyone who has ordered any merchandise between 28th June and 15th July to email merchandise@stranglers.co.uk. The site has undergone a critical overhaul, plus server & host changes and there's a chance that your order may have been lost.

We are told that the new merchandise site is now up and running with a better, more secure process of ordering, a shopping cart facility and (very soon) three new T-shirt designs.

An article on the band appears in the August copy of "Mojo" magazine.

The Stranglers will be playing the following festivals in August:

Friday 9th August - Carvicais Rock Festival, Torre de Moncorvo, Near Braganca, PORTUGAL
Saturday 17th August - The Stads Fesitval, Ieper, BELGIUM
Saturday 24th August - The Maanrock Festival, Mechelen, BELGIUM
Canterbury Festival - see below.

As always please check with the venue prior to travelling, as the information presented here may be subject to changes beyond the control of the band, their management or agents.

The Stranglers appeared at Guilfest (formally the Guildford Live Festival), on the Aladdins Cave Stage on Sunday July 21st, 2002.

The Stranglers will be appearing at Canterbury 2002, which will will take place on 23/24/25 August 2002. We are informed that the event will start early on the Friday evening and that, initially, only full weekend passes will be available (rather than day tickets). There will be passouts for those that prefer to stay in alternative accomodation, rather than camping on site.

The price will be £80, including camping. Children under 14 will be free. Further details wll be posted to the festival website (www.canterburyfestival) shortly.

The festival organisers are reporting the bands/acts confirmed so far to include The Stranglers, The Damned, Rick Wakeman, Pretty Things, 21st Century Schizoid Band (Mike Giles, Peter Giles, Ian Macdonald, Mel Collins and Jacko Jakszyk) playing the music of King Crimson, Arthur Brown, Caravan, All About Eve, Kevin Ayres, Ozric Tentacles, Mostly Autumn,Man, Karnataka, Muffin Men, with three others to be confirmed including one major name.

Maaike of the official Baz Warne site has sent us the following July dates for Baz solo, the Sun Devils and the BBJ Band (consisting of Baz Warne, Baz Crosby and Jos Elliot).

As always, please check with the venue prior to travelling, as this information may be subject to changes beyond the control of the artists or their agents.

3rd: Baz solo -- South Shields, Amphiteatre (support for the Blockheads).
6th: Baz solo -- Sunderland, The Smugglers.
7th: BBJ band -- Berwick upon Tweed, The Barrels.
13th: Sun Devils -- Sunderland, The Ropery.
14th: Sun Devils -- East Boldon, The Sleepers.
25th: BBJ Band -- Hebburn, The Mill Tavern.
27th: Sun Devils -- Sunderland, The Smugglers.

Two new audio files have just been added to our Audio page, under our Reference Articles section. These live acoustic versions of "In a While" and "Sinister" are performed by the Faith Band (Paul Roberts and Baz Warne) and were recorded during "The Peoples' Acoustic Faith Tour" earlier this year.

These recordings appear on this site courtesy of Chris Lammiman (webmaster for the official Paul Roberts web site), who kindly made them available for our use. For more information on Paul's solo work, and the live album "No Passport Required" (shown above), which contains more material recorded on this tour, visit: www.paul-roberts.co.uk.

June 10th saw the release of the EMI compilation "Peaches: The very best of the Stranglers" (Catalogue number: 724354020223) in the UK.

The track-listing for this CD is:

Peaches; Golden Brown; Walk On By; No More Heroes; Skin Deep; Hanging Around; All Day And All Of The Night; Straighten Out; Nice N Sleazy; Strange Little Girl; Who Wants The World; Something Better Change; Always The Sun (Sunny Side Up); European Female; Grip '89 -- (Get A) Grip (On Yourself); Duchess; 5 Minutes; Don't Bring Harry; La Folie; 96 Tears.

JJ, Jake Burns (Stiff Little Fingers), Steve Diggle (Buzzcocks) and Pauline Black (Selector) will shortly be performing more of their "Three Men and Black" acoustic shows.

The dates for this tour will be as follows. As always, these dates are subject to changes beyond the control of the artists or their agents -- please check with the venue before travelling.

4th June: Oxford -- Zodiac.
6th June: Plymouth -- Cooperage.
7th June: Ebbw Vale -- Beauford Centre.
8th June: Tewkesbury -- Roses Theatre.
9th June: Swansea -- Patti Pavillion.

The Stranglers were at New Scotland Yard on Friday 10 May 2002 to attend the official launch of this year’s ‘Convoy 2000’, the Metropolitan Police Service’s charity which takes humanitarian aid to Romania.

Band members Paul, J.J, Jet and Dave appeared with Commissioner Sir John Stevens on ‘London Today’ in a lengthy interview.

Earlier this year the Meninblack accepted an invitation to become Honorary Patrons of the charity. They endorsed it during the Two-Shades-of-Black concert last March at which Met police cadets took a collection of over £600.

Convoy 2000 conducts a number of building projects each year to help Romanian people help themselves improve the life of those in need. The main thrust of this year’s venture is to officially open ‘Sunshine House’, Romania’s first ever HIV hospice for terminally ill children.

During the interview Jet described the Stranglers involvement with Convoy 2000: “Our involvement was a simple one. We have a platform for raising money through concerts and appearances and when we were asked if we would like to be involved and we leaped at it.

“We have worked in Eastern Europe - although not in Romania, which we would like to do one day. But having travelled in that part of the world you feel a sort of sympathy with the people who live there and it just attracted our interest”.

The ‘Sunshine House’ was opened on Sunday 19 May 2002 as part of a major programme of care for all terminal illnesses, particularly AIDS infected children in the Constanta region. It will house up to 22 children and will provide much needed dental care for over 900 HIV infected children who would otherwise be unlikely to receive treatment.

Sir John Stevens described the children who will be staying at Sunshine House as ‘the bravest of the brave’. He said:

“One has to say the work that is being done and the amount of money that has come forward is tremendous. We are involved in opening a new home for children who are terminally ill from AIDS and we are also involved in a school for the deaf. Lots of things are going on and it has got bigger and better.

“All these people are doing it in their own time. They are taking time off from work and it is an amazing business how much people are prepared to put into this.

“Some of the sights we see are very, very distressing. The really good news is that the people of Romania do as much work as we do. For every pound we put into Romania through these institutions and sites, they will meet it with another pound and that is why it is a delight to get involved in assisting the Romanians with the problems they’ve got”.

You can find out more about Convoy 2000 on the website: www.convoy2000.co.uk

On Saturday 29th June, the Stranglers will play the Verdur Rock Festival, in Namur, Belgium. Entry is free.

Further information can be found at the festival web site: www.verdur-rock.be.

Philippe, who runs the unofficial French site has alerted us to the re-issue of "N Comme Never Again" by the French singer Dani. This 1993 release was produced by JJ and is also notable for featuring JJ, John Ellis and Dave Greenfield.

As with the original version, the re-release is on the French Gorgone label.

After a trek across North America, SIS OnLine and the Rat's Lair are back in business from our new location of Edmonton, in the beautiful province of Alberta, Canada. Please note that the email address remains the same (liggins@icdc.com).

Many thanks for your patience during our hiatus.

Here's a plea for help from anyone with written record of the Stranglers' gigs during 1974/75. This information will go towards a historical record of this time in the band's career. The authors are looking for date, venue, set-list, support and any other relevant information.

Please send all contributions to us at: liggins@icdc.com, with the subject line "gig history submission". Emails without this subject line will not be forwarded.

The dance remix album "Clubbed to Death" is now available on the "Stable" label (catalogue number Stable 1). All the tracks feature Paul on vocals and are as follows:

Mr Big (Plutonium Mix); All Day And All Of The Night (Industrial Knights Mix); Golden Brown (Foiled Dragon Mix); Duchess (Art E Tart Mix); No More Heroes (Slain Mix); The Beast (Capricornucopia Mix); Nice N Sleazy (Iniquity Mix); European Female (Central Ethereal Mix); I'll Be Seeing You (Pensive Mix); Golden Boy (Loaded By Midnight Mix); Golden Brown (Simon Guifoyles Salacious Encounter Mix); All Day And All Of The Night (Impetigo Knights Mix).

IMPORTANT: It should be noted that this CD is a dance-music album produced independently containing Stranglers samples. It is NOT a Stranglers recording/album.