I note with interest that a hip hop eaterie (possibly a spoof) has opened in Atlanta, Georgia - http://www.bon-rappetite.com/

They serve Wu Tang Clams, Queen LaPizza and Mushroom RZAotto with Long Island Ice-T, followed by Cream Puff Daddies with Ol' Dirty Custard. I don't suppose The Massive could suggest choice menu items for any other other rock-related restaurants?

The brilliant thread about multiple album ownership made us think there might be a little piece in this for the magazine. Has anyone else got any amusing (and hopefully equally tragic) evidence of absurd devotion to one particular pop act? Length of time queuing to see them, distance travelled for a concert, quantity and cost of bootlegs, idiotic items of merch, daft stuff retrieved from stages etc. Any indications of fandom gone mad, as over the top as possible. Remember: the loser is the winner!

Post any admissions (plus pictures if you’ve got any) and we’ll print the best.

Word readers Of A Certain Age will fondly remember those moments on Top Of The Pops when Bowie's Space Oddity or Get Down by Gilbert O'Sullivan or something by The Chi-Lites would feature, not the act, but the thrashing choreography of piping-hot top dance quintet Pan's People - classic line-up, as I recall: Babs, Cherry, Dee-Dee, Louise and Sue. Cherry Gillespie married my old pal Rob Dickins, former chairman of Warner Brothers Records, and they've just sent me their Christmas Card - so brilliant it deserves to be extended to The Massive. Follow THAT, Posh Spice...

A four-CD compilation of Bob Dylan tracks is coming out in January, 75 of them by over 80 artists. It's called Chimes Of Freedom and it’s raising money for Amnesty International. Obviously part of the exercise is to alert followers of Adele, Queens Of The Stone Age, Miley Cyrus etc to the man who wrote all the songs.

Do any of you have – or know - any children who might want to help us review it? Just a few words and a little picture of them in the magazine. We’re looking for anyone under 20 – though maybe older than five – who likes one of the following featured acts but doesn’t know much about Dylan:-

Lenny Kravitz
Miley Cyrus
Natasha Bedingfield
Bettye LaVette
Ziggy Marley
My Chemical Romance
Cage The Elephant
Band Of Skulls
The Gaslight Anthem
The Airborne Toxic Event
Queens Of The Stone Age
Sugarland
Adele
K’NAAN
Ke$ha
Maroon 5
Thea Gilmore
Michael Franti
Evan Rachel Wood

If you have – or know of – any sparky contenders who might be up for being a Word reviewer this month, do email bobdylan@wordmagazine.co.uk asap. Let us know the name and age of the reviewer, and which act from the list they like, and we'll get back to you with further details. It’d be good to have a wide age range though clearly, at the younger end, you'd have to be doing the quote-gathering and picture-sending yourself. It'd be as interesting to have a five year-old Miley Cyrus fan as a 19 year supporter of Band Of Skulls. Get to it, people!

It's been mentioned on the blog previously, but Word 104 will include an interview with Alan Wilder about his upcoming clearance sale, the contents of an that attic tells the story of Depeche Mode (he was a member from 1982-’95).

An auction of his equipment, stage gear, vinyl and memorabilia with be held at Zion Arts Centre, Hulme, Manchester on Saturday 3 September 2011 at 3.00pm (viewing Friday 2 September and morning of sale). More details.

You can download the auction catalogue here.

Francis Wheen just sent me this and says:

Decades ago, before becoming a novelist and columnist, Terence Blacker earned his living playing and singing in trattorias and nightclubs. A couple of years ago he picked up his guitar again, teamed up with a wonderful guitarist called Derek Hewitson (whom he met on an Internet find-a-musician site) and started gigging at literary festivals. Last year they released a CD of old politically incorrect songs from yesteryear but Terence also writes a few songs himself - including this (see below), which I first heard him sing at Neil Innes's 65th birthday party in Suffolk and which might almost be a theme tune for a certain type of Word reader (ie me).

Some wonderful member of The Massive sent me a compilation of different versions of Jimmy Webb's Highwayman - much eulogised on a recent podcast. But there's no indication as to who it was. Do get in touch so I can thank you personally!

This thread is already up and away on McSweeney's, the cruelly entertaining work of John Peck. Thought the Massive might want to read it - and, indeed, extend it.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/24peck.html

I'm running a short piece in the next issue updating the old 'overheard in a record shop' story. You know the kind of thing, where a customer asks for...

- the song about the transsexual who nearly misses the train (Last Train To Transcentral by The KLF)

- Polaroid by Black Sabbath

- Carry On Fidelio (Karajan’s Fidelio)

Any more? I've made note of the earlier thread.

Word readers Andy & Claire sent the office an Xmas card and a homemade CD entitled The Journey. This was nicked by me, accompanied several long car journeys across snow-filled landscapes and was an absolute delight - particularly the Kraftwerk moment and San Francisco Bay Blues by Jesse Fuller (forgotten how wonderful that is). No address included so, Andy and Clair, if you're reading this - many thanks.

Reverse psychology: the late Japan bassist Mick Karn's real name was Andonis Michaelides. So "Mick Karn" was his stage name and Andonis Michaelides was the unglamorous handle he was trying to hide. Usually yer Reg Dwight metamorphoses into yer Elton John, not the other way round. Any other examples of people who traded down for professional purposes?

Word reader Alan Davies has just emailed me about his latest composition, Sid James Infirmary - which suggests an amusing Massive-related thread in the making. Any more Pro-Celebrity Song Titles? The Paul Greengrass Of Home?

Help me, The Massive. I want to feel I’m not alone. I rolled up at Islington’s unlovely O2 Academy last night where a collection of jobsworth thugs insisted they search my bag. Why was it empty, they asked, handing it back? It wasn’t, I told them. I’d just done an interview for Time Out so there was a tiny cassette machine in the side pocket. They went into red alert as if it was a ticking bomb. Arms across the doorway. “You’re not coming in here with that, mate!” I wasn’t going to use it, I assured them. If I was, why would I have told them about it in the first place? And what kind of recording on this pathetic little device with no microphone was going to destroy The O2 and bring down the music industry? They closed ranks to ensure I didn’t step into building until I had paid – PAID! - two pounds with no receipt (straight into the staff pocket) to take it off me for the evening. How charming. I could barely see the group anyway for the forest of mobiles and cameras. Anyone else had a cheery welcome from a rock venue recently?

Graham Jones writes: "A friend of a friend's called Rupert once queued for two hours at Tower Records to get an album signed by Brian Wilson. By the time he got to the front he got the impression Wilson was tired and losing interest, but asked him to sign it "To Rupert from Brian". He left the shop delighted - until he checked what the great man had written: "TO BRIAN FROM RUPERT". Any other members of the massive enjoyed any record-signing catastrophes?"

I think I'm going through some sort of lifestage - like wanting a seat on the tube or complaining that you're out of marmalade or getting irritated by Lily Allen. I LIKE this record. It's the first pop song I've ever heard that addresses infirmity and death and parents and friends falling off the perch without trying to be poetic. In fact it's very specifically the opposite - it's about the results of routine medical tests, hospital wards, kids not returning from parties at night, police knocking on your door saying "We've got some bad news, sir". I guess you've got to be of an age where those things have started to happen to you to appreciate it, and if you can look past her slightly kooky Americanness and some of the self-satisfied graphics, a very good and moving song is what's left. IS it any good, the massive, or am I just getting old and soft in the head?