...my friend Chris turned to the woman next to him and said "Has anyone ever told you you look like Suzie Quatro?". "I *am* Suzie Quatro" she replied, rather icily.

...I took a pile of singles (of mine - don't mock, he's done some corkers) and some albums for a friend. Being very tightly controlled by his manager both timewise and personally I wasn't sure if it would be allowed, but of course Cliff was only too pleased to do it.

He was an utter delight and signed them all, and there were plenty of them. And I got a copy of his soon to be released single Millennium Prayer. Lucky me, eh?

So on all the singles he just did signatures which was fair enough, but on the friend's album, where there was lots and lots of space to write a big message to David, he just wrote 'Hi, Cliff'. I thought it had to be THE most unimaginative record signing of all time. He could have put 'David, make sure the girl in your arms is the girl in your heart', or 'From one Bachelor Boy to another!'. But no.

I was almost embarrassed to hand it back.

I attended a Shack signing. I put my copy of Zilch in front of the legendary Mick Head and he just stared at me for a few moments, then said 'Y'alright mate?' I said 'Erm...yeah' then he looked down, saw the CD and said 'Oh sorry, mate' signed it and gave it back. I think he was a bit pissed.

But Edward Larrikin from Larrikin Love (great band, sadly missed by about 5 people) once signed a concert ticket for me.

The most inventive signing of all time!

ALEX
ALEX
ALEX

EDWARD
XXX

Seriously? Yes. That was all he could come up with.

I once queued for "Mad" Frankie Fraser's autograph. I was third in line, and the conversation went something like this.

Mad Frankie: "What's your name?"

Customer 1: "John"

MF: "How do you spell that?"

Customer 1: "J. O. H. N."

MF: "Thanks"

First autograph signed.

MF: "What's your name?"

Customer 2: "Simon"

MF: "How do you spell that?"

Customer 2: "S. I. M. O. N."

MF: "Thanks"

Second autograph signed.

MF: "What's your name?"

Me: "Fraser!"

MF, looking up, smiling gleefully: "I know how to spell that!"

Third autograph signed.

of "No Irish etc" in about '93 or so at a San Francisco bookstore, the guy ahead of me asks "Uhm, could you put 'To Tom?'". Lydon scowls, scribbles, slams the book shut and barks "You can put that in!"

After DJing, I happened upon the band Art Brut. Since I had my records with me, I gave them my recently purchased copy of their new single and asked if they would do the honours. They then got the drinks they'd been waiting for and sat alongside me. I thought they were heading off to their next boisterous gig.

Anyway, having nothing better to do other than drink, they signed the shit out of that single. Completely covered it with messages, doodles and various 'art' statements. Nice guys.

I was over in Sweden and picked up an old copy of Union Carbide Production's "Swing" in a second hand store.

A bit later I was chatting to Ebbot from Soundtrack of Our Lives (the band formed after Union Carbide split) and he was talking about Steve Albini's production of the album and how the band hated it.

I asked him to sign the album and later noticed he had written "This Is Shit!" on the cover...

The artist.

I bought a copy of one his collections in book form from Watersone's on Picadilly a few years ago for my wife, Loretta*, while he was there at a signing session. I asked him to sign it to her.

'Oh, my first wife was called Loretta' he said very pleasantly.

'So's mine - she still is!' I replied. He laughed. He was a nice bloke.

*My wife isn't called Loretta but her real name on t'web would incur kittens.

meeting Arthur Brown after a gig at Bolton Institute of Technology for an autograph and he drew a picture of the sun. Mind you, the silly sausage did receive an electric shock off his mike onstage earlier that caused him to fall flat on his back.

Same venue, got the autographs of String Driven Thing and the guitarist drew a neat cartoon of the band which they all signed for me. Still have it. Should I be getting onto Bonhams?

was when I was 12 and I saw Kim Wilde in a greengrocers in London. Kids In America had just come out. I approached her with as much cool as I could muster (with my tongue dragging on the floor and my voice squeaking) and asked her for her autograph. She asked me if I had some paper and after much faffing about I realized I had neither paper nor pen. So I told her I lived just up the road and ran home to get some. Five minutes later I returned, proffered the pen and she asked me "Who's it to?" In my excitement I replied "Well, it's to me." So she scribbled on the paper and I went home pleased as punch - until I read the inscription: "To me, love Kim Wilde".

Doh!

Took my son, who we'll call John for web purposes, to see Rich Hall for a birthday treat. Afterwards I asked Mr Hall to sign one of his CDs for my son on his 13th birthday and he was happy to do so. We go it back marked "To John, Happy 30th, Rich."

My first thought was "Do I look as though I could have a 30 year old son?"

My second thought was, sadly, "Yes I do."

Very sobering.

As a young boy, I was at Lords with my Dad watching Yorkshire play Middlesex. In the crowd, standing outside the Lords Taveners bar I spotted TV's Barry Norman enjoying a pint with some bearded bloke.

After much hesitation, I nervously offered my scorecard and pen for Barry to sign. To my surprise, his bearded companion took the card and briskly signed it with a "there you go, son". On reading the scribble, it turns out it was the England cricketer, Chris Old.

But...but...I actually wanted Barry Norman's signature. After standing around for a moment, I asked - as if it had just struck me - if I could have for Mr Norman's signature too. After all, I didn't want to offend Mr Old. Barry Norman seemed amused and a little chuffed to be asked, so that was good.

A mate of mine was once at an James Bond themed event where the late Desmond Llewelyn (Q)was in attendance. Towards the end of the night said mate grabbed an 007 postcard and approached Desmond for an autograph.

Desmond was more than happy to oblige so my mate eagerly passed him a pen and the postcard to sign, remarking, as he did so, on the fact that the movie poster featured on the postcard was 'From Russia with Love"

Subsequently my friend is now the proud owner of a signed postcard bearing the legend...

To Russell, with love Q

Goodness me, is that Mark Ellen from the Whistle Test?!

Well...I have a New Order biography book signed by all of New Order in their pomp circa 1988.

My girlfriend at the time was mates with a relative of Jez Kerr, the bass player of A Certain Ratio, who were supporting New Order at this particular gig (as they did for many NO gigs)
New Order misunderstood the request and signed the book "To Jez". Why would they think he would want their autographs having been touring on and off with them for ten years?

Well..it was 1988 and I understand at the time the band were partial to the occasional E, and judging by Barney Sumner's dancing that night they had partaken of a fair bit of refreshment...this possibly had some influence on my somewhat confused signatures which I treasure to this day.

A story recounted to me only yesterday..
In Australia,and in Victoria, and in Melbourne especially, Australian rules football is followed obsessively . A star in the 80s was Gary Ablett who, like EC,was nicknamed God for his miraculous feats. He has spawned a son with the same name and similarly talented...but I digress.

He was at a petrol station trying to pay for the fuel using a personal cheque. This was refused. A fellow motorist said to Gazza- make the cheque out to me and I will pay for the petrol.

The motorist never cashed the cheque.

Posted before, but worth repeating here:

A few years back, John Cale promoted an EP at Borders (god rest 'em) in London. After Cale's short performance and a Q&A with the world's most badly-prepared interviewer, I went to get a CD and join the signing, only to find they'd sold out. I grabbed his autobiography What's Welsh for Zen, as I didn't already own it, and joined the back of the queue. When I got to the table (I was now last in line) I explained why I had the book and not the CD, and held it open at the title page for him.
Cale, with the wild stare of a man who has had a really shit day, slammed the book shut and, with his Sharpie gripped monkey-like in his fist, scrawled at random all over the cover, ending in a flourish which could have been an arrow or a very childish 'John'. Then he slid the book back across the table.
'Thanks, John' I said.
He continued to stare unnervingly at me. I backed away to safety.

....and living in Madrid, me and me mate Jason made sure we were two of the 1st one hundred people to buy The Seahorses album, which would gain us access to an exclusive mini-gig cum signing session in Madrid Rock. The big day came, John Squire came down the stairs playing a cream Les Paul and blew us away - I don't care what anyone says, that solo at the end of Love is the Law was and remains brilliant..
Any road.... come the moment of the signing John asks us who's it to and all that...I come up with the most toe-curling sycophantic comment you could imagine 'Love the album John, there's a lot of joy in your playing'...Aaaagh! He smiles politely asks us what we're doing in Madrid. Instead of telling him our main job was teaching, Jason tells him we're musicians (which was true, we had a nice little pub band in malasana) But when Squire asks him ' what sort of stuff do you play?' Jason says 'Stone Roses Covers'
He gave us a withering look. The conversation was over. I didn't speak to Jason for about four beers afterwards.....

after a recent reading in a Hull cafe, the new poet laureate gave me a 'friendly' punch on the arm during the book signing - all because I had made some smartarse wisecrack about something or other - she's a right hard case, she is...