Heart Of The Crowd – Limited Edition Boxed Presentation

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So initially I held off getting the Heart Of The Crowd book on pre-order. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to expose myself to all those stories. I was slowly coming round to it and was starting to think that maybe it would be good. And the £45 didn’t seem too bad. A little more expensive than I had liked (as I said before, the 16 Years book is of a similar volume but was just that more modestly priced at £35) but, you know…I’m sure it would be worth it.

I am glad I had held off because one of the fans on one of the SM groups alerted us to THIS!

The blurb about it reads:

With foreword from Jim Kerr. The Special Box edition is limited to 1,000 copies only and are all individually numbered.

The Special Box edition comes compete with bonus items including: Certificate of Authenticity numbered 1-1000, two rare early black and white photos signed by Jim and Charlie, a plectrum made for Charlie for the 2020 tour, Simple Minds 40 Hits tour VIP pass with lanyard, Simple Minds 2020 fridge magnet, sticker sheet with 24 badges, replica Saturday Night Live ticket from 1985, replica BBC In Corcert ticket from 1979, replica Mars Bar Club flyer from 1977 (I think they mean 1978, I hope they do!), all presented in a box with artwork.

Well…I couldn’t actually resist THIS version and have gone ahead and pre-ordered it. When you make it ultra collectable, of course then you pull me in! I already have the photo of Jim. I got some prints from Laurie Evans just a short while ago and it included that particular photo of Jim. I don’t have any of Charlie (of Laurie’s in print form), so there’s a bonus already.

I won’t lie – I took a steep intake of breath when I saw the cost but it wasn’t like I wasn’t prepared. And I do think given the collectable nature of it and all the bonus content, it is actually a more reasonable price than the standard copy of the book. All of that other stuff for £40 more quid? Sounds bloody decent to me!

So, yes. This special box limited edition is priced at £85 but, in my eyes, better value for money than the standard edition.

I just pray now that my little contribution features in it…but I highly doubt it. There is nothing grandiose in my fan story I have to offer. certainly not what I had submitted anyway.

Yep. I was keeping quiet about it. About the fact I actually DID submit something. But I sat on my hands for months because I felt I had nothing to offer the book as Miss Johnny-Come-Lately “not a real fan – earn your stripes, girly” fan – so…yeah.

I’ll be no doubt desperately disheartened if my little bit doesn’t make it in…but I have had more than my share in recent times. And I’ll love Jim all the rest of my days for being so kind and lovely to me when he did. (Oh, how I miss it! STOP CRYING!!! 😭😭😭)

Nothing could ever mean more to me than that.

So…if you have £85 to burn, have contributed to the book and know you’re appearing in it (some fans already seem to know they are in it) then you MAY just want to splash out. At only 1,000 limited copies, I wouldn’t dilly dally though!

Details on purchasing the book can be viewed HERE

It Stings A Bit!

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The price. Probably the content too.

But the price!

You know…if it didn’t feel as though the good stuff over the past few years was all but dead, then maybe I’d have felt able…willing…

But now it all does feel in the past. I’ve spent a lot of this lockdown in mourning. Mourning some of the things that really made me love being a Simple Minds fan. I can’t emphasise enough how special that all was all that interactivity with Jim.

Would it have made great content for the book? I doubt it. It all felt…personal and special. Maybe it would have felt a bit “kiss and tell”? Lol. I know how stupid that sounds. I really do!

I’ll shut up now. Anyway, the book is £45 and will probably make me wish I was just about every single person that features in it, so do I want it? Do I want to spend £45 on a book of envy?

Dunno…

I know! Woe is me. He’d probably tell me to “grew a pair”. Well, I wish he would – because at least he’d be bloody TALKING TO ME! Lol

Click on the image to see pre-order details. Due for release on December 3rd, 2020.

A Change Of…Terms?

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Where do I start? Well, I start by saying – the blog ends up being my safe place for a moan…a gripe…a whinge. Mostly because I know Jim doesn’t want to hear it. I appreciate that.

Well, I kind of expressed, briefly, in the comments about the use of the phrase “longterm” – like how I had my gripe that got me into a WHOLE HEAP of trouble about “real fans” – ooh, at least he steered clear of THAT! Lol

But I elaborated on my gripe here. I often do. And go on about wishing I could be his “penpal“…in a sense. (I could easily cut his hair. I cut my OH’s hair most of the time.) That I’d love to interview him for the blog. That I wish “discs and doughnuts” could actually be A THING – just one time – between the two of us. Also, I go on about how I miss him pretty much every day he isn’t on Facebook. Lol.

I just crave the connection I felt was there some time back.

I’m a clingy, lovelorn, emotionally retarded fuckhead – I know! (Honestly, Alasdair Gray’s writing speaks sssooo fucking much to me! I’m there most of the time thinking “Know how you feel, Al. You’re speaking my language, friend!” Geez, I wish I had got to meet him now! Damn!)

Something happened though. And when that “something” sometimes happens, I forget to give a word of thanks. A “thanks for listening”…for taking it on board. For making me feel like…I have a voice, I am still being listened to. Appreciated. That my feelings matter. That you still care. Maybe? Hopefully? Perhaps it’s all still just delusional wishful thinking…

But just in case, Jim…thank you! Coincidence, no doubt. Wishful thinking? Most likely. Even if so, the “change of heart” post was greatly appreciated.

And well…hey fans…feel like trying to get your story in the book? Expressing your “Sense Of Discovery” of Simple Minds? Here’s your chance! You have just over a month to submit something. I think this may be one HUMONGOUS book!

Ever since reading this morning’s post, this has been the earworm…

The Longterm?

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How does one define how ‘long’ the longterm is? I ponder because in Jim’s post today he talks about the “Book Of Brilliant Things” or whatever it’s going to end up being called. The fan-based SM compendium.

“….we are looking to create something to which all longterm Simple Minds fans will hopefully want to contribute their stories.”

Well, that wording makes me feel precluded from it immediately. “Longterm”. How long is longterm?

To me it by its very definition means a substantial number of years. And given that, my not quite six years of fandom would hardly qualify as “longterm”. Thirty plus years, perhaps? Had I stayed with them from 1985, definitely! I have certainly tried cramming 30+ years of fandom into these past near six years. I have probably got a bigger collection of memorabilia and been to more gigs than a lot of “longterm” fans.

But that is by the by, I guess. Because the yardstick seems to be a measure of time. Not money, emotional investment, affinity….or some deluded sense of affinity one felt they may have had.

I’ve told the story so many times now, I’m not even sure I have the heart to tell it any more in all honesty.

It’s all there in my art anyway. And if any of THAT was used or printed? Well…that would be the most amazing thing ever. But even to have had Jim share it on the SM FB page back in the day when he liked it and he wasn’t sick to death of me….

That will always be a treasure. It means more than just about anything else I’ve ever done in my sad, pathetic existence on this sphere.

He replied to someone today about needing a hair cut. “Cut mine and I’ll be your penpal.”

Jesus! Can you just stop being a tease?!

*sigh*

Better still…I’ll try and stop being a “try hard” and go away. Shuffle off…well…at least the SM planet, as someone suggested (and not just of the SM planet, either!) I do some time back.

End this silly “affliction”. I blame John Francis Lawson and David leaving me far too soon.

I need to find that self-worth I had found for myself somewhere along the line. As fake as it was. Sadly some of it came from you, Jim.

An “enthusiast” is good…but an over-enthusiast, no matter how else it appears to the contrary is, ultimately, undesired.

Strange Days … Indeed!

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And, well…just in case Sir disnae see it on the SM visitor wall (as it now behaves rather oddly these days and can’t be viewed via the FB app – at least I can’t view it – maybe I have been blocked from it? Dunno!) Anyways, I did post this to the SM FB wall but on the silly notion that Jim comes and peruses this utterly sycophantic, lovesick blog then…

So I open the (digital version) latest edition of Uncut magazine and there’s a piece about Richard Strange in it. Simple Minds even get a namecheck as being a Doctors Of Madness support act back in the day. The short piece discusses Strange’s … memoir? I guess it would be. Also in an audio form on his website it says. But I am sure you are already up on all of this, Sir? If not then, you’re welcome. 👍🏻😊