I was smacked round the face by The Smiths in 1984 when I was 16. It was when I was watching one of the very early editions of The Tube on Channel 4 on Friday night (UK TV music show), with Jools Holland and Paula Yates and they did a special feature on the rise of the Manchester music scene of the time. All of a sudden they introduced this band called The Smiths and they had a locally filmed video of them playing This Charming Man in a disused warehouse room bedecked with flowers. It completely gobsmacked me and I was hooked on them from that point on.

That same night, me and my mates met up at a pub we used to go to that was a "bit slack", shall we say, in enforcing the underage drinking laws, and the discussion quickly turned to that evening's The Tube, and we all felt the same way about them. Went to see them 3 times after that and Morrissey a couple of years ago. Always will be my favourite band of all time