Review: When The Smiths split in 1987, the first thing guitarist Johnny Marr did was to travel to Manchester, seek out Joe Moss and repay him then L30,000 he'd shelled out for the band's first PA. The man who had given a home to Marr and his girlfriend and who was the first to manage The Smiths ended up managing Marr again in his latter days, before his passing in 2015. How is all of this relevant to The Pablo Cuckoo tape? Well, it was recorded on the first floor of Manchester's Crazy Face building, which Moss owned, during the earliest days of the band. Swathes of the band's eponymous album are here, as well as much beloved early A and B-sides, the often overlooked 'Accept Yourself', 'What Difference Does It Make?', and while it's not the greatest recording in the world quality wise - it's essentially a rehearsal captured for reference on a cassette player on the floor - as a document of a legendary band cutting their teeth it's fairly priceless.
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