How odd… yet how pleasing

It was somewhat synchronistic that your How To Buy on Stiff Records appeared in the same issue as Lew Lewis’s obit [MOJO 332]. I got Boogie On The Street (on Stiff) and Out For A Lark (on UA) among a bunch of 45s I’d sent away for from Bizarre Records in London in 1976 and ’77 – pretty much the only way you could get that kind of thing in Toronto back then. When the Feelgoods played the El Mocambo in November ’77 and held court at a table between sets, I asked Lee Brilleaux what Lewis was up to now. “Mad Lew? Only had to get him out of jail before we flew over here, didn’t I?” So I guess there were a few problems even then. I was fortunate enough to pick up the Save The Wail album in London two years later. Of course, as well as playing on the Stiff single, Brilleaux also put up some of the money that allowed the label to get off the ground.

Ian Mitchell, Oshawa, Ontario