Photo by PAOLO PROSERPIO at the Milan show last week.

In what feels like their 400th show of the year, Fucked Up will once again be hitting London tonight with the final show of 2008 for the band, and for Matador UK.

Here’s the details :
WED DEC 17
UNDERWORLD LONDON
8PM ALL AGES (14+)

FUCKED UP
THE KING BLUES
LETS WRESTLE

Tonight will be a Christmas Party of sorts, with tinsel and party hats. There’ll also be a charity give away tonight of some of the remaining Royal Swan 7″s from the 12hr show. Money donated for a copy will be going to selected London-based charities.

And we didn’t tell you, but if you happen to be in the Shoreditch area of town at around 12.30am tonight, there’s a distinct chance you might catch an additional FU show at the Old Blue Last. But you didn’t hear it from me.

Here is part one of an occasional series on Matador artifacts from our history. The Matador Profiles ad series (recently resurrected) ripped off the Creem Profiles ads from the 1970s, which in turn ripped off the Dewars Profiles ads from that period and earlier. Click on the image for a legible version.

Here you can see the ultra-suave Michael Cudahy, singer and main songwriter in Boston’s Christmas, whose album Vortex we released in 1993 (by which time the band had relocated to Las Vegas). Later he was in Combustible Edison, over whom we will politely draw a curtain. He also nearly beat Jeopardy contestant Ken Jennings, the 17-show champ, on June 25, 2004. In the early 1980s he helped start the legendary artist-owned label Propeller Records, which released important records by the Dangerous Birds, V;, the Neats, Art Yard, CCCP-TV and many others. (Sadly the Propeller masters were all destroyed in a disastrous fire at Cudahy’s house in Allston many years ago, so HA HA there will be no digital reissues.)