Artist: frank sidebottom

It's nice that Selfridges liked the idea of Frank Sidebottom enough to do a tribute window . Less impressive that they didn't ask permission nor, indeed, make a donation to the late great Fantastic one's estate. -- Visit No Rock & Roll Fun to comment, complain and kvetch

No sooner had the news about Chris Sievey's finances been made public, than people started rallying round . There's now enough money for a proper, fitting send-off, and hopefully some left over to help out his family.

More heartbreaking news from Manchester, as Frank Sidebottom's children say they haven't got the money to bury their father properly. The Manchester Evening News reports : Chris leaves sons Stirling, 31, and Harry, 18, and daughter Asher, 30. Stirling said the family have been in discussion with hospital bereavement officers and a funeral director. He said: "My father has not left any money behind and we are struggling to try and sort his funeral out. He spent money as it came in and was always a man for the moment. He never planned ahead. We [...]

Heartbreaking news this evening, I'm afraid, as Chris Sievey, of the Freshies and Frank Sidebottom fame , has died. The Freshies's big moment came with the hit I'm In Love With The Girl On The Manchester Virgin Megastore Checkout Desk, re-recorded with 'Virgin' replaced by 'Certain' to avoid BBC restrictions on advertising. But it was the creation of a fan from Timperley, Frank Sidebottom, and an entire fantasy world centred on his large, paper-maiche head that would be the basis of a twenty-five year career. Frank Sidebottom turned up all over the place - guest [...]

Even Iggy admitted that his Swiftcover adverts were awful - "embarrassing" was his actual word, I think - but they're still happy to throw cash at him, so he's making new adverts which appear to rip off Frank Sidebottom quite badly: Swiftcover.com's marketing director Tina Shortle said he was still keen to work with the company on their 2010 campaign. "Iggy loved the fact that last year's campaign stirred up a lot of emotion, so this year we've played on the controversy with even more irreverent humour," she said. "The introduction of 'Little [...]

Though they've been a band for 23 years, some things about The Wedding Present remain comfortingly constant: the subject matter of their songs (love, heartbreak, betrayal, jealously), founder David Gedge 's ability to play the guitar like his hand's on fire, and the band's strict policy of no requests, no encores. But most importantly, their ability to consistently deliver the goods, year after year, despite enough line-up changes to rival The Fall. Still, the Southpaw show on Thursday, which I'm pretty sure their first-ever in Brooklyn, was much better than their [...]

• Frank Sidebottom - Hit The North
• The Wedding Present - Sports Car

I rubbed my eyes twice to make sure it wasn't a dream, but no: Frank Sidebottom is following in the footsteps of Cannon and Ball and Reg Holdsworth, and advertising Safestyle UK replacement windows.