Only Connect III

Love did a song called "Alone Again Or", which was later covered by The Damned. The Damned performed on the BBC comedy The Young Ones, as did Amazulu...and the Amazulu episode featured the joke: "Amazulu!" "Really? I'm a Norwegian!" One fab Norwegian band is the much-loved TURBONEGRO.

So was this the answer, then?

[Nope. Keep going - the increasing unpopularity of this thread *is* one of the winning conditions, though. So, we're getting closer.]

The middle four letters of TURBONEGRO are 'bone', and both Pixies and Tom Waits have waved their Bone Machines in our faces in the past. Pixies covered a David Lynch song on an early single, and someone who recently covered both Lynch and Waits compositions is:

PINKIE MACLURE.

pinkie = little finger not the middle finger as raised by oxide and neutrino

oxidization --> rust --> the chorus to cuban link f/ fat joe's 'why me?' (why the judge wanna lock me up? / throw away the key and watch me rust') --> fat joe = frequently with pre-death BIG PUN

Big Pun got dissed today in the same breath as Biggie Smalls - what is up with that?? ethan what did you think of Big L's "LIFESTYLEZ OV DA POOR AND DANGEROUS"? was it all that?

One band that has been accused of being "big" is The Strokes. One of the kids on Diff'rent Strokes was Arnold. Gina Arnold is well-known for writing about shows she's never actually been at. There were many shows I wasn't at, like: Sonic Youth at the Guvernment. The government runs the country, and the country's theme song is "The Star Spangled Banner", written by Francis Scott Key.

FSK (Peel favourites) once released an album called "The Sound of Music". The musical of the same name was written by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The Hammers are forever blowing Bubbles. Hence, FREE DESIGN.

[The winning conditions, as if anyone is remotely interested, were that someone would mention something to do with birthdays ON my birthday. Of course, no one even posted on Aug 7, so I've changed these conditions to something entirely different. The forum yawns.]

Does that mean we can start talking about FUGAZI again?

Sean: if you can get from Free Design to bleedin' Fugazi in exactly four steps without cheating, you win.

That really depends what you mean by cheating, since the rules of Only Connect are fairly lax. Nonetheless, let's try this:

1) Despite toiling in almost total obscurity, the Free Design were recently shocked to learn that they were amazing big in Japan.
2) "Big in Japan" is a song by Tom Waits, who recently made the move to an indie label.
3) One of the most respected indie labels is Dischord.
4) Dischord in the home of FUGAZI.

How's that?

Well, I could be picky and say "Dischord? Not respected by me, mate", but I shan't.

You win! The prize is a compact disc (sorry, you were one of the pro-analog[ue] guys, weren't you?) of your choice. The only restriction being the artist featured must begin with a letter scoring 8 points or above in Scrabble. No bonus squares allowed.

*And* you get to start Only Connect IV: Citizens On Patrol.