Punk Performers & Theories Of Ideology ('Punk Mass' 1970 - )
Dec 4, 2020 22:43:51 GMT
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Post by petrolino on Dec 4, 2020 22:43:51 GMT
New Age Romantic : The Cult Of Morrissey
{Boxing Clever ¬ Glamour Punks, Sophisti-Pop & Literary Allusions}
'How Soon Is Now' - The Smiths
Steven Patrick Morrissey (/ˈmɒrɪsiː/), known mononymously as Morrissey, 'Moz', or 'Mozza' to his fans, is a singer, songwriter and author whose early career in the arts runs through the first, second and third waves of England's punk era. Violence permeated the underground punk scene that emerged in Manchester in the mid-1970s. Morrissey was a glam rock fan and local scenester who wrote a fanzine about the New York Dolls. His first band's name, The Nosebleeds, was a comment on this hostile environment. The Nosebleeds' line-up boasted two of the finest young guitarists active in the north-west of England, Billy Duffy (the Cult), and Vini Reilly (the Durutti Column) who'd work with Morrissey years later on his critically lauded debut solo album 'Viva Hate' (1988).
'Ed Garrity was a roadie for the Wythenshawe group Slaughter & The Dogs — also on the bill that night — and ‘it all kicked off. "I got hit on the head with a bottle. There was blood everywhere. Someone said “there’s that headbanger with the nosebleed” and that’s where my name came from.” Garrity was a member of the band Wild Ram; thereafter it was renamed Ed Banger and the Nosebleeds.
For Garrity, his injury was a badge of initiation: "After spilling our blood for the punk cause, damn right we regarded ourselves as true punks. But we still got labelled bandwagon jumpers."
The accounts of music gigs in Manchester around this time are littered with stories of violence, vandalism and (mostly) men behaving badly, for example: At the Mayflower club, Gorton, in July 1979, Adam and the Ants “played to a seriously antagonistic crowd who, though less than 50 in number, managed to smash every chair and every table into the band’s PA stack before the lone bouncer bundled them on to the pavement”.
And now, the first line of the current (2013) website of Slaughter and the Dogs sounds almost like a macho boast, saying that they hail from “the notoriously tough Manchester suburb of Wythenshawe.'
For Garrity, his injury was a badge of initiation: "After spilling our blood for the punk cause, damn right we regarded ourselves as true punks. But we still got labelled bandwagon jumpers."
The accounts of music gigs in Manchester around this time are littered with stories of violence, vandalism and (mostly) men behaving badly, for example: At the Mayflower club, Gorton, in July 1979, Adam and the Ants “played to a seriously antagonistic crowd who, though less than 50 in number, managed to smash every chair and every table into the band’s PA stack before the lone bouncer bundled them on to the pavement”.
And now, the first line of the current (2013) website of Slaughter and the Dogs sounds almost like a macho boast, saying that they hail from “the notoriously tough Manchester suburb of Wythenshawe.'
- Band On The Wall
Steven Patrick Morrissey
-
Swing Sister Swing : The Electric Circus & Eric's Club
The Electric Circus was a punk venue opened in Manchester in October 1976. The compilation album 'Short Circuit : Live At The Electric Circus' (recorded in 1977 and released in 1978) captures performances by several bands that performed there including Buzzcocks, the Drones, the Fall and Warsaw (who later became Joy Division).
Factory Records became the dominant independent record label recruiting in the local area. Some of the bands signed to the label were also part of the Manchester Musicians' Collective which promoted local talent and secured venues for bands to perform at. One of the groups on the collective's roster, the Frantic Elevators, would go on to become overlords of occupancy within Manchester's fast-developing music market.
'When the idea of a Manchester Musicians Collective first emerged, it was expected that the participants would be from the exploratory end of the music spectrum, free improvisers perhaps and committed experimentalists, possibly mixing music with performance art. This expectation was based on the involvement with other collectives of the two original protagonists, music graduates Trevor Wishart and Dick Witts — Trevor in York, Dick in London. But soon after the Collective got going in April 1977 it was obvious that Manchester’s version would be very different: much more rock’n’roll.'
- Band On The Wall
'This Charming Man [Instrumental Track]' - The Smiths
Over in Liverpool, Eric's Club was another small punk venue that opened its doors in October 1976, sparking the north-west's usual violent rivalry between the region's two most populous cities. The club was co-founded by Ken Testi, manager of art rock troupe Deaf School. It became a catalyst for local musicians looking to explode on the national scene, but in this instance, they took longer to make their mark than their Mancunian cousins.
I don't think the Crucial Three recorded anything but band members Julian Cope (the Teardrop Explodes), Ian McCulloch (Echo & the Bunnymen) and Pete Wylie (Wah!) went on to bigger and better things. Cope and Wylie were briefly in the punk band Mystery Girls with Pete Burns (Dead Or Alive) who became a close confidante of Morrissey in the mid-1980's.
The keynote act to emerge from Eric's was Big In Japan whose membership included David Balfe (the Teardrop Explodes), Ian Broudie (the Lightning Seeds), Budgie (Siouxsie & the Banshees), Jayne Casey (Pink Military), Bill Drummond (KLF) and Holly Johnson (Frankie Goes To Hollywood). Fortunately, they did lay down some studio tracks within their brief creative lifetime.
"Punk has become many things in the 40 years since it went overground.
It has become acceptable, stripped by time and familiarity of the ability to shock. It has become common place – punk fashion and influence can be seen pretty much everywhere. It has become an exercise in nostalgia; punk bands still play gigs to the same crowds who saw them decades ago, cosy gigs reliving a collective youth.
And it has become commodified, a trend that in truth started worryingly early. These days, Ramones and Joy Division t-shirts can be snapped up in Primark, extravagantly dyed hair, ripped jeans and multiple earrings are mainstream and raise not a single eyebrow.
But it was not always like this. Oh no – once upon a time,Punk was a dangerous, exciting thing to be involved with. Questions were asked about it in the Houses of Parliament and just looking like a punk could get you chased, beaten and worse. In those far off days, this shocking new phenomenon was news! Music papers particularly couldn’t get enough of it, devoting almost whole issues to its rise. But, John Peel aside, it was almost impossible for young teens to actually hear the music itself. Thank God then for Roger Eagle being, not for the first time in his life, in the right place at the right time. And, more importantly, with the right attitude.
Following on from creating successful and influential nights at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester and the Stadium in Liverpool, Roger, along with Pete Fulwell and Ken Testi, opened Eric’s in 1976, just in time for punk to spread out from London to Manchester and then to the provinces.
The first band to appear at Eric’s were The Stranglers, followed a week later by The Runaways and then The Sex Pistols. Eric’s had clearly tapped into a rich vein of exciting new music with punk beginning to explode. Not that it was ever a punk club per se, also featuring gigs from such diverse artists as Steve Hillage, Van der Graaf Generator, B.B. King and many reggae artists such as Prince Far I and Inner Circle.
Roger Eagle was one of the rare breed of people who were more interested in the art of what they were doing rather than the finances, so the more popular gigs by the likes of The Clash and The Damned funded gigs by artists less likely to pull in a large number of paying guests, but Roger would rather spend time and money showcasing wonderful music for a smaller audience than have it ignored. His legendary enthusiasm for music and for turning other people on to bands he loved was undoubtedly one of Eric’s best assets."
It has become acceptable, stripped by time and familiarity of the ability to shock. It has become common place – punk fashion and influence can be seen pretty much everywhere. It has become an exercise in nostalgia; punk bands still play gigs to the same crowds who saw them decades ago, cosy gigs reliving a collective youth.
And it has become commodified, a trend that in truth started worryingly early. These days, Ramones and Joy Division t-shirts can be snapped up in Primark, extravagantly dyed hair, ripped jeans and multiple earrings are mainstream and raise not a single eyebrow.
But it was not always like this. Oh no – once upon a time,Punk was a dangerous, exciting thing to be involved with. Questions were asked about it in the Houses of Parliament and just looking like a punk could get you chased, beaten and worse. In those far off days, this shocking new phenomenon was news! Music papers particularly couldn’t get enough of it, devoting almost whole issues to its rise. But, John Peel aside, it was almost impossible for young teens to actually hear the music itself. Thank God then for Roger Eagle being, not for the first time in his life, in the right place at the right time. And, more importantly, with the right attitude.
Following on from creating successful and influential nights at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester and the Stadium in Liverpool, Roger, along with Pete Fulwell and Ken Testi, opened Eric’s in 1976, just in time for punk to spread out from London to Manchester and then to the provinces.
The first band to appear at Eric’s were The Stranglers, followed a week later by The Runaways and then The Sex Pistols. Eric’s had clearly tapped into a rich vein of exciting new music with punk beginning to explode. Not that it was ever a punk club per se, also featuring gigs from such diverse artists as Steve Hillage, Van der Graaf Generator, B.B. King and many reggae artists such as Prince Far I and Inner Circle.
Roger Eagle was one of the rare breed of people who were more interested in the art of what they were doing rather than the finances, so the more popular gigs by the likes of The Clash and The Damned funded gigs by artists less likely to pull in a large number of paying guests, but Roger would rather spend time and money showcasing wonderful music for a smaller audience than have it ignored. His legendary enthusiasm for music and for turning other people on to bands he loved was undoubtedly one of Eric’s best assets."
- Banjo, 'Eric’s – A Personal Journey Through Liverpool’s Original Punk Club'
'From Y To Z And Never Again' ~ Big In Japan
London, Manchester and Liverpool all attracted punk hopefuls from Birmingham which was still in the grip of a heavy metal revolution. The draw of ska music was also strong across the midlands and attracted potential punk musicians to enlist. Fortunately, there was one major rock venue called Barbarella's that was only too happy to book punk bands and this provided a boost to the local punk scene.
"The ultimate classic rock venue – Barbarella's. When Mothers shut its doors, the baton passed to this city-centre joint, which had been a nightclub and disco. You stuck to the floor, but the place had two bars, both with excellent sight lines. Not only was the place, like Mothers, a who's-who for a new generation of rock bands, but they ran a decent local night on Sundays, and opened up a punk room where everyone played – from the Pistols and Buzzcocks to The Jam. Before Judas Priest broke big in the US, they headlined Barbs – but rather overdid the pyro. You couldn't see them for the first half an hour. Sadly, this is all that's left – a salvaged street sign, roughly where Cumberland Street used to be."
- Robin Valk, Time Out
'Let's Make This Precious' - Dexys Midnight Runners
Morrissey enjoyed a short stint as singer with Manchester's punk mainstays Slaughter & the Dogs but once again his personality proved to be a hard pill for some band members to swallow, leading to another swift exit. He took his fountain pen out and documented the foibles of scenesters for several years, earning him a reputation as one of the collapsing punk scene's most feared gossip merchants. Then, in 1982, Morrissey formed the Smiths with guitarist Johnny Marr (the Paris Valentinos & Electronic), bass player Andy Rourke (the Paris Valentinos & the Adult Net) and drummer Mike Joyce (the Adult Net & Buzzcocks).
“I understand feminism to be a social savior because it liberates everyone without exclusion, whereas masculinism damns itself by measuring a man's health by the amount of sexual gratification he receives.”
― Morrissey
New York Dolls fanatic Morrissey
I recall seeing Morrissey performing with wilting daffodils inserted into his bottom on more than one occasion and he appeared to revel in his own animalistic scent on stage. With his nose frequently upturned and his nostrils stood to attention, the image he projected was not one that I warmed to. But boy, did I love the music of his bandmates Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce.
Regardless of my own misgivings, it was certainly a striking image that Morrissey projected and he fired up the imagination of a hungry music press who saw in him one of their own. I believe it's no exaggeration to suggest that Morrissey redefined the role of the inanimate hipster through his dancing. His "poseur" aesthetic was carefully sculpted and expertly cultivated across a number of years and he bloomed before the very music writers he'd once rubbed shoulders with. England's powerful critical establishment garlanded him with flowers, praising the traditionalist frontman for his wry witticisms, clever use of symbolism and highly marketable brand of self-indulgent angst. His pronounced air of arrogance was underlined by a princely pop pomposity that would influence some of the biggest bands of the "Britpop" era to follow. Morrissey was anointed indie spokesman for a generation, declared the greatest poet of his generation, celebrated as a great humourist as well as being the voice of England's brooding bedsit populace.
'I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.'
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.'
- William Wordsworth (the Casanova of Cockermouth)
'Now I know how Johnny Marr felt,
Now I know how Johnny Marr feeelt ...'
Morrissey's vocal style is often said to be an amalgamation of his favourite female voices (Timi Yuro, Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw, Lulu). I think he may have adopted his yelping croon from Edwyn Collins, frontman of the original Nu-Sonics, a punk band that morphed into Orange Juice. The Scottish music label Postcard Records produced albums by Orange Juice, Josef K and Aztec Camera, bands that directly influenced the "sophisti-pop" movement of the mid-1980s. With regard to Scottish music, it's long been suggested that the Smiths' song 'William, It Was Really Nothing' is about Morrissey's relationship with Billy Mackenzie (the Associates) but I don't know if this is true or not.
“In England, pop music seems now to be exclusively for children. If an artist is no good, why is it necessary to have that artist repeatedly rammed in our face?”
- Morrissey, The Telegraph
Pete Burns & Morrissey
'This Is What She's Like' - Dexys Midnight Runners
Two songs are said to have exerted a considerable influence over the young frontman who harboured an unusual obsession for muscular, bare-chested boxers sweating under lights. Morrissey was moved by the Drug Addix' punk anthem 'Gay Boys In Bondage' and he asked the group's backing singer Kirsty MacColl to work with him a few years later (MacColl recorded backing vocals for the Smiths' song 'Bigmouth Strikes Again' but they were discarded and replaced by Morrissey's own additional wailing).
Another song that scored a home run with Morrissey was Madness' comic cut 'Mummy's Boy' from their debut album 'One Step Beyond ...' (1979). This track was composed by the band's bass player Mark Bedford (Voice Of The Beehive) who worked with Morrissey on his critically acclaimed solo album 'Kill Uncle' (1991) which was produced by Clive Langer (Deaf School) and Alan Winstanley, a production team whose work up to this point in time had included albums with Madness, the Teardrop Explodes, Dexys Midnight Runners, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, and Lloyd Cole and the Commotions.
“Life would be so colourful if only I had a drink problem.”
- Morrissey, New Musical Express
Morrissey & Kirsty MacColl
'They Don't Know' - Kirsty MacColl
-
The Smiths
Bassing to 'Cemetery Gates'
Johnny Marr was a fan of the independent music label Cherry Red Records and their output. Their roster included Felt (who were musically inspired by the punk band Television), Lemon Kittens (a vehicle for multi-instrumentalist Danielle Dax) and the Monochrome Set. Also at Cherry Red Records were the d.i.y. punk band Marine Girls and multi-instrumentalist Ben Watt. When the Marine Girls split up, Watt and Tracey Thorn formed Everything But The Girl who became pioneers of the experimental "sophisti-pop" movement (they were later joined by drummer Jane Miles-Kingston of the Mo-Dettes). Marr plays harmonica on 'Native Land' by Everything But The Girl.
"We meet in his studio, a converted warehouse just outside Manchester. Marr is in skinny jeans and a polka-dot shirt, looking fit and clear-eyed. He says he loves the title of his book because it sounds like a famous song. But it isn’t – it just came to him. As a little boy (and he was tiny, growing up) it was music that set him free from the mundanities of everyday life. He was brought up in a working-class family in Ardwick Green, Manchester, by Irish Catholic parents who were also mad about music. His father, “a strong, brooding presence”, laid gas pipes in the road; his mother, one of 14 children, cleaned at a hospital.
There was nothing unhappy about his childhood, but there was something stultifying about suburbia. “I was looking for something – transcendence.” He looks embarrassed. “That sounds a bit pretentious, but common transcendence that everybody can relate to. I really like the word free. It has a sense of energy, and idealism, which I’ve always felt.”
He was a bright boy, and went to grammar school. Like all guitarists, he says, he was good at English and art. But beyond that he didn’t care much for academic work. He was obsessed with music: girl groups the Shangri-Las and the Shirelles, glam rockers T-Rex and Roxy Music, and most of all with guitarists.
By the age of 13, he was playing in bands with people four years older. “Fashion, culture, rebellion, drinking, girls: I was learning so much, doing 16-year-old stuff. It felt like an apprenticeship for the only thing I was going to do – be a rock guitar player.” Marr was already a star in the making, obsessed with mod haircuts and Crombie coats, spending every spare minute perfecting his guitar technique. He was a talented footballer and had a trial with Manchester City, the team he supported. But nothing could compete with his passion for music. Football fell by the wayside.
Marr says he couldn’t stand the strutting braggadocio of “cock rock”. His guitar heroes (Rory Gallagher, Keith Richards, Nile Rodgers, James Williamson from the Stooges) didn’t want to steal the show. So, rather than playing lead guitar, he devised a new way of playing for himself – using the rhythm guitar to replicate a whole band or orchestra. The technique was influenced by Phil Spector’s “wall of sound” and refined over the years in the studio. It often involved numerous guitar overdubs, and Marr referred to it as the Guitarchestra.
When he got the idea for the Smiths, which he formed at 19, it was already his fifth serious band. This time he knew he didn’t want to front it. “The few occasions I had to stand in front of a bunch of local kids at youth clubs, it was terrifying.” As far as Marr was concerned, all the great bands were based on a partnership: Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards. That’s where Steven Morrissey came in.
Marr was looking for a singer for his new band. One night he watched a South Bank Show on the great songwriting team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Leiber said he had heard that Stoller wrote songs, liked the sound of him, found out where he lived and knocked on the stranger’s door. Marr decided that that’s what he would do; he had been told Morrissey was a good vocalist, so he would find out where he lived and knock on his door.
They talked about music, and listened to Morrissey’s rare Tamla 45s. Marr raved about Dusty Springfield’s Little By Little; Morrissey played him Sandie Shaw’s Message Understood. When Marr left, Morrissey gave him some of his typed lyrics. After that, they were inseparable. “Everything that was obsessive, excessive and poetic, all the big visions I carried around inside me, were also in him. The love of pop culture, and the pure dedication, was mirrored in my partner. I’ve never seen it in anyone else before, and never in exactly the same way since. And the desperation. He was looking for someone like me and I was looking for someone like him. And we liked each other straight away. We really liked each other.”
What was the desperation? “If it wasn’t going to happen for us, all that unfulfilled ambition was a hell of a lot to carry around. We weren’t the sort of people who at 28 were going to be able to say, ‘I was in a band; it didn’t work out. That’s why I’m working in an estate agent.’ The two of us knew that we were too into it to survive that.”
Were they as intense as each other? “In different ways, yeah. Mine comes out in physicality, exuberance. My mother used to say I’m a cross between really intense and really laid-back.”
Marr says his relationship with Morrissey was as close as is possible without being lovers. Was he in love with Morrissey? “No, because I was in love with Angie [his then girlfriend, now wife], but we definitely loved each other. I think we all did.” His old school friend Andy Rourke (who had played in his first band, the Paris Valentinos) joined on bass, and Mike Joyce became their drummer. The four became good friends, but Marr says it was always clear that he and Morrissey were the leaders.
The second Morrissey lyric Marr put to music was the ghoulish Suffer Little Children, about the victims of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady (“Lesley Ann, with your pretty white beads/Oh John, you’ll never be a man/And you’ll never see your home again/Oh Manchester, so much to answer for”). Didn’t the words spook him? Well, at the time, he says, they were so besotted with each other, the lyrics were secondary. “It was, ‘We like each other. You look good, I look good. I write music, you write lyrics. We’re gonna do this.’” He smiles. “When I saw, in the first songwriting session, my new group had a song about the Moors murderers, it was very much, ‘Fucking hell!’ But I went on instinct.”
Did he always think of the Smiths as his? “In a way that is protective, I did, yes. I wasn’t old enough to be paternal, but it was kind of paternal.” Marr looked like a young Keith Richards – and had the swagger. Morrissey was famously introverted, so Marr was marketed as the arrogant one. While he says he was 90% true to that image, there was always 10% that was terrified.
The Smiths were always political, not in the campaigning way of Billy Bragg or Paul Weller, but in their frame of reference – the writings of Oscar Wilde, Irish Catholic life, their album titles (Meat Is Murder, The Queen Is Dead), the daily grind of life. Growing up in working-class Manchester, Marr says, being political was instinctive. “It was just part of your mindset, because you felt you were up against it, and the right wing was the minority but controlling everything. Somebody gave me Arguments For Socialism by Tony Benn, and I discovered that what I just thought was decency was a political position. You look after people who are less fortunate, and anyone who does otherwise is just fucking ghastly. By definition, being an alternative musician back then, you were political.”
Did he and Morrissey have similar politics? “Yeah, we did back then.” And now? “I wouldn’t expect so. Probably not.” In recent years, Morrissey has made headlines for suggesting that immigration is compromising British identity; he sued the NME (successfully) for defamation, releasing a statement that “racism has no place in our society”. In a 2010 interview with this magazine, he described the Chinese as a “subspecies” when it came to their treatment of animals. Marr prefers to talk about the days when Morrissey reserved his bile for Margaret Thatcher.
Success soon began to take its toll on the Smiths. Rourke had a heroin habit; Marr survived on a diet of cocaine and booze. His weight dropped to seven stone, but he didn’t worry because all his heroes had been slight. “George Best was small, Marc Bolan was small, Bruce Lee was small. And they were cocky and hyper, so I related to that, and played up to it. When it got really unhealthy it was just part and parcel of being in the Smiths in 1986. I wasn’t thinking, ‘This is great.’ I just never ate.”
There was nothing unhappy about his childhood, but there was something stultifying about suburbia. “I was looking for something – transcendence.” He looks embarrassed. “That sounds a bit pretentious, but common transcendence that everybody can relate to. I really like the word free. It has a sense of energy, and idealism, which I’ve always felt.”
He was a bright boy, and went to grammar school. Like all guitarists, he says, he was good at English and art. But beyond that he didn’t care much for academic work. He was obsessed with music: girl groups the Shangri-Las and the Shirelles, glam rockers T-Rex and Roxy Music, and most of all with guitarists.
By the age of 13, he was playing in bands with people four years older. “Fashion, culture, rebellion, drinking, girls: I was learning so much, doing 16-year-old stuff. It felt like an apprenticeship for the only thing I was going to do – be a rock guitar player.” Marr was already a star in the making, obsessed with mod haircuts and Crombie coats, spending every spare minute perfecting his guitar technique. He was a talented footballer and had a trial with Manchester City, the team he supported. But nothing could compete with his passion for music. Football fell by the wayside.
Marr says he couldn’t stand the strutting braggadocio of “cock rock”. His guitar heroes (Rory Gallagher, Keith Richards, Nile Rodgers, James Williamson from the Stooges) didn’t want to steal the show. So, rather than playing lead guitar, he devised a new way of playing for himself – using the rhythm guitar to replicate a whole band or orchestra. The technique was influenced by Phil Spector’s “wall of sound” and refined over the years in the studio. It often involved numerous guitar overdubs, and Marr referred to it as the Guitarchestra.
When he got the idea for the Smiths, which he formed at 19, it was already his fifth serious band. This time he knew he didn’t want to front it. “The few occasions I had to stand in front of a bunch of local kids at youth clubs, it was terrifying.” As far as Marr was concerned, all the great bands were based on a partnership: Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards. That’s where Steven Morrissey came in.
Marr was looking for a singer for his new band. One night he watched a South Bank Show on the great songwriting team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Leiber said he had heard that Stoller wrote songs, liked the sound of him, found out where he lived and knocked on the stranger’s door. Marr decided that that’s what he would do; he had been told Morrissey was a good vocalist, so he would find out where he lived and knock on his door.
They talked about music, and listened to Morrissey’s rare Tamla 45s. Marr raved about Dusty Springfield’s Little By Little; Morrissey played him Sandie Shaw’s Message Understood. When Marr left, Morrissey gave him some of his typed lyrics. After that, they were inseparable. “Everything that was obsessive, excessive and poetic, all the big visions I carried around inside me, were also in him. The love of pop culture, and the pure dedication, was mirrored in my partner. I’ve never seen it in anyone else before, and never in exactly the same way since. And the desperation. He was looking for someone like me and I was looking for someone like him. And we liked each other straight away. We really liked each other.”
What was the desperation? “If it wasn’t going to happen for us, all that unfulfilled ambition was a hell of a lot to carry around. We weren’t the sort of people who at 28 were going to be able to say, ‘I was in a band; it didn’t work out. That’s why I’m working in an estate agent.’ The two of us knew that we were too into it to survive that.”
Were they as intense as each other? “In different ways, yeah. Mine comes out in physicality, exuberance. My mother used to say I’m a cross between really intense and really laid-back.”
Marr says his relationship with Morrissey was as close as is possible without being lovers. Was he in love with Morrissey? “No, because I was in love with Angie [his then girlfriend, now wife], but we definitely loved each other. I think we all did.” His old school friend Andy Rourke (who had played in his first band, the Paris Valentinos) joined on bass, and Mike Joyce became their drummer. The four became good friends, but Marr says it was always clear that he and Morrissey were the leaders.
The second Morrissey lyric Marr put to music was the ghoulish Suffer Little Children, about the victims of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady (“Lesley Ann, with your pretty white beads/Oh John, you’ll never be a man/And you’ll never see your home again/Oh Manchester, so much to answer for”). Didn’t the words spook him? Well, at the time, he says, they were so besotted with each other, the lyrics were secondary. “It was, ‘We like each other. You look good, I look good. I write music, you write lyrics. We’re gonna do this.’” He smiles. “When I saw, in the first songwriting session, my new group had a song about the Moors murderers, it was very much, ‘Fucking hell!’ But I went on instinct.”
Did he always think of the Smiths as his? “In a way that is protective, I did, yes. I wasn’t old enough to be paternal, but it was kind of paternal.” Marr looked like a young Keith Richards – and had the swagger. Morrissey was famously introverted, so Marr was marketed as the arrogant one. While he says he was 90% true to that image, there was always 10% that was terrified.
The Smiths were always political, not in the campaigning way of Billy Bragg or Paul Weller, but in their frame of reference – the writings of Oscar Wilde, Irish Catholic life, their album titles (Meat Is Murder, The Queen Is Dead), the daily grind of life. Growing up in working-class Manchester, Marr says, being political was instinctive. “It was just part of your mindset, because you felt you were up against it, and the right wing was the minority but controlling everything. Somebody gave me Arguments For Socialism by Tony Benn, and I discovered that what I just thought was decency was a political position. You look after people who are less fortunate, and anyone who does otherwise is just fucking ghastly. By definition, being an alternative musician back then, you were political.”
Did he and Morrissey have similar politics? “Yeah, we did back then.” And now? “I wouldn’t expect so. Probably not.” In recent years, Morrissey has made headlines for suggesting that immigration is compromising British identity; he sued the NME (successfully) for defamation, releasing a statement that “racism has no place in our society”. In a 2010 interview with this magazine, he described the Chinese as a “subspecies” when it came to their treatment of animals. Marr prefers to talk about the days when Morrissey reserved his bile for Margaret Thatcher.
Success soon began to take its toll on the Smiths. Rourke had a heroin habit; Marr survived on a diet of cocaine and booze. His weight dropped to seven stone, but he didn’t worry because all his heroes had been slight. “George Best was small, Marc Bolan was small, Bruce Lee was small. And they were cocky and hyper, so I related to that, and played up to it. When it got really unhealthy it was just part and parcel of being in the Smiths in 1986. I wasn’t thinking, ‘This is great.’ I just never ate.”
- Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian (article published October 29, 2016)
Andy Rourke, Morrissey, Johnny Marr & Mike Joyce
'Crabwalk' - Everything But The Girl
There are several other groups associated with the sophisti-pop movement that had strong punk roots. Kevin Rowland (the Killjoys) formed Dexys Midnight Runners who engineered a more sophisticated audio-visual pop template in the mid-1980s. The Dick Diver Band mutated into Prefab Sprout. Alison Moyet (the Vicars) joined forces with Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode) to create Yazoo. Paul Weller (the Jam) formed the Style Council.
Towards the end of the sophisti-pop movement's first wave, musicians Andy Connell (The Immediates & A Certain Ratio) and Martin Jackson (Freshies & Magazine) formed Swing Out Sister, which pleased Marr no end; a diehard supporter of Manchester City Football Club, Marr enthusiastically embraced the band's compositions 'Forever Blue' and 'Blue Mood'.
Towards the end of the sophisti-pop movement's first wave, musicians Andy Connell (The Immediates & A Certain Ratio) and Martin Jackson (Freshies & Magazine) formed Swing Out Sister, which pleased Marr no end; a diehard supporter of Manchester City Football Club, Marr enthusiastically embraced the band's compositions 'Forever Blue' and 'Blue Mood'.
"Johnny Marr has dismissed rumours of a Smiths reunion after a fan asked for clarification about a rumoured 2020 tour. The rumour, posted on the forum Morrissey Solo, came from a “trusted source” who claimed that concert promoter Live Nation had won the rights to the band’s reunion.
In response to the fan, who said they needed to know the truth “pretty sharpish so I can get a loan and sell everything I own to go to every date”, Marr replied: “Nigel Farage on guitar,” appearing to rubbish the gossip by alluding to the incompatibility of his and Morrissey’s political beliefs. The Guardian has contacted representatives of Marr for comment.
In response to the fan, who said they needed to know the truth “pretty sharpish so I can get a loan and sell everything I own to go to every date”, Marr replied: “Nigel Farage on guitar,” appearing to rubbish the gossip by alluding to the incompatibility of his and Morrissey’s political beliefs. The Guardian has contacted representatives of Marr for comment.
In recent years, Morrissey has made explicit his support for the rightwing, anti-Islam For Britain political party. In June, he reposted a video from a rightwing YouTube channel to Morrissey Solo, which argued that the British establishment was using Stormzy to promote multiculturalism at the expense of white culture.
He has expressed his approval of the Brexit referendum result, and blamed immigration for the loss of British identity. He recently performed in Los Angeles wearing a T-shirt that read: “Fuck the Guardian.” Billy Bragg has said it is “beyond doubt” that Morrissey is spreading far-right ideas.
Marr is leftwing. On his most recent album, Call the Comet, he imagines an alternative society that “resets the ridiculousness of the last few years”, he told the Independent in 2018. Last year, he joined musicians including Ed Sheeran, Jarvis Cocker and Neil Tennant in signing an open letter to then prime minister Theresa May railing against the effects of Brexit on the creative industries.
He is generally tactful on the topic of his former bandmate. In May, he told NME that he wasn’t worried about the impact of Morrissey’s political views on the Smiths’ legacy. “It’s got nothing to do with my world or my life. The songs are out there for people to judge, relate to and hear,” he said. In June 2018, he told the Independent: “All anyone needs to know is that I oppose those views from Morrissey or anybody else.”
Marr is leftwing. On his most recent album, Call the Comet, he imagines an alternative society that “resets the ridiculousness of the last few years”, he told the Independent in 2018. Last year, he joined musicians including Ed Sheeran, Jarvis Cocker and Neil Tennant in signing an open letter to then prime minister Theresa May railing against the effects of Brexit on the creative industries.
He is generally tactful on the topic of his former bandmate. In May, he told NME that he wasn’t worried about the impact of Morrissey’s political views on the Smiths’ legacy. “It’s got nothing to do with my world or my life. The songs are out there for people to judge, relate to and hear,” he said. In June 2018, he told the Independent: “All anyone needs to know is that I oppose those views from Morrissey or anybody else.”
The Smiths split in 1987. Morrissey and Marr have consistently said that they do not want a reunion, and have allegedly turned down million-pound offers to do so. They contemplated the matter during a rare meeting in 2008, though nothing came of it.
In addition to the incompatible beliefs of the group’s two best-known members, the animosity stemming from a 1989 court case in which drummer Mike Joyce sued his bandmates for a greater share of profits would also appear to impede a reconciliation."
In addition to the incompatible beliefs of the group’s two best-known members, the animosity stemming from a 1989 court case in which drummer Mike Joyce sued his bandmates for a greater share of profits would also appear to impede a reconciliation."
- Laura Snapes, The Guardian (article published November 7, 2019)
Johnny Marr & Morrissey
'Breakout' - Swing Out Sister
There's a biopic of Morrissey that I've not seen. It's called 'England Is Mine' (2017) and is directed by Mark Gill.