Cuttings

WAKE ME WHEN IT'S OVER The Manchester scene is press-created, shallow, turgid, "a shuddering disappointment". Dance music has destroyed everything, it's "totally shocking and revolting". You are Morrissey and 1991 is becoming a nightmare... STORY BY MARK KEMP Sitting at a table in the lobby of Manchester's famed Midland Hotel, a stately red-brick building on Mosley Street where C S Rolls and Henry Royce first met in 1904 to talk luxury automobiles, Morrissey is sipping herbal tea and feeling just miserable. That's nothing new, of course, except that today he has a physical, tangible reason for it. "Today?" he asks, raising his prominent eyebrows, dubious of the initial line of questioning. "Well, let's see. Today I've been suffering slightly because I've had a terrible bout of flu, which can't be of any interest to anyone at all." He puckers his lips to one side, forming an understated - and presumably uninte...

SAUCERFUL OF SECRET SWEETIES THE SMITHS Hatful of Hollow ( Rough Trade ) Would you like to marry me? When Morrissey pops the (metaphorical) question, what can you actually say to the Thin Boy? Pour scorn on his bewitching lines and scoff in the face of his musical eloquence? Or submit and offer to buy the ring?  Before scrawling an answer in black ink across a bared chest, it might pay to heed a tidily-packaged and attractively-priced (16 tracks for £3.99) assortment of singles, B-sides and Radio One sessions. Similar in style to Elvis Costello's vital 'Ten Bloody Marys' compilation, 'Hatful Of Hollow' is a golden hour of The Smiths, spasmodically spanning a period of 18 months from their early John Peel and David Jensen broadcasts up to their most recent single 'William, It Was Really Nothing'.    It is a patchy, erratic affair and often all the better for that. A song like the maudlin epic 'Reel Around the Fountain' that was later fleshed out...

SOME MOTHERS DO 'AVE 'EM A Gentleman At Leisure: the NME enters the Chelsea mews of one MORRISSEY, and what an accommodating fellow he is. How is life? One enquires, and receives in return impudence, tales of ordinary madness and insults to the Crown! And where pray, is that damn Smiths LP? Interview: IAN PYE. Photograph: LAWRENCE WATSON. THE DOOR was ajar. Why not, I thought, and walked in. The flat appeared to be arranged on more than one floor and finding nobody on the first I climbed the stairs to the second. In the distance I could hear the maddeningly addictive chorus of a song that had recently become a personal favourite. " Some girls are bigger than others, some girls' mothers are bigger than other girls' mothers ." The words, hypnotically, repeated over and over. Making my way down a long corridor discreetly decorated with oatmeal-carpet and gilt framed oil paintings, I became aware of another noise, equally consistent, but cruder. The sound...

LAUGHTER IN PARADISE! Paradise is Morrissey's Manchester where he's looking for a deep gutter to lie in. But as he dismantles British society and declares 'The Queen Is Dead', at least he shows an hysterical sense of humour to GLYN BROWN. Acres of smiles by PETER ANDERSON. DO YOU want to be an unhappy person? "No, but I do feel that in an absolutely perverted and unacceptable way I've benefitted, really benefitted , from being quite a dour character. I've benefitted. It's like the wheelchair celebrity syndrome. "The other thing is, I can predict, without fail , if someone is going to turn out evil and nasty. When I think a mood or a temperament is wrong, something awful happens. Although I don't know if it's the force of my willpower." Like a sixth sense? " Could I be that gifted? Could we stand it if I was that gifted?" We couldn't stand it if you weren't. "Oh! Oh, aha ha ha ha HA! No, no, the world ...

MORRISSEY COMES OUT!  (FOR A DRINK) Shock! Horror! Girls throw themselves at his feet! Luridly manicured skinheads fling bouquets! Europe quivers beneath his majesty! MORRISSEY talks to the NME ! As his tumultuous tour juggernaut hurtles toward Britain, the man who launched a thousand Angst letters waxes lyrical (natch) to an awestruck STUART MACONIE about adoration, boot boys, Smithology, rockabilly and patriotism. But not James Dean or that bloke in Electronic. He’s ‘frighteningly happy’ and working with ‘the best musicians’ of his life. Gobsmacked at such David Icke-style revelations? Then read on. . . Recent developments: KEVIN CUMMINS From the look of things, reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated. He sits casually on a bar-stool, sipping large glasses of Pils and smiling. He’s an unmistakable figure, even though there are certain unusual accoutrements; the beer, the magenta nail varnish, the T-shirt, with its garish illustration of legs ending in half-mas...