Cuttings

50 GREAT MANCHESTER ALBUMS From the Buzzcocks to Doves, Britain's second city has unleashed a succession of albums that changed the face of music. Here's your guide to the best of them.... THE DURUTTI COLUMN The Return Of The Durutti Column FACTORY 1979 Cult miserabillst plays super-sad instrumental guitar. For a movement that was meant to be about free minds and expression, punk dogmas were quick to harden. The Durutti Column, aka guitarist Vini Reilly, kicked against them profoundly with nine meditative instrumental pieces, augmented by minimal programmed rhythms and the judicious use of an Echoplex unit, courtesy of producer Martin Hannett. The seemingly improvised results were delicate and melancholic. But there’s still comfort and even joy here. IH JOY DIVISION Unknown Pleasures FACTORY, 1979 Stark and atmospheric - this is their solemn, definitive st...

WHAT DO I GET? Smiths drummer Mike Joyce wanted to be a Buzzcock, but fate had something even more extraordinary in store. Johnny Black discovers an amazing trip with a muted comedown. MIKE JOYCE’S untutored, dynamic percussion gave The Smiths a propulsive core that was as imaginative and eccentric as any Morrissey lyric. He and Johnny Marr, close friends and bandmates long before the formation of The Smiths, maintained an unshakeable friendship until the band's demise. That relationship, however, crumbled in 1996 when Joyce sued Morrissey and Marr in a bitter but successful legal action which secured him a 25 per cent share of the group’s performing-rights royalties. He has recently secured a recording deal for his new band with Birmingham punk songsmith Vinny Peculiar, and is about to begin DJ-ingon Manchester radio station Revolution Active.2. Were you aware of Manchester’s rock heritage when you were young? Not until I was 15 or 16. Prior to that I was...

THE SMITHS IN MANCHESTER Fronted by Morrissey, The Smiths were the most influential British band of the ’80s, creating witty, doleful music that reflected Manchester’s rain-soaked streets and the UK’s industrial and spiritual decline.  isolation In 1985 Nick Kent joined The Smiths on tour. He recalls a band at full throttle and a singer drifting into his own orbit. APART FROM BEING the greatest group ever to rise out of Manchester and the only truly worthwhile thing to have come of age in the appalling ’80s, The Smiths were also the last entity I’ve ever been a giddy-headed unconditional fan of. Their music genuinely changed my life. Between 1982 and 1984 I’d stopped writing: nothing inspired me any more. Then someone in a squat played me the first Smiths album, and it was like waking up from a coma. After the long, uncertain and largely underwhelming years bridging punk with new wave, a...

THE 20 BEST MANCHESTER ALBUMS 1 JOY DIVISION CLOSER Factory (1980) IAN Curtis was beset by health, psychological and personal problems when Joy Division entered Britannia Row studios to record Closer in March, 1980. Their second tour de force was far removed from its predecessor: side two particularly revealed a new, breathtaking, almost supernatural, symphonic music. Painfully honest and unflinchingly emotional, Closer was Joy Division's triumph and Ian Curtis’ personal testament. By the time of its release, he’d committed suicide.  (Un?)intentional parting message to bandmates:  " You take my place in the showdown. I'll observe with a pitiful eye ” (“ Heart And Soul ”)  Highest UK chart position: 6 3 JOY DIVISION UNKNOWN PLEASURES Factory (1979) FOR...

Before I embark on the next stage of this blog, namely posts on concerts I attended with relevant clips, etc, I've taken the opportunity to update the following posts with better quality scans: New Order 1982 Feature Mist 1983 07 23 NME Feature 1983 07 The Face Feature 1984 06 Zigzag Feature 1984 08 23 Radio Times  1985 05 17 Powerhouse Melbourne 1985 11 16 NME Feature 1986 04 12 Sounds Feature 1986 09 06 Sounds Feature 1986 10 04 Melody Maker 1986 10 18 NME Feature 1986 10 Mix Feature 1986 11 The Face Feature 1986 Record Mirror Feature 1987 12 19 NME Feature 1987 12 19 Wembley Arena NME 1988 07 Sky Feature 1988 12 03 Melody Maker 1989 01 07 NME 1989 01 28 "Technique" NME Review 1989 01 28 NME Feature 1989 02 04 NME Feature 1989 04 01 Sounds Feature 1989 07 01 NME Cover Referring to FAC 227 1990 05 NME England Poster 1990 08 04 NME Hacienda 1992 01 Vox Tony Wilson 1993 05 08 Melody Maker 1993 05 Q Feature 1993 05 Q "Republic" Revie...

FROM RUSHOLME WITH LOVE • “I'm working with Morrissey again,” says JOHNNY MARR to his old friends ANDY ROURKE and MIKE JOYCE, thus astonishing the world and adding a new frenzy to the upcoming nostalgia-fest of SMITHS CD reissues. Could it ever be so wonderful again? Will we see the return of the creative team that thrilled our bones and gave Britain its last truly great, guitar-slashing, flower-flouting youthquake? Or has the partnership been renewed for another, more mercenary reason? The NME investigation begins here - firstly with a fan's-eye account of how amazing it felt when The Smiths blossomed through the mid-’80s. JOHN HARRIS and TED KESSLER remember the highs and poll the inspired thoughts of the band’s many indie descendants - from Lush to the Manic Street Preachers. Over the page, JOHNNY ROGAN, author of The Severed Alliance and the world’s premier Smiths-watcher, talks to ex-Smiths Rourke and Joyce, reveals the bizarre machinations that have reunited Marr and Mo...