Cuttings

Exile on Mainstream SMITHS' ears have been ringing all year with accusations of racism (‘Panic’), rockism (two axemen), and sell-out (signing to EMI). 'Shoplifters..' sees them stealing up the charts and now 'The World Won't Listen'. Bring in JOHNNY MARR - guitarist, composer, hirer and firer, producer and committed muso - to answer DANNY KELLY's reservations. Salford lads revisited by LAWRENCE WATSON. In the rest-room of Tony Visconti’s studio beneath the pavements of Soho, Johnny Marr ignores the veggieburger in favour of the trifle, opens a can of lager and settles himself into a settee. A magazine lying open beside him confirms that ‘Shoplifters Of The World Unite’ has crashed into the Top Ten, and through the wall behind him comes the faint sound of laughter - Morrissey, Mike Joyce, Andy Rourke and Stephen Street - and the strains of their next single, mixed without bother this very afternoon . . . These are happy Smiths, Smiths dreamily ironing their ...

The Thoughts of Chairman Marr THE SMITHS have just conquered the Yanks and now go into hibernation to write and record their follow-up album to the chart-topping “Meat Is Murder”. JOHNNY MARR tells a perspiring Barry Mcllheney that it will be a return to rhythm and blues and the music of John Lee Hooker and Elvis Presley. He also talks about Morrissey, Bryan Ferry, Keith Richards and Barry Grant but he only likes two of them. Chairman Marr and guitar snapped by a curious Tom Sheehan THE house that Johnny bought just after Christmas sits some six miles out of Manchester city centre. Up the M56, past the signs for Rusholme and Whalley Range, down a few leafy avenues and suddenly you're there. Smiths drummer Mike Joyce is acting courier for the day and he gets out to open up the gates. Nothing too ostentatious, you understand, but a nice enough place and a million miles away in property values from the Marr family home just 10 minutes up t' road. A few of the local schoolgirls sto...

THE SMITHS 'Panic' (Rough Trade)  Another one I'd been avoiding - frightened of burning my fingers, I suppose. Well, what can I say except that I find The Smiths' music the most sterile, conservative rubbish in the world? Morrissey sells his masturbation fantasies and people buy them. On this one he yelps " hang the DJ " over and over until you want to hang him (the stupid crybaby) by his little toes, from a great height. A very short thrill at two minutes 19 seconds. THE SMITHS: Panic ( Rough Trade ) "Hang the DJ! Steve Wright? Yes! No messing. A stunningly astute critique of pop-culture under late capitalism leads Morrissey to the conclusion that terrorism is the answer. In this he is wrong of course. Individualistic action is no substitute for the action of the masses but at least he is sussed enough to realise that lynching - being a group activity - is superior to those methods of assassination that require a knowledge of technology that is not av...

FOOT IN MOUTH  THE SMITHS: Bigmouth Strikes Again ( Rough Trade ) SANDIE SHAW: Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken? ( Polydor ) HIS LATEST FLAME: Somebody's Gonna Get Hurt ( Go! Discs ) The agony of dreaming you're Sandie Shaw and waking up as the Big Sound Authority! His Latest Flame's debut, Nick Lowe-produced and a huff 'n' puff attempt at 'Georgie Girl' classicism, falters on a female vocal of remarkable horridness. The none-too-special-anyway song would’ve at least had a sporting chance in the larynx of .... Sandie Shaw, but she'd probably be too busy playing footsie with retiring and retired pop king Stephen Patrick Morrissey. We can dispense with her A-side, an airbrushed plod through the cringingly literate nonsense of one Lloyd Cole, and get to the grist, the astonishing flip 'Stephen (You Don't Eat Meat)'. A referential, reverential, not to say downright crawling thing (" you dressed me in your glad rags / you in your gladioli ...

ROCK OF AGES: CLASSIC INTERVIEWS MEAT BLEAT MANIFESTO Those were the days, eh readers? When MORRISSEY made great records and was prepared to lower himself and do interviews. By the late summer of1985 The Smiths hadfirmly established themselves as the most important British band of the second half of the ’80s. As they progresed from critical cult to mass popularity so the sniping (at the band’s stances and Morrissey’s outpourings) began in the music press. Not in these pages, though , as a dewy-eyed DANNY KELLY threw himself at the feet of Chairman Mo and begged him to defend himself. Pictures: LAWRENCE WATSON (link goes to original article)

  THE FURTHER THOUGHTS OF CHAIRMAN MO The hills are alive with celibate cries and that Pope of Pop, MORRISSEY , is still walking on water. Has cheery cherub DANNY KELLY met his match in the misery-gob stakes? Reel on ... let the revelation begin. Unruly boy snapped by DOUGLAS CAPE ON MY WAY to gather the latest thoughts of Chairman Mo, it was clear that the honeymoon between the press and The Smiths had ended. After a period when a thousand hip typewriters clattered in united praise of the Whalley Rangers —the blue-eyed boys, the real thing, the new dawn, the only ones - a calm descended. And, as the band became public property and public faves, new lines were drawn in the ink, new stances struck. Some were reasoned. These took a step back, listened to the music for signs of stagnation (or greatness) and examined the words of Morrissey and Marr for pointers, clues and insights. This was the attitude of the questioningly raised e...