I agree with that, although their (arguably) most famous song, How Soon Is Now? is not such a song, IMO. But songs like Girlfirend in a Coma and Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now certainly are.
I’ll help you guys out. It all sounds the same to me.
Now band together, Smiths and Stone Roses lovers alike, and kill the philistine.
There are many musicians I don’t listen to that I’ve heard off. This isn’t one of them. Thanks for your enlightened opinion and feel free to express it on the way off the nearest cliff.
I have an, um, hazy memory of a very short set by the Smiths at Glastonbury in 1985 - probably the muddiest in history. There was a lot of mud and beercan throwing from the crowd and they were - understandably - not happy about this.
Never watched the show but the beginning of the song has a vague ring to it so I may have heard it flipping through the channels.
How would you compare this group in media visibility to REM or U2?
Much less in the US. The thing is when MTV used to play videos…the 80s…the Smiths were not in their mainstream rotation the same way U2 and REM were.
The giants of alternative rock in the 1980s would be R.E.M. in America and The Smiths, The Cure, and Depeche Mode (more techno, really, but they have a hand in this as well). I would say The Smiths tower over all the other bands. I do love R.E.M. but they didn’t handle becoming the biggest band in the world very well… no great albums, I’d argue, since Automatic for the People. Anyway, one could argue that alt rock was the dominant artistic contribution of the late 80s, and it would be hard to take someone seriously as a fan of popular Anglo-American music if they’d never heard of these bands. Note I didn’t say “like” - heard.
I’ve seen Mozzer twice. Well, no, it’s once. He was supposed to come to Austin and play at the Civic Auditorium supporting Kill Uncle. He just didn’t show, and as pissed as I was, it was funnier watching fey goth kids break down at the news. (Naughty me.) This was '91, before the internet might have gotten the word out.
I actually saw his show in Santa Barbara in '99 or so. Fantastic show, and while a number of fans rushed onstage for a hug, some jumped on the fella a little too enthusiastically, and he disappeared. It took about 5 minutes for us to figure out that he was done for the evening. The band played on quite nonchalantly, as if this was a normal outcome for a Morrissey concert.
I don’t blame Morrissey for buggering off. It’s a fair expectation at a Morrissey show that projectiles will not be coming from the crowd. He’s not exactly G.G. Allin. Would this be a shocker if Barbra Streisand or Madonna went off after this happened? Remember Dimebag Darrell from Pantera got shot by some freak while onstage. I’m sure it’s a fear that many artists have.
While Morrissey does have a contentious relationship with the press (and some people on this board, apparently), and this does fit into a pattern of no-shows over his career, I think the tosser (in more ways than one) should be prosecuted. And certainly, whatever enmity the bottle-thrower encounters post-concert is self-inflicted.
Finally, if you think Morrissey is a depressive suicidal mope, you’ve clearly never listened to his music. Manwich has it pretty accurate, I think. Socially awkward teens in the 1980s listened to Smiths records and realized that yes, their lives were horrible and shitty, but they too could write poems and read Oscar Wilde and get through it all. And there is a great comedic, camp thread throughout The Smiths’ canon. The common musical link between Marr and Morrissey was their shared love of 1960s girl groups, and there’s a lot of that sort of tragicomic lyrical content in the songs.
That explains some of it. I would have remembered both the video and the song if I’d seen it. I dropped cable in the mid 80’s during my college salad days and just never could bring myself to buy it again. I might add “How Soon is Now” to my car’s hard drive. I have just the spot for it next to Sleepy Bird’s “Space and Time”. That song needs a buffer from the harder rock song next to it.
So if someone assaulted you at work by hitting you in the head with a bottle, you wouldn’t mind and keep on working?
Somehow I doubt it.
Having been hit with a bottle while on stage (on my left hand and I am a guitarist) I can testify that it sucks. In my case it was a fight, one guy chucked a bottle at another guy. The guy ducked and I got smacked. That ended our set because a) my hand hurt like hell and b) I was so pissed that I didn’t want to play.
Also, I imagine that the contract has a physical injury clause in it.
Slee
First of all, yeah, I’d mind it. But if I got hit on the top of the head by a half-full plastic beer or water bottle, and thousands of people had spent money to see me and had been looking forward to it for weeks, I’d keep on working. In fact, at most of the places I’ve worked in my life I’d be regarded as a huge wus for even trying to take off work after a minor incident like that.
Anybody remember when Cyndy Lauper injured her ankle climbing the stairs to the stage before a performance? She performed her entire set while seated in a chair and didn’t go to the hospital for treatment until afterward. There’s an old saying among showbiz folk that “The show must go on.” Clearly this putz cares nothing for that tradition or for his audience.
Not knowing the severity of your injury, I won’t comment on what happened to you, but in looking at the video of a half-empty plastic beer or water bottle bouncing off the top of Morrissey’s head, and his manner afterward, I can’t believe he was physically injured at all. In fact, he kept singing and only seemed to notice what happened until two or three seconds later, whereupon he stood up with no trouble at all, said goodbye to the crowd and calmly walked off. Link
IMO, at most he should have taken a short break, the bottle-thrower kicked out or arrested, at the concert resumed thereafter.
He got hit in the eye and if I read the stories about him correctly, he wasn’t in the best of health.
It’s funny that the champion of civility is blaming the victim for being too upset to continue.
One of the reasons I posted a link to the video was to show that he wasn’t hit in the eye. The bottle clearly bounced off the upper side of his head. Also note that he continued to sing for two to three seconds after the bottle hit, and after he stood up he rubbed the upper side of his head. If you were crouching down singing and got in the eye by a half-full bottle of liquid, would you continue singing without flinching, recoiling or otherwiise missing a beat for two to three seconds?
I know that reports said he was hit in the eye, but I think they were more likely the result of a publicist’s attempt to make his exit look more justified. I’m also dubious as to whether the bottle contained beer or water. It looked like water to me, and one of the posters to the Youtube link claimed it was water. So IMO that’s a likely attempt to make it look like the crowd was drinking and growing out of control, thus also making Morrissey’s exit appear more justified.
Actually, civility is something of an issue here. He blew off his entire audience less than two songs into a concert they had paid to see and had undoubtedly been looking forward to. Pretty rude and thoughtless and uncaring of him, if you ask me. He wasn’t injured and was merely pissed (and probably somewhat embarrassed) and decided “Fuck it, I’m out of here!”, said goodbye, and calmly walked off without the slightest concern for his audience or for what should be his obligations as an entertainer.
Unbelievable. Not that I ever took your civility rants seriously anyway, but from now on, I’m going to think of this thread, that you think it’s a-ok for performers to get hit in the head with bottles as long as they send the message “it’s ok, you paid to see me be abused, I’ll entertain you because your money is more important than my head.”
Magiver must not have heard of him because of his shyness that is criminally vulgar.
Melodrama much? :rolleyes:
They aren’t paying to see him abused; they are paying to see him perform! And given that many other artists over the years have performed with genuine injuries as opposed to having been bonked on the head with a plastic bottle–a bonking that didn’t even give him pause or make him miss a note for several seconds afterward–I hardly think his head was taking a back seat to the money his audience paid.
While I understand your incredulousness, your last sentence doesn’t make sense unless there was the idea that his head might have been damaged.
I think it’s more likely that the damage was more emotional than physical. But, as a singer myself, I understand that getting angry and hurt can definitely negatively affect one’s performance. I definitely think it was a good idea to leave for a little bit and try to recoup. And when that doesn’t work, I can understand having to call the show off. I wouldn’t want my fans to get an inferior performance because of some jerk.
The problem, of course, is that they all paid for a performance they didn’t get. Reparations have to be made for that. The entire audience shouldn’t be punished for what one person did.
Per several respondents what’s up with people coming up on stage and expecting hugs from him after the performance. Is this something he used to do?
Re the bottle, even if it did not incapacitate him a performer has the right not to be assaulted when singing. The implicit notion in the attitude that it’s really just good boisterous fun that got of of hand and that he should have shook it off is kind of interesting. If a co-worker comes into my office and for whatever reason, loses their shit, and smacks me with an object upside my head should I shake it off or go home for the day? The expectations we have of what people should put up with for the price of a concert ticket are pretty astounding.
He hasn’t seen himself a proper gobbing and bashin’ in a while, has he … the wank.