The Smiths

Excerpt:

Eighties-loving misanthropes will find comfort in David Fincher’s “The Killer” knowing that the assassin revenge thriller is almost exclusively soundtracked by The Smiths — when it’s not thrumming with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ ominous score.

Michael Fassbender plays a near-sociopathic contract killer, unencumbered by conscience or any moral scruples, whose carefully composed world starts to spin off its axis when he accidentally kills the wrong person on a hit job in Paris. He’s a yoga-doing, almost Zen-like murderer for hire whose unreliable perspective the movie situates us directly within — and that includes The Killer’s love of English rock band The Smiths. Hits like “How Soon Is Now?” and “Bigmouth Strikes Again” are often...

Further to the tape image - here's a clip from the unheard gig:



(Note: now a full, correct setlist for posterity).

40yrs later: things still surfacing - amazing.
Thanks to Mitch / Mishmash Records.
Regards,
FWD.

How The Smiths' Irish tour turned incendiary - Documentary On One

In November, 1984, The Smiths' lead singer Morrissey praised the IRA for an assassination attempt on Margaret Thatcher and turned their upcoming Irish tour into a political storm.
Louder Than Bombs is the story of a tour like no other.

Below, programme maker David Coughlan writes for Culture about this week’s Documentary on One production.


Written piece (with lots of historical images) to accompany the podcast - stands on its own as an article.
Worth a read.
Regards,
FWD.

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Related item:

• "Louder Than Bombs: The Smiths in Ireland, Nov '84" - RTE 1 Radio Documentary on The...

Update:
(August 18, 2023)
Now available to listen to via:

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RTE 1 Radio Documentary (Ireland)
Sat 19 Aug, 2023
14:00
Documentary on One
IT'S time the tale were told about The Smiths' November 1984 tour of Ireland. One that involves paramilitaries, politics and nine gigs over 10 chaotic days.



An alternative title I heard mentioned is, Louder than Bombs. These documentaries are usually available for playback here -


(Also listed for the same day, later on RTE 1 TV, at 11.45pm, is a film premier of madcap Irish vampire comedy Let The Wrong One In, which may somehow relate too)

[URL...

COVER STORY: THE SMITHS
Forty years on, MOJO revisits the sounds and the stories of a watershed band’s explosive arrival. “My brother said, ‘What kind of music is it?’ Funk? Punk… folk… rock?’” recalls drummer Mike Joyce. “I said, ‘I can’t describe it.’”

MOJO #359, October 2023 - The Smiths.

COMMEMORATING 40 YEARS since they burst onto the music scene and in tribute to their abundantly talented, recently departed bassist Andy Rourke, MOJO returns to 1983 to relive the freshness and wonder of The Smiths and their reinvention of guitars. Also in the issue: Bob Marley – live, intimate and unseen; the incomparable Sinéad O’Connor; Gram Parsons’ Americana visions; Tony Visconti – a life in knob-twiddling. Plus: Hawkwind; Pulp; The Bee Gees; Bridget St John; Blake Mills; Pretenders; Yoko Ono; Neil Young; Herb Alpert; OMD; Paul Rodgers; The Coral; Betty Davis and more!

THIS MONTH’S COVERMOUNT CD is You’ve Got Everything Now! – an indie rock blow-out starring The Sugarcubes, The...

This one escaped me, but here are the items and hammer prices for various relevant lots. The trend is definitely upwards for prices.

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SMITHS - THE BOY WITH THE THORN IN HIS SIDE - ORIGINAL MASTER TAPE.



A boxed reel of Ampex Grand Master 456 audio tape on a 10.5" reel, with contents to include an original recording of 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side' made by The Smiths at Drone Studios, Manchester in August 1985. The recording on this tape lasts for approx 3.21 and the recording likely differs slightly from released versions, which will have undergone further mixing/mastering. The reel also includes a demo recording by Lisa Stansfield as well as incidental music created for a television show.

Provenance: the vendor was present during the recording session and was later given the tape reel following the closure of the studio. This item is sold as an artefact only, without copyright. Any reproduction is...

It’s forty years since the Smiths released their first single ‘Hand In Glove’. We’ve already seen a slew of articles on the anniversary, and the clichés about this most singular, most wonderful pop group are doing their weary rounds yet again. The Guardian tells us that the Smiths are incredibly influential. But this is sadly not so. I don’t hear any influence, not a note, in anything that’s followed.

‘Over the past 40 years, you can see their aesthetic and spiritual influence in everyone from the Stone Roses to Oasis and the 1975,’ they tell us. If only! Those bands are derivative, certainly, but of the Smiths? Guitars and the North of England aside, it’s hard to imagine greater artistic gulfs. The comparison between the emotional open wound of the Smiths’ output with the 1975’s immaculately hollow, precision-tooled-for-Spotify tunes is laughably wide of the target. I strongly suspect you could remove the Smiths from history, and those bands – and pop music in general –...