Moz stuns Metro! "Ouija", "Hated", "Boxers"
From Ben L. via the
tour page, Chicago Metro
(Feb. 12):
Anyway,
a truly special night in Morrissey history. Here are
a few highlights:
Drum kit rearranged from saying
"Morrissey" to "Semi Sorry". The
first hint that the night was going to be a special
show. Very intimate setting of only 1100 fans.
Operation drum intro not played...rather Morrissey
walks out on stage with a guitar strapped on (!) and
Alain takes the mic. Alain announced each member of
the band finishing with "Morrissey on
guitar!" They promptly switched roles and
Morrissey took over as the and launched into
"Swallow" as the first song.
The second track....drum roll......"Ouija
Board, Ouija Board"!!! Needless to say the
place went crazy.
Other highlights include an outstanding version of
"I Am Hated For Loving" as well as a semi
acoustic version of "Boxers" with Spike
Smith on bongos! ...
Comments / Notes (44)
Buenos Aires, Argentina - Mar. 30, not Apr. 4
From Charles Byron:
I
thought that would like to know that according to
Rock & Pop radio, Morrissey's show is confirmed,
but instead of April 4th, HE will be performing at
the Luna Park Stadium on March 30th.
Unfortunately, they didn't say a thing about when
the tickets will be on sale.
Comments / Notes (15)
"Morrissey Alone", by Glenn Gamboa - Akron Beacon Journal (Feb. 10)
From MozMan:
Since
Morrissey is playing in Akron on Valentine's Day,
the Akron
Beacon Journal ran a nice cover story on him in
its entertainment section on February 10, 2000. This
is the first story of any substance that I have seen
in the Cleveland-Akron area on Morrissey, other than
brief reviews of past concerts in the area.
Morrissey
Alone
No
record deals for Brit who wrote so many great songs
All
men have secrets and here is mine. So let it be
known . . . I believe Morrissey is one of the
greatest songwriters of our time.
As the lead singer of the Smiths and as a solo
artist, Morrissey has crafted some of the most
memorable, moving music in the past two decades --
from the anthem of the disenfranchised How Soon
Is Now? to the encouraging Sing Your Life,
to the melancholy he is best known for in hits like Everyday
Is Like Sunday and Tomorrow.
Sure, it's pretty easy to dismiss him now. Once the
king of the British indie-rock charts, Morrissey now
finds himself without a record company, without a
new album, without a publicity machine.
Despite four gold records and a gold video, he was
dropped from his various record companies after a
series of increasingly failing solo albums that
featured maddeningly average songs collected in
packages that seem more and more exploitative of his
exceedingly loyal fan base.
His current U.S. tour, which stops in Akron on
Monday, isn't to promote a new album -- or anything
new for that matter. It's simply a puzzling string
of dates where he is expected to play equally
puzzling sets culled from both his solo work and his
work with the Smiths.
Why? That's a good question -- one that will likely
go unanswered since he isn't doing very many
interviews these days. His publicist wouldn't even
return calls seeking an interview for this article.
However, come Monday night a couple of thousand of
the Morrissey faithful will no doubt show up at the
Akron Civic Theatre to hail their musical hero. Many
will be screaming, ``Morrrisseeee!'' with the same
reckless abandon that Springsteen fans reserve for
``Broooooce!'' or teen-age girls save for their
favorite Backstreet Boy or 'N Syncer.
They will come bearing gladioluses (once his
favorite flower) and unnecessary hearing aids (once
his favorite accessory), clad in oversized cardigan
sweaters or his more recent all-denim look, with
hair coifed in his unusual modernized rockabilly
style.
Why? That one I can answer.
A unique band
When Morrissey and the Smiths burst onto the
music scene in 1983, it was like they fell from
space.
They didn't look like anyone else.
They didn't act like anyone else.
Most of all, they didn't sound like anyone else.
In the mid '80s, early in the Reagan-Thatcher era,
most music was slick and synthesized. The charts
were packed with dance pop from Michael Jackson and
Prince and stylish Englishmen like the Police and
Duran Duran weaving tales of the hip, lush life.
The Smiths did the opposite.
While most musicians focused on being smooth
operators, urging fans to follow them to the
Promised Land of Cool, the Smiths did songs like Accept
Yourself with lines like ``When will you accept
yourself? I am sick and I am dull and I am plain.''
They championed Oscar Wilde. They called for the
figurative beheading of Margaret Thatcher. They
mourned murdered children, urged knowledge of
nature, encouraged poetry and bemoaned a lack of
love.
Morrissey's lyrics appealed to the bookish and the
shy, to outsiders of all sorts, while guitarist
Johnny Marr's jangly riffs and the Smiths' bouncy
rhythm section kept the songs from being maudlin.
As Morrissey sings ``I am human and I need to be
loved,'' in the band's best-known hit How Soon Is
Now?, he sounds defiant and demanding in his
plea.
At the beginning of the Smiths' climb to the top,
Morrissey was militantly vegetarian, fiercely
British, unwaveringly celibate and so outspoken on
any topic that he was a lightning rod for
controversy. He handled it all with intelligence,
humor and disdain and a simple message: It's OK to
be different.
Welcome message
That was a message I needed to hear as a
minority teen-ager growing up in an overwhelmingly
white suburb, as a working-class kid trying to make
his way at an upper-middle-class high school.
That was a message that many fans of Morrissey's
music needed to hear at various points in their
lives for various reasons. I have friends who became
vegetarians because of Morrissey, friends who came
out of the closet because of his music, friends who
got through their divorces by listening to him.
They are not alone.
Nearly every Smiths fan has a story about how the
music affected him or her. In the book All Men
Have Secrets, Smiths fans from around the world
write about their favorite songs and how those songs
changed their lives.
They all give reasons why his fan base is still so
loyal today, even though he hasn't had a real hit in
nearly a decade.
In the past five years, Morrissey has had it rough.
The songs aren't nearly as sharp as they used to be,
leading to disappointing sales and the eventual
dismissal from his record contract. He lost a major
legal battle over royalties with former bandmates
Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce. After the British press
became relentless in their questioning of his
various statements, he exiled himself to Los
Angeles.
However, Morrissey may be changing that. He is
fielding deals for a new record contract and working
on new songs for a new album.
He does have his supporters in the industry. After
all, much of the current crop of British rockers owe
at least part of their sound to the Smiths.
With his considerable talent, Morrissey could turn
his career around with a single song.
And he has a whole fan base ready to welcome him
back with open arms.
Glenn Gamboa is the Akron Beacon Journal's pop music
writer.
Also appearing in the
Akron Beacon is 'I
am human and I need to be loved' - Top 10 Morrissey
One-Liners.
Comments / Notes (9)
Detroit 'culture' rag on today's show
Metro Times link
from Dan Klyn:
Focault
y'all
Morrissey's last solo effort was a commercial
meltdown, with U.S. fans and critics seemingly
unaware of its very existence. So there may be a
little pressure on this U.S. tour to make up for a
serious memory gap going all the way back to
"The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I
Get," the nominal "hit" from 1994's Vauxhall
& I. But, though it may be a bit hard to
find, the aforementioned latest recording, Maladjusted
might be a great place to reacquaint yourself with
Moz. Easily his most regal and overtly political
album to date, the 1997 record was a strong thematic
synthesis of the Mozzer character sketch: The
ambivalent-yet-romantic outsider poking at the tired
moralist fascism of England, a country which eats
its young and kills the innocence of youth in favor
of imprinting its version of the real man / woman
onto the consciousness of the population. Or, for
you academic types: Michel Foucault meets Oscar
Wilde in postwar England for a bitter (yet platonic)
homosexual experience-- plus guitars. Clearly
stated, moving, fun, funny and, it goes without
saying, over the top, Maladjusted saw the
Sinatra of our generation call his listeners back to
the edge of the stage for one more swooning gasp at
an alienation as deliberate and beautiful as it
perhaps has ever been. If he decides to show up this
Sunday, the pleasure and the privilege will surely
be ours. Morrissey plays the State Theater (2115
Woodward Ave., Detroit) this Sunday. Call
313-961-5450 for more info.
- Carleton S. Gholz
Comments / Notes (7)
Morrissey traded on the Hollywood Stock Exchange
Price as of this
posting: H$17.69. From Ellie:
Keep
up with Morrissey's stock value, according to
Hollywood types with too much time on their hands...
The Hollywood Stock
Exchange lets you buy and sell your favorite
movies, actors and musical artists, while earning
Hollywood Dollars that translate into prizes. I have
$203,170 saying his stock is going up due to this
tour.. a new cd? I'd be rich...
Here is the link
to Morrissey's profile.
Comments / Notes (12)
"One name" Morrissey in the National Post
From Monty Clift:
Morrissey
was mentioned in today's (Saturday, February 12)
NATIONAL POST in a brief article about "One
name" movie stars, models etc.
"[...]When
it comes to women there is Oprah, Madonna, Cher,
Liza, Whoopi, Alanis, Sade, Mariah, Celine, Shania,
Whitney, Aretha, Diana, Evita and Ellen. In the late
1980s and early 1990s there were the supermodels:
Naomi, Cindy, Linda, Claudia. Then you have the men:
Stallone, Schwarzenegger, DeNiro, Pitt, Cruise,
Gibson, Cage, Eastwood, Spacey, Morrissey, Jagger,
Bowie, Warhol, Spielberg."
Comments / Notes (3)
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* return to Morrissey-solo |