Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Do nothing for as long as possible.

My responses were the Specials, The Stone Roses (who I've just realised also did nothing for as long as possible by releasing nothing between One Love in June 1990 and Love Spreads in November 1994), Underworld and Sandals with Leftfield. Brian and Peter's Oblique Strategy proved to rich pickings from the Bagging Area readership with a bumper comments box of responses- Brian (not Eno) suggested Black Flag, Swc came up with Notts post- punkers Do Nothing, Ernie suggested Elton John's Song For Guy, Khayem had multiple songs (John Cage, Orbital, Richard Norris' long running Music For Healing, and Love Is All), Anonymous proposed Andrew Ridgeley and Wham!, Rol went with Simon Armitage's Scaremongers, Beerfueledlad gave us Spacemen 3, C turned off her mind, relaxed and floated downstream with The Beatles, Dan went for Fugazi, Jase suggested The Beach Boys and Chris went for Stasis by Force Of Angels. 

This week's card is this- Use 'unqualified' people.

I didn't have much of an immediate response to this Oblique Strategy, I had to let it percolate for a while. If by unqualified it refers to musical training and qualifications, I'd guess that the majority of people who make the music I listen to are unqualified, at least in terms of formal musical training. Many musicians are self- taught, many of the vocalists who stand up in front of a microphone are several years down the line before they get any vocal training or singing lessons. I'd guess that there's a decent number of people I listen to who have some educational qualifications despite the ongoing pop culture suspicion of education. Punk made a virtue out of being unqualified- being able to play and having stayed in school and gained O Levels were seen as/ portrayed as un- punk. 

In 1977 The Nosebleeds released a 7" single, Ain't Been To No Music School. After a burst of classical music at the start we get a couple of minutes of very 1977 punk, fast and thrashy, shouty vocals, lo fi production. 1977 Mancunian punk. 

Ain't Been To No Music School

It probably wouldn't be of much wider interest if not for who was in The Nosebleeds (formerly Ed Banger and The Nosebleeds) and what they went on to do. Ain't Been To No Music School is the first recorded output of Vini Reilly, the pale young guitarist from Wythenshawe who went on to form The Durutti Column, a key Factory act and a huge Bagging Area influence and favourite. Vini co- wrote the song and the B-side (Fascist Pigs) with Ed Banger. Both Vini and Ed left The Nosebleeds after the single's release. Vini and the first version of The Durutti Column would also come to an end fairly abruptly and if it wasn't for Tony Wilson's intervention, pushing Vini into a recording studio with Martin Hannett, we might not have heard much more from Vini either. 

The drummer on this single incidentally was Philip 'Toby' Tomanov, also from Wythenshawe, who played with Linder Sterling's band Ludus and on The Return Of The Durutti Column after The Nosebleeds demise. He would also play in Martin Hannett's Invisible Girls and drummed for Nico (who lived in Manchester during the 1980s), John Cooper Clarke and Pauline Murray. In 1988 he joined Primal Scream and played on I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have, the song that Andrew Weatherall remixed into Loaded. Toby drummed on both Screamdelica and Give Out But Don't Give Up. 

The Nosebleeds continued for a while without Ed and Vini, a certain Stephen Patrick Morrissey arrived as singer and one Billy Duffy joined on guitar. There were two gigs and then The Nosebleeds split up in May 1978 but both The Smiths and The Cult have their origin stories in The Nosebleeds. Morrissey had his own views on education and the qualifications system and on The Smiths' second studio album he took his revenge on the Manchester schools and the 'belligerent ghouls' who ran them in the late 60s and early 70s . Given what he's become, it's probably best to remember him this way.

The Headmaster Ritual (Live on Spanish TV, 1985)

Punk and post- punk saw qualified/ educated musicians form bands as well as unqualified- for every Steve Jones (in his memoir Lonely Boy he tells of rarely attending school and leaving with nothing and says he was functionally illiterate until into his 40s) there's a Green Gartside (Fine Art, Leeds Polytechnic). Joe Strummer, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon all went to art college- Simonon and Jones met there, Simmo regularly pinching oil paints and brushes off the students from wealthier backgrounds. The Gang Of Four formed when the members met at Leeds University. Jon King, the group's singer, has been interviewed at two friend's music blogs this week, Plain Or Pan here and The Vinyl Villain here, to promote the publication of his autobiography in paperback, out shortly. 

To Hell With Poverty! is a key Gang Of Four song, scathing and frantic,Andy Gill's overloaded guitar feeding back and sounding like a siren, with rumbling but danceable post- punk bass and King's vocals, an anti- capitalist celebration of getting drunk on cheap wine while waiting for the giro to arrive. 

To Hell With Poverty!

It's telling that Eno and Schmidt's card puts 'unqualified' in inverted commas- unqualified for what? Maybe it suggests that in the studio the band should go and find someone from outside to contribute, someone who is not from the band, an unqualified outsider. I started to think of the guest appearances on songs and albums by people who might be seen as unqualified for the part just by being external. Johnny Depp appeared on guitar with both Oasis and Shane MacGowan (the latter on Top Of The Pops in 1994 with The Popes doing That Woman's Got Me Drinking). 

In his memoir Sonic Life Thurston Moore talks about arriving in the mid/ late 70s New York scene and how creativity was far more important than technique or training, that being unqualified is no object if you have ideas and the desire to do something. This is what keeps inspiring people to have a go, the idea that anyone can step up, plug in and have ago. It's the basis of most outsider pop music since the 50s really- the 60s art school bands, the punks, 80s indie, acid house, many of the groups and bands in the 90s, all very much making the art of the unqualified. 

Feel free to drop your own responses to Use 'unqualified' people in the comment box. 

Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's card said 'Disconnect from desire'.

Disconnection from desire came via Gala, The Beastie Boys and Scritti Politti. From the Bagging Area readership pool, Ernie was in first with Alessandro Moreschi, L. Braynstemmmmm suggested Kraftwerk's Computer Love, Rol offered Claudie Frish- Mentrop and Expendables' Man With No Desire and Jase gave us Sinead and I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. Chris also offered Sinead's second album and suggested the Apple Brightness Mix of I Am Stretched On Your Grave which has a sample of How Soon Is Now buried within it.  

This week's card said this- Breathe more deeply.

Good advice. Useful for dealing with stress, increasing mood and focus. 

In the studio breathing more deeply could be interpreted as an instruction to let the music breathe, to slow it down, leave more space between the notes, focus on what you're not playing as much as what you are. It makes me think of Basic Channel, the Berlin techno duo who made dub- techno so minimal, so stripped down that it almost became something not music- just pure sound, a breathing exercise. 

This one is fifteen minutes long and from 1994. The dull thud of a muffled kick drum, a ball of barely there static, a repeating synth sound. Inhale exhale.  

Quadrant Dub I

I also thought of this from Deanne Day, a mid- 90s pseudonym used by Andrew Weatherall and David Harrow on three 12" singles. D and A. Andrew had dropped out of view a little post- Sabres, a choice to shun from the bright lights and the greasy pole. Blood Sugar was a deep house/ dub techno night he put on and Deanne Day fits in very well with that sound- kick drum, hiss of hi hat, lots of space, that vocal sample, 'I can hardly breathe', and a bassline to groove to. Another nearly fifteen minute long track.

Hardly Breathe

Inhale exhale. Calm in repetition. 

Later on the vocal becomes, 'When you stand there/ When you stand naked/ Looking at you'. Less calming perhaps. 

The synths swirl, the drums drop out, the bass bumps away, the snare rattles. A few minutes later (and nothing happens in a rush in Hardly Breathe, everything plays out for bars, unfolds in its own time) a long two note chord moves in. 

Andrew had a thing when making records around this time, as Deanne Day or Blood Sugar. There could only be four elements going on at once. If you wanted to add a new sound, you had to remove one. It kept it minimal and focused. Restrictions as a creative tool- which sounds like an Oblique Strategy. 

Feel free to make your own Breathe more deeply responses into the comments box. 

Nothing's Changed I Still Love You

We were in a bar in Sale recently, early evening, fairly quiet, one of those new type of bars set up in a former shop unit. There were a few customers/ drinkers scattered round the edges of the bar, couples and a small group of friends. The bar staff (all ridiculously young) were busying themselves and selecting songs from an iPad. One of them cued up this song and as Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce crashed in, building to that micro- second pause before Morrissey starts singing it seemed to inject a jolt of electricity into everyone in the room. At several tables people were singing along or mouthing the words.

Stop Me If You Think That You've Heard This One Before

Johnny's guitar playing is immense, clanging and melodic, indie- glam played on a twelve string Gibson which gives it that huge sound and Morrissey, well, we don't like to talk about him any more do we but the lyrics are among his best, witty and clever, memorable and tailor made for singalongs. Famously it was lined up to be a summer 1987 single but the Hungerford massacre and the song's line about a 'shy, bald Buddhist' reflecting and planning a mass murder jinxed it- the BBC said they wouldn't play it and Rough Trade went for I Started Something I Couldn't Finish instead. Johnny also nails a guitar solo, something not many Smiths songs contain.  

Johnny is a big fan of the song, playing it live with his band- he did it when I saw him at The Ritz a few years ago. This clip is from The Tonight Show.

What Do I Get Out Of This?

Wythenshawe Park, 70 acres of green, open space in South Manchester with a 16th century half- timbered hall and statue of Oliver Cromwell at its centre, played host to a 30, 000 capacity gig headlined by New Order on Saturday. Nadine Shah who kicked things off in fine style, her band playing repetitive, crunching post- punk/ indie rock with Nadine's theatrical, huge voice the c point.  Greatest Dancer from this year's Filthy Underneath was a highlight, booming out in the late afternoon sunshine. Having spoken passionately about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, she spends the last few minutes of the final song screaming the word 'ceasefire' into the mic as the band kicked up a glorious racket, before leaving the stage to squeals of feedback. 

Roisin Murphy is on shortly after, a singer with connections to Manchester- she lived here during the late 80s and early 90s. Her set is a well honed and highly entertaining forty minutes of dance music and costume changes, Roisin the queen of Wythenshawe Park. 

One outfit has her wearing a massive oversized, square biker jacket, another a black top hat and robes with a life size model of a baby on a necklace which she ignores until the instrumental break at which point she stands centre stage cuddling it. Later on she is bedecked in a giant, head- to - toe red frill. Her songs sound equally impressive, Moloko's The Time Is Now getting a rework and Incapable from 2020's Machine both stand out, the latter a long extended disco- house groove. Sing It Back is fused with Murphy's Law and she closes her set by sauntering through Can't Replicate and then having a huge amount of fun with an onstage camera that is feeding directly onto the big screen behind her, finishing with an extreme close up of the inside of her mouth.

Incapable

Local lad Johnny Marr takes the stage at 7.30, the venue filling up. Johnny grew up round here- 'Wythenshawe Park, Saturday night', he says between songs with a rueful grin. Johnny and his band are on it from the start, electrifying and plugged in to the crowd, playing eleven songs that span his career, from The Smiths to Electronic to his solo albums. Second song in he plays the clanging riff that intros Panic and we're putty in his hands. Generate is sparky post- punk pop. This Charming Man sends the crowd into a spin, dancing and singing the words from a song he wrote with a man from Stretford forty years ago back at him. 

In the middle of the set he switches to acoustic guitar and plays Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want, a long finger picking introduction before singing it very sweetly. I have a bit of a moment during this song, tears and everything, something that has been happening to me a gigs since Isaac died. He follows Please, Please, Please... by introducing another Wythenshawe lad, 'the king of the Wythenshawe guitarists' according to Johnny, Billy Duffy to the stage and they drive into How Soon Is Now, Billy finding space for a Cult- like guitar solo as Johnny and the band shimmer and surge through the song.

The final pair of songs are equally crowd pleasing- first Electronic's 1989 single, the sublime pop of Getting Away With It (Bernard doesn't appear to sing this with him alas) and then the mass singalong of There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, a song that despite the doom- laden lyrics with death arriving by being crushed by ten ton trucks and double decker busses, is a song of optimism and survival, an anthem for the young and not- so- young everywhere. 

Getting Away With It

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

Prior to New Order's appearance DJ Tin Tin raises the temperature with a set of songs, played from a table and decks set up at the front of the stage with A Certain Ratio's It All Comes Down To This sounding great as the sun went down. Then, five minutes of dry ice, films of gymnasts and divers and orchestral music pave the way for New Order. It's dark by now, the lights on, the stage dramatic and dark, as Bernard walks to the centre and straps on his guitar. The venue is rammed by now. We have a spot down the front to the right. They open with Academic from 2015's Music: Complete and then go into Crystal (the highlight of 2001's Get Ready, a post- reformation song that showed they still had what it takes). The crowd have come from near and far. Half of Manchester seems to be here, teenagers and sixty- somethings. The two young men next to us have flown in from Cologne specifically to see New Order who according to our new German friends 'never come to Germany'.

From there, the next run of songs is close to perfect. All the idiosyncrasies, fragilities and temperamental equipment of 1980s New Order are long gone- this is a fully fleshed out, massive sounding hits machine with backing projections, smoke and lasers. Regret. Age Of Consent. Ceremony with Gillian switching from keys to guitar. Isolation, a Joy Division song containing one of Ian Curtis' darkest lyrics set to urgent, pummeling electronic post- punk. Then, slowing things down slightly, Your Silent Face. They play a couple of recent songs (Be A Rebel, the song with the most un- New Order song title ever) and then a superb, sky- scraping Sub- culture, 1985's Lowlife song/ single, the instant hit of the keyboard line, Stephen's drums and Bernard's words about 'walking in the park when it gets late at night' and having to submit filling Wythenshawe's space completely. 

Sub- culture

Bizarre Love Triangle (possibly their greatest single) seguing into Vanishing Point (possibly their greatest album track) and True Faith (again, possibly their greatest single). Blue Monday. Temptation (possibly... oh you know). It's all about the songs and the feelings they provoke. 

The encore is a Joy Division mini- set, Ian's face projected onto the screen behind them, the presence that is always hovering somewhere around the band. Atmosphere. Transmission. Love Will Tear Us Apart. 

Transmission (Live at Les Bains Douche, December 1979)

They've come a very long way since crawling out of the wreckage of Joy Division, from their faltering debut as New Order at The Beach Club in Withy Grove to this massive gig at Wythenshawe Park. They've made groundbreaking records, done it their own way, survived record company collapses, bankruptcy, the demolition of nightclubs, deaths, break ups and fall outs. Tony Wilson once said that Joy Division/ New Order were 'the last true story in rock 'n' roll'. It felt that way on Saturday night in a way, more than just a big gig, a band and an audience who have grown up together, whose songs mean so much to each other and who had come home. 

I Can't Tell You Where We're Going

On Saturday there's a big gig taking place in Wythenshawe Park, a venue not very far from me at all. I keep swearing off big, outdoor, festival style gigs and then finding myself eating my words. The gig on Saturday is headlined by New Order. My first gig post- Covid was New Order at Heaton Park. I loved it. New Order are now an efficient hits machine with everything that entails. I would love it if Peter Hook was still the bass player. I would love it if they were they were still the temperamental mid- 80s band with unreliable equipment who refused to do encores but those days are gone, we are all much older and seeing New Order play Temptation and True Faith in a field not far from home. Yes, it's very tempting. See you there.

True Faith (12" Remix)

To make it even more tempting New Order are supported by Johnny Marr. Johnny grew up literally across the road from the park, it's as close to home for him as it could be. I saw Johnny Marr at the Ritz a few years ago and lots of people I know have seen him since. He plays Smiths songs and Electronic songs. He's one of the good guys. Johnny is a genuine hero- he has been since the mid- 80s but there is a much closer to home reason too. Back in the early 2010s, when Isaac attended a local SEN school, the then Tory council tried to take away the bus transport service for children with special needs- in the name of austerity. Some of the parents, us included, formed a group to protest and to keep this vital home- school transport service for children and families, who really needed it. We had a protest planned outside Trafford town hall when it was due to be debated, a dark night in February. We arrived with banners and placards. Not long after we arrived a familiar figure walked out of the car park. Johnny Marr turned up to support us (his niece attended the same school as Isaac). I had a chat with Johnny and let's be honest, he can spot a fan when he sees one. When the TV cameras arrived Johnny did his bit for the local news programme. We got ourselves in position on the steps, ready to be filmed protesting. I had a chant planned. I mentioned it to Johnny. He started it off and we all joined in- and that is as close to writing a song with Johnny Marr as I have got to date. Johnny then came into the council chambers with us all and sat through proceedings. For that reason, and a million others, Johnny Marr is a bit of a hero. 

We won by the way. Fuck the Tories. 

This is a dub mix of How Soon Is Now by Dubweiser, a beautifully clunky, totally unofficial, end of the night, smoke in your eyes and flashing lights dub mix of The Smiths finest B-side.

How Soon Is Now (Dub Mix)

If Johnny Marr and New Order weren't enough inducement to head to Wythenshawe Park on the bank holiday weekend, the third act on the bill is Roisin Murphy. Back in 2021 Crooked Man remixed all of Roisin's Machine album, bending an already dancefloor fixated record into completely new shapes. Sheffield, Manchester, Ireland and Ibiza, all locked into one big loop. 

Crooked Madame

Andy Rourke

The awful, sad news yesterday that Andy Rourke had died of pancreatic cancer aged just 59 stopped me in my tracks. He was a local lad, growing up in Ashton on Mersey just up the road from here and in bands with Johnny Marr from a young age. Johnny recruited him for The Smiths. Later on he lived in Chorlton and was a regular in various pubs and bars there and in town. He always seemed like a lovely man. The Smiths hit me hard in the 80s, c1986, and still can when I hear them now, songs and performances first heard in my teens that can cross the decades and drop me back in 1987, a bequiffed seventeen year old with The Queen Is Dead, Hatful Of Hollow or Strangeways blasting out of my bedroom ghettoblaster. 

Whatever the importance of Morrissey and Johnny Marr to the band there's no doubt, whatever some might say, that the other two, Andy and drummer Mike Joyce, were absolutely essential to their sound, their image and their songs. Andy's bass playing is propulsive, melodic and dynamic, much more than just a bass player following the root notes and playing with the drummer. By the time Meat is Murder came out the band were stretching out musically and the basslines and the bottom end are as important as the words and the guitars. On this session version of Rusholme Ruffians Andy's rockabilly bassline opens the song and provides the twang and the railway rhythm. 

Rusholme Ruffians (Peel Session)

Meat Is Murder is a full sounding, urgent, wide ranging album. On Barbarism Begins At Home, while Morrissey yelps and Johnny riffs, Andy is playing a lead funk bassline ripped from New York's discos and relocated to south Manchester, at the heart of the song and a million miles from the jingle jangle their detractors claimed they were (and never really were anyway), as this live version of Barbarism Begins At Home in 1984 at Queen Margaret Union in Glasgow makes perfectly clear. 

Barbarism Begins At Home (Live at QMU) 

This two song set from The Tube in April 1987 lives long in the memory, the late period Smiths in full flight, Sheila Take A Bow and Shoplifters Of The World Unite- and don't they look great. 

Andy Rourke RIP. 

Won't Make Love To Change Your Mind

Soho's Hippychick, a 1989 and 1990 single that eventually became a hit in 1991, is a lovely collision of various different aspects the second half of the 80s- a political lyric born of Thatcherism, the miner's strike, the police and the wider left wing causes of that decade (anti- apartheid, CND, the poll tax) coupled with an instantly recognisable sample by the 80s most celebrated indie guitar heroes and a crunchy Soul II Soul breakbeat. 

Soho, formed by Tim London (Brinkhurst), his girlfriend Jacqueline and her identical twin sister Pauline, wrote Hippychick as a blues but their drummer/ programmer Dukey D transformed it with the sampling of Johnny Marr's guitar riff from How Soon Is Now and the welding of that shuffling, kinetic drumbeat. The lyrics are from the viewpoint of a woman arrested at a demonstration by a policeman who happens to be her boyfriend and her telling him that it's over- 'I stopped loving you since the miner's strike'. It's an instant piece of dance pop with plenty of good lines and a lot of fun. Back in 1990 the sudden appearance of that guitar riff could cause dancefloor mayhem, the indie world and the dance world slamming together, and you can only imagine vindicated Johnny in his view that leaving The Smiths to make dance music was the right decision (and he got 25% of the song writing royalties).

Hippychick

The group were visually arresting too and their 1991 slots on Top Of The Pops were a riot of day glo colours, bouncing around and white denim/ long sleeved tees. Rather touchingly I read somewhere recently that Tim and Jacqueline finally got around to getting married last year. 

Billy Bragg Writes

Billy Bragg posted this on Sunday, a powerful and fantastically well written piece about Morrissey and his dangerous association with the far right, white supremacist propaganda and racist ideology (also taking in Stormzy, Brandon Flowers, Johnny Marr, Donald Trump, Rita Tusingham, The Smiths and culture generally). I can't find anything in it to disagree with.

'Last Sunday, while much of the British media were lauding Stormzy’s Glastonbury headline show as epoch defining, Morrissey posted a white supremacist video on his website, accompanied by the comment ‘Nothing But Blue Skies for Stormzy...The Gallows for Morrissey’. The nine minute clip lifted footage from the grime star’s Pyramid Stage performance while arguing that the British establishment are using him to promote multiculturalism at the expense of white culture.

The YouTube channel of the video’s author contains other clips expressing , among other things, homophobia, racism and misogyny - left wing women of colour are a favourite target for his ire. There are also clips expounding the Great Replacement Theory, a far right conspiracy trope which holds that there is a plot of obliterate the white populations of Europe and North America through mass immigration and cultural warfare.

My first thought was to wonder what kind of websites Morrissey must be trawling in order to be able to find and repost this clip on the same day that it appeared online? I came home from Glastonbury expecting to see some angry responses to his endorsement of white supremacism. Instead, the NME published an interview with Brandon Flowers in which the Killers lead singer proclaimed that Morrissey was still “a king”, despite being in what Flowers recognised was “hot water” over his bigoted comments.

As the week progressed, I kept waiting for some reaction to the white supremacist video, yet none was forthcoming. Every time I googled Morrissey, up would pop another article from a music website echoing the NME’s original headline: ‘The Killers Brandon Flowers on Morrissey: ‘He’s Still A King’. I’m well aware from personal experience how easy it is for an artist to find something you’ve said in the context of a longer discourse turned into an inflammatory headline that doesn’t reflect your genuine views on the subject at hand, but I have to wonder if Flowers really understands the ramifications of Morrissey’s expressions of support for the far right For Britain Party?

As the writer of the powerful Killers song ‘Land of the Free’, does he know that For Britain wants to build the kind of barriers to immigration that Flowers condemns in that lyric? Party leader Anne Marie Walters maintains ties with Generation Identity, the group who both inspired and received funds from the gunman who murdered 50 worshippers at a Christchurch mosque. How does that sit with the condemnation of mass murder by lone gunman in ‘Land of the Free’?

As an explicitly anti-Muslim party, For Britain opposes the religious slaughter of animals without the use of a stun gun, a policy that has given Morrissey a fig leaf of respectability, allowing him to claim he supports them on animal welfare grounds. Yet if that is his primary concern, why does he not support the UK’s Animal Welfare Party, which stood candidates in the recent European elections?

Among their policies, the AWF also aim to prohibit non-stun slaughter. If his only interest was to end this practice, he could have achieved this without the taint of Islamophobia by endorsing them. They are a tiny party, but Morrissey’s vocal support would have given the animal rights movement a huge boost of publicity ahead of the polls.

Instead, he expresses support for anti-Muslim provocateurs, posts white supremacist videos and, when challenged, clutches his pearls and cries “Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me”. His recent claim that “as a so-called entertainer, I have no rights” is a ridiculous position made all the more troubling by the fact that it is a common trope among right-wing reactionaries.

The notion that certain individuals are not allowed to say certain things is spurious, not least because it is most often invoked after they’ve made their offensive comments. Look closely at their claims and you’ll find that what they are actually complaining about is the fact that they have been challenged.

The concept of freedom pushed by the new generation of free speech warriors maintains that the individual has the right to say whatever they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want, with no comeback. If that is the definition of freedom, then one need look no further than Donald Trump’s Twitter feed as our generation’s beacon of liberty. Perhaps Lady Liberty should be replaced in New York Harbour with a colossal sculpture of the Donald, wearing a toga, holding a gaslight.

Worryingly, Morrissey’s reaction to being challenged over his support of For Britain, his willingness to double down rather than apologise for any offence caused, suggests a commitment to a bigotry that tarnishes his persona as the champion of the outsider. Where once he offered solace to the victims of a cruel and unjust world, he now seems to have joined the bullies waiting outside the school gates.

As an activist, I’m appalled by this transformation, but as a Smiths fan, I’m heartbroken.

It was Johnny Marr’s amazing guitar that drew me to the band, but I grasped that Morrissey was an exceptional lyricist when I heard ‘Reel Around the Fountain’. Ironically, it was a line that he had stolen that won my affections. “I dreamt about you last night and I fell out of bed twice” is spoken by Jimmy, the black sailor, to his white teenage lover, Jo, in Sheila Delaney’s play ‘A Taste of Honey’

The 1961 movie, starring Rita Tushingham was an early example of a post-war British society that would embrace multi-racial relationships (and homosexuality too). By pilfering that particular line for the song, Morrissey was placing the Smiths in the great tradition of northern working class culture that may have been in the gutter, but was looking at the stars. Yet, by posting a white supremacist video in which he is quoted as saying “Everyone prefers their own race”, Morrissey undermines that line, erasing Jo and Jimmy and all those misfit lovers to whom the Smiths once gave so much encouragement.

A week has passed since the video appeared on Morrissey’s website and nothing has been written in the media to challenge his position. Today it was reported that research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a UK based anti-extremist organisation, reveals that the Great Replacement Theory is being promoted so effectively by the far right that it is entering mainstream political discourse.

That Morrissey is helping to spread this idea - which inspired the Christchurch mosque murderer - is beyond doubt. Those who claim that this has no relevance to his stature as an artist should ask themselves if, by demanding that we separate the singer from the song, they too are helping to propagate this racist creed'.

Johnny Marr's set at Glastonbury seemed to be, at least partly, an artist and a crowd revelling in reclaiming those songs from the damage the lyricist has done to their memory, a celebration of outside culture and what The Smiths meant- Bigmouth Strikes Again, There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out- and what they can still mean. But still, with every sentence Billy writes above, the songs are tarnished further. 

This re-edit of How Soon Is Now by Maceo Plex will probably annoy the purists but would I imagine sound pretty great chucked into the midst of a DJ set, possibly pitched down a tad. Can't imagine Morrissey's a fan.

Hand It Over

The Top Of The Pops repeats are up to 1987 now which is making for some pretty awful episodes. Last week though the run of bands to keep your finger on the fast forward button came to an abrupt halt with The Smiths in all their glory miming to Shoplifters Of The World Unite (the episode was first broadcast on February 5th 1987).



The Smiths wouldn't survive 1987, splitting up in the summer after Marr took a holiday, but they sound imperious on Shoplifters. The slow T-Rex riff, the swampy groove and Marr's guitar solo sounded wonderful back then (and still do now). We're going to have to leave to one side everything Morrissey has said in the 21st century and concentrate on his performance here- the double denim and Elvis/Smiths T-shirt, his gyrating dance- unique and then some. His lyrics for Shoplifters are something else too. No one else would have or could have written these words (or borrowed them from other sources and stitched them together). The final verse for example...

'A heartless hand on my shoulder
A push and it's over
Alabaster crashes down
(Six months is a long time)
Tried living in the real world
Instead of a shell
But before I began
I was bored before I even began'

This is the instrumental demo version from that Smiths bootleg that regularly does the rounds on the internet. 

Shoplifters Of The World Unite (Instrumental Demo)

In April they were back on Top Of Pops with another non-album single, Sheila Take A Bow. They also travelled up to Newcastle to perform Sheila and Shoplifters live on The Tube (and it turned out to be the last time they'd play in front of any audience). The idea that something like this could be broadcast on Friday at teatime seems incredible now. Truly, they were different times....

How Soon Is Dub

You may think that the recorded works of Morrissey, Marr, Rourke and Joyce are so sacrosanct that they shouldn't be mucked with. I don't as it happens, I'm more than  happy for people to rework and remix almost everything and anything if it's done well. Plus, seeing as Morrissey sees fit to spew shit all over his legacy there's no reason why the odd bootlegger and remixer shouldn't (and given his 'all reggae is vile' comment back in the 80s this seems even more fitting). This is a dub version of How Soon Is Now, using the original track, especially Johnny Marr's wonderful guitar parts, and adding the dub elements in increasingly as it rides on. As a bonus there's precious little Morrissey involved in it too.

How Soon Is Now? Dubweiser Remix

The Lowlife Has Lost Its Appeal

Many words have been written recently on blogs about Morrissey and his views in interviews and pronouncements. His statements on all sorts of political and social issues are starting to stand in the way of the music, becoming a barrier to being able to listen to the songs. Not his solo career, which is patchy anyway, but the songs made by The Smiths between 1983 and 1987, which are among the finest made by anyone at that time. So, to try to counter that here are a couple of songs from the early days of the group. If you try hard enough, switch off from now, and allow yourself to listen properly, be immersed in the music of Marr, Joyce and Rourke and words of Moz, you can block out the shite and be transported.

These two songs, both from their early days have a busy, clattery, garageband quality. Morrissey's lines in Jeane come straight from kitchen sink drama while Marr finds space to play rhythm and lead, the repeated circular riff sparkling. The Smiths recorded their debut album with Troy Tate but then dropped almost all the recordings, switching to John Porter. Only Jeane and the Tate mix of Pretty Girls Make Graves survived as official releases. Jeane was the B-side to second single This Charming Man.

Jeane (Troy Tate Mix)

Recorded for a Radio 1 David Jensen session in June 1983, These Things Take Time was one of Morrissey and Marr's earliest songs, with some ear-catching lyrical lines and ringing Rickenbacker guitar lines. I think the John Porter produced version is probably superior but there's nothing wrong with this.

These Things Take Time (David Jensen Session)

Still

Johnny Marr looks the business in this photo- the black barnet, drainpipes, denim jacket and white shirt buttoned all the way up (from The Smith's appearance on the Oxford Road Show). As does his songwriting partner next to him, but Marr's look was always a bit more streetwise.

Johnny's been promoting his new solo album with his band, playing the 6 Music red button thing this week. I haven't got Playland yet so can't comment. But the version of Still Ill was first rate.

Still Ill (6 Music session)

Still Ill is a reminder of what an inventive guitarist he is (and he wrote it aged about 18) and also of how stunning Morrissey's early lyrics were. This song has more great lines than some people manage in an entire career- 'I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving, England is mine and it owes me a living' for starters. And whatever your opinion of Morrissey it is sad and unpleasant that he has been having treatment for cancer.

Getting Away With It was Electronic's masterclass of a first single. Marr and his band played it live at Maida Vale. Opinion seems to be split on this live version but I think it's alright. Watch it quick, these red button sessions have a habit of being taken down.

Klactoveesedstein

Blue Rondo a la Turk were a briefly hip bunch of baggy suited, jazz-funkateers from the early 80s who unwittingly paved the way for the likes of Matt Bianco. I'm not sure I've ever heard anything by them until recently. Jazz-funk was pretty low on my list of interests in 1982, aged 12. And it has been ever since really. They were mainly known to me as the band The Smiths supported at their very first gig at The Ritz and almost every account of The Smiths' rise uses Blue Rondo a la Turk as symbolising the old guard and old ways about to be shoved aside by Morrissey and Marr with their faded Levis, quiffs, flowers and Rickenbackers.

Blue Rondo's 1982 album Chewing the Fat has been released on cd for the first time with a second disc of extras, the main draw for me being the Andrew Weatherall remix of Klactoveesedstein (or Klacto Vee Sedstein, I can't work out which it is). I downloaded, legally I should add, the Weatherall  remix a couple of weeks ago. I keeps the ooh-ooh-ooh-oh-ah vocal part and turns the jazz-funk down and machine-funk up, adding an upfront bassline, pretty good really if not as earthshattering as some of Lord Sabre's recent remixes. I can't find a listen only or streaming version of it on the net, no Soundcloud or Youtube file, and seeing as it only came out in the middle of June I don't think I should share it as an mp3 yet. But you can buy it at the usual digital places for 79 pence/99c if you're an avid Weatherall head. Instead, here's the original.

Klactoveesedstein

Lord Knows It Would Be The First Time

This American TV performance of Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want is a beaut. I saw Johnny and his band at The Ritz back in March and the reviews have been gathering pace and praise ever since that tour. Johnny turned 50 at the end of October as well. Looks well for it doesn't he?

This was a cover of a Rabbit MacKay song, a 60s hippie anthem, for a compilation lp from a few years ago and is one of the best things Johnny has done solo. Especially the guitars.

Tendency To Be Free

I've Read It In Books

Nice aren't they? This is The Teardrop Explodes (co-written with The Bunnymen, when they all got on. Hated each other but got on).

Books (Zoo Records Version)

You Gotta Believe

Explorer and pioneer Sir Ernest Shackleton, second left in the dark jumper, led the Endurance and its crew into the Antarctic in the winter of 1915. They were trapped by ice and lost the ship. Camping on the ice floe and in a twenty foot lifeboat they survived and were rescued in the August of 1916. Without a single man lost. That, reality TV show contestants, is a back story.

Explorer and pioneer Lovebug Starski began work in 1971 as a record boy and by 1978 was playing a key role in the nascent hip hop scene in New York djing and later producing and making records. he had a regular spot in the rooftop roller rink in Harlem during the 80s and made this record in 1983, which somewhat surprisingly was one of the key influences on Johnny Marr when he was recording How Soon Is Now? with The Smiths in 1984.

You Gotta Believe (12" Instrumental)

I'm not saying the two men's experiences were comparable. It just amuses me to put them together and I've got to do something to keep this whole thing blog thing interesting.

There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out

The good people at Google's Blogger service have deleted The Vinyl Villain today- not just a post, the entire blog. Two and half thousand posts, over six years work, gone into the internet wind. This is a cause of great sadness and of a lot of righteous anger. The record industry still can't see that music blogs are places that promote music and therefore the sale of music. They see us as the enemy. Important message to the music industry- we are actually helping you; you are going down the drain really fucking fast and we are helping you to stay alive, because we love music too. 

There's a post at Drew's place and a long comment conversation about it you could have a look at. Thankfully JC (The Vinyl Villain), an inspiration to a lot of music bloggers including this one, has fired up a new Vinyl Villain. You can find him here (and in the links below to the right). Pop in, say hello and offer your support if you like.

Marred

Last month Mrs Swiss and I went to see Johnny Marr at the Ritz (the Friday gig, first of two). We had a good night out, got out together (which doesn't happen very often), had a few drinks, saw a living legend. I later tweeted...

'Johnny Marr played the Ritz tonight. It was great. Crowd were a bit flat early on. Typical Mancs. Great encore. Cheers. Goodnight.'

Someone asked me recently if I enjoyed it and said I seemed a bit like I hadn't. I did enjoy it- Johnny and the band were really good- the songs off the new album worked really well live and he played several songs I've been waiting two and half decades to hear him play (I never saw The Smiths). Second song in was London, one of my  favourite Smiths songs, and it rocked. He did Forbidden City, one of my favourite Electronic songs. Bigmouth. The encore included a great garage-y version of Getting Away With It, How Soon Is Now and finished with There Is  A Light. Other than The Queen Is Dead and Get The Message what more could I want?

What spoilt it a bit, as I think my tweet hinted at was the crowd and looking at the photo above it seems like there was absolute mayhem. The Ritz is a great venue, smallish, sprung dancefloor, good sound, bars on both sides. The crowd wasn't all middle aged Smiths fans, but a mixture of those/us and younger folk. There is a problem at The Ritz that curfew is 10 pm because it turns into a nightclub afterwards, which means an early start, so less build up and expectation maybe. For the first few songs we stood two-thirds of the way back. In front of us were two couples. The two men talked to each other all the way through the songs, occasionally turning to look at the stage between songs and provide light applause. Their female partners watched the gig but these two youngish men (twenty something I guess) nattered all the way through. Between two songs I said (loudly) that there are good places for chattering, they're called pubs, but it made no difference. Why would you spend £20 on a gig ticket and pay no attention to the performance. After a while we moved further forward, much nearer the stage where it was much better. Behind me then stood the tallest man in Manchester (and I'm not exactly a short arse), who filmed almost very song on his mobile phone, straight over the top of my head. Now I have been known to look at this type of footage on Youtube and often it's a poor reminder of what a gig was like but sometimes it's worth watching. Equally I've taken the odd photo. But filming something at length with your phone instead of watching it happen seems as daft as talking all the way through. You're not in the moment. The Yeah Yeah Yeah's tried to put their feet down about this recently, Jarvis Cocker made the same point and Ian Brown admonished people at Warrington Parr Hall last year for 'making a film when you're missing making a memory'.

I guess as well as the above, several gigs I've been to recently have been utterly memorable with complete audience participation and attention throughout- The Roses at Warrington was crazy from front-to-back, people almost in tears, dancing and complete elation, Justice Tonight and Half Man Half Biscuit (both at The Ritz) were full on, Heaton Park as well (and that was 70, 000 people in a field although admittedly I don't know what it was like at the back). Sometimes Mancunian audiences can be a bit 'arms folded, come on then impress us' but Johnny Marr at a homecoming gig? So maybe I've been spoilt. I don't go to enough gigs anymore to know for sure, certainly I don't go to enough small gigs by up-and-coming bands. My brother-in-law says he won't attend anything bigger than a few hundred now, as the atmosphere at anything bigger always suffers. It can't be realistic to expect every show to be a life-changing spectacle, so maybe I should alter/lower my expectations. But audiences, and this is a familiar gripe I think, don't always contribute positively and mainly need to put their phones away and shut the fuck up when people are playing.

The Draize Train (Live 1985)

Friday Night Is...Off To See Johnny Marr Night

As I mentioned last weekend. But I'm looking forward to this, so I've suspended the rockabilly for this week (and Johnny was always a rockabilly fan). The gig's at The Ritz which is a real Manchester homecoming too as it was the venue for the very first Smiths public performance thirty years ago. This song features Morrissey, Johnny, Andy and Mike early on, from the aborted Troy Tate sessions for the first Smiths album. It turned up on the I Started Something I Couldn't Finish single in 1987, suggesting someone in the band realised late on that those Troy Tate sessions were scrapped hastily. Or they'd run out of B-sides.

Pretty Girls Make Graves (Troy Tate version)

Pretty Girls Make Graves has loads of great Morrissey lines in it- I particularly like 'She wants it now and she will not wait, but she's too rough and I'm too delicate'

In 2010 Johnny recorded an all-guns-blazing cover version of Rabbit MacKay's Tendency To Be Free, with all the proceeds going to homeless charity Centrepoint. You can get it here for the princely sum of 99 pence. I heartily recommend that you do- it's ace. Rabbit MacKay's original was from the 1969 biker film Angels Die Free...

Marr

I got tickets to see Johnny Marr at The Ritz next March today. The Ritz has become Manchester's best gig venue, although the curfew's always too early- I missed the start of both Justice Tonight and Half Man Half Biscuit by misjudging my entrance at The Ritz. By coincidence (or not) he's appeared on Radio 2 with Dermot O'Leary, interviewed and performing live (a new song New Town Velocity and The Smiths' Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want). UK listeners can listen here. There's also a stream of another song off his forthcoming the Messenger lp here, a song called The Right Thing Right.