Morrissey Is Now The George Jones Of Alt Rock

Dear Morrissey Ticketholder:

We regret to inform you that the remaining dates of the Morrissey U.S. North American tour have officially been pulled down due to medical reasons, including the rescheduled date here in Clear Lake at the Surf Ballroom (Wednesday, March 27th). The singer has suffered a series of medical mishaps over the past few months including a bleeding ulcer, (Syd) Barrett's esophagus and double pneumonia.

Despite his best efforts to try to continue touring, Morrissey has announced that he will not be able to continue on the rest of the tour. The show will NOT be rescheduled and refunds will be processed this week. All ticket and seating refunds will be credited to the original method of payment used for the initial purchase.

Thank you for your ticket purchase!

P.S. Now would be a good time to remind readers that it really doesn't matter since it would never top this show anyway.

Don't Kill The Messenger: Johnny Marr Comes With His First Solo Album While Moz Cancels First Iowa Appearance (Again)

For the second time, Morrissey has postponed his intimate date at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, in what would be the former Smiths' frontman first appearance on Iowa soil.

The first postponement last October came after the Mancunian's mother fell ill. The most recent announcement after the singer's own health took a turn for the worse after a bleeding ulcer caused him to back out of a number of dates, including the strange booking at the legendary venue, nearly 54 years after Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper played their last performance just prior to perishing in a plane crash shortly afterwards.

I'll admit, the entire date seemed a bit surreal, but now the godz of rock have intervened and said "No. This performance will not take place now and a rescheduling will be in order."

Meanwhile, former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr says "Hey! How the fuck do you do?!" with a first ever solo release called The Messenger.

Photo Credit: Carl Lyttle

Of course, you have to wonder if Marr is better suited for a band contributor role rather than out front- I mean, it's been decades now, so why are we just now getting around to a solo record? One has to wonder about the entire need of it.

But here's some of the inbox press stuff that came with the announcement, along with the obligatory teaser video, which is automatically going to be nowhere near as good as the video to "How Soon Is Now."

The mesmerizing return of Johnny Marr continues, as the new video for his forthcoming single "Upstarts" is unveiled today at NME.com. The single is the first from Marr's highly-anticipated solo debut The Messenger due out February 26 (Sire/ADA) and available to preorder now via iTunes. Early acclaim comes from The Guardian who states "The Messenger sees him returning to the big tunes and unmistakable, cascading guitar arpeggios that made him the guitarist of his generation." Stereogum agrees, declaring The Messenger "excellent...it's an album that - in both sound and style - hearkens back to Marr's early days." Marr will set out on a solo tour of the U.K. in March. Stay tuned for additional dates to be announced in the U.S. and beyond.

The release of The Messenger marks a significant milestone in Marr's distinguished career. First known for his work alongside Morrissey as the creative force behind The Smiths, Marr has spent the last two decades collaborating with a diverse array of acclaimed bands, including Talking Heads, Pet Shop Boys, The The, Electronic and more. One of the most celebrated and influential guitarists in the history of contemporary music, Marr was a member of the Modest Mouse line-up for 2007's We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200. Similarly, Marr joined The Cribs when they hit the UK Top 10 with their 2009 release Ignore The Ignorant. Throughout this time, Marr earned recognition as one of the greatest guitar players of all time from such outlets as Rolling Stone and SPIN. With The Messenger, Marr continues to evolve as he steps into the spotlight for the first true solo album of his career.

The 12-song collection captures Marr's musical vision exactly as he imagined, featuring his signature guitar and vocals front-and-center on a sound which mixes elements of angular art rock, indie and rock n' roll. The Messenger was written and produced by Marr himself. Based in Portland, Oregon since 2005, Marr returned to the U.K. in early 2012 to commence work on the album. Recorded in Manchester and Berlin, it was mastered at Abbey Road by Frank Artwright who recently collaborated with Marr on the re-mastering work for The Smiths' box set Complete.

Morrissey-Ringleader Of The Tormentors

Who would have thought that by moving to Los Angeles, as in Los Angeles California, Morrissey would have found some kind of prolific inspiration that has enabled him to produce some of his best work of this solo career. “You Are The Quarry” sparked the return of Morrissey to relevance. So what happens when he moves from Los Angeles to Italy? Listen, if he can return to relevance in Los Angeles, then a move to Italy probably won’t detract from his progression. What’s of deeper concern is that Morrissey has reportedly found love in Italy, and as we all know, Morrissey is seldom happy about anything. At least on record.
“Ringleader of the Tormentors” finds Moz teamed up with Tony Visconti and the results are magnificent. Whereas his work with the late Mick Ronson found Morrissey channeling Mick’s glam heritage, this effort with Visconti, the mastermind of some of glam’s most important albums by Bowie and Bolan, finds the team going beyond the genre’s narrow scope. They get a little help with some great orchestration from Ennion Morricone, who is best known as the man who helped score many of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western movies.
Happiness hasn’t affected Morrissey’s outlook much; he’s still as miserable as ever but he’s delivering the morose with lyrics that are more to the point. And the point is this: he has found that in this world of shit, there’s nothing sweeter than love.
“I once was a mess/of guilt because of the flesh” he admits on “At Last I Am Born.” And it’s love that has suppressed his Catholic guilt (to an extent) and it’s love that has finally, metaphorically, transformed him into a….middle aged gay man. Is his sexuality really relevant? I suppose not, but it does explain a lot of things and when you take this into consideration you’ll see that “Ringleader of the Tormentors” is Morrissey at his most honest, his most randy, and his most flamboyant album in his career.
“There are explosive kegs/between my legs” he admits on “Dear God Please Help Me,” one of the album’s most talked about tracks. Whereas on previous Morrissey songs where he sang about restraint, it seems that now he’s ready to let his proverbial load go and is contending with years of religious teachings that made him ashamed of his sexuality. It’s refreshing to hear him backpedaled from the “celibate” tag (which placed him as more of a deity than rock star) and demonstrate that he is, like we knew all along, human like the rest of us.
“Ringleader of the Tormentors” does have a few distractions: “In The Future When All’s Well,” “I’ll Never Be Anybody’s Hero Now” and “To Me You Are A Work Of Art” sound like standard-issue solo Morrissey. They’re the type of songs that make people continue to wish for that never-gonna-happen Morrissey/Marr reunion; there the type of songs that make you wish Morrissey would have tried just a little bit harder to make “R.O.T.T.” into that landmark album that actually rivals the worst of The Smiths catalog.
There are moments when it gets close: “Life Is A Pigsty,” the album’s epic, starts with a subtle groove until finally giving way to a wash of orchestration and bombastic timpani. While repeating the song title over and over, Moz states “In the final hour of my life/I’m falling in love again.” And if this righteous fellow can admit that and continue to challenge his own muse in the process, then all we can do is rejoice in the fact that he finally popped his cherry. Or “kegs” as the song goes.