Remember The Name! Paul Morley!

I don't know what he should call it.

My Day Out?

But what should Morley's telly book be called?

Me and My Telly?

No.

Paul Telly?

No.

Oh, I know:

Morleyvision!

So, not football.

Morleyball!

Beach Morleyball!

Mor-Ley Vicar

FWIW he should do a house makeover show before that bubble burts.

Morley should continue to write about music. But perhaps only once every five years.

Morley remenices about benidorm in 1978.

*(allegedly)

That's a future large-scale blog project of mine; reviews of all the albums in his two "110 albums for people who think Kid A is weird" lists 'cos I've got 'em all heheh.

Donnie is right about Mark Lamarr.

(Dods -- what he has done to upset me is detailed around the end of the Paul Morley: C/D thread. But he can't have utterly upset me, for, look, I started this thread about things that he should do.)

this book should be written by paul morley and the pinefox to undermine the caricatures of pop stars encountered in the bridet jones diary and high fidelity, or possibly another hornby novel. it should give a sense of what is right about the caricatures but say more.

I am not sure which pop stars Youn wants Morley and me to write about.

Last night I came up with a Morley title but it has flown.

Also, there is still Barclays Bank to be written, to complete the Southampton Row trilogy.

Hooray!

Last line the best here:

Ricky Gervais, comedian
Ever Decreasing Circles
(BBC, 1984)

No one talks about this series now. I know why. It's because the writers, John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, didn't do laugh-out-loud, roll-around-the-floor comedy. But it's so engaging, it's so gentle, and Richard Briers is fantastic as the man whose leafy, cul-de-sac world is turned upside down when Paul, a smoothie, moves in next door. Martin Bryce: even his character's name's perfect - so normal, so suburban. The themes are those great concerns - a man's house is his castle, fear of change. And it's about how the boring bits in life are funny too. The show's like a warm bath. It's your pyjamas. If you're watching Ever Decreasing Circles, the world's all right.

The last in the current series of Extras is on BBC2 on Thursday at 9pm.

Paul Morley has become Tony Slattery in my mind's eye.

Paul "Moreley" on Rock Movies is...oh Janis Christ just stop it. He needs to come down to Poptimism one of these months, for the sake of his own health.

I think I was having a conversation about this with someone at Poptimism - saying that I ended up in hospital as a result of moving my record collection, serves me right for thinking I had to have, for instance, 20 Harry Nilsson albums!

Doesn't Morley realise that his canon - which is essentially the same canon he's been pushing for the last 30-odd years - is as bloody stultifying as whatever he's been paid to go on about? Yawn, yawn, three albums by Can, yes we know, there are things happening now, Morley, what do you reckon to those?

He's really turning into Ian MacDonald.

I cannot comprehend why Bertolt Brecht, the most influential playwright of the 20th century is largely ignored by British theatre.

I cannot comprehend why you made that statement!

why do i always think that paul morley is the blue nile dude?

Paul Morley: stfu

conclusion: Batman is a bit like The Joker, in a way. No shit.

He wasn't gwreat on Batman. Nor was anyone else.

At least he repped Unthank for the Mercury.

Apart from that, his best moment was probably saying that West Side Story was like TOP CAT, though perhaps he should have said ... BOSS CAT.

Here's what he's still doing:

11.00pm Newsnight Review

Kirsty Wark hosts a special extended programme looking back at the cultural highlights of 2008, with guests Michael Gove, Paul Morley, Julie Myerson and Ekow Eshun.

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/culture/2013/03/tunnel-visions-krautrock-underground

for any manchester ilxors, dave haslam interviews morley about his new book (on my birthday no less): http://www.facebook.com/events/119449738244203/

Friday, 14 June 2013 18:30

To mark the publication of ‘The North (And Almost Everything In It)’, the renowned writer/broadcaster Paul Morley will be reading from the work, discussing his ideas, life, and career with Dave Haslam, taking audience questions, and signing copies of ‘The North’.

Details & tickets (£7); http://bit.ly/ZTANr9

TICKETS ON SALE >>>> Wednesday 20th March 9.30am

Paul Morley’s work as a journalist and broadcaster has done much to shape and define Manchester music; his work at ‘NME’ championing Joy Division in the late 1970s in particular. But his life and career have taken numerous other intriguing twists, including his A&R and marketing role in Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s career. His relationship with his father, who committed suicide, is explored in his book ‘Nothing’ and his Joy Division writings are collected in ‘Piece by Piece’. His views on music feature heavily in the pages of The Observer and the Guardian and on Newsnight Review.

‘The North (And Almost Everything In It)’ is a mix of memoir, social history and cultural observation in which Paul explores his own, and our sense, of what it is to be Northern.

Gorilla. 54-56 Whitworth Street West. Manchester, M1 5WW
Doors at 6.30pm, event starts 7.30pm

So Morley had the first Walkman in London. What does he want, a medal? Applause for still breathing?

Everything he writes or says these days invariably degenerates into a snooze-inducing list, and it's always back to the seventies and Manchester and Patti Smith and Ramones because actually he can't write about anything else. Or, if he can, he's afraid to do so. Except when he goes all goo-goo whenever he's in the same room as Bono. Eventually it makes one wonder how good he actually was in the first place.

Except that 'Words and Music' was about Kylie Minogue and many other things which had nothing to do with the seventies, Manchester, Patti Smith or The Ramones. 'Nothing' was about his father and this new book sounds like it's pretty wide-ranging. Morley has his obsessions, sure, but I don't see how he differs in that from someone like Iain Sinclair for example. And reading him write out those obsessions can be pretty interesting tbh. The guy can write.

Marcello otm. On another ILX thread, Stevie T wickedly, but accurately, compared David Thomson to a footballer whose legs have gone. I feel the same way abt Morley, explaining what Krautrock is to New Statesman readers in 2013. Perhaps Trevor Nelson should read it.

Eventually it makes one wonder how good he actually was in the first place.

Except, when it *was* the seventies/eighties, he wrote about plenty else. I get the impression he writes what he's asked to write about.

.. nowadays.

Words And Music was ten years ago; probably his last gasp. Since then it's been filtered nostalgia over and over.

What made Morley such a good writer back in, say, ’77-82, was that he had the knack that very few writers have – he was being read by probably hundreds of thousands of readers back then (or at least tens of thousands) but was still able to make you, the reader, feel that he was writing or speaking just to you. Moreover, he had the gift of coming up with and expressing a thought or belief about an artist or piece of music that you, the reader, had probably just thought of at the same time. You’d think it, and a moment later, or a week later, he’d say it in ways that had never even occurred to you. He was able to connect with the reader in a very direct and important way.

But now I think his writing is mostly to do with fear; fear of all those young ‘uns on the internet coming up and outwriting, outthinking, outwitting and outdoing him, taking his livelihood from underneath him. And so he has become more prickly and defensive, as in “why SHOULDN’T I write or think this?,” with the subtext of “youngsters, do you know what I’ve even BEEN through?” As a result his writing is now rather oppressive and dispiriting to read. Ranting about internet writers taking people away from “traditional skilled gatekeepers” as he was in the Observer a few years ago, just makes me smile at the steamroller irony and wonder: well, just because you knew what time it was 30 or 35 years ago doesn’t mean you know what time it is now, or why it is the time that it is. He’s become decadent and crusty – at least David Thomson realises his own predicament as a writer and film commentator and tries to figure out why he thinks It’s All Over. Morley just seems to wallow in it, and probably enjoys doing so.

I like this guy quite a lot and enjoyed all 4 previous books but can't argue with words & music as a last gasp (the snappily-titled joy division: piece by piece: writing about joy division 1958-2008 would be the epitaph) at least as far as music writing goes. After that he just comes across as such an Old Dude in a really unappealing way. I avoid all his articles about music now. New one looks good though!

After what you said a while back, I thought I'd track down a copy of "Ask (The chatter of pop)", only it's very xpensive on ebay, etc.

Anyways, one day I was clearing out the dark recesses of the garage, and there it was!

It's being 'pressed flat' at the moment, will get to it in a couplpe weeks...

Don't know I agree with very much of it now - except when it concerns the mechanics of the music industry (could have been written last week, etc.) - but I have referred to it quite regularly on TPL of late, probably because both are now in the same era.

I don't really know what Krautrock is. I realize it must be German. I don't really know a lot more about it. But I have heard a bit on Youtube after reading the Morley article. Peter Miller sent me the links. He likes CAN.

re what Morley does or doesn't, should or shouldn't write about, now:

--

Jerry the Nipper and I have decided that Paul Morley should not be allowed to write about music any more.
But we want him to continue writing, on other topics. What should they be - and, importantly, in a Paul Morley sense, what should they be called?

― the dreamfox, Monday, September 13, 2004 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel that he should pen a bagful of wee essays on objects, or places, or experiences, in contemporary Britain. Maybe they should all happen on one day.
I don't know what he should call it.

My Day Out?

― the chimefox, Monday, September 13, 2004

Don't see that would work - I'd give him three paragraphs before he started banging on about Peter Hammill, or Howard Devoto, or his dad, again.

I found ask for cheaps in a charity shop! I wasn't around when he did all his "legendary" writing & so know him foremost as the guy who wrote that nutty book that tried to be about kylie & everything else at the same time. So I don't have that generational investment where like David peace is calling morley "our Walter Benjamin"(!) But yeah ask was a hoot. There's a sense that you also get with lester bangs's more combative interviews, like POP IS FAILING ME, and the poor hapless musicians are baffled as to what is being ASKed of them, and the reader is a bit "dude aren't you projecting just a little?" But it's fun.

Basically, in those days you were OK with Morley if you acted like Anthony Blanche out of Brideshead Revisited.

Never much liked Morley's writing, but I have no problem with nostalgic writing about pop.

You'd have to be in your 70s, realistically, to remember a world before Elvis. You'd have to be in your 80s for your tastes and conception of pop culture not to have been shaped by the Elvis world. The vast majority of pop consumers view pop nostalgically – only a tiny fraction take a keen interest in what is happening in the world of pop today. That means, necessarily, that the character of much pop writing has had to change. Being on top of things matters far less than it used to, because you are far more likely to win readers with THIS WAS THE BEST than THIS IS THE BEST.

great point.

third the love for ask here.

seems morley is underrated (unacknowledged?) as a speaker. his conversation with dave haslam a couple of years back, about ztt, tony wilson, etc was genuinely gripping. fascinating ideas and theories tumbling out all over the place. similarly, his talk last year about this 'the north' book. i wasn't that interested in the content but the way he speaks, the rhythms and turn of phrase had me thinking about it for days

Pretty much everyone OTM here. Except Marcello.

A few years as an inspiring enfent terrible or whatever, two or three great books and a good amount of dabbling in other interesting things - that's a better career than most writers could hope for.

Thought this thread would be about the legendary American chess player Paul Morphy. I guess I didn't remember the name.

Ask is a great book if you haven't read it for awhile. Reading it now there are just so many lazy assumptions on the writer's part that you end up feeling sorry for the poor sods who get the rough end of his pen because they haven't perfected the CORRECTEST way to say or do things or more probably because Morley didn't fancy them (see the Marilyn chat-up and for that matter the Boy George chat-up pieces).

Even if he was only in his early twenties he must have known that a lot of what he was saying was utter bullshit. The Wham! piece; let's laugh at the kids because they haven't perfected their bon mots. WTF did he want, Frederick Raphael?

Sounds like it was as 'wrong' in it's way as "The Boy looked at Johnny"

I think both books prove that good writing can sometimes be an obstacle in the sense that what it's saying is almost entirely wrong-headed, but because it's brilliantly written, it gets taken as gospel.

A lot of what PM has to say in Ask is still very relevant and very vividly put, but the interviews read more and more like - well, not bullying, but trying to get musicians to be something that they're not, and possibly could never be, except in PM's mind.

Yeah, trying to get "Howard Jones" to agree to Paul Morley's theory, whereas he was more "well, I played in the local pubs and restaurant places for 4 years, then one track got some recog.."...

(I use an example that's probably not in the book, but hey)

i'm sure he's written this article many times before but it's an excellent read all the same: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/31/rolling-stones-glastonbury-counterculture-morley

I thought again today about what Morley could write a book about, given that he's written several big books in a few years, and I don't see many more subjects for him.

A fact is that after all this time, he hasn't really written a book about the one thing that he could do: the pop world as he knew it c.1977-1984, say.

Yes, he's written loads of Joy Division, so he could leave that out. He wrote WORDS & MUSIC but it was an abstract general speculation, not a memoir. He wrote a lot in ASK but that was as it happened, not a memoir. He wrote about Anthony H. Wilson but I don't know whether that covers the rest of the pop world. Maybe it does?

As far as I know what he hasn't done is recount, in a book, say, the first time he met Bono, or Trevor Horn; or the time Robert Smith wrote to the NME about him and rewrote a lyric as a parody of him following a bad review; or what it was like working with Frankie Goes To Hollywood - all in one book.

Unless this is, indeed, in the Wilson book?

I find Paul Morley more entertaining as half-bullshitter/half-fantasist cultural commentator rather than as as anecdotist. So I very much hope he doesn't fall into the role of memoirist reliving past glories.

I have a Paul Morley anecdote. I saw him once! It was on the top floor of Hamleys, the toyshop in London. He was wearing a t-shirt that had FUCK ART LETS DANCE on it in big bold letters, but he had a jacket on top.

Now, I wasn't staring at him, and he was probably just chilling. But he gave the impression that (a) he was deliberately opening the jacket so that FUCK ART LETS DANCE would be visible (b) he was hoping that one of the staff, or one of the customers, would tell him to hide the FUCK ART part, so he could shout at them or point out their hypocrisy or something (c) but no-one was paying attention so he looked downcast.

That was my reading of the situation. A bit of googling for "Paul Morley Hamleys" comes up with nothing. This was around the time Dark of the Moon came out (I was specifically looking at the Transformers toys). That is my Paul Morley anecdote.

I once saw Paul Morley in the foyer of the Barbican greeting Michael Nyoman before a Steve Reich concert, which is peak… something.

Nyman!

I saw him in a Tesco's doing his shopping once.

Perhaps the next Paul Morley book is going to be his biography told through collected anecdotage of others.

i saw him on the platform at crewe station

I was behind him in a queue at Urban Outfitters about 20 years ago

He was clearly never one to let the grass grow under his feet.

I also have an anecdote about seeing Morley in the foyer of a London arts complex. When I read Words and Music I was struck by how many typos and errors there were in it. I made a list of them and when I finished reading the book I sent the list to the publishers with a copy to Morley. I forgot all about it until a few years later when I saw him in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall at a Peter Hammill concert. I went up to him and asked him if he'd ever received my letter. He said he'd corrected all the errors in the second edition of the book. When I managed to get hold of a copy of the second edition I looked through it, the errors had indeed been corrected and he had thanked me in the acknowledgements.

"anagram otm" - paul morley

Aww, cute xpost

That's extraordinary, poster anagram.

His Dylan book contains some errors. I wouldn't have imagined that he would want them pointed out.

I was once at a party in Hackney and saw Morley randomly among guests.

'Sightings in Liminal Spaces: 250 versions of Paul Morley in the words of those who were there' (proofreading by anagram)...

^^^ Make it so!

Agree, this would genuinely be worthy of a Strange Attractor publication.

I saw him once in Heal's furniture shop, Tottenham Court Road, c.1999. It was a Sunday but he was dressed exactly as TV's Paul Morley: black suit over a black polo shirt with the top button done up.