Smiths conference: Anyone here going?

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I'll be going to the Smiths conference in Manchester this weekend. I'm moderating a panel on the Friday. Anyone here going, or do you have better sense than that?

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:06 (twenty years ago)

Surely you jest?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:09 (twenty years ago)

I don't, but I'm sure someone there will.

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:12 (twenty years ago)

I wouldn't bet on it

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:13 (twenty years ago)

The devil will find work for idle hands to do

― M. White (Miguelito), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:17 (twenty years ago)

What Smiths' song is that from?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:19 (twenty years ago)

What difference does it make?

― M. White (Miguelito), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:21 (twenty years ago)

Irregular poster Melinda Mess-Injure is presenting at it!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:22 (twenty years ago)

Really? Not Miranda Sawyer?

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:23 (twenty years ago)

Good little pop band, but not Vivaldi. Why the panel? Is this like a Trekkie convention for the pale, wistfully unloved?

― andy --, Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:24 (twenty years ago)

andy, your prejudice won't keep you warm tonight.

― M. White (Miguelito), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:25 (twenty years ago)

I would go out tonight, but I feeling very sick and ill tonight.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:27 (twenty years ago)

guys, this joke isn't funny anymore.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:28 (twenty years ago)

I went to one of these when I was 16. It was, given ten years of healthy retrospect, about the funniest thing ever.

― Mog, Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:29 (twenty years ago)

But, gents, we've something they'll never have.

― M. White (Miguelito), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:30 (twenty years ago)

And you leave on your own, and you go home, and cry, etc.

― andy --, Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:30 (twenty years ago)

A good pop band and perhaps worthy of some serious discussion for that reason alone. I suspect there will be plenty of wankery, but judging from some of the titles, and knowing some of the pedigrees of these people, there should also be some keen insights.

What I find interesting is that this fits into some more general scheme of Manchester's recent attempts to market itself as England's great cultural centre (Urbis does this as well).

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:30 (twenty years ago)

I would get such a kick out of one of these conferences (provided I was drunk).

Oh, the alcoholic afternoons, etc...

― M. White (Miguelito), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:33 (twenty years ago)

I would like to go to a Who one.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:47 (twenty years ago)

I wanna, I wanna, I wanna....

― M. White (Miguelito), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

I would go to a Moby Grape conference. So much to discuss: "Wow, that first record was pretty cool, eh?" "Sure was."

― andy --, Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:55 (twenty years ago)

Andy OTM throughout.

― Ian John50n (orion), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 15:57 (twenty years ago)

This must be that academic one they were going on about in various newspapers a few weeks back. I went to a silly fan's convention in the summer of '89 to meet up with my friend M@rk T@yl0r who used to do the Smiths zine and we all wound up on the coach tour through various Smiffy landmarks, where I pretended to a local journalist that I was this trust fundie who wanted to see if Manchester was just like da moooovies. It became part of a front-page story in the Manchester Evening News; the scammed journo was none other than Jon Ronson. Years later, I met JR at a press screening of Fargo and was able to say GOTCHA.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 16:03 (twenty years ago)

I think everyone should agree to meet somewhere and film themselves cycling to this convention a la the video to "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before".

― donut debonair (donut), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 16:11 (twenty years ago)

They passed on the call for papers to my grad programme: "The music of The Smiths contained an emotional depth and a technical virtuosity that moved people in a way that almost no other band has managed before or since."

I'm a fan but...

(It does sound like a really cool conference though. I just thought that claim was pretty wild.)

― the fucker that will burn you (sundar), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 16:12 (twenty years ago)

Has there been a panel on the "Moz Angeles" phenomenon in a previous convention? I don't see it here in the panels this year, but if there hasn't been one before, for fucking christ's sake, talk about missing out on a major cultural milestone involving Morrissey and the Smiths!

― donut debonair (donut), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 16:17 (twenty years ago)

Yeah - the whole Latino and LA thing is really absent here.

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 16:21 (twenty years ago)

i heard those meetings are murder

― laurence kansas (lawrence kansas), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 16:52 (twenty years ago)

Must be an English thing, because their impact on US culture was minimal. We had plenty of gloomy, Byrdsy pop bands in the 80's (REM, anyone?) and none of them deserve an academic survey. Now, Black Flag, on the other hand...

― andy --, Tuesday, 5 April 2005 17:14 (twenty years ago)

But it's an opportunity to say "Kiss my ring" in 50 different languages and not get beaten up... in 50 different languages

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

Ha ha, that was actually intended for the "Will You Be the Next Pope" thread but it works almost as well in a Smiths' conference thread

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 17:19 (twenty years ago)

For the love of random fluctuations in the space-time continuum, WHY?

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 17:20 (twenty years ago)

There is now a fillum, 'Is It Really So Strange?' documenting the Moz Angeles thing which shows next week at the NFT as part of the London lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 19:17 (twenty years ago)

Must be an English thing, because their impact on US culture was minimal

Andy, come to downtown Santa Ana and shout that. I dare you.

That said, while The Smiths completely ruled England, they were not ignored in the U.S. at all. "How Soon Is Now?" did break them beyond college radio, and their shows thereafter in the U.S. were immediate sell-outs. (Either that, or they were just big in California?)

And, yes, there is something specific about southern California Morrissey/Smiths worship that is highly unignorable. Listen to the phone calls on the "Morrissey at KROQ" CD-single.. (Actually, eat something comforting first. the sycophantism is ulcer-ific)

― donut debonair (donut), Tuesday, 5 April 2005 19:23 (twenty years ago)

Is this like a Trekkie convention for the pale, wistfully unloved?

ROFLLING -- and no need to fill in the punchline.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 6 April 2005 07:41 (twenty years ago)

the whole Latino and LA thing is really absent here

academics missing the only interesting issue shocker

however i, for one, welcome the academic reification of the smiths. I hope the 'keen insights' presented at the conference are as invigorating and useful as i suspect they may be.

― debden, Wednesday, 6 April 2005 07:58 (twenty years ago)

Reification or deification?

I think my issue with the conference (I have no trouble with academics studying popular music, but then that's my field) is that it is so Manchester-centric, at the expense of what makes the Smiths/Morrissey interesting as embodying a certain kind of "Englishness." This means neglecting to understand how they, and he, were perceived outside of England, as well as how they've both been taken up by non-Anglos elsewhere.

If anyone cares, I'll be reviewing it for the academic journal Popular Music, and you should be able to find a review of it over at: http://www.iaspm.net sometime in the next couple of weeks.

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 08:07 (twenty years ago)

I think The Pinefox was considering going to this...

From the titles alone, I think the conference looks like missing the point, big time.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 08:14 (twenty years ago)

We could have our own conference.

On Saturday, when I have to come in to work for a bit.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 08:42 (twenty years ago)

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