What would've ILM said about The Smiths 20 years ago

I quite like them now, although I'm only familiar with a few of the singles.

Re HSIN - yes that's what I was thinking. It's a strange record.

HSIN might be their iconic rock moment, the classic guitar workout, the sampleable riff.

Dan, was HSIN a hit in the US? (BTW did they not have some hits in Europe in the 80s?)

Was HSIN the first Smiths song with a video?

Or Duck Rock.

My reaction--nice songs, like the homo stuff, wish they dress up a bit more. Basically, Alex's second post.

The pull of the Nirvana moment was so great in '94 that even an old reprobate like Morrissey could get one of his singles played on the local "zoo" radio station.

As far as "dress up more" goes, I often find myself thinking about how oppositional the 80s indie habit of dressing down / dressing in a (relatively) fey way was and how hard it is to remember how much it got under people's skin that Morrissey wore blouses and waved flowers around. (Talulah Gosh irritated people even more but that's another discussion entirely). I think ILM would have liked the irritation factor.

Mike I seem to recall there being a bit of a controversy in Smiths fan circles when a clip to accompany "the Boy With The Thorn In His Side" was issued, given that the band had previously had a "no videos" policy. I may be mis-remembering this stuff.

I remember "How Soon is Now" being the first video, but it was just grainy experimental film stuff with a blurry live film clip on a loop. "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" was the first one to feature the band lip-syncing in a studio specifically for the video, I think.

Third London gig - "fantastic!"
Hand In Glove: "fantastic!"
This Charming Man : "Hmm - sounds like The Farmers Boys"
What Difference... : "No - they're good."
1st album - "Hmmm - dunno"
Hatful Of Hollow (side 1) - "Hey maybe they ARE as good as I thought"
HoH (side 2) - " fooking hell, I was right - fantastic!"
Rest Of Career - peerless, one of the best bands evah!

Probably would have loved them, while they would have hated "new pop". Like most 30-year-old pop-obsessed music writers did in 1983. :-)

they already do

And if that jankly guitar sunshine does sound anything like King Sunny Ade, then DAMN, what the hell am I waiting for...off to the store I go!

I just ate a turkey sandwich on a pumpkin bagel to a very loud rendition of "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" and it primarily influenced me to hurry up swallow and get the hell out of Breuggers. How about those synth horns? I can't tell if they're the worst thing or the best thing about the song. I'm leaning to best.

The more things change.....

It's really more rhumba/soukous (see: Franco) but in those early days of Afropop curiousity, it was probably very easy to get one's terms and musical titans confused.

You said that almost as if it was a bad thing!?

Incidentally, were Baz Frog Mark & Stan actually the missing link between The Smiths and Human League?

Francis, I think the clip you see in which they were singing "TCM" (the one with all the flowers and that) was a performance for a UK TV show rather than a promo video proper. But what was the TV show? Whistle Test? Oxford Roadhow? Riverside? One of those, or something similar. I can't remember.

Has anyone ever bothered to track down Marsh and gotten him to rethink those words? (Not that there would really be a point, it's all opinion of course, but it's this type of 'my opinion is FACT' idiocy that just makes me hate -- and this isn't even talking about Marsh's Springsteen infatuation!)

TCM with all the flowers was TOTP, no?

Best Smith live performances on British TV 'Shakespear's Sister' on The Oxford Road Show and 'Panic' on The Tube with that little kid singing with them. Who was that?

OK, by the end of their career when they were releasing chirpy covers of Cliff Richard songs in a desperate bid for chart success, maybe - but in December '83 when they'd recently released their strongest couple of singles to date (well, ever as it turned out, but we didn't know that at the time, did we?) "More Than A Dream" and "For You" and the patchy but loveable first album "Get Out And Walk" and their star appeared to be in the ascendency? I thought they were great then!

Do you remember seeing them at RUSU around that time Dr. C? I particularly remember an old arm chair and a standard lamp on stage and an ironing board being used as a keyboard stand - so that would have been before they signed to EMI presumably!

There's loads of footage from German tv knocking around too.

Dr C - the kid singing "Panic" is explained in "Songs to save your life". At the time he was supposedly Johnny Marr's nephew, but that's not true. You really should get it, if you've not got it already. As to best TV performances, the Whistle Test performance of "Bigmouth..." and "Vicar in a tutu", introducing the five piece line up, is my favourite. Absolutely ferocious.

My reaction to the Smiths in 1983 (I was 14) was "Blimey, maybe guitars are good after all". I can remember specifically talking to my music loving mates about TCM in November '83 outside a classroom in Stanwell school and how maybe we were all wrong to consider the guitar a dead instrument (Dave T was heavily into the Human League, I was heavily into OMD. As a side note, I think Nigel S may have made the connection with the Farmers Boys at the time too, he used to thrust "Get out and walk" at us all the time). I missed the TOTP performance at the time, but soon caught on with "What difference..." and by the time I got "Hatful of Hollow" for Chrimbo '84 they were 'up there' amongst my favourite bands.