OMG Johnny Marr is singing "Bigmouth strikes again" on "Later"

He's not too far off Morrissey, actually..

link?

I would, but this was 10 mins ago, I guess it's not on YouTube or BBC iPlayer just yet

(Later Live, that is)

Certainly better attempt than if Morrissey tried to learn the guitar...

He may as well learn to sing, I don't know if Morrissey is likely to tour again given his issues this year.

Did anyone else see this?

yup.
but as i am not a smiths/marr fan its best i dont comment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u6INUp_uxMk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6INUp_uxMk&feature=youtu.be

And then he complains about people reviewing him bring up the Smiths.

To be fair he's always seemed perfectly happy to chat away about The Smiths. It's understandable that he gets annoyed being asked about the band reuniting when he's said NO a million times.

Whenever I watch Later I ask myself who are all these professional, zero-personality, all-black wearing 30 something session dudes backing solo artists, where do they come from?

Johnny Marr probably sired most of them and mentored them in the ways of inconsequential mediocrity.

That was better than I thought it would be actually, I was expecting a disaster of John Squire-sings-Stone Roses-tunes proportions.

I asked him about a lot of stuff to do with The Smiths after talking to him in detail about his new album. He answered all of my questions happily and in detail. It's just a question of manners and coming correct. It's not rocket science. If you get some clown opening with 'So when are the Smiths getting back together?' 'Don't you think Morrissey should be banned from making music for racism?' how do you expect him to react?

"never" and "yes" respectively

Uh that video is not available in my country.

He's got an Al Pacino look to him when the mic's covering his mouth

Whatever about Marr's voice, his signature Jaguar sounds fantastic.

marr doing smiths >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> hook doing joy division

He did a brilliant How Soon is Now on US tv a few weeks ago

yeah Adam, Later videos are now UK-only :(

he's verging on tone deaf as a singer, but what a wonderful guitarist this man is.

xpost I didn't mean him talking about the Smiths - he seemed delighted to talk about them to me when I interviewed him. I meant his public gripes that so many reviews of his tour and his album drew attention to the Smiths, and how much we would have benefitted from a charismatic frontman. If you don't watnt obe judged against your old band, don't play their old songs on TV …

With you. Well, everyone has off days right. As rock guitarists go he's one of the coolest and calmest as regards public persona. You're right but - as with Ringo politely announcing that he can't sign any more shit for fans - it's simply a bit gauche rather than blazingly hypocritical.

I'd like to bang on about Electronic for most of the interview, vaguely referring to "that funny band you were in before Electronic", and see how that went down.

I was quite proud of this question I got in:

"So we come to the end of another Johnny Marr interview and as night follows day I'm contractually obliged to ask you when you're getting back together to record with the enigmatic frontman and most misunderstood lyricist of his generation, Matt Johnson of The The?"

Which went down pretty well.

haha ! excellent question doran.
of course, i wholeheartedly agree with your synopsis of matt ...

I'd like to bang on about Electronic for most of the interview, vaguely referring to "that funny band you were in before Electronic", and see how that went down.

"They're only the band the Smiths could have been."

"They're only the the, the band the Smiths could have been."

I saw Robin Guthrie play a few years ago followed by a Q and A session in which the audience was specifically asked not to mention the Cocteau Twins (or should I say, the C-word). I understood that he wanted to promote his solo music - which was very nice but sounded remarkably like the Cocteaus minus Elizabeth Fraser - but this struck me as slightly absurd given that everyone present presumably knew Guthrie through the Cocteau Twins.

It must be weird, though, to know that, in the minds of everybody except you and a few close friends, you peaked in your mid-20s. I interviewed John Fogerty recently and asked him what it was like achieving all his goals and then losing his band when he was still just 27. Horrible, he said, unsurprisingly. But at least he's happy to talk about Creedence now.

I avoid this trap by never doing anything spectacular and pretending that my peak is still to come.

Guthrie is almost comically high maintenance. Which, speaking personally, I'm more than willing to accommodate... because he was in the Fucking Cocteau Twins... it's kind of distressing when you see, ah, lesser talents behaving like this.

I might make a graph that records this phenomenon with utter shitness of band along one axis and highness of maintenance along another. Back of envelope calculations reveal that Killswitch Engage and We Are Scientists will be special outliers on this graph.

and he did How Soon Is Now on the long version... wasn't as good tbh, sounded more like a goth morrissey

http://diffuser.fm/johnny-marr-robyn-hitchcock/

It sounds a bit like Joy Division to me, but this track '25 Hours' off Johnny Marr's last solo album Playland is really good.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vT_IlY0A4_0

I like how it jangles along for a bit quite reminiscent of There Is a Light before blatantly throwing in the exact synth-string line from that song halfway through.

I would be more likely to listen to a Johnny Marr record if it were all instrumentals.

michael white?!?

I like the fact he's out of his "I invented Oasis phase" and has veered towards "I invented The Smiths"

yes, what a startling example of a diarrhea shitdiametric shit .. erm shift..

Well, at least we all know now how Joan of Arc felt.

My 16 year old nephew said "Hello" to Marr the other day.

"You in a band?" wondered Johnny, handing him a plectrum that seemed slightly warn and had the word "Johnny" on it.

Made me wonder how many plectrums he must hand out in a typical day.

(My nephew was over-joyed).

just wandering the streets, handing out johnnies to teenage boys, nbd

he sure likes breaking in them plectrums!

this Mark S 80's UK music press-centric look at this lot and its arsehole singer's racist legacy/simpering wanker fan boys as seen xxxxp on here is an excellent read for me.

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2018/05/other-jacksons-in-your-house/

I am having a pop at the bellend poster on this fucking thread, because I have a long memory and it is the same cunt who posted on ILM that only "thick people" find Morrissey racist.

I've never really gone wholeheartedly for the "Moz as racist" thing but that "Chinese are a subspecies", pushed me over the edge. What an idiot. I wouldn't tolerate that sort of talk from someone in my personal sphere. So why should I from a total stranger who made a couple of records I liked 20+ years ago. Oh well no loss, and that piece just upthread was very good indeed. (Ala the Soft Boys "i wanna destroy you".)

Love how in that video, the uniform matt black of his hair and beige of his foundation makes him look like fan art of Paul Weller.

freaky trigger article is great, thanks for linking