Há mais coisas na vida além dos livros, mas não muitas

Uma música que eu sempre adorei, talvez até já tenha  postado letra/tradução antes no blog. 

Handsome Devil

Todas as ruas estão entulhadas de coisas
Ansiosas para serem pegas
Eu sei para que servem as mãos
E eu gostaria de me servir
Você me pergunta as horas
Mas eu sinto algo mais
E eu gostaria de dar
O que eu acho que você está pedindo
Seu demônio bonitão
Oh, seu demônio bonitão

Deixe eu colocar minhas mãos
Nos seus mamilos
E me deixe colocar sua cabeça
Na cama de casal
Eu digo, eu digo, eu digo

Eu estalo o chicote
E você desvia
Mas você merece isso
Você merece, você merece, você merece

Um garoto no mato
Vale dois na mão
Eu acho que posso te ajudar a passar nas suas provas
Oh, seu demônio bonitão

Deixe eu colocar minhas mãos
Nos seus mamilos
E me deixe colocar sua cabeça
Na cama de casal
Eu digo, eu digo, eu digo

Eu estalo o chicote
E você desvia
Mas você merece isso
Você merece, você merece, você merece
E quando a gente estiver no seu quarto de estudo
Quem vai engolir o de quem?
E quando a gente estiver no seu quarto de estudo
Quem vai engolir o de quem?
Seu demônio bonitão

Deixe eu colocar minhas mãos
Nos seus mamilos
E me deixe colocar sua cabeça
Na cama de casal
Eu digo, eu digo, eu digo

Há mais coisas na vida além dos livros, você sabe
Mas não muitas
Oh, há mais coisas na vida além dos livros, você sabe
Mas não muito mais, não muito mais
Oh, seu demônio bonitão
Oh seu demônio bonitão

OH!

Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together

Segundo o livro Mozipédia, Morrissey surpreendentemente disse que esta música é a única do primeiro álbum solo que foi escrita pensando em Johnny Marr. 


Anjo, Anjo, Para Baixo Nós Vamos Juntos

Anjo, anjo
Não tire sua vida esta noite
Eu sei que eles tomam

E eles tomam de novo
E não te dão nada
De real em troca
E quando te usam
E te quebram
E desperdiçaram todo o seu dinheiro
E rejeitam sua carcaça
E quando eles te compram
E te vendem
E te faturam por puro prazer
E fazem seus pais chorar
Eu estarei aqui
Oh, acredite em mim
Eu estarei aqui
... acredite em mim

Anjo, não tire a sua vida
Algumas pessoas não tem orgulho nenhum
Elas não entendem
A urgência da vida
Mas eu te amo mais que à vida
Eu te amo mais que à vida
Eu te amo mais que à vida
Eu te amo mais que à vida

Novidades

Marr no Brasil

Já estou com meu ingresso em mãos para ver o gênio das guitarras em abril do ano que vêm. Mal posso esperar! Sem falar que estou feliz triplamente, pois mudaram as atrações de dia, e no domingo também verei New Order e Pixies! 

Clique abaixo para conferir
Line up por dia 


Mais uma bomba... ou melhor, um livro... do Marr

“Sim, vai ter um livro. Tive muitas propostas e pessoas me dizendo que a história da minha vida merece e precisa ser contada. Creio que é uma coisa que tenho que fazer. Quero que seja algo tão profundo que enquanto eu estiver envolvido nesse projeto não farei nenhum disco ou turnê. Vai acontecer e já tenho um acordo com uma editora”.

Leia mais em: 
http://popload.blogosfera.uol.com.br/2013/11/18/as-aventuras-de-marr-na-america-incluindo-uma-quase-reuniao-dos-smiths/


Mozipedia em português

Faz um tempão que esse livro está na minha lista de compras e tive uma surpresa ao saber que foi traduzido para o português. 

Clique abaixo para conferir o livro à venda na 
Saraiva 

Marr e New Order em dias diferentes?!?

Agenda do Lollapalooza 2014 definida. Fiquei decepcionada com New Order e Johnny Marr em dias separados... achei que seria uma boa oportunidade de conferir dois shows que ainda não fui. Sem falar que pela 34242º cancelaram Depeche Mode, que é uma das poucas bandas que sou fã de carteirinha e ainda não tive a oportunidade de ver ao vivo... por outro lado devo confessar que esse ano foi maravilhoso pra mim!!!  Vi Travis, The Cure, Peter Murphy e Wayne Hussey, sendo assim não posso reclamar de nada. Fiquei super triste com o cancelamento do show do Morrissey (pois iria mil vezes vê-lo cantar), mas como já realizei esse sonho, acho que "valeu" ter tido essa decepção e depois a alegria de ver finalmente o Travis no Brasil no último fds. Foi a realização de um sonho da adolescência, onde o Travis teve uma participação intensa e significativa. 

Johnny Marr no Lollapalooza?

The Messenger 

To see it in something

Life you want it takes long

To see him so happy, you find you talking if you want

Don't wanna be a messenger

To see it in something

Your eyes are opened and you're on

I'm here and I'm ready

My time's for taking if you want

Who wants to be a messenger?

Who wants to be a messenger?

We could get going

Who wants to be a messenger?

Who wants to be the messenger?

We could get going

Who wants to be a messenger?

We could get on

Ao que tudo indica, no ano que vêm teremos Johnny tocando no Brasil no Festival 
Lollapalooza. O line-up do Chile já foi divulgado e o do Brasil deverá ser semelhante. Algumas das atrações serão Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden,  Nine Inch Nails, Pixies, e  New Order. 

Tradução de The Queen is Dead

A Rainha Está Morta
(Oh, me leve de volta para a querida velha Inglaterra
Me coloquem num trem para a cidade de Londres
Me levem para qualquer lugar, me deixem em qualquer lugar
Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham,
Eu nao me importo!
Eu vou gostaria de ver meu...

(Por terra, pelo mar)

Adeus
Aos pântanos sombrios dessa terra
Cercados como javali entre arqueiros
Vossa Excelentíssima Baixeza, com a cabeça num laço
Eu realmente sinto muito
Mas isso soa como uma coisa maravilhosa

Eu disse "Charles, você nunca desejou
Aparecer na primeira página do Daily Mail
Vestido com o véu nupcial da sua mãe?"

Então eu chequei todos os fatos históricos registrados
E fiquei chocado de vergonha ao descobrir
Como sou o 18º pálido descendente
De uma ou outra velha rainha
O mundo mudou ou eu mudei?
O mundo mudou ou eu mudei?
Um durão qualquer de nove anos trafica drogas
(Eu juro por Deus, eu juro,
Eu nunca nem soube o que eram drogas)

E então eu invadi o palácio
Com uma esponja e uma ferramenta enferrujada
Ela disse: "Eh, eu te conheço, e você não sabe cantar"
E eu disse: "Isso não é nada - Você devia me ouvir tocando piano"

Podemos dar um passeio onde é quieto e seco
E conversar sobre coisas preciosas
Mas quando está preso ao avental da própria mãe
Ninguém fala sobre castração

Podemos dar um passeio onde é quieto e seco
E conversar sobre coisas preciosas
Como Amor e Lei e Pobreza
Estas são coisas que me matam

Podemos dar um passeio onde é quieto e seco
E conversar sobre coisas preciosas
Mas a chuva que achata meu cabelo
Estas são coisas que me matam
(Todas as mentiras dela sobre maquiagem
E cabelos longos ainda estão lá)

Passamos pelo bar que consome seu corpo
E a Igreja que vai tomar seu dinheiro
A Rainha está morta, garotos
E é tão solitário no purgatório

Passamos pelo bar que aniquila seu corpo
E a Igreja - tudo o que querem é seu dinheiro
A Rainha está morta, garotos
E é tão solitário no purgatório

A vida é muito longa quando se está sozinho

Um clássico!

Revista elege "The Queen is Dead" do Smiths 

como o maior álbum da história

"The Queen is Dead", terceiro álbum da banda inglesa Smiths, lançado em 1986, foi eleito pela revista especializada em música "NME" como o maior álbum de todos os tempos. A lista com os 500 maiores álbuns, segundo a publicação, ainda não foi divulgada.

Pôster de The Queen is Dead

A "NME" afirmou que os votos de jornalistas colocaram o disco do Smiths – uma verdadeira máquina de hits, com "I Know It's Over", "Bigmouth Strikes Again", "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side", "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" e "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" –- na frente de bandas mundialmente reconhecidos em outras listas, como Beatles, David Bowie, Bob Dylan e Rolling Stones. Ao comentar a escolha, a revista afirmou que "The Queen is Dead" ainda é tão relevante hoje como era há 27 anos.

Os Beatles, que sempre disputa consigo mesmo as primeiras posições, ficou em 2° lugar, com "Revolver". Outra surpresa da lista é "This Is It", primeiro disco do The Strokes, lançado em 2001.

As 5 primeiras posições foram divulgadas no mesmo dia em que a autobiografia do ex-vocalista da banda, Morrissey, também chegara ao n° 1 entre os mais vendidos. Ironicamente, no livro chamado apenas de "Autobiography", o cantor ataca a revista e a acusa de conspiração contra ele.

Confira as 5 primeiras posições da lista:

1 – Smiths, "The Queen is Dead" (1986)

2 – Beatles, "Revolver" (1966)

3 – David Bowie, "Hunky Dory"  (1971)

4 – The Strokes, "This Is It" (2001)

5 – The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)

Publicado em: http://musica.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2013/10/23/revista-elege-the-queen-is-dead-do-smiths-como-o-maior-album-da-historia.htm

Após lançar autobiografia, Morrissey nega ser gay: 'sou humassexual'

O cantor Morrissey, 54, ex-líder dos Smiths, se disse um "humassexual" e negou ser gay após revelar ter se relacionado com um homem em sua autobiografia, lançada na semana passada.

"Infelizmente, não sou homossexual. Tecnicamente, sou humassexual", escreveu no sábado (19) o músico, no site "True to You". "Sinto atração por humanos. Mas, claro...nem todos."

A nota foi criada porque, em sua autobiografia, lançada pela Penguin Classics na Europa há menos de uma semana, o cantor afirmou ter namorado um homem quando tinha 35 anos. Foi o primeiro relacionamento sério que ele teve.

O ex-namorado de Morrissey é Jake Owen Walters, um fotógrafo. Os dois se conheceram em 1994 e ficaram juntos por dois anos.

Segundo o jornal britânico "The Guardian", que teve acesso ao livro, o cantor descreveu que as garotas "misteriosamente" se sentiam atraídas por ele em sua adolescência. Porém, nada "eletrizante" aconteceu.

Em entrevista da década de 1980 à revista "Rolling Stone", Morrissey disse que a ambiguidade sexual das letras dos Smiths eram intencionais. "Era muito importantepara mim tentar escrever para todos. Quando as pessoas e coisas são reveladas de maneiras óbvias, a mente do observador se congela. Não há nada para examinar, permanecer ou desenredar."



Publicada em: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/ilustrada/2013/10/1359896-apos-lancar-autobiografia-morrissey-nega-ser-gay-sou-humassexual.shtml

Já encomendei o meu!

Crítica do Independent

Ignore the critics, Morrissey's Autobiography is a new kind of classic

Our culture has become obsessive about literary correctness; here's the antidote



It is factual Hindley and Brady, and not our spirited Lake poets or cozy tram-trammeled novelists, who supply the unspoken and who take the travelling mind further than it ever ought to have gone ...
This serpentine sentence from Morrissey’s just-released Autobiography underlines why it is such a brilliant and timely book. Like many passages in the Troubled One’s memoir, there’s a bit of everything here. Baroque, head-twisting sentence structure? Check. Weird, neologistic compound adjectives (“tram-trammeled”)? Check. Effortless summary of post-Romantic British cultural history, from Wordsworth and Coleridge via kitchen-sink realism to the Moors Murderers? Check, check, and double check. This stuff is destined to be quoted as definitive epigraph material on a thousand Wikipedia articles before the month is out.

More to the point, Morrissey’s micro-critique of mainstream English literature and its hide-bound poets and novelists offers a pre-emptive strike against those critics grumbling about that fact that Autobiography has been published via the hallowed Penguin Classics imprint. For Boyd Tonkin, writing in this paper, Penguin’s decision to release the book as a Classic undermined “67 years of editorial rigueur and learning”. The Guardian’s John Harris was less damning in his review, but even he criticised the apparent “lack of editing”.

Penguin Classics is a commercial brand rather than a democratically agreed-upon cultural pantheon, so in a sense quibbling about its roster is a tad pointless (like most private corporations, Penguin will inevitably publish books in whatever format works best in the literary marketplace, and few could doubt that Morrissey’s tome will sell well in its chunky black vintage duffle coat). But even allowing for this caveat, I can’t help feeling that the criticisms levelled at Morrissey’s memoir – that it is messy, self-indulgent, poorly edited, and therefore unworthy of “classic” status – spectacularly miss the point.

We live in a culture that has become obsessive about literary correctness. In the absence of a vibrant intellectual scene, contemporary letters has calcified around the London publishing industry and its guardians of literary taste and decorum. Young authors today write not for an increasingly uninterested public, but in the hope that their work will be given a review in one of the big publications or boosted into commercial viability by a nomination for one of the many artificially-generated, publicity-enhancing prize ceremonies that clog up the literary calendar. As in so many other walks of British life, this culture of competitive anxiety has led not to a rise in standards, but to a dramatic decline in artistic production, to innumerable formulaic books written by creative writing course alumni that read like application forms addressed to the Booker judges.

What is so refreshing about Morrissey’s Autobiography is its very messiness, its deliriously florid, overblown prose style, its unwillingness to kowtow to a culture of literary formula and commercial pigeon-holing. A heavy-handed editor mindful of the book’s Classic branding might have abridged it down into a sedate, prize-worthy volume void of idiosyncrasy and colour. Thankfully – and yes, most likely because of Morrissey’s celebrity clout and reputation for intransigence – no such airbrushing has taken place.

Instead, Autobiography is a true baggy monster, a book in which a distinctive prose persona is allowed to develop free from the strictures of contemporary literary orthodoxy. The result is, on the whole, a rococo triumph that melds together a host of canonical and marginal literary influences in exactly the same way that the Smiths’ music was a wonderful amalgam of both the eccentric and the classic sides of pop.

People will no doubt pick up on the traditional Morrissey points of reference – Oscar Wilde, Alan Bennett, kitchen sink drama – but the book also glances at Colm Tóibín (in the sections about Morrissey’s Irish mother and female relatives), W.H. Auden (who is actually quoted at one point), and an array of late-twentieth-century pop iconography (Motown, Miss World, glam, punk, George Best). At times, with its endlessly lugubrious passages and its outrageous self-mythologising, Autobiography reads like Anthony Burgess’s memoir Little Wilson and Big God translated into the diction of Tennyson.

True, the latter half of the book sags under the weight of way too much bitching and the dreary subject matter of celebrity and affluence. But overwhelmingly this is a book to be thankful for, a book that – like the vast majority of canonical prose works – should be forgiven for its digressions and its longueurs. I say nothing of the marketing narrative, or of how the book will fare with the passing of time, but right now, in the ways that matter, Autobiography reads like a work of genuine literary class. 


Publicado em: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/ignore-the-critics-morrisseys-autobiography-is-a-new-kind-of-classic-8889672.html

Morrissey diz que teve primeiro relação séria com homem aos 35 anos

O cantor e compositor britânico Morrissey disse que sua primeira relação séria foi com um homem e quando já estava com 35 anos de idade.
A revelação foi feita na autobiografia do ex-cantor dos Smiths, lançada nesta quinta-feira (17) na Grã-Bretanha.

O cantor, conhecido por sempre ter protegido a sete chaves vários aspectos de sua vida

pessoal, descreve no livro sua relação com o fotógrafo Jake Walters, iniciada em 1994.

Ele conheceu Walters em um restaurante e conta como este o seguiu até sua casa, onde "entrou e ficou por dois anos". "Pela primeira vez na minha vida, o eterno 'eu' se torna 'nós', e finalmente, eu consigo me dar bem com alguém", escreveu Morrissey.

Filho

O cantor também revela que, mais tarde, chegou a considerar em ter um filho com uma amiga, Tina Dehgani, que conheceu em Los Angeles. Ele também dá detalhes sobre abusos cometidos por professores quando era aluno da escola St. Mary's em Stretford, bairro de Manchester, onde cada dia teria sido como um pesadelo "kafkiano".

Morrissey denuncia um professor que observava obsessivamente os alunos tomando banho nus no chuveiro, e um outro que passou creme anti-inflamatório no seu pulso machucado de forma "desnecessariamente lenta e sensual, sem tirar os olhos de mim".

O cantor critica Geoff Travis, o dono da gravadora Rough Trade, que lançou os Smiths, um dos grupos mais queridos da Grã-Bretanha nos anos 80 e que se separou em 1987, após cinco anos de atividade.

Travis, segundo Morrissey, inicialmente tinha se recusado a ouvir a música deles, mas mudou de ideia só depois de o guitarrista Johnny Marr tê-lo colocado "em uma cadeira giratória" e insistido para que ele avaliasse o trabalho da banda. Além disso, Morrissey afirma no livro que o sucesso dos Smiths "salvou a vida" do dono da Rough Trade.

O cantor também critica o sistema legal britânico, em particular o juiz que presidiu sua batalha legal no início dos anos 90 com o seu ex-companheiro de banda, o baterista Mike Joyce. Morrissey e Marr foram obrigados pela Justiça a pagar cerca de 1 milhão de libras a Joyce ao baixista Andy Rourke em direitos retroativos.

Polêmica

Semanas antes de chegar às lojas, a autobiografia de Morrissey causou polêmica por estar sendo lançado pela Penguin Classics, a série da conhecida editora britânica Penguin dedicada a clássicos da literatura mundial.

A editora foi criticada por ter cedido à pressão de Morrissey, que só aceitou publicar a autobiografia sob a condição de que fosse lançada pela série.

Publicado em: http://musica.uol.com.br/noticias/bbc/2013/10/17/morrissey-diz-que-teve-primeiro-relacao-seria-com-homem-aos-35-anos.htm

Ex-The Smiths, Morrissey lança autobiografia e divide críticos no Reino Unido

O excêntrico cantor Morrissey, ex-líder do The Smiths, sente "falta de interesse" pelas mulheres e não tinha vivido uma "relação séria" até chegar aos 30 anos de idade, segundo afirma o astro em sua autobiografia lançada nesta quinta-feira, a qual dividiu os críticos e gerou muita repercussão no Reino Unido.

Publicada pela reverenciada coleção de clássicos da editora britânica Penguin, que divulga trabalhos de consagrados autores como Jorge Luis Borges, Oscar Wilde e Henry James, o livro da vida de Morrissey, intitulado "Autobiography", conta com mais de 800 páginas, mas, segundo alguns críticos, carece de alguns importantes capítulos.

A publicação, comentada avidamente hoje por emissoras e sites especializados, dedica várias páginas à sua vida amorosa e não demorou muito para gerar sensações díspares, que oscilam entre a surpresa, a desconfiança e, inclusive, a admiração pela prosa irônica do músico.

Morrissey, de 54 anos, relata com detalhes episódios de sua adolescência e de sua época como líder do grupo The Smiths, mas deixa no ar as dúvidas que permeiam sua ambígua sexualidade, embora tenha confessado sua falta de interesse em direção às mulheres.

Vegetariano desde os 11 anos, inimigo declarado da monarquia britânica, arredio, provocador, introvertido e "raro" - segundo sua própria confissão -, Morrissey esteve no foco da mídia durante décadas e, o melhor, sem perder o lado complexo de sua personalidade.

O jornal "The Guardian" relatou hoje que o volumoso livro "está cheio de surpresas", como sua breve participação em uma telenovela britânica quando ainda era criança e sua convicção de que teria sido vítima de uma "tentativa de sequestro" em 2007 no México, da qual foi salvou por sua equipe de seguranças.

Steven Patrick Morrissey - seu nome verdadeiro - também confessou não ter vivido uma "relação séria" até os anos 90, quando tinha 30 anos estava na trintena, mas não soluciona o "mistério" criado em torno de suas preferências sexuais.

Segundo o ex-líder do The Smiths, ele só viveu uma grande história amorosa ao conhecer o fotógrafo Jake Owen Walters, quando "pela primeira vez" em sua vida "o eterno 'eu' - escreve - se transformou em 'nós', já que estava finalmente "conectado com alguém".

Sobre essa relação, que se estendeu por dois anos, o músico fala de maneira aberta e comovente, mas sem especificar se ambos, que chegavam a compartilhar suítes de hotéis, eram amantes de fato.

Neste aspecto, Morrissey também admite sua "falta de interesse" pelas mulheres durante a adolescência: "As meninas continuavam se sentindo misteriosamente atraídas por mim e eu não tinha nem ideia por que", afirmou Morrissey, que achava "muito mais emocionante" as bicicletas de corrida que seu pai tinha em casa.

O jornal irlandês "The Irish Times" apresentou críticas positivas ao falar da autobiografia de Morrissey, que opina que o livro "está bem escrito e reflete o ácido sentido do humor" que caracteriza o astro, embora tenha destacado que ainda existam "muitos acertos de contas" em sua história.

Nos últimos anos, Morrissey preocupou seus fãs com alguns problemas de saúde e também se envolveu em várias polêmicas, como quando qualificou os chineses de "subespécies" por sua repulsa aos maus-tratos dos animais e comparou o massacre de baleias na Noruega com "o que se passa no McDonald's", o que lhe rendeu acusações de radical e racista.

Apesar da autobiografia em questão não ter entrado em detalhes sobre essa questão, os fãs de cantor britânico não deixam de sonhar com uma hipotética volta do The Smiths, o quarteto de Manchester fundado por Morrissey e Johnny Marr em 1982.


Publicado em: http://musica.terra.com.br/ex-the-smiths-morrissey-lanca-autobiografia-e-divide-criticos-no-reino-unido,002aff1ee56c1410VgnCLD2000000dc6eb0aRCRD.html

Crítica de Kill Uncle, por Marc Hogan

Morrissey Is Not a Human Being, Part Two. The former Smiths frontman, whose health concerns and vociferous animal-rights adovocacy have recently made him to the indie blogosphere what Lil Wayne is to TMZ, could've preempted the ailing rapper's latest album title way back in 1991. Moz had already shown devotees he was, well, human after all, when a planned follow-up to masterful 1988 solo debut Viva Hate fell apart amid professional acrimony and critical rubbishing. Then, after bouncing back brilliantly with 1990's Bona Drag singles compilation, Steven Patrick Morrissey followed through on what he'd been saying all along: That he had no right to take his place with the human race.

Kill Uncle, Morrissey's second solo LP, has a largely deserved reputation as his least distinctive. A minor album by a major artist, it still offers its own curious pleasures, particularly for the converted (who have always constituted much of Moz's audience anyway). And like another wrongly panned outing by a canonical rock figurehead, Bob Dylan's Self Portrait in 1970, Kill Uncle positively revels in its own insubstantiality: Though often critiqued according to an indie tradition grounded in authenticity and personal expression, the album is best appreciated as a campy celebration of the decorative and artificial. The original vinyl includes an etching that reads, punning on Oscar Wilde, "Nothing to declare except my jeans"; a standalone single coinciding with the reissue is a 7" vinyl Rickroll.

Morrissey might've had little choice but to wrap himself in arch humor. Where Viva Hate reunited him with the Smiths' producer Stephen Street and found a top-notch replacement for guitarist Johnny Marr in the Durutti Column's Vini Reilly, Kill Uncle's style varies between generically Smiths-y jangle and cabaret-like theatricality. Moz's production team here of Alan Winstanley and Clive Langer had a fairly solid track record (Elvis Costello, Madness; later, Bush's Sixteen Stone), and they'd actually overseen a few of Bona Drag's lesser cuts. But together with guitarist and Kirsty MacColl collaborator Mark E. Nevin, they failed to give Morrissey a musical setting as singular as his own eccentric presence.

With the heavy lifting left to Morrissey's idiosyncratic lyrics and motley croon, he disappeared into them, tartly disowning such supposed virtues as honesty and passion. The best tracks tend to be the most bitterly funny, such as buoyant alt-pop opener "Our Frank", where a wryly "r"-rolling Moz bemoans earnestness as so much vulgarity ("I'm only human," he sneers!), only to wind up suggesting his narrator is probably just targeting himself. "Sing Your Life", jaunty as the angle of a stylish cap, is a brutal ethering of the troubador-like idea expressed in its title, and contains another surprise ending: Just when it looks like Moz is about to pull back the curtain and reveal "the truth," it turns out to be only that "you have a lovely singing voice." If the Smiths lyric from the The Queen Is Dead's "Cemetry Gates" about how "Keats and Yeats are on your side/ While Wilde is on mine" was misunderstood in 1986, Moz was beating the world over the head with it in 1991. And the world still wouldn't listen.

The more ostensibly serious songs also mock conventional values, both aesthetically and morally. Much as other tracks here spurn the goal of expressing some timeless artistic truth, "(I'm) The End of the Family Line"-- an elegantly swaying strummer so "elegantly swaying" you can almost hear the air quotes-- finds Morrissey rejecting the biological imperative of passing along his DNA. The family line might be ending, but the song doesn't right away: Just when a muffled speaking voice sounds like it's about to overtake the fading music, Moz comes back for another chorus, spitting his dynastic betrayal in the face of decent-thinking humanity one last time. Similarly, shutter-clicking whirligig "The Harsh Truth of the Camera Eye" plays less like a straightforward tale of paparazzi and more like a bleak observation on public image. Both are funnier than their pomp and circumstance might hint. Just think: Moz is mocked for his self-aggrandizement, but it's the breeders who act like we're so special the planet needs our genetic material after we die.

Of course, compared with "Everyday Is Like Sunday" or even "The First of the Gang to Die", these sardonic jibes are lesser accomplishments, and not everything on Kill Uncle bears revisiting. The racially trolling "Asian Rut"-- part of a regrettable triptych with Viva Hate's "Bengali in Platforms" and "The National Front Disco," from 1992's far-superior Your Arsenal-- is instrumentally lavish, with accordion and violin, but it carries the album's undercurrent of dehumanization to an unbearable extreme: Morrissey withholds empathy for the victim of a racist attack. Though glorification of thuggish ugliness is a legitimate artistic theme that runs across the work of the writer Jean Genet and director Pier Paolo Pasolini, among many others, the result is frustrating from an artist with an unusually diverse indie-rock fanbase.
Like last year's Viva Hate reissue, the newly remastered Kill Uncle package is only slightly different from its original, and not exactly for the better. "Asian Rut" is blessedly lower on the track list, "Family Line" assumes its rightful place at the end, and two superfluous B-sides now interrupt the album's midsection: "Pashernate Love", a romp too trifling even to succeed as a trifle, and "East West", a confounding Herman's Hermits cover that makes sense only as a nod to the album's superficiality (Moz exults, "Nothing is tacky!"). The redone album artwork likewise emphasizes self-awareness, with photography of Moz posing in a Bona Drag T-shirt, but isn't especially arresting. No extra liner notes. No bonus discs. Nothing that might boost the rating above.

The most noteworthy switch is the replacement of "There's a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends," originally a piano-based torch song, with a live-in-studio version from 1991's Morrissey at KROQ EP. This take's muscular, rockabilly-infused glam-rock portends the direction Morrissey would take next on Your Arsenal. But perversely removing the most over-the-top, showtunes-y number from Kill Uncle only further undercuts the coherence of its appeal. And what about "Sing Your Life", which also appears in a more immediately pleasing but less conceptually appropriate rockabilly version on the KROQ EP?
Now, as ever, provoking and then withholding sensible answers to such obsessive questions remains essential to Morrissey's allure. Kill Uncle came at a time when U.S. audiences, on the eve of Nirvana's breakthrough, might've decided Moz was another alternative-rock icon worthy of widespread embrace, but his decidedly English quirks were almost as out of step in the states as they were in the UK, where his native Manchester had gone (to him, deplorably) Madchester and Britpop was still a couple of years away. Morrissey always knew how to toy with the press; when he came out onstage in London's Finsbury Park draped in the Union Jack, it was a scandal. Before too long, it might've been Cool Britannia, but the irony would've been lost either way: Contrary to Deerhunter's wildly entertaining dismissal of Morrissey in a recent interview, he's no "Sir Morrissey" and has harshly criticized other rock musicians who accept royal honors.

For a sense of just how misunderstood Kill Uncle was, consider that Rolling Stone's review at the time compared Morrissey's role with the Smiths to Sylvia Plath and chided the new record for its "detached feel." Surely, Plath is over on Keats' and Yeats' side. Meanwhile, over with Moz on Wilde's, detachment isn't necessarily an insult; that doesn't make the record a masterpiece, but it does make it one worth revisiting for Moz's ample cult. In a strange way, the song that best explains Kill Uncle isn't on Kill Uncle at all. It's Bona Drag's "Disappointed", where Morrissey sings, and a crowd responds, "This the last song I'll ever sing (yeah!)/ No: I've changed my mind again (awww...)/ Good night, and thank you." Morrissey fandom is a lifelong exercise in self-aware disappointment, but if he really is the last of his kind, let's enjoy him while we have him. Though he's been teasing us about his looming mortality for years, he really is all too human. And he has a lovely singing voice.

Publicado em: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17837-morrissey-kill-uncle/

O livro da década

Após desentendimento com editora, Morrisey lança seu livro este mês


Após o atraso no lançamento da biografia de Morissey, que deveria ter acontecido no último mês, a editora Penguin Books, responsável pela publicação, anunciou que o livro sairá no próximo dia 17. Morrissey: Autobiography contará em suas 600 páginas a história do ex-Smiths.
Em setembro, a editora chegou a divulgar um comunicado no qual dizia que o cantor estava à procura de uma nova empresa para publicar sua história. O desentendimento entre o músico e a Penguin foi resolvido e os fãs do Reino Unido serão os primeiros contemplados com o lançamento do livro.



Publicado em: http://virgula.uol.com.br/musica/apos-desentendimento-com-editora-morrisey-lanca-seu-livro-este-mes

A polêmica da não-turnê do Morrissey, que parece estar bem de saúde em Los Angeles com o… Noel Gallagher

Um dos maiores imbróglios envolvendo shows recentemente na América do Sul, sem dúvida, é esse dos que o Morrissey faria na região. O ex-líder dos Smiths, que passou grande parte do primeiro semestre lutando contra problemas de saúde, estava bem para excursionar em terras latinas durante um mês, em turnê que começaria em Lima no início deste mês e terminaria em Brasília, dia 4 de agosto.

O primeiro capítulo da saga se iniciou exatamente no Peru. Morrissey já estava na cidade de Lima há alguns dias e estava até ensaiando o repertório dos shows, mas um dia antes das duas apresentações na cidade ele precisou adiar os compromissos devido a uma intoxicação alimentar e voltou para Los Angeles. Desde então, pipocaram notícias de que toda a turnê latina havia subido no telhado, mas as produtoras locais sempre soltavam notas desmentindo os boatos e garantido os shows.

O “boato” final rolou no sábado, quando o próprio Morrissey postou uma carta no site True To You, canal quase oficial do cantor, na qual o maior britânico vivo dizia que já estava cansado de pedir desculpas por tantos contratempos e cogitou, inclusive, se aposentar. Mesmo com o comunicado pesado de Morrissey, produtoras da Argentina e do Brasil ainda asseguravam que os shows iriam rolar e a venda de ingressos continuou.

Só que, na última segunda-feira, veio o comunicado oficial por parte do staff de Morrissey

informando que a turnê estava mesmo cancelada. Desde então, surgiram especulações se o cancelamento teria relação com os problemas de saúde de Morrissey, mas a alegação mais plausível, parece, é que o cantor “não quis vir” por questões financeiras.

Ainda na segunda-feira, a produtora Colors, responsável pelos shows de Morrissey no Peru e no Chile, soltou um extenso comunicado tentando explicar o cancelamento da turnê. De acordo com a produtora, a opção partiu do próprio cantor, tanto que até seu empresário ficou surpreso com o comunicado publicado pelo artista no sábado pela manhã.

A Colors disse que, desde então, procurou seus direitos junto ao staff de Morrissey e exigiu explicações mais claras. De acordo com o comunicado despachado para a imprensa, Morrissey alegou que uma vinda para a América do Sul neste momento “não seria atrativa por questões econômicas”, tanto que ele usa o termo “lack of funding” em sua carta. A alegação do lado da produção do cantor é a de que Morrissey recentemente teve muitos gastos financeiros “inesperados” com questões médicas e com deslocamentos inesperados de sua equipe saindo de Lima para Los Angeles e outra parte para Londres.

Por fim, a Colors lamentou todo o ocorrido e fez questão de frisar que a quebra do acordo foi unilateral (por parte de Moz). Desde o cancelamento oficial, fãs do cantor misturam sentimentos que vão do amor ao ódio. Uma foto de uma fã circulou nas redes sociais nesta semana, com o Morrissey ao fundo, em um bar, com uns amigos.

Agora apareceu outra foto, divulgada pelo ator e comediante britânico Russell Brand, na qual ele aparece ao lado de Morrissey e Noel Gallagher em um outro bar, na cidade de Los Angeles, ontem.

Parece que a saúde está em dia para o nosso ídolo. O Noel confirma.


Publicado em: http://popload.blogosfera.uol.com.br/2013/07/24/a-polemica-da-nao-turne-do-morrissey-que-parece-estar-bem-de-saude-em-los-angeles-com-o-noel-gallagher/

Matéria dramática no The Guardian

Morrissey: has his light finally gone out?

Illness, financial challenges, the lack of a record deal and no new songs for four years – maybe it's time that the singer rekindled some old friendships

Is this the end for Morrissey? After a troubled year in which misery's poet laureate seemed to cancel more shows than he announced, yet another South American tour has fallen through. The reason is not life-threatening illness, which sank another tour earlier this year and is at least on-brand for Morrissey, but something more dismal: money.

"I am informed today that the projected tour of South America is snuffed out, thus euthanised due, I'm reliably advised, to lack of funding," he wrote on the fansite True To You. "Cancellations and illness have sucked the life out of all of us, and the only sensible solution seems to be the art of doing nothing." With no record deal nor any new material since 2009, touring is supposedly his lifeline. Unsolicited advice from Amanda Palmer – the Mrs Mills of goth – that he should fund a new record through Kickstarter merely compounds the ignominy.

If Morrissey can't make a living out of playing to an audience as large and vociferous as the foam-flecked fundamentalists who follow him, there can be little hope for anyone else. But in some respects Morrissey is the author of his own marginalisation. His surprise rebirth after seven years' purdah in Los Angeles with You Are the Quarry in 2004 brought him to a whole new audience, selling 350,000 albums in the UK alone. But the man who once sang "I don't want to be judged/I would sooner be blindly loved" subsequently settled for the comforts of the fanbase, issuing endless interchangeable greatest hits, deluxe editions and live albums against only two more records of new material.

Then there was the refusal to contemplate that his current band and songwriting partnerships might have run their course. A Morrissey song of 2009 sounds much like one from 1997, and the live rendition of Johnny Marr's delicate This Charming Man that opened many Morrissey shows in recent years was criminally hamfisted and crude.

Meanwhile the public persona that used to provoke and entertain – "Reggae is vile", wishing unsanctioned biographer Johnny Rogan death in a car crash, "Cook Bernard Matthews" – became predictable, bitter and kneejerk. Likening Anders Breivik's massacre at Utøya to a day at KFC, describing the Chinese as a sub-species, and blaming the royal family for the suicide of nurse Jacintha Saldanha all tried the patience of any but the most committed Morrissey sycophants.

Yet his illnesses are undoubtedly real and serious, and Morrissey is hardly to blame for the collapse of the recorded music business. Though there are more than enough Morrissey fans to finance a new album via Kickstarter, it would paint him even more starkly as an artist for the converted only. Perhaps Morrissey's much-anticipated autobiography will break him out of this strange and self-created pocket universe, where he and his fans speak only to one another. If not, there remains one option that would bring modern England's greatest voice back to a mass audience. Somewhere, surely, Morrissey still has Johnny Marr's phone number.


Publicado em: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/shortcuts/2013/jul/22/morrissey-light-finally-gone-out?INTCMP=SRCH

I know it's over

Morrissey cancela shows no Brasil

O cantor britânico Morrissey cancelou os shows que faria no Brasil. A produtora Time For Fun, que pela manhã havia dito que as apresentações estavam confirmadas, afirmou que o ex-líder do The Smiths alegou "motivos pessoais" para cancelar as apresentações.

Morrissey sofreu uma severa intoxicação alimentar ao chegar ao Peru, onde iniciaria a turnê pela América do Sul, no início de julho.

Após rumores de cancelamento de toda a turnê, o ex-Smiths avisou na sexta-feira que os shows em toda a América do Sul haviam sido "sacrificados". A Time For Fun, entretanto, dizia que os shows estavam mantidos.

Após o episódio no Peru, a Punto Ticket, produtora dos shows no país vizinho, já havia informado que "os concertos agendados para a América Latina em julho e agosto deveriam ser adiados para os próximos meses do ano". A Time For Fun informou à época que as datas estavam mantidas.

Reembolso

A produtora informa que os clientes que compraram ingressos para o show - que ocorreriam nos dias 30 de julho em São Paulo, 2 de agosto em Brasília e 04 de agosto no Rio - poderão pedir reembolso a partir desta terça-feira (23).

Quem comprou os ingressos pessoalmente em um ponto de venda devem comparecer ao local com o bilhete.

As pessoas que compraram pela internet devem enviar e-mail para sac@ticketsforfun.com.br com o título "REEMBOLSO".

Caso a compra tenha sido feita com cartão de crédito, o valor será creditado na fatura em até 20 dias úteis.

Saúde e financimaneto

A informação do novo cancelamento começou a rodar após o site "True-to-You", dedicado aos fãs do cantor, publicar na sexta-feira (19) uma carta supostamente assinada por Morrissey - o músico mantém contato com os fãs a partir do site. Na carta, o cantor cita "falta de financiamento" como motivo para o cancelamento. "É muito fácil vender ingressos, mas impossível transportar a banda e a equipe do ponto F para o G", diz.

Ainda na carta atribuída a Morrissey publicada no site, o cantor diz que "cancelamentos e doenças têm sugado a vida de todos nós, e a única solução razoável parece ser a arte de não fazer nada".

Em entrevista ao jornal chileno "La Tercera", Morrissey afirmou que quase morreu no início do ano, quando cancelou uma série de shows por causa de uma úlcera e uma pneumonia dupla.


Publicado em: http://musica.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2013/07/22/morrissey-cancela-shows-no-brasil.htm

Comunicado do Morrissey, pelo True to You

I am informed today that the projected tour of South America is snuffed out, thus euthanized - due, I'm reliably advised, to lack of funding. It's quite easy to sell tickets, yet impossible to transport band and crew from F to G.

In a year when far too many disappointments have been buried this really is the last of many final straws, and I am not alone in feeling this. The future is suddenly absent, and my apologies are now so frequent as to be somewhat ridiculous, and it is I who apologize because no one else would bother. It is agonizing to be responsible for imparting such news - especially when it springs upon me unexpectedly and inexplicably. But the collapse of South America rings the curtain down with a colossal thud, and the major problems remain as insoluble now as they were in 2009. The obvious conclusion stares back at me from the mirror, and the wheels are finally off the covered wagon. Cancellations and illness have sucked the life out of all of us, and the only sensible solution seems to be the art of doing nothing.

As always I ask your pardon, and I offer pangs of overwhelming love and gratitude to the band and the crew, whose loyalty stretched above and beyond.

I shall see you in my dreams,
Morrissey
19 July 2013, Los Angeles

Produtoras oficializam: turnê de Morrissey na América do Sul está cancelada

A nova-nova-notícia do drama que se tornou a turnê-não-turnê de Morrissey pela América do Sul dá conta de que, ENFIM, a visita do maior britânico vivo ao continente está mesmo cancelada. Nas últimas horas, a turnê esteve “cancelada” de acordo com Morrissey, mas “de pé” de acordo com produtoras locais. 

Só que a Time For Fun da Argentina informa em comunicado divulgado no final da manhã de hoje que o cantor precisou cancelar seus shows pela América do Sul. A T4F brasileira ainda não se pronunciou oficialmente sobre o assunto, o que deve ocorrer nas próximas horas (para um “sim” ou para um “não).

* Por volta das 13h30, a T4F brasileira confirmou o cancelamento dos shows de Morrissey no país. Ele se apresentaria em São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro e Brasília. O reembolso para quem adquiriu ingressos começará nesta terça-feira, 23 de julho.

Publicado em: http://popload.blogosfera.uol.com.br/

Johnny Marr entrevistado pelo The Guardian (Janeiro 2013)

Johnny Marr on the Smiths, Morrissey

and putting politics back in pop

With the release of his first solo album The Messenger, the former Smiths guitarist talks about finally embracing his old sound, David Cameron and why he and Morrissey don't talk any more

During the December 2010 debate over the raising of student tuition fees in the House of Commons, Labour MP Kerry McCarthy asked a rather surreal question of prime minister David Cameron, who had just gone public with his rather unlikely fandom of leftwing, anti-Conservative, seminal Manchester indie band the Smiths.

"As the Smiths are the archetypal student band, if he wins tomorrow night's vote, what songs does he think students will be listening to?"asked the member for Bristol East, to roars from the opposition benches. "Miserable Lie, I Don't Owe You Anything or Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now?"

Cameron, improbably, responded in kind. "I expect that if I turned up I probably wouldn't get This Charming Man," he quipped, "and if I went with the foreign secretary [William Hague] it would probably be William, It Was Really Nothing."

"You do wonder," comments Johnny Marr, drily. "What part of the Smiths ethos did he not get?"Few British groups have had the far-reaching impact of the Smiths, and few guitarists are as celebrated as Marr. He was recently named NME's ultimate guitarist (ahead of Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page), and even has a Salford University honorary doctorate for "changing the face of British music".

"I get a lot of people being very nice to me, even when I don't want them to be," the former Smith chuckles, pointedly. "With one or two exceptions, the people who like the music are always super nice and don't want to bother you. They just want to tell you how much they love it." He is nothing if not grateful to have been part of a band who "mean so much to so many people", but admits there is a downside: "It can be difficult when it's raining and you're running for the train." His grin widens, but he adds, more seriously. "Or you're trying to move on."

Marr has spent 26 years trying to move on from the Smiths, who split in 1987, in which time he's been quite the musical chameleon. What he calls a "searching personality" has taken him from synthesizer pop with Bernard Sumner in Electronic to foreboding rock with Matt Johnson's The The, from folk with Bert Jansch to adult-oriented pop with Crowded House via playing with Bryan Ferry and Chic's Nile Rodgers. He has fronted short-lived Stooges-ish swamp rockers the Healers, enjoyed an unlikely US No 1 album with leftfield indie outfit Modest Mouse and taken his roving guitar gunslinger role to shouty Wakefield indie band theCribs.

It's hard to see how he could have journeyed further from the trademark "chiming man" guitars he played in the Smiths, short of playing a kazoo. Yet here he is, a youthful 49-year-old, talking about his first ever solo album, The Messenger, which sees him returning to the big tunes and unmistakable, cascading guitar arpeggios that made him the guitarist of his generation.

We meet in a London photographic studio, where, having his picture taken earlier, Marr still looked unmistakably the bouffant-haired tunesmith whose 1983 Top of the Pops appearance alongside a gladioli-hurling Morrissey provided indie rock with its "year zero" moment. His reputation as one of rock's nicest guys is not without merit, yet he is also savvy and single-minded, and when he agrees to the photographer's request for photographs with a guitar it's with a matey but firm: "Just don't tell me how to hold it."

In person, the matt black Keith Richards barnet and glittery nail varnish on his plectrum-holding right hand suggest a man who has spent his entire adult life as a national institution. Otherwise he's disarmingly normal, self-effacing but not falsely modest, and – mostly – open. But he sounds very much a man on a mission.

"I felt something was missing from pop," he explains of The Messenger's prickly energy and epic, romantic soundscapes, which handily coincide with the widely predicted return of the guitar to pop's forefront in 2013. "When you hit it right on guitars in pop, it can be vivacious and exuberant and shiny. I've fond remembrances of bands like Blondie. Without being retro, if I'm really in the mood for it, that's what the guitar is for me. If people say parts of the record sound like the Smiths, I'm OK with that because hopefully it's got the same exuberance."

The Messenger doesn't just nod to the Smiths. As he suggests, the wiry post-punk of bands such as Manchester predecessors Buzzcocks and Magazine is a major influence. The title track is electro pop. Marr (who first sang in the Healers, and worked on his vocals in the Cribs), notMorrissey, is singing. But for years, Marr wasn't "OK" with sounding anything like the Smiths. In fact, as he now admits, the band cast such a long shadow that his musical shapeshifting was an "entirely conscious" decision to avoid sounding like his former self at all. If he came up with a riff that sounded anything like the group, he'd "bin it, flick the Vs up at it". As for the innumerable occasions when other people moaned to him that Johnny Marr didn't sound like, well, Johnny Marr, "No one likes to be dictated to," he insists, combative edge starting to take hold. "If you've been put in a box marked 'jingle jangle indie pop blah blah' then it's your responsibility to break out of that, otherwise you're creatively dead. You might as well write your own tombstone, with diminishing returns." He finishes with a proud, defiant salvo: "Bernard Sumner used to have his head in his hands going 'Everybody's gonna blame me!' When I first played live with Electronic, I came out playing a synthesizer."

But by 2005, he had been through so many metamorphoses that he couldn't see himself as a UK artist any more. So he went to Portland in the US (initially to join Modest Mouse, before hooking up with the relocated Cribs) to "find some space to play". One night, his fingers found the beginnings of the sort of instantly melodious guitar shape he turned out by the truckload when he was the musical half of songwriting partnership Morrissey and Marr.

"In the past, I'd have shredded it because it sounded too much like me," he admits, "but it just felt so sweet and so genuine, it seemed important to just go with it." The riff became the Cribs's song We Share the Same Skies, after which he began pining for the way bands operated in the UK, especially in his youth.

"I knew I needed to come back to front a group that operated like that," he explains. "So we all live in Manchester and get together to rehearse a few nights a week even though we don't need to. I just started to act like I was in that group, even though I envisaged a solo record. I didn't want to be in a group where the lead singer didn't want to play guitar any more. So that meant I was the right man for the job." He sniggers. "Luckily!"

Marr denies that he's been stubborn, just single-minded. "It's the prerogative of a young man in his 20s and 30s to be on one," he considers of what seems a partial volte-face, admitting that having been in the Smiths leaves an awful lot of baggage.

"But equally, if you're in your 40s and still carrying that around, then you've got a problem."In May 1982, Marr was an 18-year-old clothes shop assistant when he sashayed up to fellow working-class Irish-Mancunian and renowned misfit-about-town Steven Patrick Morrissey to suggest they form a group. The pair of them were so instantly infatuated with each other's possibilities that on their second meeting they planned the Smiths in detail. They plotted the label they would sign to (Rough Trade), the famous record sleeves, even the colour of the label on their debut single (blue). Everything came true.

"I didn't expect that. I'd written a load of catchy tunes in my bedroom."

While Marr's guitar style and worldview assimilated Motown, Chic, the Hollies and Iggy Pop, Morrissey added words steeped in Oscar Wilde and 1960s kitchen-sink drama. Morrissey's declaration of celibacy was another genius move, which made fans desperate to be the first to love him.

"We invented indie as we still know it," says Marr, the debt ceremoniously acknowledged in the 90s when Oasis's Noel Gallagher played Marr's guitar.

But the guitarist was equally taken aback by the reach of the Smiths' non-musical impact: the amount of people that turned vegetarianbecause of Meat is Murder, or became politically motivated through Margaret on the Guillotine. "We were of that generation that came after punk and post-punk," he explains. "We're grateful for the revolution, but there was a bit of homophobia there, and sexism. There wasn't in indie. People don't talk about it now, but it was non-macho. If you were an alternative musician, you were political, because of the times [Thatcherism and the Falklands war]. It was taken for granted that the bands you shared a stage with had the same politics. I'm not sure you could say that now."

So when David Cameron started saying that he loved the Smiths, Marr's old political edge – and sense of mischief – was suddenly revived, and he issued a now famous tweet: "David Cameron, stop saying that you like the Smiths. I forbid you to like it." It went viral."I got a lot of support," he grins, of what was primarily a joke. "But I didn't realise Twitter was a forum for so many angry people. I'm amazed how many people who should know better were so reactionary towards me. 'Hey Johnny Marr, I'm no Tory but where do you get off on forbidding people liking your music? I bet you won't give Cameron back the £10 he spent on The Queen Is Dead?' What are you talking about?"

Marr may have copped flak, but the incident was an early example of how Cameron – an old Etonian who also professes to adore the Jam's coruscating The Eton Rifles – can be light on detail.

"I know. I seriously did not like him dropping our name. He picked the wrong band."Marr was equally taken aback – and thrilled – when at the student protests over the raising of tuition fees, one young woman was photographed standing over riot police in Parliament Square, wearing a Smiths Hatful of Hollow T-shirt, an image that until recently featured on his homepage.

"I thought it'd been Photoshopped," he admits. "It took a few minutes to sink in that it was real. But I ended up giving it to everyone then. Clegg; the Queen. I was off!" He chuckles.Marr's amusement turned to surprise when Morrissey joined in the kerfuffle, issuing a statement supporting his ex-bandmate's tweet about Cameron. It was the first time they had united publicly on anything since the Smiths. However, while Morrissey is something of a dab hand at controversial statements, they didn't discuss it. "We used to, back in the day, for the bedevilment of it."

In fact, Marr reveals that while the two former confidantes were meeting up occasionally a few years ago, nowadays they no longer speak at all.

"We don't have any reason to, to be honest," he says, with a touch of glumness. When Marr remastered the Smiths' back catalogue two years ago, he emailed Morrissey (along with all his ex-bandmates) saying he could hear the love in the music, but didn't hear back. "It was a nice way to leave it, I think," he considers, tiptoeing carefully around too much discussion of his former partner. "You can only try and be friendly with someone for so long without getting anything back. You just think: 'Ah, fuck it.'"

When Marr started Electronic with Bernard Sumner, Morrissey opined: "He's replaced me. I'm not sure what with." Does Marr think he still feels betrayed? "You never know. I don't have any weirdness about it, or any of them."

Marr – whose exit precipitated the split – has long found himself being blamed for the Smiths' demise, calling a meeting after finding himself exhausted through writing the songs, (latterly) producing the records and running the unmanaged group's business affairs. Some months before, a sign that not all was well with the guitarist (who in those days coped with the pressures by drinking heavily, unlike the teetotal, running-and-white-tea regime he adopts now) came when he drove his car into a wall and was lucky to escape alive. But it has long intrigued me – when he called that meeting, did he know that he'd come out of it a former Smith?"In all honesty, I don't think I did. We just needed a reset, to do things differently. Two weeks' holiday would have been nice." But Marr has no regrets: he's proud that the Smiths did everything at the top of their game. "I'm glad I didn't spend 35 years in the same band. It's just not me."

Any lingering notion of the Smiths as a close-knit gang was finally demolished when drummer Mike Joyce sued the two songwriters over royalties. Marr still sees Andy Rourke, a friend since childhood, and the bassist dropped into the studio during recording of The Messenger. But discussion of the Smiths remains off limits. "If we need to think about what went on in the Smiths then we can torture ourselves by reading those books," he says, referring to the expanding pile of Smiths biographies.

There's just one thing that does get Marr's goat – the continual rumours that the Smiths will reform, which he accidentally fuelled himself recently when he joked that he would reunite the band "if the coalition government stood down".

"Some guy stuck a camera in my face," he explains. "If I don't say something glib, what else is there to say? 'Fuck off!'? It would have saved me a lot of trouble." He suddenly sounds truly weary. "But then that becomes the story."His irritation doesn't last, and he's soon excitedly remembering how watching Bert Jansch work at close quarters convinced him he could be a solo artist, even though he does indeed have a band, who rehearse in Manchester a few nights a week. Just like you know who. Writing songs is very different to how it was with Morrissey – who would add words to a tape of Marr's music and return it, which could often result in a completely different song to how Marr imagined. "That was a fascinating process." But he's now enjoying "a sense of liberation, being able to call the shots" and sing about his own concerns, whether humanity's relationship with technology or, on the sublime, autobiographical New Town Velocity, the day, aged 15, he "left school for poetry" and tore around Manchester celebrating his first taste of freedom.Around a year ago, Marr included a couple of Smiths songs in a live set at two low-key gigs in Manchester, and was surprised how much he enjoyed playing them. While Morrissey recently announced plans to retire, Marr says he never will. But if he seems happy in his own skin it's because of a union that goes back much further than the Smiths.

As a little boy, while others had toy cars or teddy bears, Marr had a toy guitar. "Recently, my parents redecorated the house and there were a couple of my really old toy guitars knocking around. So they moved them out, decorated, then put them back, as if they were houseplants."So when he was recently invited to speak at his kids' school, his wife, Angie, told him not to "terrify" them but to talk about what he knew. So Marr talked about being a guitarist."I said: 'If you want to be happy, find something you're good at and make it your life, whether it's being a train driver, architect, or whatever.'" He smiles as he lugs his trusty axe into a waiting car. "There's a lot to be said for being an expert at something."


Publicado em: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jan/11/johnny-marr-smiths-morrissey-politics-pop