Hearing ‘This Charming Man’ on the radio for the first time changed my life, after just the first few notes, I was a convert, and once the vocal hit - I was in another world.
…..Nice jacket
It was October 1983. I was 17, still living with my parents (although by now my father was dying and would only live a few more months) and desperate to get away. I was looking for a world outside the one I was trapped in and this was the beginning of my escape. I’d always been hugely invested in music, but only as an audience member, somehow this made me feel like I was on centre stage. One of the reasons I connected so completely with The Smiths was that there was as much to enjoy that was visual, as well as musical. I knew all the references, had seen all the films and picked up on every nuance in the covers, the videos, and even the typefaces. It was outsider music for misfit nerds from the North, like me. The charity shop overcoats suited me, the anti-fashion old man styling worked and I still had a full head of hair that did exactly what it was supposed to do, for the first (and last) time in my life. Being a Smiths fan also gave you community - you could make connections, it was almost like having a secret handshake that opened hidden doors - It was the right thing at exactly the right time.
Getting to gigs was much harder back then and I only saw them play as a group twice - both times in London when I was a student, with a group of friends who were less enamoured than me and in big venues with huge numbers of people.
I had to make do with fan clubs, mail-order merchandise and my constant scouring of record stores for anything Smiths-related.
By the time they split up in ’87 I was totally absorbed into college work and spinning enough plates already to get too upset, they had already saved my life, one way or another.
I followed the drama that developed afterwards via the music press, at a distance - and only really got back into the saddle when the internet finally started making sense. When YouTube kicked off there only seemed to be about 300 videos to choose from, and half of them, seemed to be lost ‘taped off the TV’ Smiths rarities, and suddenly it was back again - that ‘community’.
I also became heavily involved in the early online fandom - particularly the Morrisssey-Solo site (from 1997) - one of a plethora of incredibly loyal and detailed Morrissey fan sites. I was eventually hounded off the site by Jared O’Mara and the shabby thuggery of homophobia and sexism he ushered in (O’Mara was briefly a member of Parliament, taking the seat from Nick Clegg, until a spectacular fall from grace - I think he’s still in prison). That early online community building was a really important time for me and many other men of my age who increasingly struggled to connect socially in a world that focused on fun, alcohol and social acceptance via internet dating sites.
Much later on I became close friends with the film director Richard Heslop who had worked closely with Derek Jarman, and participated in a number of key Smiths videos - including being the co-director of The Queen Is Dead, When I moved back to Liverpool - I bought a house a few doors away from another friend who was so pathologically obsessed with Morrissey he lived for little else - even appearing in the video for ‘Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before’ - riding a bike around Salford in borrowed NHS spectacles.
To be fair to Morrissey - his output wasn’t too bad either - album after album of pretty decent post Smiths self-flagellation, peaking with ‘Vauxhall and I’, probably the best thing he’s ever done. (I think it’s interesting that the best thing he ever did coincided with the only time in his life he was in a healthy stable relationship)
Gig-wise I was going out a lot, but in 2002 when the big comeback tour was announced I was so embedded within the network of Smiths/Morrissey fans I somehow justified going to every gig on the UK leg of the tour, and then more again.
One of my albums of ticket stubs
There were a lot of gigs, it required planning, strong nerves when buying tickets online, spare time and too much money - but I had a great time. By the end of the tour I had made friends, become recognisable to many (I wasn’t the only person in for the long haul) and had the revelation that perhaps it was time to stop, reevaluate who I was, who my friends were - and most of all who he was.
I have no intention of explaining how I came to have this
By December 2004 I had reached the end, It was the Brighton Centre. (ironically the exact place I’d been nearly beaten to death a few years earlier). I didn’t want to participate or even be there - I stood as far away from the stage as possible, all I could see was the back of people’s heads - their thinning quiffs silhouetted against the stage and a sea of bald patches catching the light. I was getting old, we were all getting old. The guy on the stage was quite a bit older.
It was out of my system now - the community and excitement were waning, there was more to life and frankly, Morrissey himself doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny. His views were becoming more and more right-wing, I’d stopped pretending he hadn’t treated his bandmates appallingly and the dreary, barely concealed racism was impossible to rationalise as misguided or misjudged. I was done. ‘Bengali in Platforms’ isn’t poetry, it’s prejudice and privilege. I’d also come to the point where I really needed to shake it all off - I went to see a house in Brighton once that had an original concert backdrop hung on one wall (Panic - with Alexandra Bastedo) and I felt like I was being stalked. Over the years I’ve either sold or given away most of my memorabilia and books. I didn’t miss anything - except the concert tickets, I kept them.
I hadn’t just been to the gigs, I’d done tribute nights - after-parties and any number of social events. I was burnt out.
I remember reading a Sunday Supplement article about his house in LA, it had once belonged to John Schlesinger (an alarm bell rang - you can’t buy into that kind of cultural kudos). There was a giant photograph of Bobby Moore over the mantelpiece. It looked like a stage set as if someone had curated the house Morrissey ‘would’ live in. I was all so superficial, just dressing up after all. Morrissey had no idea who Bobby Moore was. Someone I knew once said that Morrissey was their ‘beard’ - something I instantly understood as very clever, very true and very, very sad. Ouch.
I still know people trapped in that time - but it’s all in the past for me.
Gig list.
17 Sept 2002, Royal Albert Hall, the big one. Terrible seats but got into the VIP bar. Dermot O’Leary is very short and has no idea how camp he really is. Barged into the press box and stayed there - nobody had the balls to move us and the view was better.
30 October 2002, St Georges Hall Bradford, very good venue - great gig lots of friends there
31 October 2002, Blackburn - This gig and the Bradford one were around the time of Diwali so we had a bit more of a party atmosphere around the venue.
02 November 2002, Barrowlands, Glasgow. Sadly - the reputation of the venue got in the way and I drank so much I can’t remember a thing about it
05 November 2002, Brixton Academy. Bonfire night. I went on my own so I sold a spare ticket on eBay - I arranged to meet the buyer under the clock at Victoria Station, unfortunately - the same spot Ulrika Johnson had chosen to set up a stall to sell her autobiography. She had little, if any interest until a group of city boys, clearly a bit drunk, offered to buy a signed copy if they could have the life-size cardboard cutout of her. She made the mistake of agreeing - one of the boys ran around the station, riding it like a horse - dry humped it and tore the head off. She decided to leave at that point. The support at the gig was The Libertines, who were very good. The venue was filthy.
22 May 2004, Manchester MEN - the big one
I’m actually in the video for this one, right at the front (‘Who put the M In Manchester’) - full of Manchester celebrities including Christopher Ecclestone who I’m pretty sure wore the same coat he sported in Dr Who a year later. James Maker was there, I met him years later at a Paul Burston Polri event in Hastings, he was promoting his book ‘Autofallatio’. Maker was still furious that his character hadn’t appeared in the film ‘England Is Mine’ about Morrisseys early years. The film is actually very good and the period is well observed. There really wasn’t any need for Maker.
10 Sept 2004, Preston Guildhall - The Dead 60s on support, they were a small Liverpool band who were my near neighbours - (to understand the name, imagine saying ‘that sounds great, it’s dead 60’s - in a scouse accent)
Sept 9 2004, Liverpool Royal Court
Got into a fight with a woman in the Everyman bar afterwards who kept waving her cigarette about.
Sept 04 2004, Blackpool Tower Ballroom
Fantastic venue - a really wonderful weekend, lots of tacky fun - best crown engagement of any other gig including the MEN
August 31 2004, Edinburgh Corn Exchange
Good, fun gig but a shitty B&B in town and WHO KNEW Edinburgh Corn Exchange was miles away from town on the bus?
December 14 2004, Birmingham with PJ Harvey on support - she was supposed to be retiring from public performance so she was the main draw here.
Went up on one of those temporary Ferris wheels before the gig, very windy - bad move, Took two hours to get out of the car park. There had been a race riot the day before at a theatre over a play.
I went once more - Llandudno Dixieland - 6th April 2006, with my friends the Two Colins and Colin number 2’s X girlfriend Lynda. It was OK - but I can’t remember anything about it, except getting onto the locked pier afterwards and trying to get the teacups to work.
Brighton and Llandudno are detailed above
Colin C, Linda C and Colih H in Llandudno, just before the gig. Something prosaic about the old woman on the mobility scooter passing by at a point when I was feeling time passing too
I was at that Brixton gig. I hadn’t seen him since the last Smith’s gig at the Palladium (which was dull). I thought he looked like a fat James Mason. The people I went with later ruined my life and I ended up in a mental ‘facility’ trying to learn not to be miserable (the irony). While I was there he released a single. I realised at that point how depressed his music and the Smiths’ had made me and swore off…