British Prime Minister is snubbed by Morrissey & Marr

Britain's austerity measures are having an ill effect for Prime Minister David Cameron. Poor old David must be crushed. I'd hate to be him.

one of my favorites of today, The Stars, do my favorites of yesterday: The Smiths

A BRILLIANT cover from The Stars....

Smiths' Influence in The Drums

NME is reporting that Boy George is impressed with the band "The Drums", saying they remind him of The Smiths.

"so I could parade it in all it's glory"

and Bernard Sumner is a total diva..hmmmm.

Inside The Smiths: They're never getting back together - get over it.

In the crowded downtown HMV store, the pulsating guitar intro of “Irish Blood, English Heart” is amplified over the sound system and with immediate detection I’m grinning to myself. Besides the tattooed and pierced twenty-something employee spinning today’s new CD picks, I am perfectly alone in recognizing Morrissey’s renaissance single from 2004’s You Are The Quarry. Today the single plays as the fourth song on his latest recording, yet another Greatest Hits album.

Considering his solo career has spanned twenty years now, Steven Patrick Morrissey is still far from being a North American household name; typically identified as the former lead singer for The Smiths. Under a veil of uncommonness, Morrissey languishes in the safekeeping of his devotees, sanctioned by ex-Smiths’ patriots and a fierce brigade of Latinos. He has become an icon among the survivors of the by-gone 1980’s rave culture and indeed the most successful out of the former Manchester quartette.

Picking up the pieces immediately following the 1987 demise of The Smiths, issuing his first solo album “Viva Hate” in March of the following year, Morrissey contrives a formula of releasing original albums with B-side compilations and best-ofs in between. Now, several record labels later, he still finds it reasonable to pander an eighth compilation – this one under London’s imperial Decca Music Group. The packaging is gorgeous and features a heavenly black and white close up photograph of Moz with eyes wistfully closed – from about ten years ago albeit. But sadly, the song selection here is quite dumbfounding, too cumbersome with material from his last two studio recordings which aren’t the definitive of Morrissey for anyone. When it finally whirls its way through to track 7, we revive the faithful standby “Everyday Is Like Sunday” and three other interchangeable best-knowns. Thank God for the bonus CD, Live At The Hollywood Bowl and that gorgeous packaging. I ached over his oversight of Piccadilly Palare, At Amber, Boxers and my treasured Late Night, Maudlin Street. It’s simply puritanical of him to omit those and include his cover of Patti Smith’s Redondo Beach on a Greatest Hits.

And as if this were all not enough to make me completely despondent, I then subjected myself to watching the lop-sided documentary film Inside The Smiths, Through the Eyes of Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke, which seemed more like an attempt at time travel for the neglected “rhythm section” of the band than an upright documentary. Curiously devoid of any Smiths soundtrack (more royalty quibbling), the most poignant tangible is that Rourke and Joyce come out as the most devoted of Smiths fans. Yet this doesn’t stop me from wincing at their raw refusal to move on with their careers and lives.

The same cannot be said for Morrissey, who may routinely toss in classic Smiths’ songs at live concerts, he emphatically revolts the idea of reuniting. As for his latest and greatest; this Greatest Hits is a pulverization that shows little of his brilliance and proves his contentment in being the commander-in-chief of his own eccentric musical machine. I love him but I’d never recommend this album-I’d stick with the 2001 The Best of Morrissey.
- Stephanie Kiernan

Sleeveface me

I'm much more sedate this morning...After my blast/post on Airborne Confessions, I'm busying myself at lunchtime to navigate around some oddball sites and arming myself with novelty. I think I'm in need of some cheering up - same with the New Yorker because of her little pet mouse went to Heaven last week :(

So here it is: something called "Sleeveface". Flickr's got an entire Pool on the matter and I've sourced the best of them here with this guy.

I just may have to rethink my profile picture and exchange it for this one:


You can tell who's got it going on and who aint but their sleeveface, so be prepared to be terrorfied and impressed by a few of them. I couldn't find Tom Waits or Lee Hazelwood. Email me if need be.

Got Morrissey?

They say there's too much caffeine in your blood stream And a lack of real spice in your life



Last night I had John, the construction handy man in to fix one of my dimmer lights (yes I really do have a strong conviction for dimmer switches) and he noticed my Morrissey albums on the hallway table. "Oh who's M-o-r-r-ees-y?" Oh God I thought. This guys got to be at least 50 and he doesn't know who Morrissey is? And even worse, he didn't know who The Smiths were, adding further frustration in my attempt to explain who Morrissey was. I know. There's so much ignorance in the world it's shocking. I pointed to my refrigerator door where my beloved is stuck and then I took him over to the iMac and pulled up some classic Smiths for him to hear - you know, in hopes that something might jog loose in his brain. But nothing did. Poor old soul. This got me thinking this morning about a list of favorite Smiths' songs. A list of must haves and "must get" - as in "do you get it?".

So here goes in no particular order (other than scrolling through my iTunes and the fact that I placed "There Is A Light" last because it really is my absolute favorite Smiths' single), song titles and album:


Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now (Louder Than Bombs)
The Headmaster Ritual (Meat Is Murder)
Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours (Strangeways, Here We Come)
Well I Wonder (Meat Is Murder)
Bigmouth Strikes Again (The Queen Is Dead)
I Know It’s Over (The Queen Is Dead)
This Charming Man (The Smiths)
Hand In Glove (The Smiths)
Still Ill (The Smiths)
Half A Person (Louder Than Bombs)
What Difference Does It Make? (The Smiths)
Ask (Louder Than Bombs)
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others (The Queen Is Dead)
Shoplifters Of The World Unite (Louder Than Bombs)
That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore (Meat Is Murder)
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (The Queen Is Dead)

More Smith Tales to come