of both of these twats now (actually have been for nearly a decade). Can we try to resist the temptation of giving them anymore space on this website please?

I think they have a point.

Though as a Smiths fan who wasn't old enough to appreciate them when they were still together I appreciate being able to hear Smiths songs live. Watered down versions of Smiths songs are still better than most anything else out there.

and what of it?

was the whole quote bernard or was some of that brett speaking? it seems like bernie has always had a hard-one for marr but doesn't care much for moz. wouldn't make sense if brett said any of that since basically he was playing co-bernie songs in a "dreadful pub rock band" after he left.

regardless of their little fueds, i'm still looking forward to the tears album.

Hate Bernard if you must, but he's got a valid point. TIALTNGO WAS truly dreadful this time around. It's no fault of Morrissey's though...it's due to his subpar bandmates. I'm sorry, but the lads are mediocre at best. Morrissey needs a real band behind him if he's going to tackle The Smiths classics.

i suppose he may have a point but i think he could have said it better. this makes him sound rude and quite harsh. im all for having oppinions, but theres no need to quite so harsh.

That whenever there is a quote from anyone slagging Morrissey no matter how petty you get queues of people lining up on here to say how much they agree.

Yet above is an interesting story about Sparks covering one of his songs. No one is interested in that it seems.

Maybe he just enjoys singing the songs that meant so much to him. Morrissey fans are so bitter and twisted.

It was utterly dreadful. His lyrics were platitudinous drivel and he sang in that horribly contrived and deeply fake mid-Atlantic style.
He is clearly a man for whom musical virtuousity is more important than genuine emotion.
The man is an utter fool. 'Refugees' sounds like Suede on auto-pilot. No-one cares anymore, Bernard.

It might be my imagination, but in the early solo days, I seem to recall Morrissey being coy and denying that he was ever singer of the Smiths.

What sort of things did he have to say about the Smiths in the first 3 or so years after the break-up?

Morrissey's band may not be virtuosos but then Morrissey has never been about muso wank has he? I think the live "There is a Light" sounds beautiful, as do "Shoplifters" "How Soon Is Now" and particularly "Last Night I Dreamt," which sounds sublime on the Earls Court CD.

I do think Butler may have a point if he were to talk about "The Headmaster Ritual" which looked a bit embarrassing on the DVD, to be honest. It's the only low point in that the guitarists clearly can't play the song.

I think overall Morrissey's tongue-in-cheek Elvis-style comeback has been brilliant. The album is one of his best solo albums, the live shows have been better than I can remember, and he's embraced middle age without looking silly.

broken

If he was just playing big arenas and reheating his old songs the criticism would be valid.

But he is releasing new material (even if some of you don't like it - I love it so I'm OK) and playing small venues as well as big ones. So he's hardly behaving like the Rolling Stones is he?

Seems to me it's just a way of getting a few credibility points. "Look at us, we're not trying to make a comeback like Morrissey did, we're cooler than that"

I love the hypocrisy of Morrissey fans who get all whiney every time someone slags off Moz, when the man has never himself been able to keep his mouth shut about anyone else. He endlessly slags off other bands, and you probably laugh when you read that stuff, don't you? Ever here the cliche about getting what you give?

Frankly, The Tears stuff I've heard ranks all over You Are The Quarry...and I love that album. Brett and Bernard just have more passion, more fire, and better production. I'd love to hear Bernie twist Moz's knobs.

Morrissey didn't play any of his Smiths songs for years. The fact that he now does is a sign that he's comfortable with his past and doesn't feel that he has to compete with her prevous incarnation. If they're lucky one day Brett and Bernard will achieve a similar level of maturity.

Butler is also trying to draw parallels between Morrissey and Marr's legacy and his own legacy at Suede, which is preposterous.

The Smiths were the first "indie" band but had their sights set a long, long way above the usual "indie" bar. They changed the way pop groups looked, sang, played and wrote lyrics, and they influenced a whole new generation of artists.

Who exactly thinks Suede can compare with the Smiths? Except, of course, pompous Butler and his notoriously overblown ego.

broken

and a lot of insightful points have been made. the bottom line is, i love suede, but let's face it. even their really good albums (the first one, coming up) are ridden with some god awful songs. i'm excited for the tears, and wish they didn't sound so arrogant. i wouldn't mind seeing beautiful ones and animal nitrate live, but it would still never compare to seeing moz.

At last someone has said what many of us have been thinking for the last 15 years.

From the absolute mash-up of "Suedehead" to the car-crash of "There Is A Light", his band has proven time and time again they just can't play with any verve or finesse.

All by design, of course. Morrissey is the main attraction and that's the way it must always be. He's got a point there. People still love hearing Smiths songs done by his plodding band because his voice sounds stronger and more vivid than ever. They're still recognizably Smiths-y. But let's face it-- his band has always been subpar. In many ways they've been perfect for him, but as far as musicianship goes, he could have done much, much better.

It will never happen, but I would love to hear Joyce, Rourke, and Vini Reilly play the songs off of "Viva Hate". They'd sound so amazing you'd never go back.

Or, if we're having our fantasies today, I would love to hear Johnny play any of Alain Whyte's songs. Any of them. Play a show full of Morrissey covers. It would be like Picasso painting in a Spongebob Squarepants coloring book.

I like Morrissey's band as people. I wish 'em the best. They've had a good run. Morrissey needs to put aside his ego and collaborate with a stallion again, though, and not raid the stables for plowhorses.

i don't get it -- people are complaining about morrissey's backing band and their sound, but what no one has mentioned is that ultimately, morrissey has the final word on what the band sounds like. he has full veto power.

do you think it was boz's idea (he being the leader of the band now that alain's out) to slow down "there is a light..." to a near-ballad? nope, morrissey had to instruct the band to take it down a couple notches. after all, who's signing the paychecks.

take a look at a couple of those old bootleg dvds from the 1991 "kill uncle" tour. no one can say that boz, alain & co. were slacking off -- morrissey's band was once an incredibly tight, well-oiled machine.

if you're going to say the backing band is subpar, first go to the source material: the songs. "you are the quarry" isn't a rocker and i'm sure that's by design. morrissey's no spring chicken -- he knows this and that's why "quarry" is for the most part, a down- to mid-tempo album. same with the older up-tempo tunes -- the music's slower because morrisey has decided to enter his final concert years with a bit of dignity as opposed to the mick jaggers and steven tylers of the world who refuse to realize that acting like a coked-up teenager at the age of 50 just looks pathetic.

me, i miss the old days when songs like "there is a light..." was a bouncy jangler and the set list wasn't full of torch songs. somewhere between the untitled 2002 tour and the "quarry" sessions, morrissey shifted gears from being a spry pop singer to a boarderline lounge act. i'm not complaining about it though, just reminiscing about the old days.

..giving interviews to the Sun to try and sell more records.

i love Suede and also The Tears but i disagree completely with them on this matter. I think There is a light... sounds better now that it ever sounded with the smiths. The keyboards add something that was missing with the smiths when they played that song live (why was the song cut off of Rank then?) and the same goes for the other smiths tracks which i think sound fantastic now too.

It doesn't matter who is backing up Moz. There is always someone that is going to point out how a Smiths song was much better performed by them, than Morrissey, or Marr with their own current bandmates. Tell me something I don't already know. But to say that Moz is embarassing himself by performing Smiths songs is going too far.

Didn't Moz have some kind of problem with these guys a while back? Some of you clones have to remember the details on that.

I'm not even going to bother comparing these guys to Moz. Everytime I read about these acts who I haven't heard about since I was in high school shooting off, it's like a chihuahua nipping on the heels of a giant.

I once saw Suede interviewed on an Australian music channel called, um, Channel V.They were the most arrogant, rude gits I'd ever heard give an interview. This was after Head Music came out, well past their use by date too.

brett should be so lucky that anyone even cares about him/suede/tears.

Bernard you are nothing but a fop haired chancer who played fucking disposable tinpot dirge jingle jangle wank in what was a pop void back in 92. Lets face it your music is tedious forgettable and you have ideas way above what you really are. Just who the hell do you think you are? My eight year old brother heard your playing back in 93 and said "Johnny Marr". You are a pale imitation and a sad wannabee attention seeker for reuniting with that other fake Brett Anderson. You know in your heart that Moz and Marr would never do anything so low because they have nothing left to prove, unlike you two!!

i really like the first two albums of suede. said it. but COME ON!
what happened to suede after those two albums? they became boring.
haven't listened to the tears bootlegs, but i am sure it will be far inferiour to quarry for example. let's see... and morrissey did very well without his old fellow johnny.
so now those two sicko's dissing morrissey for playing live old smths songs after years and years?
i think it's great that moz played them, it's part of his life and it's his FUCKING right to play them live AGAIN. i loved it. if they doesn't - well then. but they should at least accept that they are, compared to the smiths and AS WELL to morrissey: a nice nothing.
tears are falling, and that's what will happen to you. bastards.

Those two twats are pretty big tools... you guys are even BIGGER TOOLS for agreeing with them! Every Smiths song that Morrissey has done live (that I have heard in person) has been so amazing that I could barely breathe or stay standing up.

This interview totally pissed me off and it really is a waste of space on here.

kiss my ASS Butler!!!
Now I´m happy.

I've read most of the comments here and many people seem to feel how I do. I think Butler did have a point to some degree and it sounded like he was being honest and sincere. Regardless of whether or not he was throwing a jab at Moz, from the article that's what I got from him.
    You here it time and time again about Morrissey needing to drop his generic playing band mates. Well I say that's bullshit! Sure it might sound a little more jive and what not but if it's not broke don't fix it. Morrissey did fine with his current band. No complaints here at least. Maybe Morrissey is just simplifying his music so people can feel and absorb it better, maybe he's over the hill? Who flippin knows!!?? Love him or leave him.

I've never understood how Suede got themselves attached themselves to the Morrissey fanbase to the extent they did.

It's like they were trying to steal Morrissey's fans.

Suede had a few decent songs, but when all is said and done, they were just another overrated British band for the dustbin.

These are two has-beens (perhaps never-beens!) trying to use Morrissey once again to get in the spotlight. The reason they aren't playing old songs is because they're trying to start fresh with something new. Morrissey did that too, after The Smiths.

Brett, as much as you wish you WERE Morrissey, you are not. Not even close. Give it up, boy.
You're all style and no substance and your lyrics were never very interesting. Morrissey, either solo or with the Smiths, has so many more great songs than you it's not even funny. You're avergae. Just another. Do you understand? Fashion boy.

here's something funny dr. david thorpe has to say about butler and anderson. zing!

here's the link to the full article (it's hilarious):http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2792

Breaking up the bad-record juggernaut known as Suede must have taken quite an emotional toll on lead singer Brett Anderson, who had been happily stuck on auto-pilot for nearly ten years. Whenever he ran low on funds for foppish haircuts, crack, and designer jeans, he could just slap together another by-the-numbers Suede single and sell a modest number of copies. Amazingly, even after descending so far into self-parody that Aerosmith looked like avant-garde geniuses in comparison, Brett Anderson’s atrophied artistic conscience took momentarily took over and caused him to break up the band. Predictably, the weight of not knowing where his next paycheck would come from broke Anderson almost instantly, and he phoned up Suede’s critically-beloved original guitarist, Bernard Butler, with whom he’d had a well-publicized falling-out ten years earlier. “My career is dead,” said Anderson to Butler, “and getting back together with you is the only way the media will ever pay attention to either of us again.” “I agree,” replied Butler, “let’s make an album before the last of our former fans forget who we are.” Well, that wasn’t the exact conversation, but that was surely the subtext of it. Actually, for all I know, that was the exact conversation, so let’s make things simple and assume that it was. So anyway, Anderson and Butler are back together and calling themselves “The Tears,” which is the band name equivalent of how bad “Emoh” is as an album title. If I sound a little pissed off, it’s because their single is decidedly catchy and I desperately wanted it to be an appalling failure.

seems the band and not Morrissey performing Smiths songs

On that one, he's not totally wrong but I can't see the link wetween this and the fact that anderson and him won't perform Suede songs anymore - I bet they will in case of lack of success

When Moz plays a Smiths song these days it provides us with an insight to the work from his past that he is proud of today.

For that reason I like hearing Smiths songs and also older Moz songs mixed in with the new.

Suede: I bought their first single because Moz talked about them. I like Suede. They have always thrown Moz's name about to generate publicity for themselves. As we all know, however, Morrissey operates in a different stratosphere to Suede, who are after all a merely a 'pub rock band' imitation of The Smiths.

For the millionth and final time, i am a huge moz fan, all his solo stuff nad especially his new stuff is great, even his cover versions are great, but when he does watered down versions of his previous smiths stuff it is just lame, its not just smiths songs, he even does bad versions of his solo stuff some times, a bit more quality control please mozzer.

I was just cringing at earls court when the keyboards, extra guitar and drum loops were brought in to replicate Johnny Marrs guitar parts. What WERE you thinking. as a fan i will be critical, and i'm certainly not going to pay £17 odd quid for a live video which is guilty of the same charges. In a nutshell - solo stuff is great, please keep it coming. Moz is getting like any other old timer, trotting out the hits from their former band. Brett and Bernard have a point, i just hope they can stick to it. It must have been hard for moz to resist at first, maybe the urge got just too strong.

What a twisted little pair these two are turning out to be. However this little spat isn't exactly new as it rumbles back to 1999 when Anderson slagged Morrissey off in The Face and Uncut magazines. By the way if you haven't heard the new Tears single you aren't missing a thing. It's AWFUL!!!

from the tears forum. posted by Bernard Butler.

QUOTE

right.......let's sort this out straight away,and feel free to copy it as im sure you will.
what the journo left out: the queen is dead still rules my life.I listen to the smiths daily still.I love lots of Morrissey's solo records.........i have cried my way through over 20 years of his incarnations and feel very qualified to know when morrissey is on form.........and yes i presumed every line of the queen is dead was addressed personally to me
i admit i was naively goaded into a rage by the lovely journalist by his suggestion that i was wasting my time with brett unless we just reformed suede and played old songs.......he admitted of course that he had yet to hear our record......in any case i only wrote one of the quoted songs and have never performed either
i dont think morrissey is sad for playing smiths songs......he should be proud of them and enjoy sharing them with so many fans.......i just dont like the versions im hearing.......and the idea that they have been creatively given a new lease of life is absurd......i saw johnny transform those beautiful records into live beasts .......they are the reason i exist.......but now they sound to me like poetry readings against an overmodest backdrop,too shy to break free ......i know alan and boz and it was me that put little barrie up for the job last year.......they are all great musicians but pop records are not about poetry,they are exhilarating moments of abandon and beauty and i am not alone in still waiting for morrissey to surprise me and put himself inthe centre of some musical danger again ,not just lyrical danger......this is a genuine creative enthusiasm of a fan
by having a musical opinion am i somehow spoiling the fun? well im sorry but since when did Morrissey worry about that....and the idea that what i do creatively correlates to the amount of people watching? well how come i happily turned down the offer to join the Moz in favour of playing to a few hundred like i did last night?

i think its a shame that i rose to the occasion.....i dont think he's sold out,and certainly not sad..... but also a shame that so many people arent willing to be turned on by a hardcore creative standoff: if the songs i play tonight are shite then shoot me down ..... i'drather see an artist playing russian roulette with their music than getting the pipe and slippers out and living through nostalgia.........it doesnt bother me that by thetime the tears get round to learning a suede song there might only be 3 people propping upthe bar .......fuck it maybe ill learn one for tonight.......or maybe ill write something new......
and dont forget morrissey and marr taught me everything i know so don't blame me.......they remain the greatest british group and the queen is dead my favourite record of all time......my apologies for any other sentiments......wet plimsoll duly administered

END QUOTE

SHAME on you to those here who critised Bernard! SHAME ON YOU

I hate the way certain people (including many posters on this site) feel that they have more of a right to Smiths songs than Morrissey does; for fucks sake, he co-wrote them! That's why when I hear statements like: "'I think Morrissey is completely sad for what he's done to The Smiths' songs" I get really pissed off. They're HIS songs, NOT YOURS!
Ok, so they were special to you when you were young Bernard - they're probably a tad more special to Morrissey and if he feels he wants to sing them in front of his fans, do you really think he has to answer to you?

Fucking lemon.

.....more like another body fluid !

Wankers !

Despite the competency of Moz's band, only a fool could deny that his current versions of Smiths songs are but a mere shadow of the vitality, bite, and passion of The Smiths performances. They are excellent songs and deserve to be heard live, but not in the current, plodding forms.

I'd rather Moz only play Smiths songs that The Smiths never played live. No memories to tarnish that way.

From the brief samples I've heard of non-album tracks on the official website, and the refugees single, I'm a little let down. I'll probaby end up buying the album (if it ever comes out in the U.S. that is), but I was really hoping to hear some of the magic of early suede or even Coming Up, (without Bernard).

The songs just don't seem to have the same energy or ambition as the original suede albums (or as they're called out here "the london suede). When I was a teenager I was listening to Suede with the same feelings maybe Bernard had about the Smiths, maybe I'm just getting old!

I'd rather have "stay together" type songs or something that sounds like the coming up era, but that's just me. I was so jazzed to hear about them reuniting.

i give u just one year until you'll start playing suede songs in the tears gigs.
that is what the audience wants - and what will u say then?