Midlife jump-start for 'Moz'

by Mark Rahner
Seattle Times staff reporter

Put on your black clothes, groom your sideburns and prepare to mope.

The Disaffected One - a k a Morrissey - is here.

Promoters for the former Smiths frontman say there isn't any particular reason for his short - but still very forlorn - U.S. tour, which inexplicably kicked off Tuesday in Spokane. No new album, they say; he's just playing some dates, and without an opening act.

Morrissey's last album was 1998's "My Early Burglary Years," a collection of rarities, B-sides and other odds and ends. His last album of original material, 1997's "Maladjusted," vanished without so much as a whimper.

Meanwhile, the jangly-morose sounds of the Smiths have been popping up like hankies at an "English Patient"-"Terms of Endearment" double feature: in a movie or TV soundtrack here, a commercial there.

Morrissey - a k a Steven Patrick Morrissey or "Moz" to his cultish worshipers - has steadily cranked out solo albums since the Smiths' 1987 breakup. Critics suspected that whatever residual momentum the singer had carried from the Smiths into his solo career was exhausted, until 1992 and "Your Arsenal," which earned him, along with renewed respect, a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Album. Two years later, he scored a hit with "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get," on "Vauxhall & I."

But the English pop star hasn't made droves of post-Smiths converts. Or, as one critic summed up his fans, "a shrinking demographic of sensitive, disaffected, sexually undecided middle-class popsters who caught a glimpse of Morrissey in his glory days with the Smiths and liked it enough to hang on, hoping for a few remaining morsels of genius."

Those Smiths glory days lasted for three years, six albums and about 17 memorable singles, including "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now," "This Charming Man," "Girlfriend in a Coma," "Panic," and "Shoplifters of the World Unite."

But while those plaintive notes echoed in many a darkened dorm room in the States, the Smiths never achieved the status here that they did in the U.K. And by the time of Morrissey's Grammy nod, the rest of the world had caught up with him and judged his style passe. As if the Grammys themselves weren't a sure enough sign, a hilariously withering sendup the same year on cable's "Mystery Science Theater 3000" seemed to mark the crooner's transition into living cliche: Mike Nelson as a sullen Morrissey emerged from a container for keeping aging pop stars fresh, sing-song pontificating about how he cried that day.

Morrissey no doubt fueled the backlash with provocative interviews and behavior that even his own press material describes as "inscrutable": proclaiming himself celibate, forcing his vegetarianism on bandmates, trashing politicians as well as his musical peers.

But now, Morrissey may have worked up enough angst to give his career a second jump-start, particularly after these recent developments:

1) In November 1998, he lost a British High Court appeal against former Smiths drummer Mike Joyce, who wanted a bigger cut than the 10 percent of the band's royalties he and bassist Andy Rourke were getting. Morrissey and founding guitarist Johnny Marr were each getting 40 percent. (Rourke settled out of court.)

2) Moz is past 40 now. What causes more of a panic than a midlife crisis?


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