The Smiths

The Smiths live at the Nottingham Royal Centre on 21st Oct 1986, playing How Soon Is Now and Still Ill

Concert Filmed by Soundsville International. This is taken from my master Video8 tape.

Memories from the night

My Parents were in the process of moving to Lincoln in 86, and they were renting a flat while they looked for a house. It just so happened that they were away that week, and as Lincoln is not far from Nottingham, we decided to borrow their flat for the night. We drove up from London in our trusty VW Camper van in the afternoon. Picking up a pizza as we drove through Lincoln, we found the flat and had some tea (that's an evening meal for all you non Brits ... although we may have had a cup of tea with it).
Nottingham is about 40 miles from Lincoln. We didn't leave the flat until early evening, so time was quite tight as we entered the city. It has a ring road round the city centre, which wasn't easy to navigate. We could see the...

"My Tele was on just about every track I did with The Smiths" – John Porter talks producing Johnny Marr on Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now


Brief article.
Regards,
FWD.

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Related item:

• Guitar World: "The Smiths’ How Soon Is Now? guitar secrets: producer John Porter reveals the exhaustive tonal sculpting behind the alt-rock anthem" - August 12, 2020

Related off-site article:

• Sound On Sound: John Porter: From The Smiths To The Blues - June, 2012

Text reproduction of his interview in "Record Collector presents: The Smiths" special (April 21, 2022).

"ACE OF BASS

It all began with a Neil Young badge pinned to his school blazer. In this brand new interview, Andy Rourke tells Lois Wilson about the call from an old mate that would change his life forever...

I met Johnny at school when I was 11. I was really into Neil Young at the time and he was wearing a Neil Young Tonight's The Night lapel badge. This was when everyone else seemed to be into Jethro Tull and heavy metal, so Neil Young was a conversation opener and pretty soon we were spending all our spare time together, either playing music or listening to music or talking about music. We formed a band together, Freak Party. It was me on bass, Johnny on guitar and funky Si Wolstenscroft on drums, and the music did get funky. The Clash's Sandinista! had just come out and we were jumping on that vibe. We rehearsed every night until kicking out time, we got stoned a...

Apologies if this has been previously posted...


Record Collector Presents ... The Smiths

In this special bookazine on The Smiths, we celebrate the legendary Manchester band who, between their formation in 1982 and split in 1987, changed the face of “indie” music. We feature exclusive interviews with former members of the band, including a lengthy encounter with Johnny Marr, we re-review all the Smiths albums, there are features on their feted artwork, and articles on their fans and collectors, a notoriously hardcore breed.

Release date: 21 April
Pre-orders dispatched: 19 April

Thought this was interesting:


Though music streaming platforms may have supplanted physical media as the go-to way to play your favorite songs, plenty of people are still actively expanding their well-curated vinyl record collections. In fact, vinyl actually outsold CDs for the first time in decades back in late 2019.

In short, vinyl records are still surprisingly popular—and according to a new study from UK financial comparison service Money.co.uk, no one is more popular on vinyl than The Beatles. To come to that conclusion, the researchers crunched numbers from Discogs, an online music database and retailer where millions of users catalog and add to their own music collections across many formats. Each album’s page includes statistics showing how many Discogs users own it. So Money.co.uk took a look at that data for 1.3 million vinyl records and then ranked artists based on their aggregate...

Give me your top 5 Smiths songs?

-How Soon Is Now?
-The Headmaster Ritual
-Bigmouth Strikes Again
-There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
-Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

And finally, what are the top 5 songs you’ve been involved with since the Smiths?

-Get The Message - Electronic
-Dashboard - Modest Mouse
-Slow Emotion Replay - The The
-City Of Bugs - The Cribs
-No Time To Die - Billie Eilish

Guy from the Sopranos , can't remember his character's name but he was hooked up with Adriana.


Description:

Today podcaster, writer, musician, director and Emmy-winning actor Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos, The Lovely Bones) joins me to talk about the classic 1985 album by the Smiths, Meat is Murder. We talk about how this album broadened the Smiths post-punk sound, incorporating elements of rockabilly and funk, the under-heralded rhythm section of Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce, how Morrissey’s lyrics and persona compares to Tennessee Williams and Oscar Wilde, the difference between depressing music and music that explores negative subject matter, how impactful the band was despite their short time together, the small tweak from Johnny Marr that rescued How Soon Is Now?, how this record...

J'en ai marre?

Johnny Marr: ‘When I play Smiths songs I experience this huge wave of elation’

Particularly liked Bernard Butler's question...

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Excerpt:
Did the Smiths ever fall out over football or politics?
Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester

We never discussed football so that’s that. And we never fell out over politics, but we probably would now.

Morrissey’s recent political views have cast a shadow over the Smiths for me – reaching back into the past and tainting something that was very important to me. I’m so disappointed in him. Has it impacted how you feel about the Smiths or are you able to separate the past from the present, the band from the man? I find it very difficult to do so.
Johnny Spence, Northern Ireland

It hasn’t impacted how I feel about the Smiths. That’s all I can say about...