Interview with Cornershop's Tjinder Singh reflects on Morrissey protest

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...r-singh-brexit-morrissey-music-england-garden

Extract:

"On No Rock: Save in Roll you’ll also hear a discreet sitar; this musical synthesis is everywhere in Cornershop’s back catalogue, a musical response, perhaps, to how difficult assimilation has been for them in other ways. In 1993 their first EP’s lead track, England’s Dreaming, injected indie with the spirit of protest, fusing lyrics from the Smiths’ Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now and Public Enemy (“I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour/Fight the Power!”).

This protest was about Morrissey, who had draped himself in a union jack at a Madness gig in summer 1992, when the flag was very much a symbol of the far right. He had also released controversial songs such as The National Front Disco and Bengali in Platforms, the latter addressing an immigrant to Britain wanting to assimilate (“shelve your western plans/and understand/That life is hard enough when you belong here”). Cornershop had also set fire to pictures of Morrissey outside his record company offices around their EP’s release. This was dismissed as a press stunt by some at the time, but given Morrissey’s ramping up of anti-immigrant statements over the years – including wearing a badge celebrating the far-right For Britain party on America’s Jimmy Fallon show last May – it now seems on the money.

“What’s changed now is people have this phrase, and I think it’s a lovely phrase, called ‘white privilege’,” Singh says, looking back. “That’s what Morrissey had, that ability to just continue regardless – Clapton had it too.” He’s referring to Clapton’s drunken on-stage rant in 1976, saying that Britain was “overcrowded”, and that his fans should vote for Enoch Powell. That action prompted the creation of Rock Against Racism (Clapton has since said he feels “shame” about those remarks).

“Clapton then surrounded himself with black people, and now Morrissey’s doing the same,” says Singh, meaning Motown singer Thelma Houston, with whom Morrissey duetted on his recent single, Bobby, Don’t You Think They Know? “It was hard for Cornershop to make our stand then, because we were pulling a lot of disparate things together. We couldn’t just say, look at his badge. Look at his support of Tommy Robinson.”
 
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Here's to ya gordyboy. :tiphat:
My style? You can call it the art of Turking without Turking.
is that the same as bruce lees art of fighting without fighting.
 
“What’s changed now is people have this phrase, and I think it’s a lovely phrase, called ‘white privilege’,” Tjinder Singh says, looking back. “That’s what Morrissey had, that ability to just continue regardless – Eric Clapton had it too.”

I find it interesting that they use Morrissey and Eric Clapton as the two examples in popular music not Elvis Costello or David Bowie or some heavy metal or punk thing. There are white members of bands/groups and white musicians who say far more offensive stuff than Morrissey does. Also I don't believe that Morrissey is racist or Islamophobic.

Musicians and celebrities taking a stand against racism is older than Eric Clapton and the "Rock Against Racism" stuff which started in 1976. Back in the 1950s a two page article appeared in Melody Maker, “Frank Sinatra Says Jazz Has No Colour Bar”. By then folk singer Fred Dallas had teamed up with jazz players Johnny Dankworth, Cleo Laine, Winifred Atwell, Ken Colyer, George Melly and skiffle artists Russell Quaye and Hylda Syms, as well as other prominent cultural figures, to form SCIF (The Stars Campaign for Interracial Friendship) . At its initial meeting, they appointed their most high profile member, the actor Sir Laurence Olivier, as chairman. The organisation was loose but they decided its strategy would be to organise around the single issue of racism and promote racial harmony. SCIF (The Stars Campaign for Interracial Friendship) member Eric Hobsbawm was later to say, “The purpose of SCIF…was to articulate through the combined presence of music and culture, and left activists and writers, a cultural policy of racial inclusion and social solidarity at a time of crisis.”

For more info: http://socialistreview.org.uk/409/rock-and-roll-against-racism

The community resistance to the Notting Hill, London and Nottingham anti-black race riots of August 1958 are well known. Much less well known is "The Stars Campaign for Interracial Friendship" (SCIF).

These days there is "Love Music Hate Racism" and "Hope Not Hate".

Hope Not Hate are about as dodgy as you can get.
 
I couldn't stomach reading this crap much like dog shit on the street that I can't be bothered stepping in. Both ventures would be a major inconvenience.
 
Cornershop in the NME - a slight improvement. They appear to have remembered that he's Irish...

(God damn Irish Catholic erasure in The Guardian :swear :swear :swear :swear :swear ??????????? ).

& they've put it down to sexual frustration. ?

But still not joining the dots - he's a gay man (aka humasexual) having a wobble about militant Islamism. He's not becoming acute about race. And if journalists were any bloody good we'd be able to have these discussions On The Left. Instead of the right stealing all this ground.

 
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They're also in The Quietus, if anyone wants to look. I can't bring myself to, because TQ hates Moz & can't imagine they've opened their minds. It's not the cutting edge in there.
 
Cornershop in the NME - a slight improvement. They appear to have remembered that he's Irish...

(God damn Irish Catholic erasure in The Guardian :swear :swear :swear :swear :swear ??????????? ).

& they've put it down to sexual frustration. ?

But still not joining the dots - he's a gay man (aka humasexual) having a wobble about militant Islamism. He's not becoming acute about race. And if journalists were any bloody good we'd be able to have these discussions On The Left. Instead of the right stealing all this ground.


"There’s some sexual frustration with him isn’t there" ~ Utterly pathetic.
And somewhat 'problematic', as the kidz say.
It would have been interesting if the 'NME' child had asked Tjinder, 'Please do expand on this psychosexual theory of yours Tjinder; what precisely do you mean by that statement?'

But better to go out on a cheap shot gag right?

And to peg Morrissey as Cornershop's "longstanding arch nemesis" is pushing it a bit, no?

.
 
"There’s some sexual frustration with him isn’t there" ~ Utterly pathetic.
And somewhat 'problematic', as the kidz say.
It would have been interesting if the 'NME' child had asked Tjinder, 'Please do expand on this psychosexual theory of yours Tjinder; what precisely do you mean by that statement?'

But better to go out on a cheap shot gag right?

And to peg Morrissey as Cornershop's "longstanding arch nemesis" is pushing it a bit, no?

.

Has Morrissey ever done anything to Cornershop? I haven't even seen him mention them.

& it's a shame because Bengali In Platforms is a very pretty song & I think it's the companion piece to Dial a Cliche.

In one the person fits emotionally & not physically, in the other the person fits physically but not emotionally & I think both are saying 'is it worth the price'?

Moz as an immigrant, with gender & sexuality issues, would be asking those questions. But I doubt a 1987 NME hack would understand & I think he waved the song away once he was getting attacked for it.
 
Cornershop in the NME - a slight improvement. They appear to have remembered that he's Irish...

(God damn Irish Catholic erasure in The Guardian :swear :swear :swear :swear :swear ??????????? ).

& they've put it down to sexual frustration. ?

But still not joining the dots - he's a gay man (aka humasexual) having a wobble about militant Islamism. He's not becoming acute about race. And if journalists were any bloody good we'd be able to have these discussions On The Left. Instead of the right stealing all this ground.

If you don't have a problem with Islamism or at least militant Islamism then you're really lost.
 
Who are you saying doesn't have a problem with militant Islamism?

Quite a few people ignore, support or don't recognize it.

When Maryam was harassed at Goldsmiths there was a furious debate about whose side to take.

 
Who are you saying doesn't have a problem with militant Islamism?
There are plenty of people on the radical left who think the west are to blame for militant Islamism and plus a large percentage of muslims when polled support and justify militant Islam and terrorism. You can look it up in the pew poll. Not only do they not have a problem with it, they celebrate it.

Even cuddly little domestic Islam is a soft militarism if you can demand your wife wear a black bag over her head and if she wants a divorce she is counted as half a man therefor has less rights than her husband. Is that enough for you or shall I go on?
 
Testing picture uploading. So, since I mentioned my Grandpa's Little Red Book, here it is. It's a 1966 edition.
20200305_224113.jpg
 
Cornershop’s ‘It’s Good to be Back on the Road Back Home Again’ (a song obviously inspired by the music of Lee Hazelwood), was one of my favourite songs from the 90s.

Cornershop’s first album was a belter.
Who the motherf*** is EVER going to listen to Cornershop if they think Cornershop’s been influenced by Lee Hazelwood,... when they could just be listening to Lee Hazelwood?

Worst band of the nineties, with their now equally inept DESPERADO appearance.... HERE
 
Who the motherf*** is EVER going to listen to Cornershop if they think Cornershop’s been influenced by Lee Hazelwood,... when they could just be listening to Lee Hazelwood?

Worst band of the nineties, with their now equally inept DESPERADO appearance.... HERE
Worse than Menswear?
 

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