Johnny Marr on L.A., The Smiths - The Quietus interview

[Worm]

My apologies if someone has already posted this, but over at The Quietus there's an interview with Johnny Marr and Gary and Ryan Jarman of The Cribs. It's an excellent interview with some fun remarks about Los Angeles. Though he's quick to say he's not, is Johnny really taking a shot at Morrissey here?

I've resisted being [in L.A.] so many times, it's been on the cards and I've fought it tooth and nail. There were some ideas about The Smiths moving there in the mid-80s, I went over and I wasn't having it. I knew it would be as Gary described, I didn't think there'd be any good ideas there. I've had a couple of friends there sometimes, but I never felt I could write anything half decent there. I wrote one song there years ago, but that was it.​

At the end Marr serves up an immortal turn of phrase:

On laddism:

Gary Jarman: ... The Smiths had it, and they were so anti-laddism. You had a hardcore lad fanbase.

J Marr: Yeah we did, because we got in the charts. But it can be an opportunity. Because that only happens because the band rock like f***. If a band play in a wet style, and very fey, those guys won't come back. With The Smiths, for all our ideas of Oscar Wilde and afternoon tea, we could do that, we knew that we really took care of business. No matter whether you're an artist, a creative intellectual, if you want to see a rock band you've got to rock like f***, and that isn't being rockist.​

The Smiths rock like f***!

If that isn't the title of their next posthumous live album release I'll be sorely disappointed.

 

[Mars_Rover]

Re: Johnny Marr on L.A., The Smiths

Or a rude bumper sticker.

Thank you for the link - who's the author of that piece? I can't find a byline.

I wasn't aware that the Smiffs ever had a lad problem. It was much more evident, sometimes tragically so, with Nirvana. Kurt's pro-feminism, pro-gay rights sympathies were utterly lost on some of their fans. One could say the same of Eddie Vedder & Pearl Jam's influence on rock radio in the U.S. The mass audience "got" the aggression but not the progressive politics. The bad translation became Nickelback and that ilk.

 

[Worm]

Re: Johnny Marr on L.A., The Smiths

Thank you for the link - who's the author of that piece? I can't find a byline.

Luke Turner.

I wasn't aware that the Smiffs ever had a lad problem.

I'm not saying they were a "problem", since I didn't know any of them-- they look perfectly nice-- but take another look at the gatefold picture in "Rank". Those boys definitely did not just arrive from a seminar on Gerard Manley Hopkins.

 

[Gin N Tonic Jil]

Re: Johnny Marr on L.A., The Smiths

Luke Turner.



I'm not saying they were a "problem", since I didn't know any of them-- they look perfectly nice-- but take another look at the gatefold picture in "Rank". Those boys definitely did not just arrive from a seminar on Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Which song did Johnny pen in L.A.? ANyone know?

 

[The Seeker of Good Songs]

what is "laddism"; being "anti-lad" mean?

 

[Worm]

what is "laddism"; being "anti-lad" mean?

I think it's what Americans call "frat boys". An unapologetically unreconstructed male.

 

[Worm]

Re: Johnny Marr on L.A., The Smiths

Which song did Johnny pen in L.A.? ANyone know?

Well, since he wrote it in L.A. and L.A. means creative death, I suppose we could try and deduce which one it was by compiling a list of any mediocre songs Marr may have written since The Smiths and narrow it down from there.

(Surely that doesn't need a punchline.)

 

[Graham Chapman]

At the end Marr serves up an immortal turn of phrase:

rock like f***

Results 1 - 10 of about 4,650 for "rock like f***."

 

[mozmic_dancer]

Well, in Len Brown's book, he recalls the accusations in the british press about the Smiths turning "rockist" whatever the hell that means. Because of Gannon? Big whoop.

The idea of L.A. as some sort of intellectual wasteland is a popular stereotype. Don't think Marr meant Morrissey specifically.

 

[Worm]

Results 1 - 10 of about 4,650 for "rock like f***."

Is it too late to make a retraction?

At least Johnny had the right idea. The Smiths did, uh...take care of business.

And yes I know that phrase belongs to Adam B-- I mean, Elvis.

I like your name by the way.

 

[Gin N Tonic Jil]

The idea of L.A. as some sort of intellectual wasteland is a popular stereotype. Don't think Marr meant Morrissey specifically.

I, being an L.A. native, DESPISE this ridiculous stereotype about L.A.. People think that EVERYONE from L.A. is what you see around "Hollywood", "West Hollywood", "Beverly Hills", "Santa Monica", "Brentwood" etc etc. If you get out of these areas you'll find that most of the real people from L.A. are not rich annoying snobs but, smart creative intellectual folks. Which most (not all) of the "rich annoying snobs" in this area aren't actually L.A. natives but, c***s that have abandoned their own cities in search of fame and fortune or some sort of escape from their pathetic lives and come ruin L.A.s good name when they don't achieve what they thought they'd find over night here.

 

[Worm]

I, being an L.A. native, DESPISE this ridiculous stereotype about L.A.. People think that EVERYONE from L.A. is what you see around "Hollywood", "West Hollywood", "Beverly Hills", "Santa Monica", "Brentwood" etc etc. If you get out of these areas you'll find that most of the real people from L.A. are not rich annoying snobs but, smart creative intellectual folks. Which most (not all) of the "rich annoying snobs" in this area aren't actually L.A. natives but, c***s that have abandoned their own cities in search of fame and fortune or some sort of escape from their pathetic lives and come ruin L.A.s good name when they don't achieve what they thought they'd find over night here.

There are many L.A.s. One is the kind Marr mentioned, one is the kind you describe, and there are other L.A.s, too. They're all real. The city has a strange and wonderful duality. If you were welcoming guests from out of town and said, "I'll show you the true Los Angeles", you'd spend three hours encountering nothing but bimbos, smog, wannabe actors, traffic jams, cultists, winos, and poseurs (then you'd be buried in a mudslide, smashed by an earthquake, or burned up in a fire). But the next night you could go out in search of trashy L.A. and find nothing but regular, intelligent, sane and sensible people (and then you'd enjoy a peaceful Pacific sunset over a vibrant twinkling cityscape).

Marr thinks L.A. is barren and shitty. Morrissey found enough of it to like and call home for several years. Neither is wrong. Same holds true for Hollywood; you'll notice that the most vicious attacks on Hollywood come from insiders like Robert Altman, filmmakers who were both outside Hollywood yet somehow represented the best side of that same industry. The truth is, you can't love L.A. and you can't hate it. I don't trust anyone who doesn't have a love-hate relationship with it. And if you do love-hate L.A., you sort of have to laugh at the sort of idiots Marr was talking about. I used to see them every day.

You probably know all this already, I'm just throwing in my two cents for the thread.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

The truth is, you can't love L.A. and you can't hate it. I don't trust anyone who doesn't have a love-hate relationship with it.

I hate the 405. I love the 110.

 

[Worm]

I hate the 405. I love the 110.

I hate the 405 at 4:27 pm. I love the 405 at 2:10 am.

 

[Dave]

Where did Johnny write all those classic tunes post-Smiths?

 

[Qvist]

Well, in Len Brown's book, he recalls the accusations in the british press about the Smiths turning "rockist" whatever the hell that means. Because of Gannon? Big whoop.

I think the UK music press is sadly prone to such rash judgments, seemingly based on some sort of unarticulated collectively-conscious heuristics. At any given time, there are certain condemning tags that seem to proceed from the presence of certain characteristics that function blindly like flashing alarm lights - it's like when Magazine got slagged for Pink-Floydism in Sounds because Secondhand Daylight had a gatefold sleeve with art on it. Or a more recent example, the comments you see about Jeff Beck's appearance on Black Cloud, including in the review on Quietus - as if that made it reasonable to think "Jeff Beck on guitar, he'll be making a drum solo concept album next". Amazingly, there doesn't seem to be any attempt to have an opinion about how Beck's guitar-playing actually works on that track, apparently the key thing is his mere presence in the lineup. For my part I would sooner eat my cigarette butts than buy a Jeff Beck album, but I really can't see any problem with the job he does oon Black Cloud.

cheers