Morrissey: CD release - "L.A. TURNAROUND" - Greek Theatre, '97 (released February 5, 2021)

I am truly sorry I missed this one, is there anybody I could ask to upload this one again ? Thanks in advance!
 
I had heard the Strummer one before do we know why he turned it down ?
Nothing directly said, but this kind of says a lot:

"JR: I like to ride ‘em, I do. He was a nice guy; he could take it. That would have been nice to see: The Smiths in a small club. As a result, I never saw them until they played the Beacon Theater, far less intimate, a year and a half later, after they’d already been discovered. Would have been great, huh?

Joe: I saw Morrissey not too long ago. Well, probably years ago now. I got a call one day: “Morrissey wants you to produce his next album.” [Jack laughs] And I went, “Alright, who is this? Stop shaggin’ around.” And he went, “No, I’m Terry” from whatever label, I can’t remember, but he was serious. So we went up to see him. It was this horrible show where he was supporting David Bowie at Wembley Arena.

JR: I remember when they did that tour, yeah. Bowie was covering his song “I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday,” which was a rip-off of Bowie’s “Rock n’ Roll Suicide,” which itself was no coincidence, since Mick Ronson produced that LP for Morrissey. So I am sure he was very serious about having you produce him. He likes working with his old heroes. You know he wrote a book on The New York Dolls before he was in The Smiths—I bet he would ask Thunders to produce him if he was still alive!

Joe: Ahh, but I wasn’t having it. The whole situation was beginning to piss me off. And his manager—it was a lady at the time—she came to me before the show and said, “So, what do you think?” And I said [snaps fingers], because I knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to cover “Can’t Explain,” that was part of the initial phone message. And I tried to imagine Morrissey singing “Got a feelin’ inside…” And I thought this was a stupid idea! So I said, “No, no. I’ve got a plan for Morrissey.” And they went “what is it?” I said, “Let’s have him cover ‘Pop Music’ by M.

JR: Whew. That would have put them off. I never liked that song.

Joe: I wanted to poke them with a stick. You see what I mean? Because the idea of trying to redo “Can’t Explain”—I couldn’t see the point of it. And I threw that in to see what they’d say, and Morrissey threw it right out! He just freaked out and left the venue."



Regards,
FWD.
 
Morrissey's version from the Maladjusted diaries reads very differently, one of those cryptic tales, where you can't tell if he's even serious.

"Joe Strummer expressed interest in producing Maladjusted, and I felt quite charged by this. It seemed like a nice wrangle-tangle. Joe takes Boz aside to explain that he can't produce fire without smoke, and as my school uniform tightens around me, l am not sure that I could face a halo of smoke day-in-day-out, since I could never personally inhale. The notion of smoke in the body seemed as natural as gulping gasoline, but this I put down to my own personal failings. Linder steps forward and says, 'Joe doesn't deserve you,' and confusion multiplied. I remain what I have been made. Something was testing me out. Maybe the Joe day would eventually arrive, but it hadn't yet. A few years later, Joe was dragooned into death, and, had he produced Maladjusted, a no doubt marginal footnote on his empirical cv would state that he had been one of several Morrissey producers who had joined the conga line to the hidden beyond.
I smiled weakly and contacted Steve Lillywhite."
 
Morrissey's version from the Maladjusted diaries reads very differently, one of those cryptic tales, where you can't tell if he's even serious.

"Joe Strummer expressed interest in producing Maladjusted, and I felt quite charged by this. It seemed like a nice wrangle-tangle. Joe takes Boz aside to explain that he can't produce fire without smoke, and as my school uniform tightens around me, l am not sure that I could face a halo of smoke day-in-day-out, since I could never personally inhale. The notion of smoke in the body seemed as natural as gulping gasoline, but this I put down to my own personal failings. Linder steps forward and says, 'Joe doesn't deserve you,' and confusion multiplied. I remain what I have been made. Something was testing me out. Maybe the Joe day would eventually arrive, but it hadn't yet. A few years later, Joe was dragooned into death, and, had he produced Maladjusted, a no doubt marginal footnote on his empirical cv would state that he had been one of several Morrissey producers who had joined the conga line to the hidden beyond.
I smiled weakly and contacted Steve Lillywhite."
What convoluted nonsense. Is he trying to say that Joe just wasn't impressed by the music / the whole idea? That's the impression I get from Joe's interview snippet above. Strange how Morrissey always frames it as "So-and-so approached me" - only for them to say that his team did the approaching.
 
What convoluted nonsense. Is he trying to say that Joe just wasn't impressed by the music / the whole idea? That's the impression I get from Joe's interview snippet above. Strange how Morrissey always frames it as "So-and-so approached me" - only for them to say that his team did the approaching.
Technically he only says that Joe expressed interest, not that he approached him. That part doesn't contradict what Joe said. ("I’ve got a plan for Morrissey."; "And I threw that in to see what they’d say, and Morrissey threw it right out!")
 
Technically he only says that Joe expressed interest, not that he approached him. That part doesn't contradict what Joe said. ("I’ve got a plan for Morrissey."; "And I threw that in to see what they’d say, and Morrissey threw it right out!")
Still gives the impression that Joe was behind the request, though. No idea what Moz is getting at with the 'inhaling smoke' thing.
 
Still gives the impression that Joe was behind the request, though. No idea what Moz is getting at with the 'inhaling smoke' thing.
Joe was notoriously fond of marihuana, so producing a fiery record without smoke was probably out of the question...?

Or it means something else entirely.
 
Morrissey's version from the Maladjusted diaries reads very differently, one of those cryptic tales, where you can't tell if he's even serious.

"Joe Strummer expressed interest in producing Maladjusted, and I felt quite charged by this. It seemed like a nice wrangle-tangle. Joe takes Boz aside to explain that he can't produce fire without smoke, and as my school uniform tightens around me, l am not sure that I could face a halo of smoke day-in-day-out, since I could never personally inhale. The notion of smoke in the body seemed as natural as gulping gasoline, but this I put down to my own personal failings. Linder steps forward and says, 'Joe doesn't deserve you,' and confusion multiplied. I remain what I have been made. Something was testing me out. Maybe the Joe day would eventually arrive, but it hadn't yet. A few years later, Joe was dragooned into death, and, had he produced Maladjusted, a no doubt marginal footnote on his empirical cv would state that he had been one of several Morrissey producers who had joined the conga line to the hidden beyond.
I smiled weakly and contacted Steve Lillywhite."


and, had he produced Maladjusted, a no doubt marginal footnote on his empirical cv would state that he had been one of several Morrissey producers who had joined the conga line to the hidden beyond.
I smiled weakly and contacted Steve Lillywhite."

:lbf:

only he can write a line like that.
 
It was indeed Jo Slee.
From Dave Simpson's "Manchester's Answer To The H-Bomb", Uncut, 1998

"'He was very ill with depression,' says Jo Slee. 'He wasn't really fit to go on the road, although I didn't know how ill he was until he really began to come apart at the seams.'

Jo won't say what Mozzer was depressed about.

'I really couldn't say,' she insists. 'Morrissey's suffered from depression all his life, more than anyone else I know. It's about repressed feelings, repressed emotions, repressed pain. It needs treatment. He was taking anti-depressants at the time because he was desperate to get out on the road, he really wanted to do the dates. But it was just too much for him.'"

Don't think this necessarily contradicts Morrissey's explanation. It's no secret that he needs everything to go his way to function properly and feel remotely comfortable, so someone like Bowie putting further pressure on him, when he was already in a bad state, must have been unbearable.

Interesting that he went to Japan just shortly after. Perhaps he felt more comfortable with it because it was something he had more control over.

(Bit of a sidenote but the notion implied by the author that "Mozzer" needed something to be depressed about is ridiculous and shows how misunderstood this mental illness was and still is.)
I would imagine that the legal implications of cancelling a tour are far worse than pulling out of a support slot. The contracts are hugely different.
 
Maybe Morrissey could contact this Unicorn bootleg label and see if they'd be interested in putting out an official release of 'Bonfire' or 'Without Music '? 🤔
 
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