Johnny Marr by Richard Carman

Author:Richard Carman [Richard Carman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784189303
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2015-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

GETTING AWAY WITH IT

1989 saw The Stone Roses finally hit the big time, with their eponymous debut album. The Stone Roses was quickly established as an indie two-fingered classic, a new band sending post cards from Manchester with love. By the end of the year, the Roses were filling London’s Alexandra Palace with 7,500 punters. After The Smiths and before Oasis, The Stone Roses were the guitar’s saving grace and the precursors of the next ten years of real dance music in the UK. At the same time, New Order presented Technique. One of Morrissey’s greatest solo singles, ‘The Last Of The Famous International Playboys’ continued his interest in cultural icons of the Sixties as his gaze turned to the Kray Twins and the London underworld. ‘The Last Of The Famous International Playboys’ so impressed Johnny (and the record-buying public, who took it to within one place of the top five) that, according to Johnny Rogan in The Severed Alliance, he sent Morrissey a congratulatory postcard.

Neil Young, a long-time hero for Johnny, released his hugely influential ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’, beating the hell out of the guitar that had influenced Johnny so much in his early years. In March the first single from Mind Bomb was released. While ‘The Beat(en) Generation’ was a huge success, it was not the first choice of single, which initially was slated as ‘Armageddon Days’. As mentioned, just days before the release however, the Satanic Verses affair kicked off, the political, religious, ideological and moral fracas inspired by the novel by Salman Rushdie, and the release was canned. While Rushdie was under sentence of fatwa, he was given a round-the-clock guard by security forces. Rumours abounded as to where Rushdie had sought refuge, and the story was a major feature in international news. Astonishingly, Johnny later claimed that Rushdie had been living in the apartment above him in London!

“I’d go and get the mail,” Marr remembered in conversation with Matt Johnson later, “and I’d see all these letters for ‘S Rushdie’… and I’d think ‘Shit! – he’s got to have a few words with his friends.’” While the pair apparently never met, when Oasis’ Noel Gallagher was living in the same flat some time later, the post had still not been redirected. He was still receiving mail for a Mr S Rushdie.

It was a period of convoluted family ties for Johnny. In April, Chrissie Hynde’s The Pretenders released ‘Windows On The World’, at the same time as Morrissey released his own single ‘Interesting Drug’. One of the singer’s finest solo-single moments, this song featured Kirsty MacColl on backing vocals, and at the same time Kirsty was promoting her own album Kite, she had also covered the Smiths song ‘You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby’ as the B-side of her 12-inch version of the biting chart hit ‘Free World’, on which, of course, Johnny featured. Was there a conflict of interests for Kirsty, as she guested on one Smith’s record, had another Smith

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.