Posts Tagged ‘the smiths’

New rumours emerging today (April 26th) suggesting The Smiths are ready to reform have apparently been quickly shot down by what NME describe as ‘highly placed sources within the live music industry’.

Johnny Marr‘s tongue-in-cheek assertion that The Smiths would reform if the UK’s coalition government steps down has already found support in the corridors of power.

Slow Moving Millie, the singer whose cover of The Smiths classic ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want‘ is currently being used to soundtrack John Lewis’ festive advert, has said both Morrissey and Johnny Marr have been extremely positive about her version of their former band’s b-side.

Johnny Marr has defended the decision to allow The Smiths‘ classic track ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want‘ to be used on a new festive-themed John Lewis advert.

The re-worked version is currently being aired in the UK during the build up to Christmas, and has sparked criticism from fans in some quarters.

The Smiths caught live in Wolverhampton, 1986, performing the classic ‘Queen Is Dead’ album track ‘Cemetry Gates’

Archivists Rhino UK have unearthed a ‘lost’ 1992 documentary on The Smiths which they believe was commissioned for press purposes to support the release of that year’s twin Best Of collections.

The Smiths‘ former drummer Mike Joyce has criticised Morrissey‘s decision to play a handful of the legendary band’s tracks during his recent Glastonbury performance, saying the songs belong to The Smiths, not their ex-frontman.

Morrissey performed five Smiths tracks last weekend, including the Manchester group’s seminal hits ‘This Charming Man‘ and ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out‘, and Joyce didn’t take the decision well.

Morrissey has begun streaming a selection of tracks expected to appear on his next studio album, which were debuted during a recent BBC Radio 2 session.

There is more than a passing resemblance to Morrissey in the expressively pained vocals of Little Vegas Lies’ frontman Simon Moore. One wonders if the Dewsbury five-piece are fans of The Smiths and their brand of contemplative, heartfelt melancholia, though the comparison is not unfavourable; the first release from their debut EP ‘A Truth Not Far Away’, ‘My Ghost Town‘, strikes just the right balance between melody and rock, without sounding tame. The single, released next month (July 4), features very little production, with Moore’s words and a twinkling guitar carrying the song, rhythmic clangs of cymbals in the background creating a sound somewhat akin to Scottish outfit The Twilight Sad.

In the last ten years The Cribs have come a long way from their roots in the Merrie City. They developed as musicians and as people in the north of England, finding their feet in an old abandoned mill – an unofficial venue where they would also put on a whole camaraderie of chancers with a dream. A decade on and the brothers Grimm (famed as Jarman) return to the smaller stages again for the first time since the departure of The Smiths‘ guitarist Johnny Marr. Bassist and singer Gary Jarman takes time before the first show in almost a year to talk about the band’s humble beginnings.