Dear Morrissey . . .

My God, what could be worse?

A Dennis Perrin autobiog.

That's his next book! Largely about the janitorial life.

American release date: December 3

I'm still slogging through this. It's really hard to take more than 10-12 pages at a time.

That anecdote about Under the Influence* seems to be the pattern - there is a succession of famous people he meets, or has brief dealings with and who all slight, snub or ignore him. Or just stop replying to his postcards. He sees Alain Toussaint in a studio and says hello, but gets no response - it goes in the ledger.

*it's the Sundown Playboys track, which was orig. licensed to Apple, and it's Neil Aspinall who sends the nasty note.

yes that anecdote tells me everything i need to know which is to steer well clear of this. “When he dies in 2008, I think, Well, that’s what you get for being so nasty” is not funny or clever, it's just a horribly depressing way to live your life.

I notice you end almost every anecdote with the phrase ‘needless to say, I had the last laugh’.

I couldn't get through this book and dropped it off at the charity shop. Guy behind the counter had read it as well and we agreed that two thirds of the book is basically Morrissey whinging. He asked me if I thought the book should be a Penguin Classic and I replied that honestly I thought it was just a marketing tactic.

you don't say!

Then I doffed my top hat and bid him good-day.

My withering criticism affected him so deeply that a spasm of shock sent his monocle splashing into his soup

First 150 pages, as everyone else has said, are really, REALLY good.

The tour diary maybe needed David Peace to write it. He can do the repetition-as-hypnosis thing that Morrissey really can't.

Otherwise it reminds me of The Kenneth Williams Diaries, down to near-death cameo appearance by Charles Hawtrey.

Frequently very funny and I think a lot of the criticism is down to indie/Penguin snobs saying don't spoil our party coarse varlet but I haven't got to the "legendary" 40-page trial bit yet.

The tour diary maybe needed David Peace to write it. He can do the repetition-as-hypnosis thing that Morrissey really can't.

Definitely some fishy aspects to how the trial panned out, but also VERY UNRELIABLE NARRATOR.

DEVIOUS, TRUCULENT AND UNRELIABLE NARRATOR iirc

Does he compare himself and his trial to Oscar Wilde's? I salute his willpower if he managed to resist.

in the 'books I have loved' section early on he doesn't really bother to explain his love for Wilde, just pointedly talks about his destruction by a wicked court.

And a Pitchfork review of the autobiography from Mr. Ewing:

http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/150-morrissey-autobiography/

a friend in Japan got me a proper copy - loving it so far tbh

That's great. This review and Chris Heath's are the only ones that really seem to get the book.

Fairly certain Tom's review is the best I've read ... it feels like he's read it rather than raced through it.

The Chris Heath review is semi-literate gibberish which wouldn't entice an arthritic gnu to read the book, but Tom's review is very good indeed and closest to how I feel about the book and its author.

"Spare a thought," he writes, "for those who rock the boat. They challenge your attention, and even in your rage you find you quite like them for poking you as if you were a dead mule. Perhaps you are?"

Eagerly awaiting its release into the local charity shops in mid-Jan. 2014.

The Chris Heath review is semi-literate gibberish which wouldn't entice an arthritic gnu to read the book

"wouldn't entice an arthritic gnu"? man, you're like a morrissey who failed in life: even more bitter, even more of a cunt. and lol you've got a cheek to talk about semi-literate gibberish when there must be millions of words of unreadable rubbish spread across your shitty blogs.

arthritic gnu, is it you?

Calling a review that clear "semi-literate gibberish" betrays some kind of anti-Chris Heath grudge on Marcello's part because it's a baffling assessment. My problem with Heath's review is that, like so many others, it seems disappointed by all the things that one would expect Morrissey's autobiography to contain. I loved the book because, flaws and all, it captures Morrissey's personality to perfection. I also found it funnier than Heath seems too. To take just one example, the fact that Morrissey follows some petty gripe about a misbehaving record label with "sigh times five thousand" suggests to me that he's ready to laugh at his lifelong inability to let the good outweigh the bad.

Dear Morrissey why are all your albums overcompressed now?

p sure he uses some light auto-tune for the high notes too

latham green otm

arthritic gnu, is it you?

LOL!

Morrissey has never really understood the importance of production/engineering imo

Basically Tom Ewing's last paragraph otm

I don't get it, marcello. Are you suggesting that arthritic gnus are avid readers, easily enticed into reading rock memoirs, and that heath's review is worse than useless because it can't manage even that? Or is it the opposite, that arthritic gnus are not only illiterate but very hard to motivate into doing anything at all - but your aesthetic standards are so high that you will brook no criticism that won't accomplish this (demand the impossible &c)? Is "wouldn't entice an arthritic gnu" a saying I don't know or something? Are gnus with healthy joints more receptive to racist 80s indie singers, or less?

Wait don't answer any of that just tell me is the plural of gnu gnus or is it just gnu cause I fear I may have just made a fool of myself

Morrissey has never really understood the importance of production/engineering imo

yeah that's true. feels like his voice really meshed with the Smiths, the early solo stuff w/Stephen Street is still pretty good mix-wise but that's where things start to sound a little karaoke-esque and it just falls off steadily from there

I looked it up, it's gnus

Phew!

reference?

Gnua

glamorous gnu

it captures Morrissey's personality to perfection

^^^ this. was all I was asking for from this book and it doesn't disappoint. I don't give a fuck about subjects glossed over or missing details, I am not interested in standard rock star biopic narratives or "how was it done?" mechanics

harsh chords, explosive intensity

Some reviewers have found this unrevealing. I think it might be the most revealing memoir I've ever read, albeit sometimes unintentionally. People who think it would have been improved by in-depth stories about how he wrote This Charming Man puzzle me. Most music memoirs don't deliver the goods about songwriting anyway and most are much duller than this.

(If you do want that Smiths-geek insider detail, btw, Johnny Marr's Q&A in Daniel Rachel's Isle of Noises is fantastic, but I expect it from Marr.)

nv, Google brings up 5 results for "arthritic gnu". That's more than I was expecting, maybe it is a reference.

I think Heath was disappointed by Morrissey not being David Gedge.

Whereas Morrissey was disappointed by David Gedge not being ...

glamorous gnu

― Tip from Tae Kwon Do: (crüt), Tuesday, December 3, 2013 1:11 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

YES.

We look to ILX
For the snark posts we write
Usenet is dead
Usenet is dead

Nothing gnu under the sun...

http://assets.amuniversal.com/980ed1f01dc7012ea5ca00163e41dd5b

The fuck?

http://www.stereogum.com/1589931/homosexual-relationship-edited-out-of-morrisseys-autobiography-in-the-u-s/news/