Many thanks to JC, scribbler of scurrilous organ The Vinyl Villain, for getting me tickets to this one.  I am not a passionate Morrissey fan, but I love The Smiths and the chance to see a living legend in the flesh is one I reckon should be taken whenever possible.  Except Neil Young – I’m not going to see him.  So more of a guideline than a rule, really.

Anyhow, Mozza was in fine form, blasting into a healthy mix of Smiths classics and his own more famous tunes, liberally mixed with obscure b-sides.  JC says this is something he is known for: mixing up his set lists and throwing in plenty of obscure material for the real fan, and he really should be applauded for this.  If you’re going to go and see a guy play a dozen times, as many of his fans do, then that is exactly what you would want.  It also gives the impression of a man who really enjoys his music.

Another thing that reflected well on him was the respect he accorded his band.  Apparently they are the best backing band he’s played with for a while, but I was still impressed with how much credit he gave them, and how much room to really contribute to the gig themselves.  Morrissey is an international superstar and he could easily have just shunted them into the background, but I don’t really think he did that.

As to the gig itself, well it’s hard to say.  As I said, I am hardly the man to ask, so for a more knowledgable view on such things you may be better reading JC’s review on The Vinyl Villain.  Myself, I got exactly what I expected: the Morrissey Show.  I went to see a legend in the flesh and that’s just what I got: one who threw himself into the gig with plenty of enthusiasm, performed really well, and played just enough of the classics to keep philistines like myself happy.  So it was more of an experience than a gig exactly, but one I am really glad I went along to, even though I never quite drummed up the feverish enthusiasm of those down the front who spent the last third of the gig determinedly trying to rush the stage.  It was a comical sight, but one that reminds you just how big The Smiths were, and just how much devotion this man inspires.

He didn’t play these, but I don’t have much Morrissey, so you’re going to have to make do I’m afraid.
Morrissey -  Glamorous Glue
Morrissey – Never Played Symphonies
He did play these though, and they were bloody brilliant.
The Smiths – Death of a Disco Dancer
The Smiths – Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before

the smiths on amazon | morrissey on amazon

I am a mere 32 years old. Some of you may be gasping at such superannuation, others chuckling indulgently at callow youth. In the world of music there seem to be a large clump of enthusiastic kids, a big chunk of people like me – getting a little too old to be indie kids but still are – and then another big clump of folk in their forties who decided a few years back that they were never going to be too old for all this and fuck anyone who suggests they are.

I seem to find myself easily identified as the middle category: not enough knowledge of Joy Division to be the latter, nor enough enthusiasm for Blood Red Shoes to be the former, and this is pretty much accurate. The problem is that almost everyone in this country of my age grew up listening to the sort of music that is being reprised right at this very moment, and I missed it. Spending your teenage years in Vienna and Singapore you just didn’t hear current music, ever. Beyond pantomime metal and shitty disco pop it just didn’t make the leap.

This means that when I hear groups like Cats on Fire, Decoration, The Siddeleys, My Teenage Stride, Shout Out Louds and countless others who are either reinterpreting – or just plain ripping off, depending on your view – this sort of sound I actually don’t hear a rip off.  I am hearing a good chunk of this music for the first time, despite it conjuring up a slightly disembodied sense of nostaligia, which is slightly odd because just about everyone my age over here is pretty familiar with this sound from the first time round.  There are patches of knowledge because we did have MTV and my cousin Steve used to send me mix tapes on my birthday, but for the most part my musical knowledge starts almost entirely from scratch in 1993, when I first moved to the UK to go to university.  I was seventeen.

Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, The Soupdragons, The Wonderstuff and The Levellers were just fading from public approval and Britpop was about to take off.  My first year in Manchester was the year Definitely Maybe, His ‘n’ Hers and Parklife were released.  So I missed C86, despite the fact that I should just have been starting to develop an interest in music at the time.  I was the only person I knew who had heard of The Stone Roses.

This is why you will often hear me get all excited about groups almost anyone else my age would probably dismiss as a bland knock-off of stuff they heard years ago.  For me the first time that is likely to happen is when the 90s Revival kicks in and grunge comes back.

The Cure – Killing an Arab
The Smiths -  Shakespeare’s Sister
The Siddeleys – Sunshine Thuggery
My Teenage Stride – Terror Bends
The Wonderstuff – Welcome to the Cheap Seats
Levellers – Liberty Song
Pulp – Pink Glove
Blur – Tracy Jacks

Yes, another one. Mwah hah haaa. Lock up the kids, Campfires & Battlefields, because the Song, by Toad musical cuss-o-rama is back on air for more blethering, swearing, slurring and first class tunery.

Actually, I don’t think this one is anything like as good as the first, if I’m honest. It’s a bit over-long at fifteen songs so I think in future I’m going to limit myself to ten or twelve at the most, not least because my shitbox of a computer starts having a panic once I’ve stuffed that many audio files into a single project. So, fifteen songs then, with a bit of an emphasis on late 80s jangly indie guitar and containing one of the most brilliant ever drunken fuck-ups about three-quarters of the way through. Beware the horrors of letting your children turn into indie kids, people! So a bit too long, and occasionally too much inconsequential chatter, but we live and learn and the next one will be better, I promise.

Toadcast #2, the 80s English Indie One

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1. My Teenage Stride – Terror Bends (01.00)
2. Honeytrap – Let’s Do Naked Dancing (03.37)
3. The Mutton Birds – The Queen’s English (09.38)
4. The Veils – The Wild Son (17.38)
5. The 63 Crayons – Devils (21.40)
6. The Smiths – I Started Something (26.05)
7. Honeytrap – Death Before the Silver Screen (31.03)
8. Lloyd Cole & the Commotions – Morning is Broken (36.14)
9. The Indelicates – New Art For the People (41.57)
10. The Indelicates – Stars (45.51)
11. MJ Hibbett & the Validators – The Lesson of The Smiths (50.32)
12. The Specials – Guns of Navarone (55.02)
13. Echo & the Bunnymen – The Killing Moon (57.20)
14. Honeytrap – Mussolini’s Son (66.06)
15. Frank Turner – Heartless Bastard Motherfucker (73.25)