The Simon Armitage interview with Morrissey said far more about the state of my BBC sponsored demographic's establishment attitudes than about the plodding indie anachronism himself.
I feel like I should be part of the Mark, Lard, Armitage, middle-aged dry-humoured serious music fan set, but I just can't bring myself to raise my game and stroke my chin to a succession of bands that wouldn't have got record contracts in the 70s but are now lauded on 6Music's Pub Lunch With Graham Beard.
Talking about a new band called the Smiths, "Peel was never one for hype or eulogy, but somewhere within the lugubrious voice and deadpan delivery, I thought I heard a little note of excitement and perhaps even an adjective of praise."
Wrong, Simon. Peel's little note of excitement was his mind drifting to images of pretty young girls. He thought the Smiths were a load of old cunt and would much rather be playing something sent in by some unlistenable no-hope band recorded in some poor old deaf gran's kitchen in Uttoxeter.
One of the rules for my generation when talking about music is to drop John Peel's name into the conversation. As if we didn't have minds of our own. This nostalgia is suffocating and inaccurate and would send me to prison if ever I were to come across ex public schoolboy Phill Jupitus in the flesh and tempt him into talking about ex public schoolboys Peel and Strummer and wait for the sentimental "we're in this together" tear in his eye.
Armitage hides his not quite double platinum selling band's CD in his book of poetry gift to Morrissey. Morrissey is embarrassed as he forgot to bring his own 40 year old book of poetry Salacious Salford to give to Armitage and return the compliment.
I cringe for my establishment figures.
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4 hours ago
Were you more of an Adrian Juste man, Geoff?
ReplyDeleteLittle Nicky Horne.
ReplyDeleteWhen I hear the Peel reverence I want to scream "Clare Grogan!".
ReplyDeleteI like 6 music but if I listened to it too much I start craving some Minor Threat or hip-hop or something.
ReplyDeleteArabella - I think Peel would have liked to have been head of an all-girls school, dishing out the punishment for the naughty girls.
ReplyDeleteBilly - Disco! Though they have got the snoozesome Dave Pearce on there now.
Ah Dave Pearce! Banging Choons!
ReplyDeleteHe never plays the National on his Dan Santhems show.
Peel's best work was "Home Truths".
Dave Pearce is the Bert's Mobile Disco of Dance.
ReplyDeleteTruth be told, Peel played an awful lot of shit. But whether he really liked it or not, he was fair enough to give the likes of the Smiths a fair crack of the whip. Don't hear many DJ's doing that now, not that they'd be allowed to anyway
ReplyDeleteThe Smiths didn't need Peel. They needed Simon Armitage and thousands like him.
ReplyDeleteOh god Home Truths. It had the same effect on me as listening to poets read their own work in upstairs pub rooms in the 80s: let off fire extinguishers, slit my own throat - anything to stop the affected, sentimental yet how self- deprecating, coziness of it.
ReplyDeletePunk's not dead!
ReplyDeletePunk's not dead!
ReplyDeleteDo you have that tattooed somewhere on your person?
Yes, but the tattooist thought I meant Punks Snot Dead.
ReplyDelete