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Comments / Notes
I too watched and enjoyed the Young Guns programme. Johnny Marr still looks good. Rourke is in bad need of a decent haircut and looked old and decrepit. Joyce looks much the same as he always did. Anyway, enough of my superfluous observations. I just thought you might be interested in the following review which appeared in last week's Sunday Independent(Irish paper) under the heading 'retro indulgence of the week':
This final installment of a series which claimed to enjoy 1980s music features The Smiths, one of the few bands you can still mention without blushing.
This show was made without the help of Stephen Morrissey. In the best music business fashion, relations remain strained between "the band" and "the singer" to this day. That's part of the fun of their tale. Such earnest lads, such apparently tender hearts, such ordinary bickering and greed.
FRANK BOUCHIER-HAYES <[email protected]> - Sat, Jan 23, 1999 at 12:20:17 (PST)
This is actually to anyone in the UK who may have taped Young Guns (awful Wham reference, someone should get fired for that bit of genius). Anyway, I'd like to either offer a trade or purchace a copy of the program -- contact me through e-mail ([email protected]). I have tons of Smiths and Morrissey stuff for trade (rare audio, video and such). Please let me know, I'll await by the computer.
Michael <[email protected]> california - Sat, Jan 23, 1999 at 12:59:44 (PST)
I was immensely disappointed that the documentary used its precious 30 minutes to dwell on the yawnsome financial details of The Smiths purely as a trading business. Call me awkward, but I was always far more interested in The Smiths as a band, as cultural icons, as originals, as artists. Sorry!
The 80s are often simplistically labelled as the decade of monetary greed and materialism. Perhaps the documentary makers had thought this was the most interesting thing about the Smiths, being an 80s band... They are woefully wrong.
Dickon Edwards <[email protected]> - Sat, Jan 23, 1999 at 14:11:21 (PST)
i too, would like to get a copy on vhs. visit my incomplete web sight for my trading list
michael g. <[email protected]> viva las vegas - Sat, Jan 23, 1999 at 23:18:37 (PST)
i too watched the BBC-doc on friday and thought it was very very poor.
i didn't expect much from it to begin with and certainly didn't count on hearing something new, but this...
*sigh*
it focused completely on the "percentage-deal", the courtcase etc. i know it's part of their history and i am not some hysteric blind moz-apostle in denial, but they could've done so much better on this band!
very little about the music, the lyrics, the beauty and art of the Smiths work and how much they meant-and still mean-to people.
there was nothing about this programme that would've interest someone unfamiliar to the Smiths. My friend watched it 'cause she wanted to know more about the band and singer i always go on about.
well, she didn't learn anything!
"to say the least, oh..."
lipstick librarian <[email protected]> - Sun, Jan 24, 1999 at 03:01:22 (PST)
Will anyone who has a copy of this please email me? I would greatly appreciate it...
Nate <[email protected]> - Sun, Jan 24, 1999 at 15:40:08 (PST)
BAD DOC
GREAT BAND
YOU NEED AT LEAST 90MINS IF YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE SMITHS
GHD
- Mon, Jan 25, 1999 at 02:53:34 (PST)
I know that everyone is begging for a copy of the documentary on the smiths recently aired on the jolly bbc. I would like to make an empationate plea for a copy. Pleas drop me a line if you can help this lad out.
Philip Quatrino <[email protected]> - Mon, Jan 25, 1999 at 15:27:02 (PST)
SO PLEASE,PLEASE,PLEASE...LET ME LET ME LET ME,LET ME GET WHAT I WANT THIS TIME...And all I want is a copy of this BBC show...Please, if there is anyone out there who taped, send me a copy...IŽll pay, or trade...please get in touch with me. Thanks.
Vanessa Carvalho <[email protected]> - Tue, Jan 26, 1999 at 06:33:43 (PST)
Must agree on the mixed feelings on the 'Young Guns' programme. I just expect it is as a Moz fan always wanting more, more, more. For the general viewer (who the show was aimed at) it would have been very interesting. However I thought they could have made more of how radically different the Smiths were (and how popular they really were, which cannot be underestimated) in that vacuous period of the '80s. How bad Johnny looks, like some sort of sad-parody of Noel Gallagher, you can and must do better, Johnny!!
And yes it was anti-Moz, but thats hardly surprising as he decline to take part in it, and Morrissey is always painted the villian of the piece. Johnny could have said no, if he wanted to...
stevie
p.s. nice to see a bit of my graffiti on TV, if only for a split second!!
freeangel <[email protected]> - Tue, Jan 26, 1999 at 13:32:40 (PST)
This is to anyone who taped the smiths special on the bbc i would be willing to pay any amount if one of you wonderful moz/smiths fans like me would be willing to part with it.Or if you know when or where i could see it here on america,please e-mail me [email protected]
mozphilly <[email protected]> - Wed, Jan 27, 1999 at 19:04:21 (PST)
I thought the documentary was drivel. I was expecting it to be bad, as in tacky, but this was truly awful. Unlike the others in the series (odd choices to start with) which were a celebration of our reasons for liking all these bands, this programme mainly focussed on the financial feud, which supposedly had its roots in the earliest days of The Smiths. Like the other bands in the series, The Smiths were a product of Thatcherism, but also reaction against it, rather than flash revelry in the decade's supposed affluence. But there was no real attempt to go into this - an aspect of the original series' treatment completely lost in the final product. More importantly, there was no attempt to explain people's passion for the band and how very different they were. No mention of Morrissey's love affair with British films, Sandie Shaw and girl groups, the importance of the sleeves, Johnny's Stones obsession, refusing to make videos, Meat Is Murder etc.etc. All of this was made more annoying by the fact that when they did mention something like the early days of the band it would be accompanied by a picture from the last year and a track from 'The Queen Is Dead' - completely badly researched and edited. Even the archive they chose was possibly the most dull they could have used - hadn't they heard of The Whistle Test?
The only people who came out of it looking good were Joe Moss and Johnny (who looked fantastic sat doing the interview at the back of Night & Day and refusing to be drawn directly into the slating of Morrissey). The real test comes when you think of a 15 year old watching that show, who will have got no sense of how special The Smiths were to us at the time, but simply a sad story of a band with an odd singer, left scrapping over money. Whatever your view of the rights and wrongs of that final High Court outcome, it certainly isn't what defined The Smiths...
So young Americans, hold on to your cash, don't spend any money on a documentary that was really nothing...
Ryan
Manchester, UK - Thu, Feb 11, 1999 at 03:54:49 (PST)
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