Morrissey & Marr/The Severed Alliance

[Jukebox Jury]

This is an easy one to answer. Yes the immediate gig would be cancelled but they would quickly hire a temp drummer and the tour would continue.

Now if it's Morrissey that falls down those stairs (or was he pushed? LOL) the gig is cancelled and so is the ENTIRE tour.

See the difference?

I actually went to quite a bit of this trial (surprisingly not many others were there) and you are right it basically came down to a he said/she said situation and the judge sided with Joyce.

For me it felt like Mike and Andy were happy just to be in the band and didn't want to rock the boat and 'hoped' that one day it would all be sorted. I'm pretty sure tbhey knew it was 10% but hey that's just what I got from watching their various testimonies.

It was their tough luck that they didn't have the balls to stand up to M&M and demand something on paper, but truth is I think they feared that M&M would simply sack them and get someone else in coz frankly they were The Smiths.

As for M&M yeah Moz did not help the situation by winding up the judge. My impression of those 2 was that Moz didn't want any confrontation and left it to Marr to negotiate the situation from their perspective.

Marr too I think hoped that if they just put their heads in the sand long enough it would all go away. So really they left themselves wide open to this kind of situation.

Who wins?

Well I guess in 99% of the times it's the guy on legal aid. LOL

I'm really surprised that Marr came out of this as 'clean' as he did. Rourke and Joyce took their concerns to Marr not to Moz and Moz took his concerns to Marr not Rourke and Joyce so in my mind if there was a lot of mis-communication involved then I'd say Marr should shoulder a fair portion of the blame. He was the one guy that each side was talking to and somehow nothing got resolved.

I guess they were all young, nieve and that's how people grow up, ha ha!!

Very good post..... apart from one small point.... how long do you think it would take to employ a temp (that Morrissey would get on with) to learn all the tunes (or whatever a drummer does!) It was tried with Craig Gannon ( a rhythm guitarist, not a bass player) replacing Andy - in the end, Andy came back and Gannon was kept on.

Jukebox Jury

 

[snowfallsoon]

This is an easy one to answer. Yes the immediate gig would be cancelled but they would quickly hire a temp drummer and the tour would continue.

Now if it's Morrissey that falls down those stairs (or was he pushed? LOL) the gig is cancelled and so is the ENTIRE tour.

See the difference?

I actually went to quite a bit of this trial (surprisingly not many others were there) and you are right it basically came down to a he said/she said situation and the judge sided with Joyce.

For me it felt like Mike and Andy were happy just to be in the band and didn't want to rock the boat and 'hoped' that one day it would all be sorted. I'm pretty sure tbhey knew it was 10% but hey that's just what I got from watching their various testimonies.

It was their tough luck that they didn't have the balls to stand up to M&M and demand something on paper, but truth is I think they feared that M&M would simply sack them and get someone else in coz frankly they were The Smiths.

As for M&M yeah Moz did not help the situation by winding up the judge. My impression of those 2 was that Moz didn't want any confrontation and left it to Marr to negotiate the situation from their perspective.

Marr too I think hoped that if they just put their heads in the sand long enough it would all go away. So really they left themselves wide open to this kind of situation.

Who wins?

Well I guess in 99% of the times it's the guy on legal aid. LOL

I'm really surprised that Marr came out of this as 'clean' as he did. Rourke and Joyce took their concerns to Marr not to Moz and Moz took his concerns to Marr not Rourke and Joyce so in my mind if there was a lot of mis-communication involved then I'd say Marr should shoulder a fair portion of the blame. He was the one guy that each side was talking to and somehow nothing got resolved.

I guess they were all young, nieve and that's how people grow up, ha ha!!

I wonder how the drummers who post here would feel about this? All
drummers are the same?
Who would join a band where 2 people get 40% and the other 2 get 10%?
As far as bands are concerned, Moz isn't so special...some of you act like
he's some type of God. He eats, shits & f***s(?) just like everyone else.
And WHY is he regarded so highly? Because you can relate to his songs?
So that means he's the most talented lyricist in the world? He isn't.

 

[bhops]

Very good post..... apart from one small point.... how long do you think it would take to employ a temp (that Morrissey would get on with) to learn all the tunes (or whatever a drummer does!) It was tried with Craig Gannon ( a rhythm guitarist, not a bass player) replacing Andy - in the end, Andy came back and Gannon was kept on.

Jukebox Jury

Oh I'm not saying it would be easy and perhaps the tour dates would be postponed but ultimately the gigs could be done yeah?

It has been done for other bands. I'm pretty sure REM used a temp drummer to honour dates when Bill Berry first suffered those brain problems in 95.

Point is if Moz had gone down (so to speak) for any length of time the tour gets stopped and doesn't proceed, ever.

 

[bhops]

I wonder how the drummers who post here would feel about this? All
drummers are the same?
Who would join a band where 2 people get 40% and the other 2 get 10%?
As far as bands are concerned, Moz isn't so special...some of you act like
he's some type of God. He eats, shits & f***s(?) just like everyone else.
And WHY is he regarded so highly? Because you can relate to his songs?
So that means he's the most talented lyricist in the world? He isn't.

Are all drummers the same?

Nope of course they're not.

I'm not sure what your rant about him being a talented lyricist has come from? I don't remember mentioning his lyrical abilities anywhere in my previous post, so take a chill pill and calm the f*** down.

Was the 40/40/10/10 deal fair? Maybe, maybe not that's not really the point but it is what M&M believed that Andy and mike agreed to.

Mike and Andy say they had agreed to a different deal, the 'fairness' of it actually has nothing to do with the argument.

nd my last point since you seem determined to go there is this. You were around when The Smiths were still together? I was and if you were then i'm usre you'll remember that the focus of the group was Morrissey and to some extent Marr.

I think back to when Andy was briefly sacked and replaced by Gannon. To be frank it didn't ceate much of a ripple in Smiths fandom.

However when Johnny left..........................

You see my point? Forgetting the court case for a second, because I don't think it has much bearing on the outcome but for all intensive purposes The Smiths really were Morrissey and Marr. It would be silly to argue otherwise.

In much the same way that Noel and Liam were Oasis (and please don't try to think I'm comparing them musically merely just using them for illustrative purposes.)

 

[snowfallsoon]

Are all drummers the same?

Nope of course they're not.

I'm not sure what your rant about him being a talented lyricist has come from? I don't remember mentioning his lyrical abilities anywhere in my previous post, so take a chill pill and calm the f*** down.

Sorry, the rant about his lyrical abilities really had nothing to do with what you were saying. I was more responding to other posters who seem to worship Morrissey and every song he ever wrote, as if that makes it impossible for him to do any wrong. You don't need to swear at me.

Was the 40/40/10/10 deal fair? Maybe, maybe not that's not really the point but it is what M&M believed that Andy and mike agreed to.

But it isn't what Andy & Mike say they agreed to. I think it seems unlikely that Andy & Mike would agree to 10% while the others got 40%. They attended the recording sessions, they performed, they did more than 10% of the work didn't they?


Mike and Andy say they had agreed to a different deal, the 'fairness' of it actually has nothing to do with the argument.

Why would they agree to something that was unfair though? It doesn't make
sense.

nd my last point since you seem determined to go there is this. You were around when The Smiths were still together? I was and if you were then i'm usre you'll remember that the focus of the group was Morrissey and to some extent Marr.

Yes, I was around, and yes the focus was always on Morrissey but the fact remains that there were 4 people in the band and 2 of them didn't show up
only 10% of the time.


I think back to when Andy was briefly sacked and replaced by Gannon. To be frank it didn't ceate much of a ripple in Smiths fandom.

However when Johnny left..........................

You see my point? Forgetting the court case for a second, because I don't think it has much bearing on the outcome but for all intensive purposes The Smiths really were Morrissey and Marr. It would be silly to argue otherwise.

In much the same way that Noel and Liam were Oasis (and please don't try to think I'm comparing them musically merely just using them for illustrative purposes.)

So the more popular members should get paid more? Would the Smiths have been the same if it was just Morrissey and Marr?

 

[brutalityobscene]

huh?!

 

[snowfallsoon]

Nevermind. I am sure I will read this in the morning and wonder what the hell I am talking about.

 

[Dave]

Nevermind. I am sure I will read this in the morning and wonder what the hell I am talking about.

Never admit it.

 

[bhops]

So the more popular members should get paid more? Would the Smiths have been the same if it was just Morrissey and Marr?

Again it is hard to speculate to what was agreed. If I was either the drummer or the bassist and I was around 2 charismatic guys like Morrissey and Johnny and I have the possibility to be in the greatest band of all time then yeah maybe I would agree to it.

You argue that why would they do something so stupid yet we can all agree that they were never clever enough to get M&M to commit it to a legal document.

I would also say that M&M were pretty dumb not to lock it down on paper as well, so again we end up back at square one. It comes down to who you believe.

From what I understand with The Stones, the rythym section have a very different deal to Jagger and Richards except that it works for them due to the sheer volume of money that The Stones generate they all still do very well. But I understand that Watts, Wood etc get a vastly smaller amount than Jagger and Richards.

Ultimately all 4 band members created the mess that The Smiths have become.