Brightest Young Things

Morrissey is still Morrissey. Ok, he's older now. He still has the best profile of any musician, but, head on, dude looks his age (see photos I didn't take-all (outstanding) photos are by Ryan Wakeman-ed). He's also bordering on barrel chestedness and has love handles (if you were at the show you got to see half-naked Steven Patrick three times) but for being born in the 1950s, he still puts on a great show.

He is the crooner for our generation(s) but what sets his crooning apart from other lyrical-focused musicians is that there really are but a handful of Smiths/Morrissey songs that aren't entirely danceable. Sinatra crooned but you don't dance to Sinatra.

So yes, I am a Morrissey fan. I have been for about 17 years now but I'm not a fanatical fan. I've read one biography he probably didn't approve of. I do know every lyric but I don't collect albums. I have seen him three times now (Your Arsenal, You are the Quarry, and Friday). So I didn't go there and take pictures. I didn't write down the set list (which was heavily Smiths-influenced). I arrived during "Stretch Out and Wait" and he followed it with "Please .... want." He performed (of course) "How Soon is Now." That's all I remember even though I sang every word of every song played.

People either like Morrissey or they don't. That's all there is. And if you like him you really like him. If you don't, you loathe him. I don't think there is indifference when it comes to Morrissey (and the Smiths).

Ok this is more of an appreciation than a review. Fuck. As I said, it's Morrissey.
There's no need for a review. He sang as he always did in that perfect voice he's always had.

Listen: Way back when I was a young kid just in the Army I knew nothing about modern music that you didn't hear on the radio. I had encyclopedic knowledge of the piano repertoire and on Saturday nights when I was washing dishes as a teen in a restaurant we could pick up a radio station from Atlanta that played a Saturday Party Dance mix and I was drawn to New Order songs and Erasure. Of course I did know and like U2 and R.E.M. (the latter being from an hour south of where I lived), but I can say I'd never heard the Smiths.

So after a smashing of the hand in a motorcycle accident and realizing I wasn't going to use that Juilliard spot and knowing I surely didn't want to wash dishes the rest of my life and having no other options in a town of 7,000, I joined the Army. And I met James and Marlon. James was from Austin and had encyclopedic knowledge of the Smiths (and Bleach-era Nirvana, and the Smashing Pumpkins' first album, and the Happy Mondays and everything that I later grew to take for myself and where I
realized that I was completely and utterly drawn to lyrics-driven music). Marlon had encyclopedic knowledge of Nitzer Ebb and Front 242 and the entire what I'll call the Wax-Trax genre of Industrial/Electronica.

And I ate it all but what I truly devoured was the Smiths.

James made mix-tapes of everything Morrissey and Smiths. We had bootleg copies of live shows in London performed in parks. And I couldn't get enough of Morrissey's lyrics. To me they were just perfect. So between jumping out of airplanes and humping equipment for miles in the dark and shooting and blowing up shit there was a core of us in the 82d who would sit around listening to The Smiths. And we'd seek out clubs that played this "alternative" music and dance and drink for hours (on dancing: yes, I know. I've copped his style. You don't have to tell me.)

And I suspect that that is how it happens for most people who are introduced to Morrissey's lyrics: if you like them then you like them because they are exactly what you have felt and exactly what you have wanted to say but couldn't.

What I like about Morrissey is that there isn't a song he's written that I can't say describes some feeling, some scene, some place in time that I've felt, been involved in, been a part of.

But I also suspect that if you do like Morrissey's lyrics it's because you, too, are slightly shy, slightly timid, slightly afraid of action, slightly hesitant about being rejected. Funny, that, that you have guys jumping out of airplanes and humping equipment for miles in the dark and shooting and blowing up shit who are slightly afraid of going to a club and standing alone and leaving alone. Who know its over yet we cling. Who have love as sharp as needles in eyes and who experience strange fears to the point where you just can't ask.

So what's unique about Morrissey is that anyone can like him: Army guys, goth girls, Hardcore kids (one of the hardest hard-core guys I know was as excited about seeing him as I was as we pre-drank at the Cat).

Just go to one of the Smiths vs. Cure nights at the Cat and look at the crowd: 50 year olds, punks, goths, 18 year olds. What it takes, in my opinion, is an ability to feel and not be afraid of feeling.

And I'd be amiss if I didn't address whining. That's the criticism I've heard most about Morrissey: he's a whiner.

No. He doesn't whine. He states. His ability to put into words the feelings and emotions that real people think and feel is unparalleled. What Morrissey is is the best self-deprecating lyricist (he doesn't write music and I don't think he can read notes) that I've ever heard. He is brilliant at self-deprecation but also of calling people out "you must be such a fool to pass me by."

Rumors on his sexuality aside what I also appreciate about Morrissey is that he is private. Criminally private. He writes the songs condemning cheating lovers "leather elbows on a tweed coat, is THAT the best you can do?" songs about being dumped "I know it's over, still I cling, I don't know where else I can go" and songs about clinging lovers "why do you come here when you know it makes things hard for me" but you have no fucking idea who the songs are about. None. I defy anyone to link one
of his relationship songs to a person. Can't be done. His condemnation of other things outside of human relationships "the more you ignore me the closer I get" are more see-through. Duh. It's about the US.

But his relationship songs? Who's he writing to? Who are they about? You don't know. And that's just perfect.

As far as the review portion? The percussionist was brilliant. He played one of the largest timpani I've ever seen. The lights were white. The backdrop was a simple picture produced three times in series of a plain guy drinking a pint. The fans, the fanatical fans, attempted to swarm the stage during the encores and mostly they succeeded despite the best efforts of security. When one deliberate and dedicated fan in particular evaded a number of staff and made it to him the audience cheered.

Morrissey was very accommodating and hugged everyone who made it, at one point interrupting his song with a grin on his face and a pause as staff cleared as many as they could.

So I'm rambling now and soon you'll be at the end and can tear apart my non-review or argue about how he is a whiner and sucks or agree that seeing Morrissey live is amazing.

I mean that's why there's a comment section, so have at it.

After this:

What I don't like about Morrissey is that his lyrics are so perfect that after hearing them again I don't want to write. Why bother? Better writing has been done. It's like the scene in 1900 where 1900 and Jelly Roll Morton are having a piano playing battle and Jelly Roll plays "The Crave" and 1900 goes up and plays it the same, note for note, because it was perfect. Taken as an insult it was meant to be an appreciation. Anyway.

So I can't really find any words to put any feeling into this review. It's mostly just some sentences and facts and a little insight but not too much. It's because I'm hearing Smiths lyrics that have feeling and they're just too good to try to put any of my own feelings into words. I'm sorry.

What I can do instead is provide this video from "Cinema Paradiso."

Pay close and careful attention to Salvatore's face as he watches the spliced together snippets of kisses from all the films that had the kisses censored out.

That was my face exactly at the show.

Previously in Live DC:

• 5/24: LiveDC: The Adicts @ RNR Hotel
• 5/24: LiveDC: The Donkeys @ Black Cat
• 5/23: LiveDC: The Barr Brothers w/ Kishi Bashi @ The Hamilton
• 5/23: LiveDC: Damien Jurado @ Black Cat
• 5/23: Report: Soundbites 2012
• 5/22: LiveDC: Spirit Animal @ Red Palace
• 5/22: LiveDC: Astra Via @ Black Cat
• 5/22: LiveDC: Father John Misty @ Rock & Roll Hotel
• 5/22: LiveDC: Drive-By Truckers and Lucinda Williams @ Merriweather
• 5/22: Photos: Summer Camp takes the "Ladies of Town" Drag Show