Dear Morrissey . . .

First 150-200 pages of childhood and early youth are really great stuff.

The Smiths era is way glossed over, I was definitely interested to find how young Morrissey felt going from village misfit to indie stardom. But alas. The constant Geoff Travis bashing is hilarious, however.

The trial and legal fallout is obviously tl;dr but he does make one or two good points in the wash of whining.

Tour diary is very much for the fans. Not sure if one can really equate a concert in El Paso to prison sex but anyways.

Best revelation? He collected the money at A Certain Ratio's first gig!

Also: put this in context. There's less whinging in this book than in Peter Hook's "The Haçienda: How Not To Run A Club".

quick flickthrough..

Saw a bit where Mike Joyce managed to contact M via letter, post trial, etc.

The conclusion from Moz was more or less "yes, over time I may well find forgiveness, but we will never be friends again"

So, there you go..

The first third or half is really really good

This is what the NYT review said today... plus his fondness for Dr Smith from "Lost in Space"! Source of band name?

we will never be friends again

song title in waiting

"I may well find forgiveness" been done already?

looking forward to reading this when it's out in the US

the back half being sad/tragic obsession on trial seems v Wildean

There are just so many weird, bitchy moments.

At one point he's talking about somebody denying him permission to include a song - Swan Lake by The Cats I think - on that Under The Influence compilation he had about 10 years ago. Later it turns out the guy didn't even own the rights so Moz gets to include the song anyway. It's such a weirdly banal little anecdote that you wonder why he's even mentioning it, until you get to the last sentence in the paragraph: “When he dies in 2008, I think, Well, that’s what you get for being so nasty”.

There's a lot of fat hate too. The most hilarious scene - I mean, hilarious according to Morrissey - is when some girl tries to get an autograph just as the Smiths tour bus drives off and Johnny Marr shouts back at her, "See you, fatty!"

Later on, Morrissey thinks it a great joke that no one tells the girl who appears in the You're The One For Me Fatty video what the name of the song is.

By the end, he considers himself fat too, though, and moans quite a bit about his own belly.

instant karma went and got him

Not sure if one can really equate a concert in El Paso to prison sex but anyways.

why don't we ask Texans

ah I see, the first third is great cuz... it's like a music critic's memoir? My God, what could be worse?

oh hush mr film man

My God, what could be worse?

A Dennis Perrin autobiog.

That's his next book! Largely about the janitorial life.

American release date: December 3

I'm still slogging through this. It's really hard to take more than 10-12 pages at a time.

That anecdote about Under the Influence* seems to be the pattern - there is a succession of famous people he meets, or has brief dealings with and who all slight, snub or ignore him. Or just stop replying to his postcards. He sees Alain Toussaint in a studio and says hello, but gets no response - it goes in the ledger.

*it's the Sundown Playboys track, which was orig. licensed to Apple, and it's Neil Aspinall who sends the nasty note.

yes that anecdote tells me everything i need to know which is to steer well clear of this. “When he dies in 2008, I think, Well, that’s what you get for being so nasty” is not funny or clever, it's just a horribly depressing way to live your life.

I notice you end almost every anecdote with the phrase ‘needless to say, I had the last laugh’.

I couldn't get through this book and dropped it off at the charity shop. Guy behind the counter had read it as well and we agreed that two thirds of the book is basically Morrissey whinging. He asked me if I thought the book should be a Penguin Classic and I replied that honestly I thought it was just a marketing tactic.

you don't say!

Then I doffed my top hat and bid him good-day.

My withering criticism affected him so deeply that a spasm of shock sent his monocle splashing into his soup

First 150 pages, as everyone else has said, are really, REALLY good.

The tour diary maybe needed David Peace to write it. He can do the repetition-as-hypnosis thing that Morrissey really can't.

Otherwise it reminds me of The Kenneth Williams Diaries, down to near-death cameo appearance by Charles Hawtrey.

Frequently very funny and I think a lot of the criticism is down to indie/Penguin snobs saying don't spoil our party coarse varlet but I haven't got to the "legendary" 40-page trial bit yet.

The tour diary maybe needed David Peace to write it. He can do the repetition-as-hypnosis thing that Morrissey really can't.

Definitely some fishy aspects to how the trial panned out, but also VERY UNRELIABLE NARRATOR.

DEVIOUS, TRUCULENT AND UNRELIABLE NARRATOR iirc

Does he compare himself and his trial to Oscar Wilde's? I salute his willpower if he managed to resist.

in the 'books I have loved' section early on he doesn't really bother to explain his love for Wilde, just pointedly talks about his destruction by a wicked court.

And a Pitchfork review of the autobiography from Mr. Ewing:

http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/150-morrissey-autobiography/

a friend in Japan got me a proper copy - loving it so far tbh

That's great. This review and Chris Heath's are the only ones that really seem to get the book.

Fairly certain Tom's review is the best I've read ... it feels like he's read it rather than raced through it.

The Chris Heath review is semi-literate gibberish which wouldn't entice an arthritic gnu to read the book, but Tom's review is very good indeed and closest to how I feel about the book and its author.

"Spare a thought," he writes, "for those who rock the boat. They challenge your attention, and even in your rage you find you quite like them for poking you as if you were a dead mule. Perhaps you are?"

Eagerly awaiting its release into the local charity shops in mid-Jan. 2014.

The Chris Heath review is semi-literate gibberish which wouldn't entice an arthritic gnu to read the book

"wouldn't entice an arthritic gnu"? man, you're like a morrissey who failed in life: even more bitter, even more of a cunt. and lol you've got a cheek to talk about semi-literate gibberish when there must be millions of words of unreadable rubbish spread across your shitty blogs.

arthritic gnu, is it you?

Calling a review that clear "semi-literate gibberish" betrays some kind of anti-Chris Heath grudge on Marcello's part because it's a baffling assessment. My problem with Heath's review is that, like so many others, it seems disappointed by all the things that one would expect Morrissey's autobiography to contain. I loved the book because, flaws and all, it captures Morrissey's personality to perfection. I also found it funnier than Heath seems too. To take just one example, the fact that Morrissey follows some petty gripe about a misbehaving record label with "sigh times five thousand" suggests to me that he's ready to laugh at his lifelong inability to let the good outweigh the bad.

Dear Morrissey why are all your albums overcompressed now?

p sure he uses some light auto-tune for the high notes too

latham green otm

arthritic gnu, is it you?

LOL!

Morrissey has never really understood the importance of production/engineering imo

Basically Tom Ewing's last paragraph otm

I don't get it, marcello. Are you suggesting that arthritic gnus are avid readers, easily enticed into reading rock memoirs, and that heath's review is worse than useless because it can't manage even that? Or is it the opposite, that arthritic gnus are not only illiterate but very hard to motivate into doing anything at all - but your aesthetic standards are so high that you will brook no criticism that won't accomplish this (demand the impossible &c)? Is "wouldn't entice an arthritic gnu" a saying I don't know or something? Are gnus with healthy joints more receptive to racist 80s indie singers, or less?

Wait don't answer any of that just tell me is the plural of gnu gnus or is it just gnu cause I fear I may have just made a fool of myself

Morrissey has never really understood the importance of production/engineering imo

yeah that's true. feels like his voice really meshed with the Smiths, the early solo stuff w/Stephen Street is still pretty good mix-wise but that's where things start to sound a little karaoke-esque and it just falls off steadily from there

I looked it up, it's gnus

Phew!

reference?

Gnua

glamorous gnu