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No soy fan de The Smiths, pero acá encontré una historia interesante publicada ayer en el diario The Guardian
.The songs that saved my life. Twenty years ago, Mark Taylor was a 16-year-old with few friends and an obsession with the Smiths. To mark a new album from the band's former lead singer Morrissey, he recalls how a scrappy fanzine made in his bedroom led to an unexpected friendship
.In 1983, when I was 14, I bought the first Smiths single, Hand in Glove. I still remember running home to play it on the ancient record player in my parents' dining room; a seven-inch vinyl single with a silver and blue cover. For a lonely teenager living in Bristol, it was incredibly powerful to hear Morrissey singing out of the crackling speakers: "And if the people stare, then the people stare. Oh, I really don't know and I really don't care." For me, it proved that somebody knew just how I was feeling. At that point, my life was turned upside down by four skinny men from Manchester: Steven Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce.
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In 1983, if you were into music at my school, you usually fell into two camps. You either liked heavy metal and had Iron Maiden patches sewn on to your school bag, or you spent most of your lunch breaks trying not to break your neck dancing to (Hey You) The Rocksteady Crew. I opted for neither and formed my own faction - an "indie" camp, with a membership of one. In a tough boys' comprehensive school in the middle of a south Bristol council estate, this was a brave move. To turn up to school wearing a long jumble-sale coat, sporting a gelled Morrissey quiff and with "The Smiths" Tippexed on to your rucksack was social suicide.
My only solace was locking the bedroom door and singing along to Morrissey's lyrics. "In my life why do I smile at people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?" Having collected the records, cut out every Morrissey interview from the music papers and taped every radio and TV appearance, I had started to amass a shrine-like collection of memorabilia. I was becoming something of a superfan.
At the same time, I had seen fanzines appearing for other bands, including the Alarm, whose 68 Guns fists-in-the-air rock I had taken a particular dislike to. So when I was 16, I decided it was time the Smiths had their own fanzine, and placed a small ad in the NME classifieds, inviting like-minded Smiths apostles to get in touch. It was pay-per-word so I couldn't afford to say anything more than: "Smiths fans get in touch. New magazine." I spent the entire summer of 1986 locked away in my tiny bedroom in my parents' house, working on issue one of Smiths Indeed. The name came from one of Morrissey's many cryptic messages scratched into the vinyl of the run-out grooves of Smiths singles. The first issue included an essay called "Image and influence: Smithdom and the male pin-up", a review of two American gigs in August 1986, and a special pullout listing every gig the band had played in 1983, every song played at every gig, and each radio and TV appearance in between.
It seems unbelievable today that you could produce a magazine using nothing more than a portable typewriter, a ream of A4, scissors, Pritt stick and a few sheets of Letraset. This was cut-and-paste journalism in the extreme. Funded by a short-lived job as an insurance claims clerk, I paid about £500 for 1,000 copies of issue one to be printed - a hell of a lot of money to a teenager in 1986. I couldn't even afford to get it collated, folding and stapling each one by hand on our dining-room table.
With no advertising budget, I sent a copy to John Peel, hoping for a mention on his late-night Radio 1 show. For the next week, my entire family would sit in the lounge between 10pm and midnight, crowding around the radio as if it was a wartime broadcast, just in case Peel gave it a plug. And he did - I still have it on tape - and read out my address, which of course was my parents' address in Bristol. A few days later, the postman knocked on the door with hundreds of letters and postcards, many with coins taped to them to make up the 70p cover price.
Then came the famous, final Queen Is Dead tour. I had planned to take only a handful of fanzines to sell outside the venues, simply to pay for my train fares and B&Bs. Somehow, however, the band got hold of a copy and their soundman spotted me outside the venue the following day. At first I thought it spelled trouble, thinking they wouldn't want me to sell what was technically unofficial merchandise. In fact, they loved it and asked me to sell it on the official merchandise stall inside the venues. I spent the rest of the tour returning to Bristol between gigs to grab carrier bags of fanzines to sell at the next show. The response was incredible, with people clamouring for copies as soon as the doors opened. I remember pocketing so many coins at the Nottingham gig that my jeans fell down as I walked back to my B&B.
For the next three years, Smiths Indeed became known as the "official" Smiths magazine and a forum for fans from Whalley Range to Wisconsin, many of whom contributed features and photographs. Features discussed every aspect of the Smiths and of life as a fan. There were tour diaries, reviews of gigs, bootlegs and books, and a lively letters page discussing everything from Morrissey's lyrics and ambiguous sexuality to his love of 60s kitchen sink films and George Formby. Like their record sleeves, the band themselves never appeared on the cover of the fanzine and there were no coverlines - just pictures of unlikely 60s actors such as Dandy Nichols, Carol White and Charles Hawtrey. But the band themselves never contributed; Morrissey has never been less than reclusive and by this time, even his interviews to fanzines were extremely rare.
Smiths Indeed became a forum for Smiths fans across the world and, in a sense, I became regarded almost as a member of the band's inner circle. One unforgettable day involved filming the video for I Started Something I Couldn't Finish in Manchester. I had chosen 12 Smiths Indeed readers to appear in the video with Morrissey, cycling in the rain on a tour of iconic Smiths haunts including Salford Lads Club and Strangeways prison. Embarrassingly, I couldn't ride a bike so I was relegated to the sidelines, but Morrissey would pedal up to me between takes for a chat. I remember we discussed why he chose the picture of French actor Alain Delon for the cover of The Queen Is Dead, which books he was reading (mainly Oscar Wilde), and the fact that the rain was flattening his hair.
In 1987, the band split up. Shortly afterwards, I got a phone call at home from someone called Peter. I knew it was Morrissey, and he knew I knew it was him, but we spent the next few minutes playing out an odd game. I don't recall what exactly was discussed during this unexpected phone call, but I seem to remember him asking me advice about something, and it was never mentioned again. I can only assume that he was lonely and wanted to talk to somebody whose opinion he trusted.
To some of the band's famously dedicated fans, this loose association was enough to make even me a figure of interest. One female Japanese fan made a special journey to Bristol just to see where I lived. I still remember a burly taxi driver knocking on my door with an enormous bunch of flowers, explaining that she was too nervous to get out of the taxi to hand them to me personally. When I went out to thank her, she burst into floods of tears.
It may seem obsessive behaviour, but looking back spending three years running a fanzine for the band was more obsessive than most. Twenty years on, I have a "proper" job in journalism as a food writer. I still play Smiths and Morrissey records occasionally and they immediately transport me back to my days as a proud fanzine editor.
My only solace was locking the bedroom door and singing along to Morrissey's lyrics. "In my life why do I smile at people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?" Having collected the records, cut out every Morrissey interview from the music papers and taped every radio and TV appearance, I had started to amass a shrine-like collection of memorabilia. I was becoming something of a superfan.
At the same time, I had seen fanzines appearing for other bands, including the Alarm, whose 68 Guns fists-in-the-air rock I had taken a particular dislike to. So when I was 16, I decided it was time the Smiths had their own fanzine, and placed a small ad in the NME classifieds, inviting like-minded Smiths apostles to get in touch. It was pay-per-word so I couldn't afford to say anything more than: "Smiths fans get in touch. New magazine." I spent the entire summer of 1986 locked away in my tiny bedroom in my parents' house, working on issue one of Smiths Indeed. The name came from one of Morrissey's many cryptic messages scratched into the vinyl of the run-out grooves of Smiths singles. The first issue included an essay called "Image and influence: Smithdom and the male pin-up", a review of two American gigs in August 1986, and a special pullout listing every gig the band had played in 1983, every song played at every gig, and each radio and TV appearance in between.
It seems unbelievable today that you could produce a magazine using nothing more than a portable typewriter, a ream of A4, scissors, Pritt stick and a few sheets of Letraset. This was cut-and-paste journalism in the extreme. Funded by a short-lived job as an insurance claims clerk, I paid about £500 for 1,000 copies of issue one to be printed - a hell of a lot of money to a teenager in 1986. I couldn't even afford to get it collated, folding and stapling each one by hand on our dining-room table.
With no advertising budget, I sent a copy to John Peel, hoping for a mention on his late-night Radio 1 show. For the next week, my entire family would sit in the lounge between 10pm and midnight, crowding around the radio as if it was a wartime broadcast, just in case Peel gave it a plug. And he did - I still have it on tape - and read out my address, which of course was my parents' address in Bristol. A few days later, the postman knocked on the door with hundreds of letters and postcards, many with coins taped to them to make up the 70p cover price.
Then came the famous, final Queen Is Dead tour. I had planned to take only a handful of fanzines to sell outside the venues, simply to pay for my train fares and B&Bs. Somehow, however, the band got hold of a copy and their soundman spotted me outside the venue the following day. At first I thought it spelled trouble, thinking they wouldn't want me to sell what was technically unofficial merchandise. In fact, they loved it and asked me to sell it on the official merchandise stall inside the venues. I spent the rest of the tour returning to Bristol between gigs to grab carrier bags of fanzines to sell at the next show. The response was incredible, with people clamouring for copies as soon as the doors opened. I remember pocketing so many coins at the Nottingham gig that my jeans fell down as I walked back to my B&B.
For the next three years, Smiths Indeed became known as the "official" Smiths magazine and a forum for fans from Whalley Range to Wisconsin, many of whom contributed features and photographs. Features discussed every aspect of the Smiths and of life as a fan. There were tour diaries, reviews of gigs, bootlegs and books, and a lively letters page discussing everything from Morrissey's lyrics and ambiguous sexuality to his love of 60s kitchen sink films and George Formby. Like their record sleeves, the band themselves never appeared on the cover of the fanzine and there were no coverlines - just pictures of unlikely 60s actors such as Dandy Nichols, Carol White and Charles Hawtrey. But the band themselves never contributed; Morrissey has never been less than reclusive and by this time, even his interviews to fanzines were extremely rare.
Smiths Indeed became a forum for Smiths fans across the world and, in a sense, I became regarded almost as a member of the band's inner circle. One unforgettable day involved filming the video for I Started Something I Couldn't Finish in Manchester. I had chosen 12 Smiths Indeed readers to appear in the video with Morrissey, cycling in the rain on a tour of iconic Smiths haunts including Salford Lads Club and Strangeways prison. Embarrassingly, I couldn't ride a bike so I was relegated to the sidelines, but Morrissey would pedal up to me between takes for a chat. I remember we discussed why he chose the picture of French actor Alain Delon for the cover of The Queen Is Dead, which books he was reading (mainly Oscar Wilde), and the fact that the rain was flattening his hair.
In 1987, the band split up. Shortly afterwards, I got a phone call at home from someone called Peter. I knew it was Morrissey, and he knew I knew it was him, but we spent the next few minutes playing out an odd game. I don't recall what exactly was discussed during this unexpected phone call, but I seem to remember him asking me advice about something, and it was never mentioned again. I can only assume that he was lonely and wanted to talk to somebody whose opinion he trusted.
To some of the band's famously dedicated fans, this loose association was enough to make even me a figure of interest. One female Japanese fan made a special journey to Bristol just to see where I lived. I still remember a burly taxi driver knocking on my door with an enormous bunch of flowers, explaining that she was too nervous to get out of the taxi to hand them to me personally. When I went out to thank her, she burst into floods of tears.
It may seem obsessive behaviour, but looking back spending three years running a fanzine for the band was more obsessive than most. Twenty years on, I have a "proper" job in journalism as a food writer. I still play Smiths and Morrissey records occasionally and they immediately transport me back to my days as a proud fanzine editor.
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