Comments | brokenblossom: Yay, *now* it's The Smiths...

brokenblossom

Yay, now it's The Smiths...

Jul 02, 2007 00:22

...miming to This Charming Man for their first Top Of The Pops appearance, which, coincidentally, took place on my second birthday. I had a Henry's Cat cake that year.

- He's celibate, girls, he's celibate ( Read more... )

lonely records

Comments 11

bluebellrock July 2 2007, 00:45:23 UTC

If I'm not mistaken, Mozzer's gonna be on The Late Show... With Daaaaavid Letterman tonight. It's always so odd to see him as a filled-out middle-aged man. Can't wait but!

brokenblossom July 2 2007, 02:14:01 UTC

(That icon is seriously disturbing/compelling!!)

I know what you mean! I was thinking the same earlier today (well... yesterday, by now) while watching That's Entertainment! on the telly - as much as I loved all the clips and bits of songs and dance routines, and seeing the MGM lots (filmed for this just before they were all torn down), and appreciated the fact that the clips were introduced and linked by lots of the actors themselves, there's something deeply disturbing about seeing Fred Astaire gone old, Donald O'Connor gone old, and especially Gene Kelly gone old - not that any of 'em were even all that old, just middle aged, but when you're used to Gene Kelly as an vigorous, athletic young man...

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bluebellrock July 2 2007, 02:18:46 UTC

God in the toilet!!*

* Took me three full minutes to write that, gazing as I was at Gene... COR!!! BLOODY!!! HOT!!!

brokenblossom July 2 2007, 02:30:37 UTC

Yeah! There's embarrassment on both sides, and a mutual, inferred understanding that you'll pretend it never happened...

Christ, I sound awfully ageist about those MGM stars, and that's not what I meant at all. It's just the shock of seeing them at a different stage of life, recognisable but physically altered from certain, iconic images of them from a particular point of their life forever fixed in your mind. The 'wrong' context, 'there's something wrong with this picture'. Weird in the same way that seeing the twenty year old Elvis in an '80s movie would be. Recognisable, but JUST WRONG!!

*Isn't he?! Such power, such energy. I'd better go to bed before I swoon irrecoverably!

Thread 5

hotdrops July 2 2007, 00:59:32 UTC

i watched that programme last night, it all started so well & then reminded me just how much i hated the britpop years!

listening to 'louder than bombs' last week i felt cheerier than i had at any other time recently (contrary to the popular smiths=depressing viewpoint..) i must remember to listen to them more often :)

I can't tell whether the little girl in yr icon is dressed as some sort of nurse or some sort of ... brokenblossom July 3 2007, 20:18:26 UTC

...mini female Father Christmas! She makes me grin, though :-)

Yeah, I really wish I'd turned off after they'd finished talking about '80s indie - I disagreed w/ just about everything the programme said or put forward after that, fairly violently so in several cases, and I could probably have done without letting myself get so pissed off by it all! How dare they make TV documentaries about pop music without consulting me first to make sure they get it right...!

Aherm.

Awww, Louder Than Bombs is ace, and so happifying! I listen to it more than I listen to the albums 'proper', I must say - it has that non stop pop classics, everyone's a winner! quality of a greatest hits album, I suppose, though it isn't really one. But yes, so many fantastic tunes, and so many lyrics that can make me laugh aloud just to think of 'em... :-)

Re: I can't tell whether the little girl in yr icon is dressed as some sort of nurse or some sort of hotdrops July 3 2007, 22:56:48 UTC

hee! :) the original's not that much bigger..

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randy_gibbons July 2 2007, 05:50:27 UTC

TWO!?! Good Lord, you've just made me feel ancient. Was that '82? I'd have been 14, and was 16 when I first saw them (supported by James). They came along at exactly the right time for me; I thought it was the most joyous sound.

brokenblossom July 3 2007, 20:39:56 UTC

Nah, November '83. I only turned one in '82, so can't remember what sort of cake I had that year ;-)

You were fortunate being in the right place at the right time for The Smiths, especially as they had such a narrow period of activity, really. Where did you see 'em? What did James sound like in those days? They've seemed to specialise in making records that get described as 'anthemic' for as long as I've been aware of 'em, which presumably wouldn't have been quite the case when they were whippersnappers (though I can't exactly imagine them having had a scratchy, punky early period, somehow).

Ah, come on, you're not ancient! My Dad, now - he's so old he remembers rationing! Even my Mum's old enough to have seen Jimi Hendrix supporting Englebert Humperdinck!

randy_gibbons July 4 2007, 08:30:46 UTC

The first time was at De Montfort Hall in Leicester on the Meat Is Murder tour. It was only my second ever gig and it was tremendously exciting; it felt like an electric charge was running through the audience - we were upstairs and I remember people dancing ON the balcony railing - as well as a genuine feeling of danger afterwards as gangs of the local yout' raided the merchandise sellers outside. The band were terrifically good, Morrisseys singing, erm, less so, but hey, even a broken wristwatch is right twice a day, right?

James were more indie then. If you listen to Hymn From A Village, it's an accurate sample of their sound in those early days. They were good, you could tell they had something.