The Blindboy Podcast - Johnny Marr

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

I chat with legendary songwriter and musician Johnny Marr  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Greetings, you hell-bent, sweltering emmets. I sound slightly different this week, because I have managed to catch COVID in the year of our Lord, 2023. I'm not that sick, but I'm keeping to myself. COVID is a bit of a different beast, so I just want to make sure that I don't give it to anybody who's immunocompromised or something like that,

so I'm keeping to myself. So I won't be doing a hot take podcast this week but I will be playing ye a wonderful chat that I had with the legendary Johnny Marr a chat that I had in Manchester a few weeks ago which was utterly fantastic it felt very special to do this chat in Manchester because Johnny's from Manchester it was a Manchester audience it was a very special to do this chat in Manchester because Johnny's from Manchester.

It was a Manchester audience. It was a very special night. And Johnny came along because he's a fan of this podcast. He listens to this podcast. And we wanted to chat about art. We wanted to chat about art and creativity and music. Johnny Marr is one of the most important living musicians. One of the most important living musicians, one of the most important

living songwriters. He was a founding member of the Smiths. He was in the electronic with Bernard Sommer from New Order. He was in the Pretenders. He was in the Cribs. He was in Maddest Mouse. He's played with Talking Heads. But mostly what makes Johnny Marr so important is like any musician can go and buy a guitar. Any musician can go and pick up a guitar and play it. Not just a guitar. Any artist can pick up any tool or any artist can explore any medium. But only a small few can change how we think about that medium or think about that tool.

Johnny Marr picked up a guitar and then changed how we think about that instrument. People played guitars differently after Johnny Marr. The absolute peak of art, any type of art, is when the artist can change the medium itself. People painted differently after Caravaggio. And when it comes to playing the guitar, there's only a handful of musicians, really, who've changed how we think about guitars. I mean, off the top of my head,

Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, Robert Johnson, Chet Atkins. There's a longer list than that. But Johnny Marr is in that list. So it was an absolute pleasure to just, to just speak about creativity, to speak about creativity and art with Johnny. And if you're a diehard Johnny Marr fan, or if you're a diehard Smits fan,

and you don't listen to this podcast, and you're coming along to listen to me interview johnny you might be disappointed you might be a bit disappointed because i don't ask standard interview questions i don't even try to have an interview what i aim for is a conversation with someone who i really get along with and who i have crack with and someone whose work i deeply respect. And that's what me and Johnny did. And that's also the reason Johnny came on this podcast. Because he listens to it. And he wanted to have a chat with me.

He wanted to have a chat. And we spoke about it at Electric Picnic a few months ago. What we wanted to chat about was the generosity that's within art. In particular, the generosity that exists within musicians. The generosity of sharing passions and ideas as opposed to kind of withholding them and gatekeeping them. So this is quite an open-ended chat. It was a wonderful night. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Johnny enjoyed it too. a wonderful night. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Johnny enjoyed it too. He was so sound that I kind of forgot I was talking to an absolute legend about five minutes into it. I completely forgot and I was just chatting to a fella called Johnny from Manchester who likes all the same shit that I do. But for me, that's the aim of this podcast. That's what I like to do when I speak to someone on this podcast. I want to have the conversations that you're not going to hear on a radio interview, or talk show, or even in a fucking long-form magazine interview. We'd actually decided at Electric Picnic we were going to chat about his two-row DJing Ridgeback dogs, but we didn't get around to that.

But we spoke. We spoke a fuckload about art, creativity, music, and Johnny's Irish heritage. So here's the chat I had with Johnny Marr. And in true professional fashion, Johnny just had to hand me the questions that I was going to ask him. Because I'd forgotten them backstage.

But you know what, Johnny? I don't even like looking at questions. Like, I like having them as backup, but I prefer just having the crack. Good there is there is one thing I wanted to start with actually which is oh your name in French Johnny Marr means I've had it up to here did you know that you know you know, I found that out, I found that out in about 1984 or something. But the weird thing was there's a Pretenders song called Private Life and then Grace Jones did a cover version of it and I used to love that.

And I knew the song and you know when you sing along with songs and you sing the wrong words yeah but you think of what it sounds like yeah but so that song starts off with my name and I didn't even even though I knew the song really well I'd still song sang the wrong words along with it so I went oh yeah Johnny Marr Johnny Marr with your theatrics you're acting to drag so then when I got to be in the pretendenders, I asked Chrissie Hynde about it. She said, yeah, that's, so I thought it was quite a clever lyric, but that's, so I knew it even before I knew it, if you know what I mean. But it's a good punk rock name. It is.

I'm fed up or I'm pissed off. Do you know the actor Sean Bean? Yeah. the actor Sean Bean. Yeah. So his name in Irish means old woman. And I love it because someone must have said it to him. Because the thing is,

is like literally in Irish, Shanban, like it's S-E-A-N-B-E-A-N. Shanban, old woman. He could have gone S-H-A-W-N he didn't he went with old woman

he knew that everybody in Ireland is going to call him old woman and he's like I don't give a fuck or that band Basement Jacks

it just means downstairs toilet yeah I kind of worked that one out actually yeah I've wondered about that but I don't think Sean Bean will know about it now you know it but I don't think Yeah, I kind of worked that one out, actually. Yeah, I've wondered about that.

But I don't think Sean... Well, Sean Bean will know about it now. You know it, but I don't think he knows it. He has to, because Sean is the Irish spelling. Oh, yeah. Or no, S-E-A-N is the Irish spelling, but he left out a fada. And then my ma texted me tonight. What was the name she had for you?

Oh, I don't have my phone. Sean O'Meagher. Sean O'Meagher was with because your name is John matter yeah yeah it's the most Irish name I've ever heard of my fucking life you sound like a butcher from Tipperary yeah it's very very Irish yeah it's my rich my name before changes ma our changed it to M-A-R-R, which I did when I was a teenager. It's M-A-H-E-R. Maha. Maha, yeah, but because my parents are very Irish, still are Irish. Are they from Ireland?

Yeah, yeah, no, they're both from Kildare. My dad gets... Fuck off, from Kildare. Yeah, my dad gets more Irish every day. Whereabouts in Kildare? A little town called Athai. Athai in Kildare. Athai, yeah, Kildare. Ath town called Athai Athai in Kildare Athai yeah Kildare Athi as the Yanks call it

yeah so so when when I was going to say when we first moved over here but I spent a lot of time over there when I was a kid but

when we moved over when the family moved over it was like everyone would call me Maha Mayha Mather so

if I go to the dentist or whatever it'd be like you know john mather and i'd be like so anyway there was that so i was a uh as a youngster i was annoyed that i was called maher and mayher like and then also uh there was um you'll know they've been a music fan the manchester band the buzzcocks yes the drummer in the buzzcocks his name is john myers exactly the same as mine spelt the same way his family I think are from Wicklow so I think he's Wicklow

I might be wrong about that but anyway when they came out with Sparrow Scratch I just went oh well now I've got to change it because there's another John Maher

in Manchester so anyway I was always called Johnny anyway but John Maher is very Irish yeah Do you not remember the 1983 tour of Ireland that you did with the Smiths, do you? Oh, I remember it well, yeah.

Because you played in Limerick in a place called Savoy. We did, yeah. And my sister was actually working the gig. And she served you a cup of tea. And her job for the night was... Do you remember Morrissey used to have the... It was a flower that he used to have on stage. He'd have the flowers as the dance.

The gladioli. Yeah. Yeah. So the flowers didn't arrive. And it was my sister. She was like 19. Her job was to try and find the flowers. But it was Limerick in 1983,

and we didn't have any flower shops. So she had to run to a local hotel and just steal a bush from a car park of a hotel and then handed it to Morrissey before stage and he had to go up. It was a shrub. He had to go up on stage with limerick shrubbery. Well, from then on, though, he used to start using a shrub.

Oh, did he? Oh, come on, that's hardly my sister's fault, is it? Now I know where it came from. Was that your first tour of Ireland? Yeah, Oh, come on. That's hardly my sister's fault, is it? Now I know where it came from. Was that your first tour of Ireland? Yeah, that was the first tour, yeah. I mean, it was a no-brainer for us. Do you know, honestly, this might sound a bit odd, but as soon as we got big enough to do it,

so within months of the first hit, which was this charming man, we just kind of went, oh, can we play in Ireland now? And it was actually kind of unusual, and we sort of went, we picked up on that. I don't know if some of the record companies said, why do you want to play in Ireland? And we were like, well, because all of us are from Irish families.

Yeah, because there's you, Maris here, but the other lads too. Yeah. So are you? Well, Roark is a real Irish name, I think. Roark, yeah. And Mike Joyce. so all of us from Irish families and

but so we we were all like that about playing Ireland and actually I don't want to say paid off I don't mean it

like that 40 years later Irish people Irish fans particularly those who went they they give off

they sort of reciprocate still. They reciprocate the fact that we made the effort. To us, it was no effort. We were like, brilliant. But it was unusual to go and play Limerick. We played Letterkenny and we played Coleraine. Wow, fair play. No one played those places.

Not up north. Jesus Christ, yeah. That's right, yeah. Yeah. But back then in 83, people avoided that. Gigs didn't go up there. Something, I think it's more than reciprocation. Like, I, there's a strange thing we have in Ireland, right,

which is, I don't want to call it claiming bands, but, like, it's just really, really important successful bands happen in England, but it's a bunch of Irish people. It's like Irish people couldn't flourish in Ireland, but when Irish immigrants went to this country in particular, you saw an explosion of creativity. Did you grow up with a bit of Irish music in the house even? Well, the thing with my parents parents because my parents were young they kind of rebelled against it but if you grow up around i suppose it's probably the same in for any

immigrants but you can't escape it you can't escape the language you can't escape the humor you can't expect so i knew you know so i knew about all the show bands for instance but the old chieftains and all that stuff yeah that wasn't cool then you see not at all for my parents they were escaping it they're all about something else but that thing you're talking about um irish claiming claiming um bands and stuff for the general i mean these might be old references but for the generation that I come from that rings a bell really because I saw it with the pride maybe this is from coming from growing up in England what the pride they had in thin Lizzie and the pride they had in Rory Gallagher you know people like that obviously van Morrison people who weren't have come over here and

established themselves it it almost means more in a way really when you see people talking about the Irish acts who've done well there's a really swell with pride you know what I mean you know you know no in a way you can say well I mean have you ever heard Liverpool people you know talking about Liverpool yeah yeah right but, we say Liverpool people are just Irish people who could swim. I thought you were going to say

Irish people, I thought you were going to say something slightly different there. But, but, but also we shouldn't laugh really, we shouldn't be too smug because have you ever heard about,

have you ever seen Mancunians when they go off about claiming bands? Jesus. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. For fuck's sake. Listen, I benefit from it, so I think but but there's a there's a there's a certain kind of got me carefully not not to you know keep fall into cultural stereotypes but I like I like the romantic heart of I like that about the Irish mentality you know when they when they talk about

it I guess it you know the so Irish rock fan talking about von Morrison yeah is different to wearing a Mancunian talking about Oasis? What is the difference? Well, it's the difference between poetry and fucking poetry. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The big difference. And neither is better than the other.

What I view it as well, Johnny, is so all of our art is, all the Irish art is post-colonial And what I mean by that is and you see the same with African American art Art that literally was not allowed to flourish for a long time because it was fucking illegal

like quite a lot of So in Ireland going back like a thousand years We had harp music, you know? That's why the harp is the symbol of Ireland, but we had harps going back 1,500 years, 2,000 years, and it was a very important part of our cultural identity. And we had fucking classical music that was harp music a long, long time ago. And then around the 1500s, when any place is being colonized,

you don't just kill the people, you take away the language, you take away the customs, you take away the music. Every single thing that gives that people an identity and a culture, you remove that too because you want to make them part of the new culture.

And the harp was banned. The harp was literally fucking banned in the 15th century. And when the harp was taken away and to play it was illegal and to be punished with death, you hold on to the melodies in whistling. So a lot of Irish music and lilts that we know on the fiddle now today, they could be a thousand years old but we don't know and it's people who had their harps taken away and you hold on to it just in the in the diddly-diddle-doodle diddly-diddly like where the fuck do you think diddly-diddle-doodle like that's lilting that's an Irish musical tradition but to me that reminds me a little bit of hip-hop if you look at how hip-hop

came about in the 1970s in America, you had the Reagan's policies and the policies even before Reagan the 1970s taking money out of African American communities. So kids who previously had trombones and saxophones and were carrying the jazz tradition, that money was being taken out of their schools. So in the 70s you had kids who were really poor in communities that with resources being taken out and they don't have fucking instruments. But what have they got?

At least they've got my dad's records. How do I make an instrument out of my dad's records? You know what I mean? How do I make a drum out of words because I don't have a fucking drum? And Irish music is a bit like that because it's how do I preserve these melodies

when I don't have a harp? So that's what I love about fucking Irish music is a bit like that because it's how do I preserve these melodies when I don't have a harp? So that's what I love about fucking Irish music. It's post-colonial and there's roots. Any post-colonial art is always, it's a rose that grows from concrete. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Well, you can't stop people making, I mean, I know about music more than I know about anything else. So you can't stop, you can't stop people making

music you can't stop people singing i mean what you've just described there is exactly that i've found that um it's funny when you talk about whistling because a couple of my uncles because i come from a very big family in the road they all moved over here but a couple of my uncles that was their thing they played the penny whistle. Yeah. And I'd be like, oh, for fuck's sake. Yeah, I know. Yeah. But they were really good at it.

But those old melodies, it didn't occur to me that they came from so far back. The other thing as well is that when I've been asked about my background quite a lot and, you know, naturally, nine people out of ten are going to assume that because I come from an Irish background that there is going to be Bodrens. But it was everything except the actual playing of those musics. So it was get-togethers and it was get-togethers in the house

two or three times a week. But it occurred to me that, I don't know what you think about this but uh even that once i got a little older i saw i looked back on that and i saw the behavior which was getting together a few as i say it didn't matter if it was a wednesday night or a thursday night and drink was you know imbued imbued and um uh but it occurred to me that without being too disrespectful to my parents, my family and that, but it was essentially poor people who were folk people. Yeah. And it was a folk tradition.

Now, when I started working with Hans Zimmer, whatever, 10 years ago, when I started meeting Eastern European people, some of whom had been really scraped to get the money together to learn to play amazing violin and flute and stuff like that some of them had come from these little farmhouses and a couple of people i met little farmhouses in the

country and they behaved exactly the same way as my parents and my aunties and uncles behaved in most people in the inner ardwick green it's it's like 10 minutes away from here the inner city they behaved in exactly the same way, like they got together, they all lived within close proximity and they got together on a night and they didn't go to restaurants and

yeah they went to pubs but they got sometimes homemade alcohol in the house and this is in 1968, 69 right up until 72, 73 In Manchester they had the homemade alcohol in the house and this is in 1968 69 right up until 72 73 in manchester they had the homemade alcohol oh yeah yeah yeah like poutine yeah and they were making that in manchester oh yeah yeah my god yeah there's yeah i mean i was i had some of that when about 1979 i think but wow and was it safe stuff so you obviously had someone who knew what they were doing it's

not nice yeah it. It was horrible. Very strong. But I look back on it, though, now, because I've had to talk so much about it over the years and explain, but I do see that, and I think this is a wider thing from working-class people, maybe. You don't have to be from an immigration family, you know,

of working people who, I don't know what the equivalent is now, but certainly my background was that, where they acted like the same as people in the hills in Eastern Europe. Exactly the same. And the melodies are really alike. You know, the melodies on, you know, portable instruments that you could take from one house to another

and that you could really rock the shit out of around a kitchen table up until the early hours of the morning. But what you see there as well, and you're dead right because if you think of let's just take the blues explosion in Chicago in the 1950s.

Like Chicago and Detroit, all of a sudden you've got the automotive industry. So there's all these jobs happening in Chicago and Detroit to work in factories to make cars. And a bunch of people who were in the American South, when you had Jim Crow laws and segregation, were just like, fuck this, we're going to Chicago, we're going to Detroit, and I'm going to get a job in a factory. But all of a sudden the folk tradition and the blues from the 30s and the 40s which meant I have an acoustic guitar and I'm in a small room which is mostly wood and this room itself works as a as an amplifier now they're in Chicago people

have jobs a bit more money and now they're in a club and it's like I think I need to make this thing electric yeah do you know what I mean And you see those parallels about every musical culture. Yeah, I mean, the thing about going electric with those blues musicians was literally because these little bars that they were playing, they weren't really clubs. They're like working people, mostly black people, like nearly always in those blues places.

And they just needed to be heard. And it was two o'clock in the morning, whatever, midnight. People wanted to dance. People wanted to rock out and they couldn't hear themselves above the sound of people drinking and carousing and having crack. Having crack, yeah.

Exactly. But no, it's an amazing thing how people adapt and lead the culture because they need to express themselves do you know what i mean but particularly particularly people who can't afford to go out and it's community and love and sharing it's just human connection at the end of the day you didn't hear my podcast i did about uh the horse's skulls no i don't think i heard that one so this this you love this so i've heard most of them but i don't remember that they so certain houses in rural ireland right so little cottages i'm talking like

maybe the 1860s up to the 1920s there were certain houses where when people went there to play music and have the crack, this house was the best. And no one knew why the fuck why. And what they found is when they dug up the floorboards, there were a bunch of horses' skulls underneath, right? And the reason was that meant that this had been a Protestant's house. So Protestants who'd come from the middle of England, the Anglo-Saxon tradition, in Anglo-Saxon mythology, you have a lot of witches. People were afraid of witches.

And people from an Anglo-Saxon tradition believed that witches were scared of horses and scared of cats. So when these colonizers came to Ireland and built a cottage, they would get a dead cat and put it in the wall so that a witch wouldn't come through the wall. What they'd also do is they'd make what's known as a witch bottle. They'd get a glass bottle, piss into it,

and put a bunch of nails in there, and then the witch would, her spirit would come down the chimney, and then she'd smell the human piss and get caught in the jar. This is like the 1600s. I'm serious. What they would also do,

they thought that witches were scared of horses, so they got horses' skulls, and they put them underneath the floorboards so that if the witch came down the chimney, they would get caught. The Protestants left, Catholics moved in, and what the Catholics found was, Jesus, these fucking houses that have these mad Protestant horses' skulls underneath

sound pretty fucking good. The Catholics didn't know the superstition, so they open up the floorboards, and then they go, get as many horses' skulls as you can. So they get the horses' skulls, and they put bottle caps in them. And they put these into the skulls and they put bottle caps in them and they put these into the skulls and they go underneath the floorboards and the horse's skull if you look at it, it's like, do you know those children's

microphones that aren't mic'd up and they kind of reverberate naturally? A horse's skull is that. So the horse's skull was the fucking sound system in like the 1860s. That's the real deal. I went proper fucking archaeological sites. Isn't that fucking astounding? And then you've got bottle caps in the skull. So when everyone's dancing and dancing and playing, it's a fucking tambourine.

And now, but the house is an instrument. But you see the same shit in Mississippi. Muddy Waters, the house that he grew up in he didn't have a fucking guitar when he was seven but what he did have he lived in a wooden shack and he got a single metal uh fucking string and his fucking house was the instrument and he played his house and it's not house music isn't that amazing well you won't know of it, but I come from a suburb in South Manchester called Witnesshore and all of that. So everything you just said sounds quite familiar really to me. You didn't have horses, skulls and the floorboards, did you? Probably. But

did you grow up around that type of crack? Like, did you get people over and there was a bit of a KLE? I did. I did, before we moved to that place I just mentioned. I did when I lived in the inner city until I was about nine or ten. Lived in a place just near here called Hardwick Green. Manchester Apollo is like the big sort of centrepiece of that. And that was the the the that was uh the big irish community same

thing with me was is that um the thing that happened with like people like my generation kevin roland from dexter's midnight runners he had it in birmingham and then the gallagher's had it in south manchester as well where uh everyone came here for work in the early 60s so i did i did grow up with that, like music mad, music mad, absolutely crazy. But then going back over to Kildare and seeing it in the countryside there, but it was just, I mean...

Was there any shame around it, Johnny? Because the one thing we're kind of neglecting is being Irish in the 70s was kind of scary. Yeah, it was, it was was. There would have been racism, and it would have been the equivalent of maybe Islamophobia today. Like, to openly express Irishness. Like, my brothers went over to Manchester, and I remember one of my brothers,

he had a backpack on, and he went into McDonald's for a shit. And, like, fucking police came in, just because it was an Irish man with a backpack, you know what I mean? And they were really scared. What what year was that then i that was probably 91 right wow about 91 but just being publicly irish especially in a place like manchester yeah people were on fucking edge yeah the 70s was 70s was hardcore i mean when i did my autobiography it was funny because i didn't want to you don't want to over myth didn't want to... You don't want to over-mythologise these things,

and you don't want to exaggerate, but I wanted to be honest, and I didn't want to overcook it, but you know, the... I had to write about things, because, you know, I think it was great that John Lydon, his autobiography, No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish, and, you know,

I hung out with John Lydon a couple of times, and the thing that we've got in common, we're both the eldest in an Irish family who grew up in the 70s, and, you know and I hung out with John Lydon a couple of times and the thing that we've got in common we're both the eldest in an Irish family who grew up in the 70s and you know him putting that book out with that title

was absolutely brilliant because so many people know that title that book who would otherwise have not thought that the other thing he says about

in that book is that he says the working classes tend to kick down you know, so they would... Poor British or English people would kick down to the Irish, you know, and then the Irish...

Well, or kick down maybe to the Asians, and the Asians kicked down to the Irish, and then there was the Irish and the dogs. It was, like, crazy. So as I say, the Irish and the dogs, it was like crazy, so as I say, I don't want to lay it on too thick, but I was, it was only when I got older

that I realised that being called Irish pig was a real, like, just like tripped off the tongue. Now, kids are really, really mean,

and, you know, can be kind of cruel and everything anyway, and my parents are from the South, but people didn't, over here, didn't understand when the bombs were going off in the 70s and they were kind of assholes are

assholes they kind of just definitely put out a vibe to my parents and my parents are you know apolitical I think really which I think had really had its advantages when I was growing up we had people from the north living next door so I sort of learnt what I know from that situation and from educating myself. So even though they read political,

there was definitely a vibe. I had a teacher once really lay into me for being an Irish kid. And as I say, it was only when you're in the situation where you're writing your autobiography or something like that, you know, where you go... Reflecting back.

Yeah, and I've got, you know, a lot of my relatives are still... Well, they moved back and they're still there, so I don't want to play the hard luck card when they went through the real thing, you know. But the thing, bottom line with me, is that I've said anyone who knows anything about me would know that i've always said this is i i because because it was so predominantly irish in my so every way no matter what my parents loved being in for what it's worth so i have this amazing appreciation of manchester because my parents being young they were like

it's great being here it's fantastic it's great it's great um i didn't have any of that oh for the the old country the old country which was great right however if everywhere you look is catholic ornaments and harps and horseshoes yeah and accents and and stories and and all of that it really does rub off on you and i I do say, me and my sister never had an English accent until we were like six, six or seven, because all the kids I went to school with here were all Irish kids, and a lot of them had Irish accents. So it was brilliant.

I mean, what my point being is that because of that, I've always, anyone who knows anything about me will know I've always said I'm Mancunian Irish. And it's a definite thing because i couldn't relate to i because my background i couldn't relate to the union jack i wrote a whole thing about this in my book to suck but um we call it the butcher's apron i could i could see why yeah i could see why i mean i don't mean to be offensive but the very first day in school is amazing the in secondary school the art teacher did this whole thing on why the union jack they already offended me anyway for a number of reasons

but because i grew up in the 70s so i was a little kid in the 70s it was all about don't get too political but its association was all to do with the far right it was all to do with the national front right so uh because my parents and my grandparents didn't go, my mates, my pals, their grandparents went through the Second World War. It didn't touch my family. So we were very privileged, you know, and it was only when I started checking it out a bit more

I realised how unusual that was. But I had no sense of the Second World War until... Yeah, of course. And all my English mates did, you know. Of course, yeah. And now all my English mates did, you know. Of course, yeah. And so I just, you know, you're like when you're a kid, you sort of, you get, you know,

particularly when you're a teenager, me being into music and everything, I just formed this anti-union jack thing. And it's kind of stuck with me, really, you know. So when I was growing up, because my mum came from a family of 14, and they lived in this tiny little house in the countryside, a couple of times, my grandma...

Just single-parent family. My granddad had disappeared a couple of times. So me and my sister heard this story of... When the 14 kids, a couple of times my gran got sick, the 14 kids were taken in by a few of these different families in the area, in the vicinity. And my mother and a few of her siblings were taken in by this family called the Farrells.

So me and my sister heard this story over the years that how the Farrells who were like Nancy Farrell she was like an angel she brought my mum in when in the time of need and everything and my mum was very you know my family very proud you know but anyway we heard this story and um how they brought they helped this family out. Anyway, in about 1987, I was, so I mean, the Smiths had, actually the Smiths had been and gone by then, and I was in, starting electronic with Bernard Sumner and all that,

so I was, I'd been professional, I'd been a known musician for quite a number of years. I was round at my parents' house, and I was sitting at my sister's, my brother and everything, and my mum says to me, oh, do you remember me telling you about that family called the Farrells and me and my sister sort of looked at each other like

oh we're going to hear that story again yeah here we go and she said well one of her kids had a son and he's in a band and I went oh yeah they've got a record

they've got the Stone Roses I went, I was like, oh yeah. She said, yeah, they've got a record. I was just, they've got the Stone Roses. I went, ha, ha, ha, wow. I went, so hold on a minute. You're like, I know it's not Ian. And I know it's not Rennie. Because I know the Roses. I've known them since we were kids. Manny.

Manny. Have you ever met Manny? Yeah, no, no, no. Everyone here's met Manny. Manny. Have you ever met Manny? Yeah. No, no, no. Everyone here's met Manny a bit. Oh, is he like a head around the place? He's amazing. He's an amazing guy.

Brilliant musician. Amazing fella. I went, what? And she said, yeah, he's called Moundfield. I went, fuck it, it's Manny. Wow. So what are the chances? So anyway, so me and Manny

then we contacted I contacted him and all that so what are the chances because you know

what was it like his granny or something yeah his granny brought my mother

but because you know what a thigh is like what are the chances in the 50s

of this family having this and both 30 years later the grandchildren just both end up in Manchester wearing with really really good haircuts do you know one thing I'd love to talk to you about I don't know a lot about we say the English working-class music tradition now what comes to mind

for me is like Anthony Newley and fucking the shit that would have influenced Bowie the one like I love the Kings I fucking adore the Kings and there's something in the Kings that's like yeah my old man's a dustbin man what is it vaudeville yeah but isn't that an English working class tradition? In the pub and there's a piano. A hundred percent. What is that? Is it skiffle?

What is that? Well, I think what you're talking about, I think that goes back to Dickensian times. I don't know whether there's the equivalent in Ireland. Maybe in Dublin, but it's very much a city. People have money, people have jobs. Exactly. Go to a place, a theatre

Well what you're talking about is particularly I mean what are the kinks known for? Englishness Exactly yeah, that vaudevillian thing I think it goes back to Dickensian time but it's definitely working class so one of the things that I feel is part of what I do

and I'm absolutely fine with well I feel very privileged is that um I think um that I'm part of it to be a performer doing what I do because indie rock and you I get asked all these questions about you know the Smiths is an indie rock that and all of that and that's fine but the part at the heart of it I think is is a this because you mentioned working class, is this amazing tradition of working class people spending what money they really just about can afford to go and go into a little theatre. And some of these places are still around in London.

There's one in Soho called The Box, which was this tiny little theatre. And people would go, you know the images I'm talking about. You'd see, like, there'd be a piano player and there'd be a local girl singing, you know. Bit of a variety show. Yeah, but very, very poor people would do it. And they'd get dressed up to do it.

That's, once I twigged that, and it wasn't that long ago, maybe, or whatever, 15 years ago, but once I twigged that, it wasn't that long ago, maybe, whatever, 15 years ago, but once I twigged that, I am part of that tradition, that heritage, you know, because a number of things can be true at once. I'm in indie rock, I was in the Smiths, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that's an amazing thing. So the bottom line with me performing as well

is that I try and go, go well do people come when they leave do they feel like they've had a good night and a good listen do you know what i mean and the money that they've spent was well spent yeah and keep you know but to come back to what you're saying it's a very it the kinks are a really good personification of it because they have that sound and also i think ray davis is an old soul yeah and you know what I love about the fucking kinks if you listen to village green you would have had the the Windrush generation coming from the Caribbean you can hear little not reggae but fucking Calypso yeah you can hear Barbadian Calypso in the king's music

then you know what i mean well i'll tell you why because why that is a one in part is because when that was album was written in 65 66 67 do you know my by lollipop by millie yeah there's a really really really really big record and as was uh't have to be a real music fan to know this, you couldn't move, The Israelites by Desmond Decker. Fucking chill. Was like, it was really, really important because you've got to remember as well in England, everything was centralised.

You only had, so you had three television channels, but everyone listened to radio one except the people who listened to radio two but everyone was at radio one so that means that um a sheet metal worker in birmingham was listening at the same time to the same the actual same songs as uh someone working in a textile factory in Aberdeen and someone working you know doing it in a printers in Bristol you get the idea so everyone was listening to the same thing so that centralization in England was mega it was amazing so Ray Davis didn't have to be a professional songwriter and a member of

the kinks to hear that because one of the most amazing things about music culture is that everybody got a sense of Jamaica, the Caribbean. Because of pop records, loads of people like

to hear the way Desmond Decker was singing the Israelites. It put... It put... It's the sound of the the Israelites. It put... It put... It's the sound of the fucking drums. It put Calypso into people's minds. Even if you weren't a music fan, if you were just like working in a factory, as they say.

And now, you know, I'm often asked about, you know, whether popular music is as potent. It's a whole other question. Is it as potent as it was back in the day. Well, it is and it isn't. It isn't in this regard because it's not centralised. Cultural scarcity, I always call that.

Culture was fucking scarce. You know? And the more scarce something is, the more value it has. I mean, even... I'm always trying to explain it to kids who, like, I'm lucky enough to have spent at least half my life with no internet. And I remember what it was like to hear a song on the radio

and to never, ever hear that again. And to have to hold it dearly as a memory. I've had a few of those. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Did I ever tell you about, when I say did I ever tell you about, did you ever listen to my podcast about?

There's a French band called Cortex. I did, yeah, exactly, yeah. Cortex heard fucking funk for the first time. Yeah. And then they had to memorize what funk was like and then created this mad, crazy music. Yeah, well, I personally used to do the equivalent of that though

because if I was... Go away! Well, as a kid, yeah, if there was a record on, I used to have to wait, I used to wait for about two hours to just hang around the radio until I heard it again.

There's a famous story I'll say. And when you'll be in your head and you've got the melody over and over and over. Yeah, because the other thing, I mean, the other thing as well is that everyone's so used

to having headphones now but it wasn't until 1984, 83, I remember when New Order came back from, from Tokyo, and with a certain ratio, and they had,

they had the Sony Walkman, which we now go, yeah, the Sony Walkman, but before that, you couldn't, you listened to music on the bus,

or on the tram. But think what that does then to music, because what you have now is generosity versus keeping it to yourself. Like if you think of, like hip hop

is a very generous music because hip hop was played in fucking cars, loud, played in boom boxes. What happens to music when it's no longer a thing you share

with other people but something you keep to yourself? You know what I mean? And how the form of that changes. I think musicians want to share it though when they play but i know what you're talking about i think because mixtapes used to be a thing didn't they and that was a physical thing that you put the time into because funny enough it's actually easier now right i don't

know if this might just be me but most most people who will have Spotify or iTunes, right? It's actually so easy now to make, to share a playlist. You just do it by, you've got your playlist and you just tap on a piece of glass like three times. But it's probably less common than giving people mixtapes because there's something about the physicality of, it's almost too easy to share. But you'd write it as well.

And like, if I i remember now when i was about 16 if i really fancy the girl i was burning cds like but i'd burn her a cd and i'd write the you know what i mean so that's so 90s isn't it i know burning it's so great burning cd i'm ripping them i've ripped a cd for you it's gone now. But, uh... Yeah, I printed out the track listing on the Hewlett-Packard for you. It's a bit shit

because I couldn't afford to buy a new ink cartridge. We'll take a little break, Johnny, so people can have a pint and a piss, and we'll be back out in about 15 minutes. Is that okay all right dog bless let's have a little break in the chat now so that we can have an ocarina pause so i'm gonna play my ocarina and you're gonna hear an advert for something On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girl. Witness the birth.

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rock.com. That was the Ocarina Pause. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast. If you enjoy this podcast, if you listen to it regularly, if it brings you solace,

mirth, merriment, distraction, this podcast is if you listen to it regularly, if it brings you solace, mirth, merriment, distraction, this podcast is my full-time job. It's how I earn a living. It's how I pay my bills. It's how I rent out my office. It's how I have the time and space to record and deliver a podcast each week. So if you enjoy that work, please consider paying me for it. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month. That's it. And if you can't afford that, don't worry about it. You can listen for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free. Everybody gets the exact same podcast and I get to earn a living. Just a few little gigs to plug for 2024. In January 22nd and 23rd I am in Vicar Street. I'm in Vicar Street doing some wonderful Vicar Street gigs. Some Vicar Street live podcasts. Those gigs are always fantastic. It's a beautiful venue. It's why I keep returning to Vicar Street.

It's probably my favourite venue to record podcasts in if you're thinking of a little Christmas present for someone those Vicar Street gigs are a good idea then in February I am in Oslo doing my first ever podcast live podcast in Norway which I cannot wait because I have a bit of a horn for the Vikings at the moment

I'm going deep into the Vikings so I'm going to fill my belly with some Viking information while I'm over there in Norway. I might even talk to an interesting Viking historian while I'm there. And then I'm going to do a gig in Berlin. I'm doing two gigs in Berlin. One of them is sold out. There's a few tickets left for the second night. And that's on the 8th and 9th of February. And know what on the 20th of February I just announced this I'm up in Derry I'm up in Derry at the science festival in the millennium forum so come along to that if you're up in Derry I haven't done a live podcast in Derry yet so I'm really

looking forward to that and my book Topography Hibernica which I absolutely adore and I'm so glad that people are enjoying it, that's in shops and the audio book is out as well back to my chat with the magnificent Johnny Marr, actually Johnny's doing a gig in Limerick on the 24th of June Johnny's coming to Limerick to do a gig

I might meet him during the day and take him to the Bardshit District, show him the statue of Terry Wogan, then we go into Boots and steal a tube of Baraka and throw the Baraka into the Shannon River and watch it fizz which is a tradition in Limerick I can't laugh with this fucking COVID man

I sound like fucking Moe Sizzleck Oh, Homer Simpson, fuck off. All right, back to my chat with Johnny Marr. He is actually doing a gig in Limerick. That's real. He's doing a gig in Limerick on the 24th of June. We had to get some very intense, musically nerdy shit

out of our system backstage so that we didn't... We spoke for 15 minutes about a guitar sound in a hot chocolate song. Yeah, we did, yeah, just the one. Just the one song, yeah. True. I want to talk about, I suppose, creative process, because I know, like, you're big into... You love running, you love meditation yeah

um from chatting to you you seem to like it the same I I run and I meditate because I get a flow kind of feeling I get a kind of a calm if I'm running I'll get nice creative thoughts yeah yeah that definitely that definitely happens what what I was saying to Blind Boy was that... Because I am a fan and I go back to... You're a hern. I go back... Seriously, I'm old school, yeah. I go back.

So I wanted to talk really just... I thought it'd be good to just find out about the process of the book. I wanted to ask you a question, really, just about... Because I heard, obviously out about the process of the book i wanted to ask you a question really just about what because i heard on obviously about the if you don't mind me asking you about the the writer's block because you were talking about it on the on the podcast and um i mean when i was hearing you talk about it all really ran true i've never had a year or so where but anyway what happened with the the process of the book because I'm interested in that so I did get writer's block for a year and so I got a really really fucking good review last

week now I mean the best review for anything I've ever gotten in my life where was that in in the Irish Independent by a writer I really respect but I have to be really fucking mindful around it because the thing is and I can say it now that I got a good review what caused my writer's block the last time is I got a fucking scathing review

and having written this the reason it hurt so much is because the reviewer was kind of right the reviewer had said some shit that was a genuine hole in my work and it really hurt me what it was specifically is she said that like the characters in my story they don't internally emotionally develop that the characters in my story, they don't internally, emotionally develop. That the characters don't, their internal world does not develop throughout the story.

And when she said that, and I read it two years ago, three years ago, about my last book, it took me right back into the classroom. She sounds like a real smart-ass blind boy. Well, it was... There was a bit of... You do it, then. Well, she's an unpublished

short story writer. There is that. There was a little bit of begrudging. Hey, hey, hey. But it did ring through. Yeah, sure. And, like, when I felt that,

I didn't feel that pain as an adult, Johnny. I felt that pain as a little kid in school who was being told he wasn't good enough and the thing is is childhood fucking wounds it's hard to heal those wounds with adult language and it caused creative block every time I sat down to write I couldn't get my flow and when

I couldn't get my flow I was fucking miserable because flow is the only thing I live for. That's what gives me joy. I get flow from listening to other people's music or appreciating other people's art and then flow from creating my own. And my flow was locked off. And it was like, I put a line into that story there, the donkey, trying to piss with someone watching, you know, when you're in a york, but you know, when you're in a urinal and it's like, I've been pissing. I know how to piss with someone watching. You know when you're in a urinal? But you know when you're in a urinal, and it's like, I've been pissing, I know how to piss. Why can't I do it?

And you can't. And then the little trickle comes, and then it's like fucking great. But you can, I'll never walk away from a piss. That's the thing, Johnny. No, but it's true. But it is true.

It is true. If I am in it. I've heard that about you, yeah. If I'm in a urinal and whatever it is, there's a fella there, there's a fella there, and I can't do it, I will never walk away from that piss. I won't walk away and go back outside and say, I failed at a piss.

I fucking stick with it. But I take that attitude to my heart. You think I'm fucking joking. I'm not. No, we know you're being serious. So how I wrote the book is the pain would come up, the heart of the thoughts,

and the thought for me that's so painful is you are shit, you are useless, everything good you've ever done as an accident and now you finally found out that you have no talent and that's the that's what comes up and it's really painful yeah I tolerate the frustration of that pain until flow happens just like at the urinal I think one thing though is that I think one thing though is that that reviewer

obviously you know that what happened there was I think was that you take something that is valid let's give that reviewer some credit you take something that's valid that you've recognised because you saw that there was some truth in it maybe but in a way

what happened there was that person put a wedge inside like you're like it's like a literally like a wedge inside your flow but the reason why there was no one's the blamer and the reason do that yeah but the reason yeah but the reason why there was a gap there is because you want to get better that's why there's the gap there so that gap that gap might have, to me, as a fan of your work, right, that gap anyway might have manifested itself with all of this insecurity, paranoia, horrible self-doubt that quite a lot of it

would have been amplified for whatever reason to do with your nature, just being a human and being vulnerable but if you didn't want to get better at your craft that gap wouldn't have been there in the first place it's because you wanted to because you give a shit about your craft and that's part you know i mean you're dead right no it is yeah so because those if you're if you really want to be great, it's about doing something great not so people pat you on the back

obviously you want to get validation but I saw that a lot with albums and stuff putting yourself super super under the microscope it's not false modesty it's that classic thing you've heard time and time again it's become even more amplified in today's culture.

But, you know, you don't really, unless you're an arsehole, you don't really pay too much attention to the great reviews. But the bad things just sort of, ick, really sort of stick with you. And that's to do with human nature and having some humility and some modesty. But that's where the work comes from anyway, having some feeling of being incomplete. I think that's part of the artistic impulse, if you like, the artistic sensibility.

There's an incompleteness. Not that you're like, oh, I'm a damaged person necessarily because I think when it tips over into, I don't know whether this is familiar, but when it tips over into depression, it's really hard to create from that space. But I mean this feeling of needing to do something, anything, it could be someone doing a watercolour

or someone just playing something on the piano for fun, to sort of make the world make sense, even if it's just on a Wednesday. Do you know what I mean? You're dead right. And for me, I create right because it's so I'm chasing the feeling of flow but the feeling of flow for me at its peak is when I get flow I guess I know if I am alive that's pretty much it that for creativity for me is if I can like people keep saying to me

are you happy that the book is out it's nice that the book is out it's not about the book it's about the bit in the middle it's the fucking doing yeah and I can't wait to get on to the next thing yeah great process it's a fucking process how wonderful is it that I got to visit the dream world and write stories and in that dream world my life has purpose I feel like ah now I know why I'm alive and why I'm on this earth fucking meaning

creativity for me is meaning do you get that similar feeling when you that feeling of flow sounds like when you do the pod yeah every fucking the one thing, my podcast is pure flow. Nonstop, I fucking love it. Just making sure you're not actually having a piss

when you do the podcast. No. Although. I don't mind. You know about the episode, the episode when I pissed into the milk bottle. Yeah. I do, yeah.

Yeah. Tell the ladies and gentlemen about that it's a real it's a war I was living in a fucking house and it was absolutely freezing right it was fucking freezing

and do you know when the bed you're sleeping in is so cold right that if you need to piss in the middle of the night to get out of bed means being so cold that it wakes you up. You know, that type.

So what I did is I got a plastic milk bottle and figured out a way to maintain the heat in the quilt, but then jettison my penis... LAUGHTER ..out the side of the quilt and then piss into the milk bottle. But I started pissing into this milk bottle and I grew fond of the bottle itself.

Too much information. A calcified layer of fucking urine had developed at the bottom of this milk bottle, and then one day after about six months of pissing into this milk bottle and emptying it out, I looked at the calcified layer of urine, and I said, this is unacceptable. But rather than getting a new milk bottle,

I decided I'll just clean this one because this milk bottle is my friend. So I cleaned it with bleach, right? Now, little did I know that the calcified layer was ammonia. And when you put bleach with ammonia, you create a World War I fucking mustard gas. So I was in my bedroom,

fucking bleach into the piss bottle, and then fucking green Siegfried Sassoon clouds of mustard gas. I start choking, and I run out of the room. I nearly killed myself with a bottle of my own piss. And I'm serious, lads. This is real. Like, put it this way. If you have a Tomcat unneutered and the Tomcat pisses, never wash that with bleach because the ammonia will mix with the chlorine and create a gas called i can't remember the name of the glass but they had it in world war one i don't know how i got onto this johnny you were asking if i pissed you on the podcast i don't the podcast

is pure flow and it is as, one thing you said to me backstage is you were asking me about the piano backing track. Yeah. Which I told you was based on a Patrice Russian song. And I record the podcast to that piano. It doesn't sound like Forget Me Not, but that's what's a really interesting thing about creativity anyway.

What I was saying to Blind Boy was, I was asking him, because we met once before, but only for about half an hour one like recently was this or electric picnic yeah we just met uh once before but so i'm but i forgot i forgot oh i meant i was i did mean to ask you like did you compose and play that piano part because it really works brilliantly with the as a bed as an ambient bed what i love about that each card represents different emotions there's a little bit of hope in there there's sadness and it just seems to work perfectly with storytelling but this well the stories have got that in it sometimes there's hope

sometimes there's humor sometimes there's reflection etc and it just sort of really works perfectly it's mad i mean what i always try and do with a podcast is um set up conflict resolution that's all you want that's a three-act structure if you've got a set up at the story i just told you there i was freezing cold in the bed right set? Set up, but I couldn't get out because then it gets really cold. Conflict. Resolution? Well, it wasn't really a resolution there

because I nearly... Well, resolution, I didn't die. And there's a little moral in a lesson which is never ever mix bleach and ammonia. Just don't do it. Wow, yes. It's quite Shakespearepearean in a way isn't it so we've about the the process what i was going to ask you as well was that um was there so when you i know you talk about this on the last podcast it was the last one maybe the one before but was there a moment then when that snapped you out of it or did it was a to get into your writing again?

Or was there a gradual working out of stuff? What really snapped me out after a good year of creative block and terror and fear and getting to the point where I was almost gonna go to my book Company and say I'm sorry. I can't do it, which I'm so glad I didn't do that because the thing is Johnny I Don't think failure exists in art but there's only one failure and it's doing nothing because you were scared to try so it's true it's true there's no such thing as failure if you just fucking try but like I was almost there I was almost going I can't do this book and then I opened up a book called The Butcher Boy by Pat

McCabe and this book is written in pure fucking Hiberno English. And there was something about the freedom of the language, the humour, the fun. And it took me right back to everything I love about art. But you already knew the book from a while ago. Yeah, yeah, I knew it. It was like a book I loved as a teenager. And I rediscovered this piece of art that moved something in me as a kid.

And it just... I read it. I got that wonderful feeling that you get from art. And instead of going, I'm going to have a cup of tea, I said, I'm going to fucking write. And I did. And it was, The Donkey was the first story I wrote. And it just started

coming. And I went, now I'm back. And then it fucking flew out of me did you need to be put in touch with the wonder of why you like what you like without all the bullshit yes I needed to be 15 16 yeah and art is the most important thing to me in the whole world and nothing else matters and at the end of the day like if you think about when you're a teenager and you think about the music that affected you i don't think it's possible to care about music as much as as we did at that age or art of any description it was so moving back then and i'm always just trying to regain those moments

it's a funny thing yeah i mean that's. Who were you listening to when you were 14? 14, Patti Smith, like obsessively, really. I used to follow this band called The Only Ones, you know, another girl on another planet. I was like their super fan. But I was like, I was also just taking in everything, Burt Jones, the folk musician and everything. But it's an interesting thing in rock music, you know, because

I know you're a fan of rock music, but it's not as magical as what you were just describing, but it's an interesting thing that musicians when you get to a certain age, you look, there's a thing that I noticed when I was a kid, the Beatles in the 70s weren't

believe it or not, the Beatles actually had become a bit passe. They were really uncool. Do you know what I mean? It's like, just like, which is amazing to consider that now. Do you ever see the reviews for Paul McCartney's first solo album?

No, I don't remember the vibe at the time. His first solo album, which he recorded on a farm, and was really experimenting with home recording. Oh yeah, sounds amazing there. People,

their fucking reviews were like, fuck off, Paul, and retire. They really, really were. Now that's seen as a legendary album, you know what I mean? But there's so many agendas around, around musicians for whatever reason. The press at the time would have been, yeah.

Brutal, but what I noticed, so a couple of these, I just started to notice it, John lennon was going on about um this is it to get back to your point about what hits you when you're 15 16 it's well documented now that he was going unless it's chuck berry buddy holly it's all bullshit now this is the guy who wrote i am the walrus and strawberry feels forever which is like you know you mentioned Hieronymus Bosch I always say or I'm the walrus he's like Hieronymus Bosch painting for the ears right it's like you know there's that thing you were saying earlier about you it's you can see it everywhere anyway you know with all that crazy production and you know just think about those sergeant pepper period mad records he was just like if it doesn't sound

like buddy holly it's bullshit. But I think what was going on there, because I got to a certain age where I had a similar sort of feeling, was that you do get to, you don't want to live in the past or whatever, but you do really reconnect. This is what happened with my solo stuff. Really reconnected with that stuff when you were 17, 18. Now, there's a load of reasons for it.

You know, they've done actual studies around this. Oh, really? Right. They have done studies on the human brain and they found that the age of 14, your musical taste for the rest of your life is going to be whatever the fuck turned you on at 14 and whatever happens to the brain at that age, that will define your musical taste for the rest of your life.

Is that right? And that's why when people get to a certain age, when new music comes out, it's terrifying and frightening, and that's not music. And neuroscientists look at it, yeah. Do you think that's why Gary Barlow's still knocking about? He's a good songwriter, man. Do you not think some of the take-back songs...

Johnny, that was cheap. But, like, as pop music, I do that was cheap. But like, as pop music, I do like a bit of take that as pop music, you know? Yeah, it's a generation. Good night. No, I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking.

I'm joking. Do you like pop? Did you like pop growing up? I love, yeah, I love pop, but it's definitely don't get too musically nerdy now, but in these, things become so genre-rific now, or genre-fied, which is fine.

I'm not complaining about it. Well, when I say pop, I don't necessarily mean what's popular, but I mean like pop music. No, well, what I was going to say was that I always regarded, I used to say the Smiths were a pop band, and I put, you know, Pet Shop Boys,

I mean, one of the things that- Oh, fuck, I love the Pet Shop Boys. Do you like the Pet Shop Boys? Yo, we're back in, we're back in the room now. No, but Neil Tennant, his voice, who does he remind me of? Who's that fella?

Al Stewart, Year of the Cat? Me and him have discussed that, yeah. They sound the exact same. They do sound alike, yeah. And was Neil Tennant a fan of Al Stewart? Not particularly, I don't think so. Fuck off, really? No, I've talked to him about it.

But pop, what it is, is like, yeah, so I've never, never been a snob about pop. I love pop, but it is a fact now that if I'm asked about that or if I talk to it, it doesn't have to be a young person about it, they are talking about something different. Pop now is something different. If you look at the charts from what I'm talking about,

and I still, I guess I went up to, I just started from about 2015 2016 was that right there's a cut off now from what i talk about as being pop pop for me right and i i mean it's everything that passes the old gray whistle test yeah i get you yeah you know what i mean yeah like there's a beautiful i think it was paul mccartney he was talking about when mccartney and lennon were like fucking 14 or 15, Quarrymen time, when they were writing songs on the bus,

they had no recorder, because it's like 1959. They might write seven songs a day, the only one they remember is the one that's fucking catchy enough. That's right, yeah. Because they don't have a recorder. And that there, that's the old grey whistle test.

Well, I used to, you know, all of us now, I. Because they don't have a recorder. And that there, that's the old grey whistle test. Well, I used to, you know, all of us now, I mean, people don't even need to ask me how I come up with ideas because everyone, we all know we just sing it into your phone. Yeah. So you end up with so many,

you know, it's a nice thing, but it's just part of having to adapt. You end up with so many ideas, like, and, you know, you've got, you you know you'd be be a genius if all of them were good but it just make almost makes it too easy to record every sort of thing hey you know what though i prefer it's good you just have to be a bit more discerning but it does make being a songwriter a bit like doing an admin yeah i mean you're like yeah

if i was playing all the ideas i've got for whatever will end up on my new album, you just see me in the middle of the night at half three, I'm going, what? You just see me going, tomorrow. I'm stood in the bathroom not trying to wake everybody up.

And I'm sort of banging on my chest because you just listen back to it the next day and you just sound like a mental person. Actually, when you were asking me there about the fucking process of the book and the block, one thing I did actually do to try and get out of block was I knew that I was in creative block because I was terrified of failing.

So I was like, well, I need to fail publicly. And that's when I started doing this thing on Twitch. I started writing. Did you see some of that? I started writing songs live to fucking fail. Like, literally, you make the song up in the moment, and there can be nothing but failure there because I don't have time to think about whether it's good or bad.

I had ridiculous songs like yeah it was amazing but I think you know it's part of being having some humility because a lot of the stuff that you probably thought was trash a lot of your fans will really like it it's a funny thing you know like they're behind you're going wow that's great even when you mess up you know it's kind of a but but you know you but you can't rely on that. You can only have your internal... You have to just know you're not critic, but you're arbiter of what you think is good enough. It's just the way it is, I think.

And I think you get that, Johnny, by not listening to external praise or external negativity in any way. That's why I was saying when I got a good review, I'm like, I'm mindful of that good review. Because if I let that good review come into my mind and pat me on the back like a teacher, then the next bad review that comes along, it's going to hurt me badly.

So I just want in here, fuck any reviews. It does feel like validation on your own human, but especially if it's someone who you respect. It feels like validation. But luckily, you don't walk around with that. You don't carry out. Come the time to do your next lot of work as you know you've forgotten that you know you just it is well it doesn't mean anything you just kind of go oh yeah that was nice i got a bit of a

prize and then you're like right okay with now down to the the business of like work again i don't ever i'm asked about writing songs quite a lot i know i careful that I don't I try to be really honest and take the mystification out of it but also I try and catch myself that it doesn't sound like a chore because I'm aware that I'm very privileged to actually have people's ear

that's the thing I wanted as a teenager more than anything I thought alright I'm onto something and I just want to people to listen really that was the main thing but um with songwriting there's a real um paradigm if that's the right word or quite a misconception and it's fine um but in the that a songwriter descends down the um spiral staircase in the morning in your dressing gown and you sit by the piano looking wistfully out of the window.

I'm talking about Gary Barlow again, aren't I? Sorry. Sorry, Gary. I'm just joking. But no, this idea that... Because I guess it's a sort of romantic idea of the songwriter and people think that

if you are able to be a songwriter you can do that or you come down in the morning and you get your acoustic and you look out the window now oh that's fine the next bit is the bit i have issue with which is that you look out in whatever into this vista and you play the sound and you express your feelings, right? And that's what songwriting is. Now, doing what I do, unfortunately, that sort of really breeds this sort of culture of like pretty sentimental.

If every song you heard was like that, it would be just people sort of singing about, I've lost my phone. Yeah. And now, unfortunately, that's kind of what happens quite a lot in the culture, you know what I mean? But, so where I'm coming from, people like... Gary Barrow did actually have an album like that, didn't he?

Didn't he have a song that was like... What, just one? Well, it was like, I'm in this house and it's massive and I've loads of money, but I'm really sad. Like, really, like, that was the lyrics. That's probably, yeah, but I think there's a few people. So I think, but there's a misconception because, well, look, Blue Monday doesn't sound like that.

And, you know, and loads of Smith stuff, loads of stuff that I've been involved with, but the stuff that I liked, Susie and the Banshees, you know, that's, it doesn't always have to be. I don't think happy house is about a happy house yeah exactly yeah exactly um it it doesn't have what my point is it irks me a little bit that rock music or whatever or pop music is now like night it's just expected to be about someone singing about their inner world, that's great that's absolutely fine

but where's the room for just great interesting ideas that are just conceptual and less kind of those bands can't make it off the ground like if a lot of, let's just say big pop music right now

it's being made the way that like a Hollywood film is made the songwriter let's just take big pop music right now, it's being made the way that a Hollywood film is made. The songwriter... Let's just take Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran is going to go into a studio and this record company is going to hire a bunch of songwriters and they're all going to collaborate on this song a bit like a film.

And I don't think someone like Frank Zappa would be able to survive today. If Frank Zappa came out now, he'd just be working in Nando's. But he would. Like, the weirdos, the weirdos

can't make a fucking living. It's not possible anymore. Well, that is true. I think, just as well with the songwriting thing, just, that's it, yeah. I'm just thinking about Frank Zappa and Nando's now, sort of.

Did you get into Frank Zappa? A bit, yeah. Did I try and get you into Frank Zappa? You did, yeah, you did last when I met you, yeah. I'd be smoking joints at three in the morning and decide, I need to send Johnny Marr some songs. He did, yeah. He did. the morning and decide I need to send Johnny Marr some songs he did yeah he did the the other thing about songwriting though is that a lot of people just assume that it is about the meaning in the words right so obviously

don't be wrong I love great amazing lyricists over you know could be here all night but our favorite lyricists right a lot of music is impressionistic and um it can be just the the what impression it makes on you you don't have to connect and think that singer is having a really bad time or that singer is saying oh we'll fly high over these clouds. It is a good example that I've been thinking about recently. Iggy Pop, The Passenger. Yeah.

Who doesn't love na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na? That says everything you want to hear, you know, and that does it. You just go, bang, it makes you feel so great. Now, that's one of the differences between songwriting and poetry. And there's quite a lot. I mean, poetry is meant to be read, but songwriting is definitely meant to come out of the singer's mouth, you know.

But I think there was another good example, a pop record that was amazing. This thing about being conceptual and not having to sing your feelings do you remember Hey Ya by Outkast banger yeah right

now shake it like a Polaroid picture how great is that that isn't sitting in your dressing gown looking out across the garden

with an acoustic guitar it's someone having a really great idea and just going bang and it's that's where I love pop music I grew up around

that golden age everyone thinks so very subjective everyone thinks that their era was was the best area like look you know my kids think like they all just tell me how great avril lavigne is and i'm on board i get it you know uh no seriously super influential pink sugar babes yeah all the Pink, Sugar Babes. Yeah. All the Sugar Babes songs were amazing. All of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm on board with pop, but I mean, God, Sugar Babes, compared to most recent pop music,

Sugar Babes are like Joy Division. But it's true though, no, but it's true because they came from an era where it needed to be fucking catchy, where a lot of stuff that's in the charts now, it's... Like, I'll tell you something.

There's a brilliant artist called Steve Lacey. And Steve Lacey's great. And he's... He had a song. Was it Bad Habit? Was that his last... He had a song called Bad Habit. And the chorus, the 15 seconds of it went mad viral on tiktok

like i mean fucking billions and billions but just 15 seconds of the song so there's this footage of steve lacy doing a gig and the crowd can only sing those 15 seconds yeah and they don't know the rest. They don't know it. And that's the new thing. It worked for 15 seconds, but there's also a lot of artists that are big because their videos look good or they have a good online presence. They're good at social media. So the old gray whistle test isn't as important as it was. Yeah. Do you know, the good news about all of this this sort of dialogue if you like or uh is that i have so many conversations with journalists and seeing stuff in books where we've got used to this thing now looking back at the culture with

not only rose tinted spectacles but we really take these cultural snapshots of of time and you see particularly in music but you know you see it all but yeah culture it's going to mention like 1966 bobby moore and you know 1967 sergeant pepper and but the the mainstream that stuff if you look at the the charts in in 2010 or you look at the charts and say well I came out in 83 84 it wasn't all like you know it wasn't all like the smiths and new order and the cure and all these like stuff that people now revere there's loads and loads of like stuff that was just kind of mainstreamy sort of pap that didn't quite make the cut yeah and there was like I love doing that we always forget

I love doing that seeing what were the charts in I love doing that, seeing what were the charts in like December 1980 and loads of it is like, I don't know what this, this song here that was number one for six weeks, it's shit

and I've never heard of it. Yeah, there was loads, when I was, loads of novelty records. Loads. Loads and loads. And they'd have like,

with the British charts in particular, I'm like, I'd be at home going, right, let's see what, what have we got here for January 1977? And it's like some weird brass band, some weird military brass band

that were in the charts with some shit song for three weeks and there's no lyrics and people are wearing poppies. Yeah. You know what I mean? And it was number one for like nine weeks. And so my point being is that... Or it's a wearing poppies. Yeah. You know what I mean? And it was number one for like nine weeks. And so my point being is that...

Or it's a man with a puppet. Or a song about a horse. Sorry, go on. The culture is when you're in it, you can really put it under the microscope. But it's only in retrospect that, you know, we'll look back on these times now and we'll take all the really great,

we'll remember all the really great, great stuff that comes out. But I think the point is, is like, you can't be snobby about, you can't be snobby about the culture. It's easy to look back and say things were great back then because the cream rises to the top. Exactly. But right now, it's how do you know?

I think about this a lot. You just have to swim through a river of shit to find little lumps of gold. But in the 70s, all the gold has risen to the top. And you think, oh, music was great back then. No.

It was still a bunch of people trying to fail and there's a bunch of silly, silly stuff. Brass bands. You know what I'm talking about when I talk about the brass bands I'm gonna talk no I remember it I remember it oh and you know sure who was listening to that was it granny's but granny's were a thing that's how golden golden brown man fucking golden brown by the Stranglers amazing I adore is incredible it was granny's who made that popular.

Grannies heard golden, like it was a banger. But also, grannies, there was something, and it's in a 6-8 timing or something too,

isn't it? What happened to grannies? They're not around anymore, are they? Not really. Not like they were. There's no granny representation anymore,

Johnny. Yeah. But there isn't. You don't hear, but, no, grannies are like, they made golden brown happen. They heard it as an old waltz. And it's a song about heroin.

We went to Golden Brown when it came out. Yeah, I thought it was a good tune, yeah. I was aware that it was about heroin, yeah. Did it freak everyone out with that timing though? 6-8? I can't even play it like no it's um no because when it works that timing for um it's um oh i've forgotten his name now Dave Bruback no he does have a song in six eight yeah no i was gonna say Dave Bruback but Dizzy Rascal will do as well yeah take. Take five, yeah. That is 6-8, isn't it? 5-4. 1-2-3-4-5. 2-2-3. So it has been, you know, when they're hits, it is unusual, yeah.

You're a big hip-hop fan, aren't you? A little bit. I fucking adore hip-hop. I know you are, yeah. The hard time with hip-hop, actually, you will get a queer old-timing, depending on what they sampled and how they sampled it strangely. Okay, so why I thought of that then was I see the hip hop

that I used to particularly like and that I like more than any other kind of hip hop was done because just when you're talking about weird timings, I don't know whether this is interesting, but the... You don't mind us being music nerds up here, do you? Okay, grand.

What happened was when samplers first came out, you could only, if you wanted something in time with another loop, you had to either go, this is going to stay in time with this loop, and you couldn't change the pitch of it. So what happened there was, if you've got two loops you wanted to use together

back then well so now what happens is you can just type what's called time stretch it you can yeah you make it you can make it in the same key but you couldn't do that then and it meant the music was really interesting because you would have this dissonance yeah that made it sound like fucking enemy man and particularly if it's because again cultural stereotype but I'm to know it's true but like most of the people making the music you know were stoned right and it sounded great and most of the people listening to it were very stoned so it sounded

really good it worked and I found that when late 80s early 90s why I prefer that kind of hip hop was at the time i was listening to it going this sounds like the new jazz and it's also really progressive because i was going they've been working on this song for a couple of weeks and it's so fucked up and i don't mean aggressive and dark i mean off the top of my head you know you've got um say naughty by nature

and making quite naughty by nature they're making quite commercial tracks but for them to use that paparay exactly so for them to use that sample of the jacksons from abc to get that in time it was out of key yes and the juxtaposition of all of that music that was in different keys sounded like really heavy jazz. And it was brilliant. And also, more to the point, it was getting in the charts and selling millions. Then what happened was the technology made it really easy to straighten everything out. And then it became boring, I think. straighten everything out and then it became boring i think something i'd love to ask you about is like what i'm fucking fascinated with right i also love techno and house okay now techno and house come from detroit in chicago and like if you think of motown is Detroit isn't it?

So if you think of Detroit and Motown you had gospel singers effectively and in the day time they're making cars and then you listen to the Diana Ross and the Supremes anything coming out of that label and the way they use the tambourines

and you're hearing people working in a fucking car factory and the machines are doing that and there's that metallic clank the way they use the tambourines. And you're hearing people working in a fucking car factory, and the machines are doing that, and there's that metallic clank. And then 20 years later, the same city, Detroit, that's where fucking house music comes from. The rhythmic perfection of the 808 drum machine,

it's the city that makes fucking cars, and machines, and perfection, perfect fucking time, bits of metal, boom, boom, boom, and then you get that music. But then the next city is fucking Manchester, an industrial city. Like Gerald Simpson, the guy called Gerald, the fucking legend here.

Like house music, it went Detroit, Chicago, Manchester. It's industrial. It's fucking industrial. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. That's brilliant. Yeah, I just thought it's industrial. It's fucking industrial. Yeah, I thought that. That's brilliant. Yeah, I just thought it's because everyone was taking ecstasy. Well, okay,

there was Yolks as well, yeah. Did you get involved in any of that scene? Full on, yeah. Mega, yeah. Surely you did. Did you go to the Hacienda and have the crack?

Yeah, because 24 and it was because as we burned it to start in electronic, my partner, literally the guy I was working with every day was one of the owners in it. Okay, because 24, and it was because as we burned it to start in electronic, my partner, literally the guy I was working with every day, was one of the owners in it.

Okay, you were fucking stuck into it, so I didn't know that. Yeah, it was in my house. You know, that's a whole other major. It was amazing. Did you like the music?

How did you feel about house music? I loved it. It was amazing. And could you feel the disco in there? Yeah, the good stuff. Yeah, if you listen,

yeah, I mean, it's all through that first electronic album. I couldn't wait to represent it it was super the thing about that were you proud of manchester amazingly i feel proud of manchester and i'm from the place yeah well also because um when when the electronic took off when we started we were being asked about it all the time because i literally you know just found myself that my city that I grew up in, and I was still only 25, Smith's had just split up,

so I was 23, sorry, 24. My city had become, was suddenly the musical centre of the world. And for loads of reasons. And, you know, he was part of it, but that's just a part of it. But I think too, I remember seeing a documentary that

black people in Manchester had their own little little parties they had their own areas and you see the house scene and the electronic scene came from that too yeah that was definitely without a doubt that was definitely part of it i think they might have been calling them shabines shabine yeah shabine's been going for a while which is a lovely thing that's an irish word that found its way to the caribbean and made its way back is it yeah shabine is irish as fuck yeah yeah sounds it yeah yeah shabine means like small little house or something doesn't any irish speakers what does shabine mean small pub small small pub you know i'm asked loads uh i've been particularly since then um i mean this won't come as a surprise to people but particularly since the late 80s about why so many

bands have come I mean people have dead, it's a really serious question from journalists particularly in America because they're genuinely like how come there's this sort of you know and

there's a few answers to it but i've had to really sort of think about it and um a massive part of it is just to do with the industrial revolution and immigration without a doubt kind of going back to what we're saying earlier about like with my family eastern european families massive huge jewish community all of these communities traditionally made their own entertainment you know and so there's a lot of comedians came out of the

Jewish community in in Manchester oh they have a lovely storytelling tradition amazing yeah yeah so there's no coincidence

and then also the traditionally that Manchester for many many years had more night clubs per capita than any other place in europe which is amazing for musicians and comedians and all this is places to perform and then there's a much more simple uh there's more straightforward explanation which are well there's the fact that it rains a lot no doubt about that so when the Smiths when we were kids

we saw the Buzzcocks now Buzzcocks were huge but back then to be a huge band it just didn't really happen for a match there was a band called 10cc in the 70s and they were huge oh fucking I loved the concert

yeah but really art for art's sake yeah oh man the production fuck me yeah well they were really clever guys

but essentially though their sound could have come from Los Angeles because they're a little bit like they've got a bit of Steely Dan vibe they've got a bit of

a Beach Boys vibe and all that but the Manchester guys you know but when Buscox broke because they looked like lads they were young lads

but also they had hit after hit after hit so me at 14 15 watching them just pop up on top of the pops in the middle of all the brass bands and all the granny music and everything um was it made me go oh it can be done so then when geordie new order and the smiths did it and then all the bands they were like well they can do it so james and then all the bands, they were like, well, they can do it. So James, and then obviously the Roses and the Oasis in particular, they grew up watching, seeing the Smiths do it,

and on and on, you get this representation. So that's a more doubt-a-worth thing. But I was talking to this historian when I did this thing at the university many years ago. This guy, C.P. Lee, he was a really brilliant guy and a Manchester historian. But he hit me up to this thing that, there's a thing about to do with the Industrial Revolution,

which I didn't know about, which is that the docks here, Salford Docks, when we think about the Industrial Revolution, we think about child labour, smoky chimneys, people... I mean, hey, and they're the people doing OK. If you got work in a factory or a workhouse,

you were actually OK because you were given a bed, you were given two meals. Not great, but it was all the people out in the outlying countryside that they were trying to get jobs there. That's all the story. But anyway, you think about those things with the industrial revolution and all the toil and all the work and all the workers which is and this is where i'm going with this is an insight into the mancunian mentality you think of the workers but actually the the other side of that was the people

who own the mills and own the on the land quite they weren't, unlike down south, they weren't aristocratic. They weren't gifted that. There was a lot of self-made men, usually, and the women... The emerging middle class, I suppose you'd call it. And the women behind them, yeah. And they would never have been allowed to be posh. Well, this is interesting... They have money, but they're not posh. Exactly. They were rich as hell, but still they would get down amongst them.

So what that created, so there was these scenes, which is amazing to think about. On the docks, you had a lot of ships coming in from Spain, and with that was some very flamboyant people who came in on the ships from Spain. The sailors were very flamboyant people who came in on the ships from Spain. The sailors were very flamboyant.

So there was this crazy scene often. Are we talking 1800s? Yes, yeah, 1800s, yeah. Wow. So the docks were quite often very colourful. It wasn't people toiling in the rain. You had these very Mediterranean sort of influence. So there was all this stuff sort of going on.

Theatrical people. Quite often, yeah. But it wasn't necessarily a great time for the workers. So what it did was it set up this perennial feeling between, now I'm not talking for everybody here, but I'm talking for the people I know, this feeling of us and them. Because the workers were being worked so hard

and were so poor, but the landowners, the people who owned the factories, there were often men and the women with them, were very ostentatious. But they weren't born into it, so they weren't that far away from who you were and they lived and they lived on the outskirts of the inner city so it created i know his

grandmother it created this this mindset in a lot of regular people and generations of us and them and i think that has got something to do with the attitude of the bands and the comedians that have come out of Manchester as well because they're really, really good at taking the piss. Okay. And there's a rebellion and a built-in bohemian rebelliousness that takes form quite often in rock and roll. Fucking hell.

That is class. I didn't know that. Did you have any interaction with Northern Soul at any point in your life? Yeah, I mean, massively. I mean, funnily enough, the biggest interaction I had with it was in 2012, and it was a very deliberate and very

exciting period. Do you remember it from your Manchester was Northern Soul like I know Wigan but it was big here. Well what happened really was that uh no it was mostly Wigan but no it was what you know as Northern Soul was really taken care of in Wigan. And what I saw in Manchester as a young kid who was dead into fashion and stuff was that the fashions of the people who were going to the Wigan casino, they were the fashions anyway, the high waist bandage trousers, the Oxford bags and the vests and the badges and all of that.

That was the currency. Everyone was wearing that anyway, but it was really done up to the nines at Wigan. So people were fetishising stuff at Wigan and then that was spilling into the fashions in town. But the music, Wigan's chosen few in the music, was really just the domain of Wigan Casino, really. And there was a place called the Twisted Wheel in Manchester

that was the originator of that kind of music but not really I think Manchester was a bit more not mainstream but it wasn't that um that that the the thing with Wigan Casino that that was the thing that was was appreciated in hindsight by those who weren't there. Did you hear the podcast I did where I did some research about how it happened? No. So, apparently, I don't know which city it was. It was either Manchester or... might have been Liverpool.

Whatever city had a lot of coal. They were getting ships and they were filling the fucking ship full of coal, right right and this call was being sent directly to Chicago and Detroit so the ship goes all the way over full of fucking English coal arrives in Chicago and the tries offloads the call but then when a ship comes back you have to weigh it up with shit you have to fill it full of stuff so that it has the same ways but on the docks of Chicago and Detroit they're rubbish were fucking records that didn't sell so in Chicago and Detroit all the b-sides all the unsuccessful artists from Motown from Tamla

they would get these records and go this is our our rubbish, fuck it onto a ship, and then the ship, because it's the ballast, made it back to the north of England. Then these records were rubbish all over the docks of England, and cafe owners who were cheap, who didn't want to pay for Elvis, went, I'm going to take this piece of shit here. And they put all these weird B-sides into the cafes, and the kids were going,

I don't know what the fuck this song is, but it's amazing. And that's where obscure songs from Detroit and Chicago, why they ended up being popular. But then I'm like, 20 years later, the same obscure songs from Chicago and Detroit that are house in the same place. It's mad. What would be the equivalent now then of if you had to fill a ship

full of like disposable rubbish? I don't know. Does it exist? Yeah. It doesn't exist. Everybody's iPhones that they don't use anymore. I suppose that, I mean if you found a pile of iPhones and then you start getting into memes from 2009. I mean I don't use anymore. I suppose that, I mean, if you found a pile of iPhones and then you start getting

into memes from 2009, I mean, I don't know. That's what I'm saying, that's got to be the new ones. I mean, it's very romantic. I like to think that that's what happened. Yeah, it's amazing. Because we are talking about cultural scarcity. I mean, it's hard now in 2023 to go,

like, I'm, again, I'm old enough to remember Blur and Oasis being massive here and then nobody knowing who the fuck they are in America like that's insane that's so weird even the

concept of will you break America how did you become popular with Latinos? Smiths? Do you know well there's a few reasons for it but one is that they just love the sound of it because they love that very expressive singing

and they also love guitars you know it's very lively so there's that they like the aesthetic they like the way the band looks and they also they've got a thing in latino culture of um not fetishizing but yeah maybe fetishizing 50s culture they do yeah and we leaned into that quite a lot so all of that but you've got to love the music because

that's it's been years now that they're i mean i, I just was over there. I was in Los Angeles, like, the week before last, and the people who were waiting to get selfies and all that, afterwards, were... There's loads of Latinos there. But then also, a band that I fucking adore, the Deftones. Oh, yeah. Like, and Chino Marino is Latino. Like, the Deftones will just say straight up,

the fucking smits, the smits. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we've... Have you met the Deftones? No, but, you know, I've had messages from them via people and everything. Have you replied to their DMs? Only yours, blind boy.

Oh, yeah. He's probably not lying either I love that they haven't sent me any DMs but the interesting thing when we were talking about hip hop before was

was that the Smiths became very popular with certainly a lot of I don't think it's just east coast but it was in the early 90s a band called third base sampled or something yeah and and it became a thing then but one of the things that about that as well though is that uh because you were saying before that um there's is it uh that a lot of hip-hop bands now are sort of using grunge and it's something that i'm seeing at the moment

on tiktok is is someone said that like if you listen to rap right now like they say that kirk cabane is more influential to rap than tupac is and something i'm seeing is especially on tiktok african-american kids and they're trying to sound like Blink 182 African American kids are fetishizing 90's white person music the way that middle class white kids would fetishize African American music

from the past and it's quite new and interesting I'm going to say something to you I reckon so music has been around since humans have been around as long as humans have been alive someone's been singing and I genuinely think that

the period of the 20th century of which you're a fucking huge part in music is going to be remembered the way that we remember the likes of Leonardo and the Renaissance and the reason I say this is because here we have an art form that is as old as humans, and we lived through the time where we could record it.

Like painting, painting's been around for a long time. You fucking paint, it's there on the wall, and it's permanent. For hundreds of thousands of years, music existed and disappeared. and then in the 20th century for the first time ever the oldest art form in the world no we can record this and you can listen to it as much as you like and because we can listen to the recorded media we can improve upon it and we have an explosion of creativity that's right yeah there's nothing else like that

in art and we fucking you're lucky enough to be a fucking part of that yeah i mean it's amazing i mean that's insane it's also egalitarian as well because before you were able to record it you had to be to have it in your house you had to be able to invite a string quartet into the into the front room and have them perform it which people did but then as soon as recordings became available on gramophone if you will eventually you got enough because most people couldn't afford a record player until post-war say or maybe the 40s anyway you know but before that you literally have to have musicians come around to your house and play. Unless you made it yourself. Unless you're playing the piano yourself. In the 18th century, if a person was wealthy enough,

they may have heard Mozart twice. And that was it. Yeah. Like, you had folk music, which is continual because people have a bit of instruments. But Mozart was a song that like yeah i heard that there about 20 years ago i was lucky enough to be in a symphony in an orchestra and then you never heard it again yes well another thing that pops up in the conversation though is that um this idea

i mean this everyone would be aware this this, this idea of music being more meaningful because you used to have to go to a record shop and buy it. That's just very basic. Well, it's more than that, but one basic thing is things that are more hard-earned, you appreciate more. That's just human nature. But it's been put to me a couple of times,

like, oh, well, music doesn't mean very much. It's a funny one because yes I've got like a lot of musicians and just music fans I can romanticise the day when I went and bought Iggy and the Stooges raw power it was such a big moment in my life and I went on the bus and it was dark and I came back and I

looked at that sleeve on the bus all of that and it was a ting all of that and it was a thing it was all of that but the also though if you would have told me when I was 15 walk walking around the streets of Manchester literally nothing to do that any song I wanted I could just summon from the from the air yeah by tapping on a piece of glass in my pocket and it would just go from the air into my ears i would just be like sign me up for the time machine so uh yeah so it's kind of amazing i'd be honest though johnny i think the scarcity was better Like, when I was fucking 19, CDs were 25 quid.

So if I wanted a 25 quid CD, it took about two months to get 25 quid because I didn't have a fucking job and it was a five-hour a week from my parents, you know what I mean? And I bought Discovery by Daft Punk and it was 25 fucking quid. I hated it. I fucking hated it. But Jesus Christ, did i stick with it and now it's one it's it's probably in my top three albums i know it's great i know i i remember you said i remember

you said that on one of the podcasts didn't you i remember that i was really good to remember because i had that same experience back in the day where you would because you put an album on one of the tracks that was more i mean i rely on this as a songwriter one of the tracks that was a bit more left field or more that wasn't a banger you learn to love it and they're the most enduring tracks really so oh no i'm with you you know like there's we've lost we've absolutely lost an awful lot in this like cut and paste cut so you know that i'm sure you mean there's so many studies about it, but attention deficit disorder now.

Yeah. So it really plays into that. So, you know, we've gone from what your point of coming through a period of it being the very first recorded to this, I'm not even going to, well, we'll be here all night if we start talking about AI. I know, I know. And I do have to be conscious of time because it's nearly 11. I'm going to ask, we could fucking end up chatting here all night, Johnny.

We have to be careful. Good night, everybody. Thank you. Johnny Marr. Blind Boy Bone Club. Thank you so much for that. Thank you for ye. And go in peace and have a wonderful night. The levels in that are too loud. I'm fucked from COVID.

I'm absolutely fucked. All right, so I'll catch you next week. Rub a dog. Kiss a swan. Don't kiss a swan. You know the usual crack, right? Be kind to animals. If you can.

I'll catch you next week. Dog bless. to animals if you can I'll catch you next week dog bless I shouldn't be blowing fucking kisses with COVID I was about to I'll give you the COVID hug

that's me hugging the microphone alright fuck off. you're invited to an immersive listening party led by Rishi Keshe Herway the visionary behind the groundbreaking song exploder podcast and Netflix series this unmissable evening features Herway and Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director Gustavo Jimeno in conversation together they dissect the mesmerizing layers of Stravinsky's the rite of spring followed by a complete soul stirring rendition of the famously unnerving piece, Symphony Exploder, April 5th at Roy Thompson Hall. For tickets, visit tso.ca. Thank you.