Fagburn: On Johnny Marr

Can't believe what you did with these silly old Smiths records.
Remastered into Heaven - never heard anything like it in my life.
Just astonishing - you have no idea how happy you made me.
Hearing the new version of every song just makes me think fuck, fuck, fuck!
What you've done here is monumental.
Spent the whole day crying with joy and loss and just wonder wonder wonder!
I'll post something about something else when I give a fuck about something else.
Until then - amazeballs.
Thank you, sir.

The Smiths: And Finally...

Finally got a copy of this.
Johnny Marr's remastering on the first album reduced me to tears with its brilliance.
Just how it should have been.
I think people forget this album got stinking reviews - after so much promise.
Made me think about Andrew.
Made me think about Ivan.
Made me think about Mark.
All those boys I fell in love with who weren't that bothered about me.
Which is what The Smiths were all about, basically.
I may be some time...

Update: Only up to Meat Is Murder but the remastering is heartsmashingly great. Just stunning. Wow! I'm falling in love all over again and deeper...

Morrissey: The Queen Is Morally Dead

On Thursday Johnny Marr took to Twitter and tweeted; "David Cameron, stop saying that you like The Smiths, no you don't. I forbid you to like it."
Good for him.
Like The Clash's Mick Jones it was always clear who was really the left-wing conscience of the band.
Morrissey has just written a long open letter pledging his agreement.
"I would like to, if I may, offer support to Johnny Marr who has spoken out to the media this week against David Cameron. To those who have expressed concern over Johnny's words in view of the fact that David Cameron has pledged immense allegiance to the music of the Smiths, I would like to try to explain why I think Johnny is right not to be flattered."
"It is true that music is a universal language – the ONLY universal language, and belongs to all, one way or another. However, with fitting grimness I must report that David Cameron hunts and shoots and kills stags – apparently for pleasure."
That's right - as Cameron and his millionaire chums unleash a war against the working class and on the most vulnerable in society, hacking away at the welfare state with gay abandon, Morrissey gets miffed that Dave kills stags.
As riots return to London and set Europe on fire in righteous anger against the injustices of neo-liberalism, Morrissey says he's angry about hunting fucking stags.
Morrissey really is the most spectacular moral fuckwit.
This year we've had to endure his criticisms of China.
Not for turning a communist state into the world's biggest sweatshop, but because of the "horrific... Chinese cat and dog trade."
In August he wrote a letter to The Times about the British army.
On Afghanistan? Iraq?
No - it was drawing attention to "[the] horrific process utilised to supply real bearskins" for Guardsmens' hats.
What a colossal, monumental buffoon.
We should do the world a favour and eat him.