Robin Ince’s Book Club comedy night features himself (and sometimes Chris Neill) reading out aloud from choice bad books. If ever I were asked to do the same myself, I’d pick the impressive Simon Goddard research-fest that’s frustratingly spattered with bad prose: “The Smiths: Songs That Saved Your Life”.
I actually referred to this failing of his in my diary before, when the first edition came out. There was a particularly silly description of Morrissey’s vocal on ‘Hand In Glove’ thus:
“”…[Morrissey’s] inimitable voice trembling upon each syllable with the force of a dormant human volcano suddenly erupting in a white-hot supernova of embryonic passion.”
This passage is strangely missing from the 2nd edition. I wonder if that was something to do with my diary? In which case, Mr Goddard, might I make a suggestion for the 3rd edition? Less drums in the mix, please.
He clearly feels the other three Smiths should be as celebrated as Morrissey. Now, this is fair enough with Mr Marr, but I’m not convinced that people rushed out to get all those wonderful records because they liked the way the drummer Mike Joyce played the drums. I would describe Mr Joyce’s talents as perfectly acceptable, but certainly not worth drawing attention to.
Not so with Mr Goddard. Throughout the book he feels the need to describe the drums. I find it embarrassing enough when music hacks refer to drum patterns at all (usually with winceworthy words like “pulsating”, “pummelling” and “pounding”) , so I suppose it’s quite a feat of thesaurus-dredging to be able to find enough different drum-compatible adjectives for the best part of eighty different Smiths songs.
So! I Present: The Dickon Edwards Guide To Simon Goddard’s “The Smiths: Drumbeats That Saved Your Life” (2nd Edition £14.99, reduced to £4.99 in HMV Oxford Circus.)
Hand In Glove: “punctuated by Joyce’s cymbal stutters” (ie, he plays the cymbals)
This Night Has Opened My Eyes: “Joyce’s subtly complex drum pattern with its soft pauses and delicate hi-hat fills” (ie, he plays the drums)
Still Ill: “Joyce underscores the buoyant optimism of the chorus itself with triumphant cymbal splashes” (getting desperate on this one…)
You’ve Got Everything Now: “Joyce’s clamant tom-tom fills” (Mr G raids Roget already, and it’s only 1984… three more albums to go!)
How Soon Is Now: “Joyce’s steady Diddley pulse” (steady, Diddley, steady…)
What She Said: “Joyce’s thunderous backbeat” (ie, he plays the drums)
I Know It’s Over: “…the raw fury of Joyce’s drum rolls”(Raw Fury! Starring Chuck Norris as Mike Joyce!)
The Queen Is Dead: “Joyce’s idiomatic drumming upon the palace gates” (not really: that would sound rubbish)
Frankly Mr Shankly: “Joyce’s Salvation Army stomp”(nope, that doesn’t really make sense, never mind)
Vicar In A Tutu: “Joyce’s breathless brush work”(hey, he’s Picasso now!)
Panic: “Joyce’s meaty, beaty brontosaurus stomp” (and now he’s Barney)
You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby: “Joyce’s stomping, staccato beat” (he plays the drums)
Sweet and Tender Hooligan: “fuming drums… quaking like a bovver-boy stampede” (or, if you like, the drummer plays the drums like a drummer)
Sheila Take A Bow: “goaded by Joyce’s quaking floor-tom rumbles” (ooh, goad me, you floor-tom you!)
Death Of A Disco Dancer: “Joyce flays his kit in a cold voodoo sweat” (writer is getting sex-starved now, funny that)
I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish: Producer Stephen Street – shock horror – adds an electronic snare sample. How dare he, implies Mr Goddard, and quizzes Mr Street: “It wasn’t that I wanted to replace Mike Joyce… I just wanted to add more sounds so that his drumming had more texture.”
After all that stomping and flaying and quaking and clamant stuttering, and the producer wants more texture? Doesn’t he agree with Mr Goddard that Mr Joyce is the greatest drummer in the world, nay the greatest thing about The Smiths?
Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before: “Joyce excels with a cannibalistic tom-tom assault” (cannibalistic tom-toms! run!)
A Rush And A Push: “buoyed by Joyce’s militaristic snare rolls, a more prominent feature on early mixes than on the final master” (or, how to make an exciting track sound boring)
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me: “Joyce’s beat was that of an exhausted heart shattering into a thousand tiny fragments, each eight-bar cycle ending with a sudden rhythmic cardiac arrest that altered shape every time.” (Nurse!)
I Won’t Share You: “heavenly minimalism… even at the expense of Joyce’s presence”. (Oh, what a waste…!)
Dancing about architecture is hard enough, but when you become obsessed with pointing out the architecture happens to have walls…
Call me strange, but I really like The Smiths mainly because of that other man in the band. Who was he again?
