Free Johnny Marr by Richard Carman

members and friends to congregate until Johnny moved to London on a more permanent basis.
    Moss was the band’s manager, although a lot of the issues relating to the band continued to be decided upon by Morrissey and Johnny. Financially, Morrissey took the wheel. “His motto was ‘What we make we put in our pockets and pay everybody else from our pocket,’” is how Johnny described Morrissey’s attitude from day one, speaking to Record Collector . This was never going to be a band led by a frontman with no involvement behind the scenes. In charge of more immediate matters, Joe’s first actions were practical, securing the band rehearsal space above his Portland Street premises, where the band could really hone their live skills and develop musically around Morrissey’s vocals. In early January, the band played their second official gig, this time with the Marr/Morrisey/Joyce/Rourke line-up that would remain largely settled through the rest of their career. James Maker graced the stage a second and last time, and with an audience of a few hundred packed into Manchester’s Manhattan Sound, the band expanded upon their original four-song set. In February, i-D magazine was the first to run a feature on the group, interestingly featuring Dale Hibbert as the bassist,indicating that the interview was conducted before the turn of the year. The band talked of how, in the wake of Joy Division, Manchester bands ran the risk of being patronised by the media, but at the same time admitted that the Manchester scene had helped them develop quickly.
    “Bands need to be more positive, and stop limiting themselves” said Johnny. “If people don’t like us [it’ll be] because we’re The Smiths, and not because of what we wear.” Before Morrissey began to proclaim on ‘big’ subjects such as vegetarianism, The Smiths were very anti-image in their projection. Their concerns were voiced in this very first interview; that bands should be open and positive, and shouldn’t limit their work according to received patterns of predetermined behaviour, that fashion had nothing to do with music but that music was the ‘major influence on life.’ Interestingly, on the subject of their sound as a band, Maher noted that too many bands were trying to innovate, and that in the wake of the work of Brian Eno and David Byrne (whose hugely influential My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts was released in 1981) people should give up trying to be original and should get back to the basics of simply making great music.
    As media interest in the band began to ferment, so their live schedule began to pick up speed. Their first Hacienda gig took place in early February, the stage strewn with flowers in an attempt to – as Morrissey was later to explain – re-introduce ‘human gestures’ into stage performance. By now the band had a full set, and most of the songs that were to grace their first album were integrated into the show. Later in the month, at Manchester’s Rafters they supported ex-Television and Voidoid legend Richard Hell, a major event for the band so influenced by both Richardhimself and fellow New Yorker Patti Smith. In March, Joe Moss provided the couple of hundred quid needed for the band to enter Stockport’s Strawberry Studios, a famed enterprise owned by 10cc, to record their first single. ‘Hand In Glove’ was the result of the session, the lyrics to the song recently penned by Morrissey to a track provided by Johnny. Marr was to explain that he came up with the riff on “a crappy old guitar.” “We [Angie and he] were visiting my parents… Then I got the idea for the riff, but because I had moved out there was nothing to record it on.” Angie borrowed her parents’ VW Beetle, “and drove this live riff over to Morrissey’s house,” says Johnny. “On the way, she said ‘Make it sound more like Iggy.’ And bang! ‘Hand In Glove’!” Although three versions of the song were recorded over the coming months (not