Andy Rourke

The awful, sad news yesterday that Andy Rourke had died of pancreatic cancer aged just 59 stopped me in my tracks. He was a local lad, growing up in Ashton on Mersey just up the road from here and in bands with Johnny Marr from a young age. Johnny recruited him for The Smiths. Later on he lived in Chorlton and was a regular in various pubs and bars there and in town. He always seemed like a lovely man. The Smiths hit me hard in the 80s, c1986, and still can when I hear them now, songs and performances first heard in my teens that can cross the decades and drop me back in 1987, a bequiffed seventeen year old with The Queen Is Dead, Hatful Of Hollow or Strangeways blasting out of my bedroom ghettoblaster. 

Whatever the importance of Morrissey and Johnny Marr to the band there's no doubt, whatever some might say, that the other two, Andy and drummer Mike Joyce, were absolutely essential to their sound, their image and their songs. Andy's bass playing is propulsive, melodic and dynamic, much more than just a bass player following the root notes and playing with the drummer. By the time Meat is Murder came out the band were stretching out musically and the basslines and the bottom end are as important as the words and the guitars. On this session version of Rusholme Ruffians Andy's rockabilly bassline opens the song and provides the twang and the railway rhythm. 

Rusholme Ruffians (Peel Session)

Meat Is Murder is a full sounding, urgent, wide ranging album. On Barbarism Begins At Home, while Morrissey yelps and Johnny riffs, Andy is playing a lead funk bassline ripped from New York's discos and relocated to south Manchester, at the heart of the song and a million miles from the jingle jangle their detractors claimed they were (and never really were anyway), as this live version of Barbarism Begins At Home in 1984 at Queen Margaret Union in Glasgow makes perfectly clear. 

Barbarism Begins At Home (Live at QMU) 

This two song set from The Tube in April 1987 lives long in the memory, the late period Smiths in full flight, Sheila Take A Bow and Shoplifters Of The World Unite- and don't they look great. 

Andy Rourke RIP. 

In The Ghetto

This is from a charity album from a couple of years ago (1969- Key To Change, for homeless charities, all the songs being covers of songs from 1969). Bernard Sumner's short lived Bad Lieutenant project doing Elvis' In The Ghetto. It's pretty faithful to the original and a song that maybe doesn't stand much mucking about with but there's an element of karaoke about it. Bernard sings it well and I suppose that's the main draw- In The Ghetto being sung in a soft Mancunian voice rather than a Southern US one, and there's a good guitar break from about 2.50 onwards.

I saw Bad Lieutenant at The Ritz. They played the first half of the set from the Bad Lieutenant lp, Stephen Morris on drums, a pair of guitarists plus Bernard's guitar and it was all so-so. The second half was far livelier- a bunch of well chosen New Order songs, a rarely performed early Electronic album track and the Chemical Brothers/Sumner smash Out Of Control, then Love Will Tear Us Apart. Just play the hits Bernard, just play the hits. I had a ciggie outside alongside Mani who was asked by a passing gent when the Freebass album was coming out. 'Fuck knows' he replied. Things have shifted a bit since then for our Mani. Freebass (Hooky, Mani and Andy Rourke with an unknown singer and an 'amusing' name) was never going to work was it?

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 81

The Smiths were rockabilly fans, as evidenced in their quiffs if nothing else. Several Smiths songs benefit from the rockabilly sounds and rhythms too, and Johnny Marr's desire to get that Sun Records vibe down on tape. Here is a seven minute version of Rusholme Ruffians, eventually trimmed and re-recorded for 1985's Meat Is Murder album, with Andy Rourke's rocking bassline well to the fore. Always loved this song, Morrissey's tale of violence and love at the fair very English up against Marr, Joyce and Rourke's rockabilly shuffle. Live they segued Elvis' Marie's The Name (Of His Latest Flame) into it (on the live album Rank).

Rusholme Ruffians (demo version)