Before the Smiths were the Smiths

Johnny Marr & Joe Moss - the cool dude and the true bohemian

I’ve just discovered a photograph that illustrates one of the most celebrated episodes in the history of the Smiths. The photograph, of several buildings on Chapel Walks, Manchester, has never been circulated before. Apparently taken in February 1982, it’s a Manchester back street, Chapel Walks; you can see Crazy Face - run by Joe Moss - and next door, X-Clothes where Johnny Marr worked. It explains the circumstances that brought Johnny Marr together with Joe Moss - Johnny’s mentor and the first Smiths manager. When Joe died in October 2015, Johnny Marr said, “Without him there wouldn’t have been any Smiths”.

Chapel Walks is off Cross Street. It runs up the side of Pret A Manger. At one time the bar and restaurant Grinch was at the bottom of Chapel Walks. A few doors up from there, back in 1982, the Crazy Face shop was in Chapel Walks Chambers, 13 Chapel Walks, and, next door, at Union Buildings, the clothing emporium X Clothes. In February 1982, the 18 year-old Johnny Marr worked at X Clothes, Joe Moss co-owned Crazy Face.

Johnny and Joe meeting and becoming friends had a host of consequences including generating the occasion Johnny Marr knocked on Morrissey’s door in May 1982, kickstarting a magnificent songwriting partnership.

Joe had been a devoted regular at a club called the Twisted Wheel; a club founded on rhythm & blues, which, at its second location (on Whitworth St), was where the phrase “Northern Soul” was coined by journalist Dave Godin. There’s a ton more on the Twisted Wheel in my history of British nightclubs and music venues, Life After Dark.

In the early and mid 1970s, the ‘head shop’ On the Eighth Day was central to a new, hippiefied scene building in Manchester; you could buy joss sticks, alternative magazines, hand-crafted jewellery, bags and clothes. Joe began selling loon pants there, and a career in the rag trade took off.

Johnny Marr has described Joe as “an original beatnik and a true bohemian”. He wasn’t an ambitious or cut-throat entrepreneur. He became involved in the fashion world – and, subsequently, band management - as a result of his passion for music and street style. By the beginning of the 1980s, Joe had Crazy Face, a clothing line with several stores in Stockport and Manchester; in 1982, he was often to be found in Manchester city centre at the Crazy Face HQ at 70 Portland St (on the corner of Nicholas St).

Johnny Marr was 17 when he took a job at X Clothes. At one time, it was part of a small chain; Leeds had an X Clothes on Call Lane and Sheffield had one on Pinstone Street. Boutiques like X Clothes picked up on the plethora of styles in an era of tribalism, and experimentation. The influence of such places went beyond the provision of clothes to establish, in effect, hubs of information; places to pick up gossip and news about clubs, bars, music. Marr later claimed that X Clothes was “the trendiest clothes shop in town – it was a really big deal and everyone who was anyone came through the shop at some point.”

The emerging fashions were invariably married to music. Quiet Life by Japan triggering demand for David Sylvian-style zoot suits, for example. Johnny used to make regular trips to boutiques in London and arrive back with ideas for new stock; biker boots, berets, sleeveless shirts.

When this photograph was taken, early in 1982, Johnny was interested in Theatre of Hate in the wake of his friend Billy Duffy joining the band in the second half of 1981. He’d go to see them as often as he could. It was Duffy who’d introduced Morrissey to Marr at Patti Smith at the Apollo in August 1978; the two had said hello to each other but not had encountered each other again since.

Also in early 1982, Johnny was DJing, spinning funk and disco alongside Andrew Berry on Thursday at a regular night run by John Kennedy at a club called Exit (at 8 Wood St, off Deangate), which established great crossover appeal to the music, gay, and fashion crowds. ID and Face readers basically.

Enter Joe Moss, who became Johnny’s friend, mentor, and manager. Eager to meet the man behind Crazy Face, Johnny knew Joe Moss, twenty years his senior, had considerable experience in the rag trade and connections around the city, and was a fan of John Lee Hooker, and the Rolling Stones. Sightings on Chapel Walks were rare, however. Then one Saturday morning, Johnny was tipped off Joe was next door and he made his move. Joe later recalled how Johnny had “introduced himself as a frustrated musician”.

Marr impressed Moss by his attitude and style, but also, as time went by, by his proficiency and creativity as a guitarist. Joe invited Johnny and his girlfriend Angie to his family home in Heaton Chapel, where they’d have dinner, smoke weed, listen to music and watch videos.

Full of enthusiasm, Johnny would rush the four hundred and fifty yards over to Portland St in his lunch break and Joe would play Little Richard and Phil Spector records. One day Joe suggested Johnny should come and work with him. Johnny related all this to David Cavanagh in an interview for Mojo magazine in 1994; “I was given the basement of Portland Street, which Joe had filled full of secondhand clothes. I would get in at 11. Me and Joe would talk about John Lee Hooker for an hour and I would say, ‘I’d better open the shop.’ Joe would say, ‘Hang on a minute, let’s have another cup of tea,’ so I would sit there for another half hour talking about Elvis Presley or about the band I was trying to get together.”

Joe, in the same magazine article; “I'd known guitarists from '60s Manchester bands, and I'd never heard anything like this kid. I agreed to help him whatever he did. It was the most interesting relationship in my life. He was loving my record collection and my book collection and I was loving just watching him play”.

It was Joe who put the idea in Johnny’s head to go and knock on Morrissey’s door. The idea crystallised when Johnny saw a Leiber and Stoller documentary Joe had videoed off the TV and recommended and lent to Johnny; it was a South Bank Show special about Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, broadcast on February 21st 1982. The story of the Leiber and Stoller songwriting team intrigued Johnny – full of insights into the inspiration, work, and creativity that produced the likes of ‘Hound Dog’, ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘Yakety Yak’, and ‘Stand By Me’ (written with, and for, Ben E King); not to mention the duo founding the Red Bird label which gave the world the Shangri-Las. A love for the Shangri-Las was one of several music passions that united Morrissey and Marr.

Morrissey was rated as a lyricist by Johnny Marr’s friend by Billy Duffy. Morrissey was an aspiring writer. He’d penned a short limited edition book about another of Marr’s favourites, the New York Dolls (I have a copy of said volume which I guess will be sold one day to pay for my care home fees or something). Steven Morrissey of Stretford had written many letters to the music press – including one in praise of Sparks - and he was also a very occasional live reviewer for Record Mirror, brutally dismissing Depeche Mode after witnessing their show at Rafters in Manchester in August 1981.

A section in the South Bank Show which particularly made an impact on Johnny Marr was a description of how Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller had met in Los Angeles back in 1950 when they were both 17. Leiber had heard word that Mike Stoller shared a love for blues and boogie woogie, and one afternoon took it upon himself to find where he lived and knocked on his door. They set about writing for black artists including Big Mama Thornton; her recording of ‘Hound Dog’ was released in 1953, and subsequently turned into a massive hit by Elvis in 1956.

The fact that there was a third person present at the historic encounter when Marr went to 384 King’s Road that day in May 1982 is often missed in the mythologies of the Smiths. The third young man was Steve Pomfret, a guitarist and a mutual friend of Morrissey and Marr. In 1977 he’d spent some time rehearsing with Morrissey and Billy Duffy with a view to launching a band called the Sulky Young, which soon melted away, Morrissey and Billy Duffy moving on to the Nosebleeds, writing songs together. But this period in the history of the Nosebleeds also soon ended, after just two gigs, three months, and no releases.

As he had known Morrissey and knew where he lived, Steve Pomfret had agreed to accompany Johnny on the 263 bus to Stretford. As befitting his role as the cool dude from X Clothes, Johnny had a strong look, including vintage Levi jeans and a quiff newly sculpted by his DJ/hairdresser friend Andrew Berry.

Morrissey recalled that at that at that encounter he identified Johnny as “a little bit rockabilly” and, more importantly, as “instantly right, we were instantly right”. He told Radio One a year or so later “I was just there, dying, and (Johnny) rescued me”.

Many musicians - even to a greater extent than the public at large - find it easier to talk about their plans than to crack on and make stuff happen. Joe Moss later remembered Johnny’s commitment; “Unlike a lot of people, Johnny was a musician 24 hours a day. Even in his sleep. He was going somewhere.”

This was also something that Marr shared with Morrissey. For Morrissey, writing lyrics and fronting a group was a matter of life and death. The day after Marr’s visit to Morrissey, and a first tentative conversation about making music together, Morrissey phoned X-Clothes and confirmed that as far as he was concerned the new band was up and running.

Joe Moss later recalled how slowly but surely all the initial problems of putting this band together started to dominate his conversations with Johnny. There seemed to be an initial intention to include Pommy in the line-up of the Smiths (the name of the band was Morrissey’s idea). After the first few rehearsals, though, he and his rhythm guitar became so sidelined that he chose to bow out, gone before the first live show. Meanwhile, bass player Dale Hibbert was gone after the first show.

Joe Moss found the group rehearsal space upstairs at the Crazy Face on Portland St, and helped steer them through to a settled four-piece line-up, including Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce. He also secured interest in the Smiths from various industry figures. Tony Wilson saw the band at their second gig - a midweek set in a tiny gay club on Spring Gardens called Manhattan Sound - and Geoff Travis from Rough Trade witnessed their first London show in May 1983; leaving determined to sign them on a long term deal. A recording at Strawberry Studios of ‘Hand in Glove’ - paid for by Joe Moss - became the first Rough Trade single by the Smiths.  

In Morrissey’s 2013 Autobiography, the singer writes about a plot of Joe’s to remove Morrissey from the Smiths at the very end of 1983, just before the band arrived in the USA for their first American shows. There’s no corroborating evidence, and it seems ridiculously unlikely that within weeks of ‘This Charming Man’ having been featured on Top of the Pops, and with so much momentum building in the months before the release of the band’s first album, there would be a move to lose the frontman. But by the time the short trip to America was over, Joe was definitely no longer the manager. I’ll resist quoting how Morrissey describes Joe Moss at this point in Autobiography - Smiths biographer, the late Johnny Rogan, called his choice of words “offensive”.  

Morrissey’s negativity towards Joe Moss appears to have been the result of several factors, over and above the supposed plot; among them that he believed Joe threatened both his control over the band and his bond with Johnny Marr. Meanwhile Joe had obviously picked up that Morrissey was unhappy having him in on the scene; paranoid and hostile, even. Joe had better things to do than put up with any of that.

In the 1990s Joe Moss managed Marion, and Haven, and in 1999 resumed the role of Johnny Marr’s manager. When Joe died, there weren’t any words from Morrissey. Johnny was fulsome in his tributes, and Mike Joyce tweeted "Joe Moss looked after us. He gave us a place to play & a brilliant mind to learn from. Joe was a giver. Joe loved us & we loved Joe."

As well as illustrating how the Marr and Moss, and the Marr and Morrissey relationships began, the photograph of Chapel Walks in 1982 also reminds us of an eternal truth in culture; that great ideas are fermenting in back streets where the independent spaces and independent spirits can be found. And, in addition, that your most valuable life experiences can just be a bus ride and a knock on the door away.

My own experience of Joe Moss was positive and life-affirming, and also involves a knock on the door. At the tail end of 1983, having just launched a fanzine, I was after an interview with Morrissey. Andrew Berry suggested I should visit Crazy Face on Portland St, and powered by the impetuousness of youth, I knocked on the door. I was befriended by Liz Taylor who worked there at Crazy Face HQ – among other things, she designed the early Smiths t-shirts. Joe had no reason or obligation to arrange the interview I wanted, but Liz asked Joe, and Joe asked Morrissey. And just before flying to America where he fell off the stage at Danceteria, Morrissey turned up at my grotty flat in Hulme and we spent a happy evening together. I asked him if he ever considered he took himself too seriously. You’ll have to guess his answer.

The two adjoining buildings of Chapel Walks where Crazy Face and X Clothes were situated both now house luxury apartments; around a dozen in all, prices start around £400,000. Johnny has just celebrated his 60th birthday and has a new book out, a lavishly produced guide to his guitar collection, full of associated stories; Johnny is in conversation with John Harris on November 6th at the John Rylands Library.

Meanwhile, surely Joe Moss is surely deserving of a lengthy biography of some sort? There’s a lot more to explore beyond his relationship with Morrissey and Marr

Joe Moss in the 1970s. Photograph: Rachel Moss.

Early in the new year, I’d like to write a post (or two) about some of the small, semi-forgotten clubs in Manchester in the era of X Clothes and Exit, but also I’m planning on writing a little about the goings-on at a nearby building which has a place in both music, and art, history, connecting Ian Curtis with David Hockney. Stay tuned!