This is a lovely article Dave, thank you. Our old man definitely deserves a biography, the story of his time with The Smiths is a condensed and truncated epic within the same greater condensed and abbreviated epic story of The Smiths, and it is time that the tale were told, within the greater tale of the life and destiny of Joe Moss.
For a long time before I could see straight I was presented with other people’s versions of our old man, enough to consider my own versions of these pieces of a jigsaw of who he was. These beheld images of Joe Moss are sometimes like cargo cult idols of images he and others projected and screened, and they don’t always look like or feel like the Joe Moss I thought I knew, all the versions I had grown up with.
When I look back at all those different images and representations of Joe Moss, I’m now sure he was all of them.
The writing of a person is nothing like knowing them, which is nothing like knowing, it’s all inklings and half truths until they die, then you get the lack of them, a space in which the realisation of their meaning grows. You get the gist, and in the end isn't it all gist?
Morrissey was quaintly callous when he wrote about my dad in his memoir. I can try to imagine how Morrissey felt back then, in 1983, in his otherness, compared to the camaraderie of the other Five Smiths. There were six Smiths, in my broad scope in 1983, there was Morrissey, Johnny, Mike, Andy, Angie and my Dad Joe. The three band members lived together and their sounds and style were nurtured in my Dad's house in Heaton Chapel where they all lived in a situation comedy, Angie and Andrew Berry (a potential Seventh Smith) living there too. At that time, in the middle of 1983, almost everything around The Smiths was Joe Moss infused, and Joe himself had a subtle rock star disposition and his broad scope way of seeing things, his vista vision. I imagine how exciting and stressful it was for Morrissey just being himself then, all the scrutiny and then the scandal around some of the early songs, that's a lot to deal with.
This notion that my Dad wanted to sack Morrissey is an untethered accusation that's now carved on the Morrissey edifice by his own hand, a narcissist's swipe with a snotty hankie which only makes his edifice look snotty.
My Dad admired Morrissey but my Dad's Mum would have loved him, she was a writer and a very Mancunian voice, Mille Toole was her pen name, Morrissey feels like someone she wrote into existence.
My Dad was born of a wordsmith, on bonfire night during the blitz and entranced by bombastic sounds, lured by riffs he leaned towards Johnny, they shared that love of the riff mightier than the word, their E=mc2 and the shape of their shadows.
Joe Moss had primed Manchester for the Smiths with the imagery and soundtrack at the Crazy Face shops. The Crazy Face branding used images of James Dean, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Kerouac and Brigitte Bardot, on the posters and signage, pens, badges, and labels on clothes. The soundtracks in the shops were rich in 50s and 60s R&B, these were consistent signifiers from the mid 70s onwards. The clothing styles had started as hippie wear in the early 70s and then leading the retro 50s revival in the mid to late 1970s, and into the 1980s with preppy influenced styles and a Sunset Boulevard influenced aesthetic. This is the Crazy Face virtual world, where The Smiths happened and bloomed within the Joe Moss biome.
This is a lovely article Dave, thank you. Our old man definitely deserves a biography, the story of his time with The Smiths is a condensed and truncated epic within the same greater condensed and abbreviated epic story of The Smiths, and it is time that the tale were told, within the greater tale of the life and destiny of Joe Moss.
For a long time before I could see straight I was presented with other people’s versions of our old man, enough to consider my own versions of these pieces of a jigsaw of who he was. These beheld images of Joe Moss are sometimes like cargo cult idols of images he and others projected and screened, and they don’t always look like or feel like the Joe Moss I thought I knew, all the versions I had grown up with.
When I look back at all those different images and representations of Joe Moss, I’m now sure he was all of them.
The writing of a person is nothing like knowing them, which is nothing like knowing, it’s all inklings and half truths until they die, then you get the lack of them, a space in which the realisation of their meaning grows. You get the gist, and in the end isn't it all gist?
Morrissey was quaintly callous when he wrote about my dad in his memoir. I can try to imagine how Morrissey felt back then, in 1983, in his otherness, compared to the camaraderie of the other Five Smiths. There were six Smiths, in my broad scope in 1983, there was Morrissey, Johnny, Mike, Andy, Angie and my Dad Joe. The three band members lived together and their sounds and style were nurtured in my Dad's house in Heaton Chapel where they all lived in a situation comedy, Angie and Andrew Berry (a potential Seventh Smith) living there too. At that time, in the middle of 1983, almost everything around The Smiths was Joe Moss infused, and Joe himself had a subtle rock star disposition and his broad scope way of seeing things, his vista vision. I imagine how exciting and stressful it was for Morrissey just being himself then, all the scrutiny and then the scandal around some of the early songs, that's a lot to deal with.
This notion that my Dad wanted to sack Morrissey is an untethered accusation that's now carved on the Morrissey edifice by his own hand, a narcissist's swipe with a snotty hankie which only makes his edifice look snotty.
My Dad admired Morrissey but my Dad's Mum would have loved him, she was a writer and a very Mancunian voice, Mille Toole was her pen name, Morrissey feels like someone she wrote into existence.
My Dad was born of a wordsmith, on bonfire night during the blitz and entranced by bombastic sounds, lured by riffs he leaned towards Johnny, they shared that love of the riff mightier than the word, their E=mc2 and the shape of their shadows.
Joe Moss had primed Manchester for the Smiths with the imagery and soundtrack at the Crazy Face shops. The Crazy Face branding used images of James Dean, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Kerouac and Brigitte Bardot, on the posters and signage, pens, badges, and labels on clothes. The soundtracks in the shops were rich in 50s and 60s R&B, these were consistent signifiers from the mid 70s onwards. The clothing styles had started as hippie wear in the early 70s and then leading the retro 50s revival in the mid to late 1970s, and into the 1980s with preppy influenced styles and a Sunset Boulevard influenced aesthetic. This is the Crazy Face virtual world, where The Smiths happened and bloomed within the Joe Moss biome.
Thanks again Dave.
This is so great, I really appreciate you taking the time to reply like this. So interesting. Cheers.