What do Johnny Marr, Al Pacino, and John McCain have in common?
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Artist:
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Track:There Is a Light That Never Goes Out
!http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1330/1475729123_421a99361d.jpg?v=0!I went along to see legendary Smiths and Modest Mouse guitarist Johnny Marr accept an Honorary Patronage from Trinity College, Dublin. He followed in the footsteps of such other luminaries as Al Pacino, Desmond Tutu, Salman Rushdie,and, er, John McCain.!http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1133/1476582876_114afe1e5d.jpg?v=0!Johnny examines his prize…!http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1368/1475728771_1f8dfde5f7.jpg?v=0!…Before giving away one. He signs a guitar for a competition winner.!http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1420/1475728927_5810dffca4.jpg?v=0!Passing it on to the next generation!http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1212/1475728417_4a0efe0da1.jpg?v=0!Johnny gamely claps the comp winner after he treated us to a teeth-grating metal riff.A class act...Here’s some quotes from his onstage interview:_Morrissey_ – “The first time I met him he asked me to play a record. I knew it was a test. I picked out a Marvelettes seven-inch single. Morrissey looked impressed. I put on the b-side...”_Isaac from Modest Mouse_ – “He’s a tough guy, except in his lyrics, where it counts…He got a bottle in the face in a bar fight in Nottingham and his eye swelled up like a duck egg. All he kept saying in the ambulance was, ‘We’re playing Manchester tomorrow, Johnny’s hometown, I have to be there…The [Stone] Roses will be there, Hooky [from New Order] will be there!’ He turned up at the gig with an eye-patch, which he loved…but ‘cause he does a lot of screaming during the songs, we didn’t know whether he was singing lustily, or just in agony.”_The seven-inch single_ – “It’s a mystical object. The degree to which this piece of plastic leaps beyond the boundaries of its physical dimentions is phenomenal. Magical.”_North American music_ –“From 2000 onwards I’ve listened to it almost exclusively.”_James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem and Feist_ – “If I had the chance to work with any contemporary musicians I’d like to work with either of them.”_Modest Mouse_ – “I was a fan before I played with them…I couldn’t tell from their sound, and still can’t, what they’re influences were…They like Irish and English music, but think some of the English bands are a bit…posey.”_Britpop in the 90s_ – “I didn’t like the way British music press denigrated American artists at that time, and tried to make out that the only music worth listening to was English…And I don’t like people waving around the Union Jack, not a fan of nationalism…Some great records came out of it, Blur’s Beetlebum, Pulp’s Common People…but not that many.”_New Order’s Bernard Sumner_ – “The UK’s greatest electronic musician since Aphex Twin came along.”_The “Madchester” music scene_ – “It sounds dramatic to say it, but it was a total revolution, in music, drugs, clothes, and it was happening to my city. I couldn’t believe it, really._Tony Wilson from Factory records_ – “Brilliant, ridiculous man….We wouldn’t sign for Factory and for three years he told everyone I was a shit guitarist . . . I didn’t sign ’cause I didn’t want _my band_ (huge cheers) to sign for the punk pensioners we were railing against…it was only my band that week, by the way.”_On his professional soccer trials with Nottingham Forest_ – “I was the only player with eyeliner, from a gig the night before.”_The creative process_ – “I like working with a partner…somebody who can hear me just strummng a riff and say that’s a song, and I’m like,’It's it?!’…Kirsty McColl and Morrissey were very good at that.”_James Rogan’s book on Morrissey and Marr_ — ” I read it…well, the bits where he talks about me!…he applied his own cynical meanings to things that I did…it said more about him than it did about us.”_Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others_ - "That was my favorite piece of music of mine. Morrissey put a flippant lyric over it, but I always preferred my music with his lyrics, rather than on its own._On being made a Trinity Patron_ — “I never get nervous, but I was nervous tonight without a guitar to hide behind. I allowed myself a manly quiver.”And tantalisingly…_Bands who reform_ – “I’ve nothing against it. Bands reform for different reasons. It really depends on the band. It’s just a gig, it’s not going to effect the band’s place in history.”
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