Morrissey in new NME "Race Row"

[My First Kev]

Anyone read this? i rarely buy the NME but being a lifelong Moz/Smiths fan i picked it up this week.

Some pretty toe curling opinons on immigration from the Mozfather. He pretty much comes across like Jermery Clarkson or some other right leaning middle aged journo nitwit.

In his defence the interview does seem rather sensatonalist. Morrissey seems to be making some point about national identity and how other countries manage to maintian it with liberal immigration policy yet england seems to be "un-english" these days. complete naive rubbish - especialy considering the man hasn't lived in Britain for the best part of two decades. But hardly a rally call for the BNP, as the interview implies.

meh, much like Clarkson i'll contiue to appretiate Morrissey for what he does best rather than his embarrassing political opinions. Its still a shame to see someone i've long admired spouting such tripe though.

[My First Kev]

just read he's sueing them for defamation

Morrissey sues NME for defamation | UK | Reuters

[Kierkegaard]

Another case of Morrissey almost getting it right, but then saying something very, very wrong. It's like he's the living embodiment of the Father Ted racism episode.

[kj]

The NME article concluded: "Morrissey, the son of immigrants who has lived for most of the past decade in LA or Rome, wants others to have the freedom to travel the world like him, but implies he would shut the gate to people coming to live in the UK. At the very least it smacks of a naive hypocrisy, but mostly sounds more like the ravings of a rogue Tory MP."

[Johnny5]

He's been completely shafted by Conor McNicholas in my opinion.

And i don't even like Morrissey

[kj]

I have to say I don't think he meant it in a racist sort of way. It kinda seems like they might have twisted it around especially given the tone the interview takes with the interviewer throwing in his own opinions at the end.

[RiseAgainst]

yeah does seem to be quite sensationalist at the end, seems the interviewer had an agenda before it started and he got what he wanted

[kj]

Still, I think anyone who criticizes the country despite not actually living here is a cock. That dude needs to get off his high horse. I feel the same way about Sean Connery.

[bobby]

NME is all "love music hate racism lolz" at the moment, obviously morrissey is not cool in their eyes right now and thus they're assimilating him with racists. By the same token; the view were fighting the good fight to get racism out of music a few weeks ago- can't say i remember them having any particular political stance or even defined opinion before now, and obviously we've all watched them rise from lowly beginnings to the "heady heights" they're currently straddling.......

[ProzaK]

i'd love to be famous, you can say stuff like 'i think muslims are silly', (keeping it pg) then you sue whoever publishes/broadcasts it for 'twisting your words'/editting so it's out of context.

i'm not saying that that's what Moz is saying, he doesn't register with me because i've ever listened to his music. i'm just making a point.

[RiseAgainst]

they should do an interview with Lauryn Hill

[Robin]

Originally Posted by johnny?

He's been completely shafted by Conor McNicholas in my opinion.

And i don't even like Morrissey

If you look at the article it says "Interview: Tim Jonze, Words: NME", apparently Tim Jonze didn't like the finished product after the sub-editing team had mangled it and asked for his name to be removed. So the bits at the start and end are by the editorial team, putting a spin on the words after he's said them.

Having read it, he's isn't directly accused of racism, merely of being out of touch with the NME readership. However, they do lump him in with the BNP and Enoch Powel which is a bit....... disturbing, really.

I don't agree with what Morrissey says, but that doesn't mean its racist. Nor is it that inflammatory, the headline should read: "aging indie singer doesn't want to live in England as it doesn't resemble stupidly archaic vision of nation in said singers head". Now THAT would be an issue of the NME worth reading!

The best thing thats come out of this is that a load of people used to decent journalism have picked up the NME and said "jeebus this is a load of tripe these days".

[My First Kev]

Morrissey in todays Gaurdian

I won't let this pass: Morrissey defends stance in immigration row with NME

and a personal statement from his website:

On Friday of last week I issued writs against the NME (New Musical Express) and its editor Conor McNicholas as I believe they have deliberately tried to characterise me as a racist in a recent interview I gave them in order to boost their dwindling circulation.

I abhor racism and oppression or cruelty of any kind and will not let this pass without being absolutely clear and emphatic with regard to what my position is.

Racism is beyond common sense and I believe it has no place in our society.

To anyone who has shown or felt any interest in my music in recent times, you know my feelings on the subject and I am writing this to apologize unreservedly for granting an interview to the NME. I had no reason whatsoever to assume that they could be anything other than devious, truculent and unreliable. In the event, they have proven to be all three.

The NME have, in the past, offered me their “Godlike Genius Award” and I had politely refused. With the Tim Jonze interview, the Award was offered once again, this time with the added request that I headline their forthcoming awards concert at the O2 Arena, and once again I declined it. This is nothing personal against the NME, although the distressing article would suggest the editor took it as such. My own view is that award ceremonies in pop music are dreadful to witness and are simply a way of the industry warning the artist "see how much you need us" - and, yes, the "new" NME is very much integrated into the industry, whereas, deep in the magazine's empirical history, the New Musical Express was a propelling force that answered to no one. It led the way by the quality of its writers – Paul Morley, Julie Burchill, Paul du Noyer, Charles Shaar Murray, Nick Kent, Ian Penman, Miles – who would write more words than the articles demanded, and whose views saved some of us, and who pulled us all away from the electrifying boredom of everything and anything that represented the industry. As a consequence the chanting believers of the NME could not bear to miss a single issue; the torrential fluency of its writers left almost no space between words, and the NME became a culture in itself, whereas Melody Maker or Sounds just didn't. Into the 90s, the NME's discernment and polish became faded nobility, and there it died – but better dead than worn away. The wit imitated by the 90s understudies of Morley and Burchill assumed nastiness to be greatness, and were thus rewarded. But nastiness isn't wit and no writers from the 90s NME survive. Even with sarcasm, irony and innuendo there is an art, of sorts. Now deep in the bosom of time, it is the greatness of the NME's history on which the “new” NME assumes its relevance.

It is on the backs of writers such as Morley, Burchill, Kent and Shaar Murray that the "new" NME hitches its mule-cart, assuming equal relevance. But the stalled views of the "new" NME sag, and readers have been driven away by a magazine with no insides. The narrow cast of repeated subjects sets off the agony, a mesmerizing mess of very brief and dispassionate articles unable to make thought evolve; a marooned editor who holds the divine right to censor any views that clash with his own.

The editorial treatment given to my present interview with the "new" NME is the latest variation on an old theme, but like a pre-dawn rampage, the effects of the interview have been meticulously considered with obvious intentions. It is true that the magazine is ailing badly in the market place, but Conor doesn't understand how the relentless stream of "cheers mate, got pissed last night, ha ha" interviews that clutter every single issue of the "new" NME are simply not interesting to those of us who have no trouble standing upright. Strangely enough, my own name is the only one featured in the "new" NME that links their present with the NME's distant past, therefore a Morrissey interview is an ideal opportunity with which to play the editorial naughtiness game.

This, regrettably, is what has taken place with this most recent interview, which, it need hardly be said, bears no relation in print to the fleshly conversation that took place.

I do not mean to be rude to Tim Jonze, but when I first caught sight of him I assumed that someone had brought their child along to the interview. The runny nose told the whole story. Conor had assured that Tim was their best writer. Talking behind his hands in an endless fidget, Tim accepted every answer I gave him with a schoolgirl giggle, and repeatedly asked me if I was shocked at how little he actually knew about music. I told him that, yes, I was shocked. It was difficult for me to believe that the best writer from the “new” NME had never heard of the song 'Drive-in Saturday'; I explained that it was by David Bowie, and Tim replied “Oh, I don't know anything about David Bowie.” I wondered how it could be so – how the quality of music journalism in England could have fallen so low that the prime “new” NME writer knew nothing of David Bowie, an artist to whom most relevant British artists are indebted, and one who single-handedly changed British culture – musically and otherwise.

Tim's line of questioning advanced with: "What about politics, then ... the state of the world?" - which, I was forced to assume, was a well-thought-out question. It was from here that the issue of immigration - but not racism - arose.

Me: If you walk down Knightsbridge you’ll be hard-pressed to hear anyone speaking English.

Tim: I don't think that's true. You’re beginning to sound like my parents.

Me: Well, when did you last walk down Knightsbridge?

Tim: Ummm.... Knightsbridge ....is that where Harrods is?

So, Tim was prepared to attack and argue the point without even being clear about where Knightsbridge actually is! The "new" NME strikes again. Oh dear, I thought, not again.

I chose to mention Knightsbridge because it had always struck me as one of the most stiffly British spots in London. I am sorry Tim, but you are not yet ready to interview anyone responsibly.

When my comments are printed in the "new" NME they are butchered, re-designed, re-ordered, chopped, snipped and split in order to make me seem racist and unreasonable. Tim had told me about his friend who did not like the 1991 song Bengali In Platforms because the friend had thought the song attacked him on a personal level. I explained to Tim that the song was not about his friend. In print, the "new" NME do not explain this, but attempt to multiply the horror of Tim's friend by attributing "these people" and "those people" quotes to me - terms I would never use, but are useful to the "new" NME in their Morrissey-is-racist campaign because these terms are only used by people who are cold and indifferent and Thatcherite. All of the people I spoke to Tim about in the interview who are heroes to me and who are Middle-Eastern or of other ethnic backgrounds were of no interest to either Tim or Conor. Clearly, Tim had been briefed and his agenda was to cook up a sensational story that would give life to the "new" NME as a must-read national if not global shock-horror story. Recalling how Tim asked me to sign some CD covers, I do not blame him entirely. If Conor can provoke bureaucratic outrage with this Morrissey interview, then he can whip up support for his righteous position as the morally-bound and armoured editor of his protected readership - even though, by re-modelling my interview into a multiple horror, Conor has accidentally exposed himself as deceitful, malicious, intolerant and Morrissey-ist -all the ist's and ism's that he claims to oppose. Uniquely deprived of wisdom, Conor would be repulsed by my vast collection of World Cinema films, by my adoration of James Baldwin, my love of Middle-Eastern tunings, Kazem al-Saher, Lior Ashkenazi, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and he would be repulsed to recall a quote as printed in his magazine in or around August of this year wherein I said that my ambition was to play concerts in Iran.

My heart sank as Tim Jonze let slip the tell-all editorial directive behind this interview: "It's Conor's view that Morrissey thinks black people are OK ...but he wouldn't want one living next door to him." It was then that I realized the full extent of the setup, and I felt like Bob Hoskins in the final frame of The Long Good Friday as he sits in the back of the wrong getaway car realizing the extent of the conspiratorial slime that now trapped him.

During the interview Tim asked if I would support the "Love Music Hate Racism” campaign that the NME had just written about and my immediate response was a yes as I had shown my support previously by going to one of their first benefit gigs a few years ago and had met some of their organizers as well as having signed their statement. Following the interview I asked my manager to get in touch with the NME and to pledge my further support to the campaign as I wanted there to be no ambiguity on where I stood on the subject. This was done in a clear and direct email to Conor McNicholas on the 5th of November, which went ignored and last week we found out that it had never even been presented to anyone at the campaign as that would obviously not have suited what we now know to be the NME’s agenda. I am pleased to say that we have now had direct dialogue with "Love Music Hate Racism" and all of our UK tour advertising in 2008 will carry their logo and we will also be providing space in the venues for them to voice and spread their important message, which I endorse.

Who's to say what you should or shouldn't do? The IPC have appointed Conor as the editor of the "new" NME, and there he remains, ready to drag the IPC into expensive legal battles such as the one they now face with me due to Conor's personal need to misstate, misreport, misquote, misinterpret, falsify, and incite the bloodthirsty. Here is proof that the "new" NME will twist and pervert the views of any singer or musician who'd dare step into the interview ring. To such artists, I wish them well, but I would advise you to bring your lawyer along to the interview.

My own place, now and forevermore, shall not be with the "new" NME - and how wrong my face even looks on its cover. Of this, I am eternally grateful.

MORRISSEY