Morrissey Central: Blue Rondo A La Turk

BLUE RONDO A LA TURK - Morrissey Central
July 8, 2019

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"I liked them because they seemed two jumps ahead of everyone else. The mere sight of them suggested big league, but they didn't quite get that far. They were one of the very few groups that the Smiths supported, but there was a scepticism about them being just 'club models' … who asked and got. This was said also about very early Roxy Music … who appeared to be quite affluent before they'd even had a hit. With Blue Rondo, again, you suspected that they were given all of their fantastic suits for free whilst the rest of us had to dream of being able to buy SOMETHING that didn't look TOO abysmal. The main electric spark was their dancing which was very virile and athletic … and even though they came from the Blitz/Billy's scene they seemed like supermale prizefighters or nightclub heavies … deep-chested vocals, narrow-hipped, and very much a man's, man's, man's, man's world. I don't think a sudden tussle would trouble them in the least. But their songs were not about the curves of seductive women - or even about women … as if women might even lack some essential excitement. It's a safe bet that they couldn't stand the Smiths … me singing about not even a glimmer of adventure sex. But that was 1982 or, for me, 1947. Their companion Robert Elms described me as "Ena Sharples". I was actually flattered because Violet Carson, I thought, was extremely funny. You know how comedians or comic actors think that if they show lots of teeth people will think they're saying something hilarious … when of course they aren't? Well, Violet Carson kept her teeth well hidden. Maybe she had none? How did I get from Blue Rondo a la Turk to Violet Carson?
Oh. Well, Blue Rondo were a London band … which was obvious to us because they actually had shoes. I don't think their songs were as good as ours, but our shoes weren't as good as theirs, so, there we are.
They quickly went away and didn't return. I don't know if it's even possible to find their music anymore, but it certainly wouldn't hurt the ear. I think some of Blue Rondo were from the West Indies whereas of course all of the Smiths were born at the Manchester Scabies & Gripe Maternity Hospital."

Morrissey 7 July 2019, talking to himself (for … what choice?)

* sorry, I have no idea who took the above photograph.


Amusing musings from Moz about the first Smiths-support act.


Note posted by an anonymous person:

Actually, it was the other way around. The Smiths supported them. It was their first live show ever on 4 October 1982 at the Ritz.
 
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Just to prove how mental the world has gone I see poor sheriff hopper is getting it bad via social media then as the media now report on social media... Despite being a fictional character who was a bit upset at being stood up in a sci iTV show....
 
It's very troubling because of the reason why his European tour was cancelled not due to political opposition, but as he said, "The tour could not go ahead because it wasn’t insured." Tour insurance is a very big deal. With his penchant for cancelling shows, he is a bad risk. It's a wonder he can still get insurance at all for the U.S. tour.
I think the biggest threat to the US Tour or any Tour is going to be the audience. Moz will certainly walk off stage at the very first instant of anyone in the audience shouting something unpleasant or throwing something at him.

In a smaller and higher prized venue like on Broadway the chances of that happening are slim. But in these larger sized venues where he shares a bill with another artist whose fans may not all be on his side (never mind his own fans),the chances of something like this happening are big.
 
Moz writes a short, entertaining piece on an old band he likes and the morons from this cesspool of a forum turns it into 200+ posts about fascism and whether or not Moz is ‘’finished’. My Lord...
 
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Yeah, he'll be a corpse someday, incapable of any further verbal diarrhea, and he'll get fans who weren't alive or at least aware of his nonsense. And then they will look him up online, read his history. To many, there will be a huge disconnect between the music and the man, and it will bother them as well, but to others, they will just sing along and ignore it because they weren't there to witness the decline in real time.
I'm sure people will look back and say what a brave, unique star he was, to be able to stand by his beliefs and not be afraid to speak out about them in a world that had gone completely mad.
 
I think this is another of Morrisseys mists of time things where reality doesn't live up to the memory, Blue Rondo Ala Turk, disappeared because they were shockingly poor.
 
there is a blue rondo á la turk compilation on spotify, if anyone wants to check them out.
 
He doesn't praise their music so much as their suits/appearance.
Anyway, it was a nice moment in history when The Smiths shared a stage with a band so unlike them.
Blue Rondo turned into Matt Bianco and had quite a few hits as a sophisti-pop-band actually.
 
He doesn't praise their music so much as their suits/appearance.
Anyway, it was a nice moment in history when The Smiths shared a stage with a band so unlike them.
Blue Rondo turned into Matt Bianco and had quite a few hits as a sophisti-pop-band actually.

Does anyone remember that The Smiths were offered the opportunity to open for The Police and Morrissey turned it down? Can't help but wonder what that would have done for them back then?
 
Does anyone remember that The Smiths were offered the opportunity to open for The Police and Morrissey turned it down? Can't help but wonder what that would have done for them back then?
Never heard the story, but Google says support on the UK leg of the only tour by the Police it could have been was a band called Passionate Friends. So maybe supporting the Police wasn't such a gold ticket.
 
Yes, The Smiths declined with Morrissey saying "The Smiths are more important than The Police will ever be.”
 
It's not the "media", it's social media. Each person speaking their mind, parroting other's ideas, every person has a platform now - that's what's changed. Things get around lightning fast. If someone says "Morrissey is a racist. We stan Johnny Marr" on Twitter - that's enough. No one looks deeper than that and it's gone way viral, so much so that the Morrissey "brand" has probably been damaged for good. Don't underestimate Twitter, it got the current U.S. "President" elected.

Yes, the world has changed,

Morrissey hasn’t.
 
It is going to be a real test, no one knows what is going to happen.
It will start, I think, but it will almost certainly not finish with all dates completed.


The tour will be such a success possibly even extended to the far reaches of the galaxies!!!


Kidding aside...


With this central post and the other with his top 10 records that he listened to religiously as a teenager and most likely still does, I think he’s just reminding himself what’s important to him in spite of the recent hoo-ha over his comments.


It’s always going to be about the music.
 
Yeah, he'll be a corpse someday, incapable of any further verbal diarrhea, and he'll get fans who weren't alive or at least aware of his nonsense. And then they will look him up online, read his history. To many, there will be a huge disconnect between the music and the man, and it will bother them as well, but to others, they will just sing along and ignore it because they weren't there to witness the decline in real time.

I was thinking politically but artistically yeah.

Nationalism will either triumph or it will be completely crushed. If nationalism triumph, Morrissey will probably have statues built for him and schools named after him for being one of the early martyrs for the Cause.
However, even if the globalists triumph and nationalism is crushed, after a period of time when the threat is a faded memory, people excuse eccentric artists as being "products of their time" and the kind of people who are into "old stuff" know it's unfair to judge people of the past by the moral standards of today and cut people a lot of slack. People still read Ezra Pound. There's still an audience for old Disney and WB cartoons which weren't exactly PC.

Charlie Chaplin married two 16-year-old (pregnancy scares both times). He would be a pedophile by today's standards but 16-year-olds marrying older men wasn't unheard of at the time. Chaplin was kind of a degenerate and a communist to boot and public opinion eventually turned on him.
And yet there's still a niche audience for movies of his era and if you're one of them, you can't just pretend like Chaplin never happened. Chaplin represented everything I am against but I can't deny that he was incredibly talented. I'm not a diehard fan but I'll watch The Gold Rush or The Circus if it comes on. Not the commie stuff though.
 
 
Yes, The Smiths declined with Morrissey saying "The Smiths are more important than The Police will ever be.”

I miss the days when he was ridiculously arrogant like this and it was fabulous, because it was true and he could actually back it up.

Today it would be - it's an industry conspiracy, it's the fault of the mainstream media...I'm simply too special and subversive to get airtime...I blame the Guardian, I blame the label, I blame the planet...
 
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This is funny......I remember reading JM calling them a load of wankers for not letting them use their stage gear.

Yep, a 'bunch of midgets' with a 'midget-height microphone' no less!
 
I miss the days when he was ridiculous arrogant like this and it was fabulous, because it was true and he could actually back it up.

Today it would be - it's an industry conspiracy, it's the fault of the mainstream media...I'm simply too special and subversive to get airtime...I blame the Guardian, I blame the label, I blame the planet...
Nah he still is this ridiculously arrogant.

And during The Smiths he also blamed anyone but himself for The Smiths not being the biggest band on the planet. Just ask Geoff Travis
 
Nah he still is this ridiculously arrogant.

And during The Smiths he also blamed anyone but himself for The Smiths not being the biggest band on the planet. Just ask Geoff Travis

The point is, he can't back that up now.
 

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