Fact #170983

Joe Moss (manager, The Smiths) : What was happening before then was very eighties. On the one hand you had variants on the Spandau Ballets and Duran Durans and things like that, all the epic eighties bands - Orchestral Maneouvres, typical 80s-type bands. On the other hand, in Manchester you had more indie bands like Foreign Press, The Chameleons and all the Factory stuff like Certain Ratio. It’s strange looking back. At that time, there was nobody really attempting to come through thrashing at guitars.

Mick Middles (Northern Correspondent, Sounds) : The really big thing happening in Manchester clubs was American-style dance music, which is what The Hacienda had been started for. It was like a New York disco transported to Manchester. Stuff like New Romantic, although it was popular nationally, was marginalised in Manchester to a little place called Pip’s Club underneath the cathedral.

I ran a fanzine in those days and that’s how I first became aware of Morrissey, round about 77, when he started writing to us. He went on to write dozens of letters to the national rock papers – he was the ultimate fan.

He was almost a local joke, always doing something, writing novels, or planning something that would never come off.

Tony Wilson : He was the speccy kid in the corner, the clever little swotty outsider boy, and very brilliant. My first contact with him was when he sent me as a schoolboy, a battered New York Dolls album sleeve and said 'Dear Mr Wilson, why can't there be more bands on television like this?' so I knew him and I actually was encouraging his writing. He wrote a fantastic short play about eating toast and I think he gave it to me and I lost it.

Paul Morley : Morrissey was always laughed at in Manchester … He was the village idiot. That’s the ironic thing – now he’s the poet of a generation. But in those days, he was ‘that one in the corner, Steve The Nutter’.

Tony Wilson : In 1980, Morrissey told me he was going to be a pop star and I said, ‘Steven, write your novel.’ I was very dumb that afternoon. I thought there was no way he’d make a pop star.

Johnny Marr : I was pretty clued up for a seventeen year old.

X Clothes was the trendiest clothes shop in town. We were getting the first ever issues of iD magazine one day, the first Ray Ban shades the next – it was a really big deal and everyone who was anyone came through the shop at some point. Tony Wilson came in one day and unravelled the plans for what was gonna be the Hacienda… I was Johnny from the shop, I knew everybody. They’d nearly all had to suffer the Smiths’ demos I’d play on a practically daily basis in the shop! So we had a pretty hip little audience even at the first gig and some of them knew, at least vaguely, what to expect.

Mike Pickering (DJ, The Hacienda) : I first met Johnny when he worked in a clothes shop called X Clothes in Manchester. I knew Johnny because we used to have a hairdresser's in the basement of the Hacienda called Swing. Andrew Berry was Johnny's best mate, and he used to do all The Smiths' haircuts. That was kind of a meeting place where everyone hung out.

Johnny Marr : I was around the Hacienda all the time. Without my involvement in the Hacienda, the Smiths wouldn’t have had a lot of the resources and insights that we had into what was going on, frankly.

Joe Moss : Johnny very much engineered an introduction to me. He introduced himself as a frustrated musician. I’d known guitarists from 60s Manchester bands, and I’d never heard anything like this kid. My bloody tongue was hanging out. It turned to him telling me that he wanted to put a band together. 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.

Johnny Marr : Joe was a huge influence on my whole musical ethos at the time; he was someone whose opinion I really respected.

Joe Moss : Unlike a lot of people, Johnny was a musician twenty four hours a day. Even in his sleep. He was going somewhere.

The whole thing he was after, it was just there. I remember him playing ‘Tracks of My Tears’. He’s strumming and picking at the same time, he’s got little melodies in there that don’t really exist. It’s as though he’s playing three instruments. I think the kid was about 18 then.

Johnny Marr : We had lot of confidence in our ideas from the word go - and we knew the songs were great. Whether at that point Morrissey or I were expecting it to lead to several Top Of The Pops appearances, the fame and so on… is somewhat questionable, to say the least. The kind of band we intended to be was not necessarily a commercial proposition. We were pretty much informed by the New York Dolls – we never wanted to be a super-straight rock band.

Joe Moss : After a few weeks I went up to the rehearsal room and it was just immediately stunning. It felt unique. Did I have any reservations about Morrissey’s lyrics? God no. Don’t forget the master of putting lyrics that don’t fit to music is Dylan - just listen to Brownsville Girl. Morrissey did it in his way, and he had quite a unique melodic approach, I had no reservations about any aspect. The marriage of those two was so absolutely perfect, it really was like they’d spent the whole of their lives preparing for that.”

Mick Middles : The Ritz was the historic venue in Manchester, dating back to the 1930s and 40s, with a legendary beautifully-sprung dance floor.

Joe Moss (manager, The Smiths) : It was an incredible place: polished ballroom floor, carriages going round with velvet settees in.

Johnny Marr : Our line up for this gig was Morrissey, a guy called Dale Hibbert on bass, Mike Joyce on the drums and me. Dale was someone we knew who worked at a local studio; we press-ganged him into doing it, made him have the haircut and everything. Mike was a friend of someone at X Clothes - the shop where I was working. Previously we’d pleaded with Simon Woolstencroft - who ended up playing drums with the Fall and Ian Brown - but he just wasn’t into the music. Mike kept telling us he was only in temporarily; he was still serious about playing in this other band, Victim.

Joe Moss : That was the very first gig - Johnny got it through his network of mates. We were supporting Blue Rondo.

Chris Sullivan (vocalist, Blue Rondo A La Turk) : This was our first gig outside London. It was before the big push had started on us.

Johnny Marr : The first Smith’s gig was a massive deal for me, mainly because all my mates were there. Not enough to fill up The Ritz by any means, but there were more people there to see us than there were for Blue Rondo A La Turk. Johnny Marr : I remember thinking how enormous The Ritz seemed – and I was only in there the other week and I was surprised by exactly how enormous it isn’t!

The gig was just a premise for us to play. We knew Andrew Berry and John Kennedy, who were general faces about town. They’d staged a couple of fashion show-type things in Manchester and because they’d already done something at The Ritz and had journalistic connections with The Face in London, they’d managed to book both the venue and Blue Rondo for this night – though their ulterior motive was to put us on.

David Johnson (reviewer, the Face) : the Eighties crowd piled into the kitschy Ritz ballroom for an Evening of Pure Pleasure - the kind of live music fashion show that the British don't attempt often enough. The hosts: John Kennedy, capable frontman for the Exit club, and DJ Andrew Berry - both 20 – should be commended for hiring the Ritz from Mecca at a knockdown fee. Musically the event featured Blue Rondo A La Turk and The Smiths, wth half a dozen local designers, Melissa Caplan and Simon Withers wheeled up as token Londoners, plus the touch of decadence Lanchashire loves, a drag artist and a near-naked dance troupe.

Chris Sullivan : The Smiths went on immediately after Hewan, a Latin jazz DJ and they looked out of place, because the audience was largely groovers in zoot suits with pencil moustaches. The band was difficult to nail down. They weren’t punk, new wave, pop or rock, which made them stand out.

Johnny Marr : Also, though we looked pretty much like we did later on, we had James Maker (later lead singer of Raymonde) onstage, dancing in drag.

Richard Boon (manager, The Buzzcocks) : James was in stilettos, go-go dancing and banging a tambourine. He was dispensable. I thought it was pure spare parts – a nice joke, but it didn’t add anything and they didn’t need it.

Johnny Marr : I liked James; he was a friend of Morrissey’s. They were very alike – very literate; men of letters but with an exhibitionist streak… James didn’t last, though; it was soon apparent that Morrissey was a more than strong enough focus as a front man.

Joe Moss : James Maker was part of the band then … I just didn’t know what he was there for.

Initially, Johnny thought it was something that could be really good, but wouldn’t be totally commercial. It was something that would really get him going … he thought it would appeal to the gay crowd … he just knew it would get him known.

Joe Moss : The audience’s reaction was one of surprise. They were mostly there for Blue Rondo. They were a bit taken aback.

Johnny Marr : Blue Rondo was the epitome of that early '80's Hard Time/Demob scene which I was very aware of cos I was in the modern clothing industry. I was into a harder kind of style, RAndB bohemian kind of thing, and Morrissey was into a '50's aesthetic which was very much ahead of its time. So when we saw these guys who were just trendy in a very mainstream sense we knew we were going to wipe the floor with 'em. At the start of The Smiths there was a lot of aesthetic in there, plus all the music - like blues and Brill Building stuff.

Joe Moss : Manchester always used to have this thing where somebody used to have to say, officially, hey, these guys are good, then everyone else is allowed to agree. So the reaction was very cautious. You have to remember, The Smiths did not get big in Manchester - they broke on the road.

Mike Joyce : Blue Rondo were bastards to us. They were the ‘in’ group and we were the local support. We couldn’t use any of their equipment.

Chris Sullivan : They came across to me as very shy, which I suppose was because it was their first gig. We went out of our way to be nice to them. We were in a great mood that night because we were amazed that we could headline somewhere the size of The Ritz outside of London.

Johnny Marr : Blue Rondo were a bunch of dicks: really rude and quite aggressive. They were all midgets too – which probably explains the attitude. In between sound check and going on stage, one of their turned-up-jean-wearing Wag Club dudes came up to us and said, ‘touch any of our gear or move any of those fucking microphones and we’ll be doing you afterwards’… So Morrissey spent most of the gig crouched down at a preposterous angle, singing into their midget height microphone.

Chris Sullivan : I was the lead vocalist and I’m six foot two. Why would I set my mike down low? The other vocalist, Christos Tolera is six foot, and at least three other members of the band are on the six foot mark. The only thing I can think is that he was singing into the sax player’s mike for some reason.

Joe Moss : I have to confess I had a sneaking admiration for Blue Rondo, because they manipulated things brilliantly.

Johnny Marr : A lot of people had turned up just to see if we’d fall through the stage. I knew the Blue Rondo audience wouldn’t give us much of a chance, so we went out there to be really aggressive.

I really had this attitude of, ‘I know you people just want to stand around at the bar posing, but listen to this, you’re not going to hear anything like it again.’ We were really threatening. I think we had to be at that particular time.

We did four songs, including Handsome Devil and Suffer Little Children. I was pretty nervous. Not as nervous as I got later on with the Smiths, mind you. I counteracted it with heaps and heaps of attitude. I knew we were gonna be one fairly confusing prospect for the audience – which I was not unhappy about. I knew there was nothing around that was like us.

Morrissey and I were both hugely into ‘60s girl bands too – but only via what David Johansen let slip in interviews and the Doll’s cover versions. That’s why we did the The Cookies’ song (I Want A Boy For My Birthday) at that first show. It was very Dollsy.

The audience reaction was OK. It was a relatively big venue, so they were hardly swinging from the rafters.

Chris Sullivan : Musically, Johnny Marr stood out for me as the strongest of the four. He had a presence and he was playing interesting licks and intelligent harmonies on the guitar. I could tell Morrissey had good songs with intriguing lyrics. I didn’t dislike it but I had no strong feelings for it.

Joe Moss : It was stunning. Morrissey was just ten foot tall - I had no idea he was going to be that kind of stage performer. In rehearsals he’d been active and putting kind of a show on, but nothing like this, the intensity of it was just - blimey! You realised it was someone who was totally unique there in front of you.

Johnny Marr : The most significant reaction I remember from the first show came from Joe Moss.

Joe Moss : They were absolutely incredible. I mean, there was only one place they were going. Particularly, it was a showcase for Johnny. His guitar just seared out over everything.

Johnny Marr : He (Joe Moss) went into this very uncharacteristic gush about the way I played guitar and that meant an enormous amount to me. It was an important confidence boost and a real foundation stone in the story of the band. We knew we were on to something.