Last time Johnny Marr took to the stage at Salford University it was 1986. The Smiths were at the height of their powers and 5,000 people crammed into the venue for the triumphant homecoming gig. Such was the weight of the crowd that night that the Maxwell Hall nearly collapsed and lecture rooms below still bear the scars of the structural repairs.
But it was an all together more dignified affair on Tuesday night when the guitarist returned as a visiting professor at the school of media, music and performance.
This time 1,000 academics, students and fans turned up to hear Professor Marr lecture for more than an hour on the role of mavericks and outsiders in the music industry and with it take a welcome sideswipe at targets including X-Factor and its creator Simon Cowell.
He told aspiring music stars they were marooned in an era of “stultifying uniformity and conformity” and must not rely on a benevolent Svengali “insider” to pluck them from obscurity.
“The British music industry never ever created anything ever. It has never innovated. It has done plenty of good things … but nothing has ever been created of value by the British or American music industries - it has always come from outside,” said Prof Marr now of The Cribs and Modest Mouse.
He said innovation could be found on the internet, among people playing in their bedrooms, in front of their friends at small venues. “They don’t do it on X Factor” he said.
Citing the genius of outsiders often written off as "cranks" by the mainstream among them Les Paul, Bob Marley, Malcolm McLaren, Andrew Oldham, Brian Epstein and of course Tony Wilson, he said too many people considered the music industry to be “a place". He said: “In this place is a world that is entirely made up of shagpile carpet and soft lights and people driving round in silent, posh, big cars and a lot of money that goes straight in your pocket. What I am describing is Simon Cowell’s house and I’m not sure that really exists. They think it is this mystical place where you are happy but that is only in bad magazines and on television. That is a world that lasts for 12 weeks and stops on Christmas Eve.”
Marr also spoke about his relationship with Morrissey. “People have this idea that (it) was fraught but it only became fraught when it stopped. For five years you would have been hard pushed to find two people who were as telepathically tight,” he said.
Jonathan Brown
2:10 PM | 05/11/2008
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