WTM #1140: ME Smith You Fall
wReck thiS meSS ~ Radio Patapoe 88.3 ~Amsterdam
Ethno-Illogical Psycho-Radiographies 28.11.11
Liking Mark E. Smith is not like being a fan of ordinary pop stars like McCartney or Bono. There’s always confusion, moral dilemmas; he’s complex, out front about his contempt for things as they are. Something of a crypto-misanthrope-socialist who appreciates that issues are never as they seem. Appreciating Smith's is like digging Mingus or Miles Davis, also brilliant but likable angry men. Visceral, fleeting, improvisational, ad hoc, unique ... A bastard who actually calls it correctly: the media is often full of nitwit followers of fashion, of surfacey descriptives, of genres and categories, clichés and... He has paid the price / reaped the harvest of his contrariness, his holy grumpiness. Grumpy in my book is the backside of upbeat, grumpy sees the possibility for great things ruined by small minds in big suits.
