Do you wonder what Conor McNicholas is up to these days?

What happens to former NME editors?

Conor McNicholas, he of the double Andrew WK cover era, is doing this sort of thing:

Businesses need to "get radical" and change the structure of their business if they are to succeed in the new networked world, according to Conor McNicholas, the chief executive at AllTogetherNow.
[...]
McNicholas used the example of Barclays setting up an editorial board to bring together the different communications departments. He worked with Barclays at his previous employer Redwood.

Barclays put a router at the centre of the business with a representative from each department that met weekly to sign off joint actions.
[...]
He said: "At the heart of the editorial board is the concept of a shared culture. It creates a neutral space that allows those involved to bring opportunities or projects to the group and work on them together, no more meeting on your turf or mine."

McNicholas encouraged delegates to embrace the new networked world and "start kicking the shins" of the way things have always been done.

One day you're telling people that Party Hard is the greatest thing ever; the next you're punting a minor change in the comms strategy at a big bank as the revolution of our lifetimes. That's life right there, isn't it?

CORRECTION: This post would have worked a lot better if Conor McNicholas had been editing the NME at the time of the Andrew WK cover; actually it was Ben Knowles. And to be totally fair, he did put Fucked Up on the cover.

Morrissey invites fans to support him at the High Court

A date has been set for the Morrissey versus NME & Conor McNicholas court case, where Steven will claim that the NME altered quotes from him to make him look a little bit racist.

His website invites people to drop by:

In light of the NME's refusal to apologize to Morrissey for fabricating parts of their 2007 interview with him in order to make Morrissey appear to be racist, the High Court hearing of Morrissey -vs- Conor McNicholas and IPC/NME now has a set date of July 16, 17, 18 and 19. Anyone wishing to offer support to Morrissey should make their presence known outside the High Court in London on these dates.

What? Does he think he's Michael Jackson or something? Are people meant to take doves to set free if the verdict goes his way?

It's one thing for people to turn up to show their support, but actively seeking people to stand around outside with placards pledging "MORRISSEY ISN'T RACIST YOU'RE JUST APPLYING A SUPERFICIAL READING TO BENAGLI IN PLATFORMS AND THE NATIONAL FRONT DISCO" is a bit tacky, isn't it?

Especially since it doesn't seem like Morrissey will have much time to acknowledge the crowds:

These newly finalized dates clash with Morrissey concerts throughout Europe, and although no concerts will be cancelled, Morrissey will be required to fly in and fly out of London to attend each hearing on each day.

It's the week before the Olympics, I can't forsee any possible difficulty in whisking in and out of airports on a tight schedule.

If True To You is right, the NME's case is going to be interesting, as apparently they've offered to say sorry:

The NME recently offered to apologize to Morrissey by offering space on nme.com, but not within the printed magazine. This offer was rejected as disproportionate to the damage done to Morrissey by the NME magazine itself.

I think the apology would probably have been seen by more people if it was on nme.com, given the way sales are going, but it's a strange gambit - you're prepared to defend your statements in the High Court, but happy to apologise for them online. We'll find out their plan come July.

Morrissey to put his case to a jury - perhaps

So Judge Tugendhat has allowed Morrissey to bring the four year old racism spat before a London jury.

Morrissey is excited:

In a written statement issued by his solicitor after the hearing, Morrissey said: "In 2007 the NME viciously attacked me and labeled me a racist and a hypocrite.

"Last week they sought to avoid facing me in court to settle the matter once and for all.

"I am delighted that the NME's attempt to stifle my claim was unsuccessful and that as a result I will be able to use the very public forum of the high court in London to clear my name, loud and clear for all to hear."

The NME also says that it looks forward to the battle:

An NME spokeswoman said: "NME recently sought to strike out Morrissey's claim on grounds of a lengthy delay. After almost four years, we are glad that the matter will now proceed to trial and we will finally get the opportunity to bring this matter to a close."

It's potentially a bigger risk for Morrissey than it is for the magazine - because if he loses, he'll actually have been proved a racist in court, which is the sort of thing it's hard to come back from, while, if he wins, he'll still have what he said, if not the NME's interpretation and selection, to contend with.

The biggest risk for the NME is that there might be a Smiths reunion at some point.

The judge himself says he wouldn't be surprised if matters get settled out of court.

Morrissey remembers he's meant to be suing the NME

Four years ago, when the NME ran Morrissey's comments about the country being "flooded", the singer threatened to sue the NME for making him look like a racist. At the time, he ended up only suing The Word, who apologised in court for referencing the comments.

And that seemed to be that.

Until yesterday, when Morrissey's people and the NME turned up in court. MediaGuardian reports:

Lawyers for the former Smiths frontman told the high court on Monday that the singer "continues to suffer" reputational damage from a controversial interview he gave to NME magazine four years ago in which he complained about an "immigration explosion" leading to a loss of British identity.

The court hearing was to decide if Morrissey could bring an action against IPC and the then-editor of NME, Conor McNicholas. Morrissey contends that the piece remains a blot on his character; the IPC team counter that he hasn't seemed that bothered up until now:

However, lawyers for McNicholas and the NME told the court the claim should be struck out. Catrin Evans, acting for the magazine, claimed that financial difficulties, a legal dispute in the US and an acrimonious fallout with his then manager had "distracted" Morrissey from pursuing his claim against NME.

Morrissey threatened legal action against the magazine in November 2007, days after the interview was published.

According to Evans, the singer dropped the complaint for three years before recently reigniting the row. "The court can infer from this that there has been such a delay that is not a genuine bid for vindication," Evans said. "[The claim] simply didn't figure at the forefront of his mind."

Evans claimed that Morrissey "by his own actions" has provoked "more topical" accusations of racism – including an interview with the Guardian in September 2010 in which he described Chinese people as a "subspecies" – since the NME article was published.

Part of the IPC case is that Morrissey continues to tour and sell records, and that his fanbase seems undiminished as a result of the article - the "nobody pays much attention to the NME" defence.

MediaGuardian ends with this:

McNicholas, whose seven-year editorship of the NME was characterised largely by the well-publicised row, was in court for the three-hour hearing on Monday. The hearing continues on Tuesday.

To be fair, when you think of McNicholas' period at the NME, it's surely the vanishing circulation that you think of first, isn't it?

Folding magazines: Misery all round

So, this is how the Conor McNicholas era at the NME ends - not with a bang, but with a hacking cough and a death rattle.

When Conor took over the magazine in June 2002, circulation stood at 70,456. Today's ABC figures put the number of copies sold at 40,948. To be fair, though, there is still a weekly magazine being put out, and that in itself is something of an achievement.

Elsewhere in the music magazine sector, not only is NME behind Kerrang but - as that title's circulation falls - Kerrang has dropped behind Metal Hammer.

Q is still the most-purchased music title, but having lost 11.5% of its readers over the last twelve months, while Mojo has "only" misplaced 8.1% means that Q's lead over its stablemate is down to just 2,450 copies.

Breaking news: Conor McNicholas leaves NME for Top Gear

Conor McNicholas, who has been at NME for what feels like a country age, is leaving - he's moving to the BBC Worldwide magazine division, where he's going to take control of Top Gear magazine. It's unlikely Andrew WK will get a double cover there.

No word on who might step up to edit the NME.

Mini Liveblog: McNicholas and Mulligan on copyright

Today are doing the Pirate Bay case with Mark Mulligan of Forrester Research and Conor McNicholas, still editor of the NME. Interestingly, nobody from a record company, or the BPI, or PRS, then.

Mulligan cautions that there's a danger in mixing lawyers and copyright - "results are unpredictable and inconvenient", effectively suggesting the best the RIAA can hope for is a useless Pyrrhic victory.

Conor keeps insisting the Pirate Bay case is like "putting your finger in a dam" - it was always a dyke when I was a kid, but I think, on balance, Conor's imagery of trying to hold back a mighty river rather than plug a gentle polder might be more apt in this case.

He suggests that internally, record companies are accepting they need new ways of handling copyright - and then runs out a brief, polished run through of why recorded music copyright is a twentieth century anomaly and doomed to vanish. Interestingly, this hasn't actually made an NME cover story, has it? I wonder if that's because it might be hard persuading record companies to take advertising around an obituary.

Mulligan then suggests that Spotify is the opposite of the Pirate Bay case, although that would imply that it's also an initiative taken by the record companies rather than just something they responded to differently.

Conor didn't have very much to do.

Straight after this feature, the business news did a piece on Record Store Day.

Morrissey owns this town

The eye-opening thing about the story which saw Conor McNicholas being made to move hotels when he found himself booked in to the same one as Morrissey is not the NME's "well, he got a better room out of it anyway" response, but the cheerful admission by Morrissey's team how niggling and pathetic their man is:

Merck Mercuriadis, Morrissey's spokesperson, says, "I have a very good relationship with the hotel, and when I explained the situation they agreed it would not be appropriate for Conor to stay."

Now, we can understand that, perhaps, Mozzer might not want to swan into the breakfast room and see Conor shoving his Wheaties into his mouth. But having him ejected is the work of a small man - the appropriate behaviour is to move yourself.

What the pop papers say: Week two of the bravest new world

Let's cut Conor some slack, shall we? Okay, last week his vision of a post-boy guitar band NME would have been scuppered by the Coldplay exclusive.

This week, of course, was the chance to show what a magazine turning away from the lads' bands would look like. Indeed, heavily trailed in last week's edition was what we should expect this week: Scarlett Johansson. Should be fascinating - a chance to try and get to grips with her surprising album, to see Hollywood royalty being up-front about their attempts to try and turn themselves into a left-field pop act. There are many questions to be asked. Much to be said. And at least it's not one of those bloody guitar-blokes we see so much of.

But what's this as the magazine falls to the floor? Big picture of Pete Doherty on the cover, under a white stripe promising Noel Gallagher banging on about those Oasis leaks.

Business as bloody usual, in other words. There's even space found for more some pages of Pete's latest prison diary. Where his last book was self-indulgent me-wank, the next one looks to be so half-arsed and so clearly just knocked up to have something to tout around the publishers, it makes those Christmas books that parody Harry Potter novels look like Ulysses.

Still, Conor slaps himself on the back for the "overwhelmingly positive" feedback to the new look magazine, and they're promising Scarlett J again for next week. Holding over such a big scoop to give the cover to Doherty's latest mea culpa seems to be a fatal decision, though.

What the pop papers say: NME new all over again

How many relaunches has Conor McNicholas overseen now? He surely must have signed off more new designs for the paper than the title has had editors, with this week yet another relaunch hitting the shelves. To be honest, though, if it didn't tell you it was a relaunch and it didn't have a "new-look NME" welcome letter from Conor, you wouldn't notice overmuch. The hope is that they didn't spend very much money on it, because it's such pointless fiddling it's unlikely to add a single sale. It's unlikely to stop the audience ebbing away, either.

A couple of weeks ago, Conor announced through his editor's letter that the era of the samey-sounding guitar band was over, which makes the decision to relaunch with a deadly dull Coldplay cover, complete with eyewatering interview and free seven inch single of their new stuff. This, Conor says, "sounds eerily like The Stone Roses" - it doesn't, of course, but it's interesting that the way forward for the NME in this age of new, exciting different music is to put a decade-old band on the cover and talk of them in terms of a two-decade old band.

We've argued in the past that the NME should be less obsessed with chasing teenaged readers who don't care that much about music and focus on readers of all ages who love music, but the idea of just hammering together an obvious canon and dressing it up as heritage isn't what we had in mind - the constant churning of Sex Pistols/Clash/Roses/Oasis/Coldplay/Beatles seems less like a magazine which feels comfortable with pop history, more like a title that is clinging to a catechism. There are some hints of a smarter magazine trying to find its way out. Hamish McBain, at least, has a good stab at trying to write about music in a way that escapes the day trip to Mount Rushmore in the Roots column, turning in as strong a defence of Graceland as anyone could manage in fifty words; Jaimie Hodgson reports on the "return of riot grrrl", co-opting Heavenly into the original version - arguable, but at least there's a mention of Heavenly in the NME for the first time in a decade. It'd be nice to think we'll see more of this in the future, although probably not.

New features? Not so much - indeed, the "new" ideas are just old ones resurrected. To be honest, we're not sure if the 'article by pop star/article by writer' pairing of topical pieces had been dropped before, but if it had, it's been revived; Thrills' throwaway That Perpetual Motion has been dusted down and reborn as 12 Steps. The design has been tweaked, slightly - much, much more of the yellow that marketing departments believe people want.

But the real problem is the value. The magazine is £2.20 a week now. Two pounds twenty. That's more than the bloody Financial Times. At the weekend. Or The Obserber, which one a month comes with a better music magazine.

There's also about 34 pages of advertising, if you count plugs for other parts of the NME empire. Out of 76 pages in total. So, you're paying five pence for each page of content - hardly a compelling option for the casual buyer. Maybe the logical thing to do would be to abandon charging - perhaps except for subscribers, who could pay to ensure their supply - and try to build the readership that way. It might make more long-term sense than another relaunch every six months.

NME commits to a new future

In this week's NME, Conor McNicholas makes it clear that we're living in a year zero:

The domination of skinny-jeaned, vest-wearing, jangly indie-boys is coming to an end ... Bands releasing their second albums of nice music for your mum [...] is very, very bad news.

Blimey. At last. The NME has decided the dull indie guitar band must die. So... what's the answer?

We've now got our answer:

NME to give away new Coldplay songs free

A free Coldplay 7-inch vinyl single will be given away with the issue of NME that comes out on May 7. The vinyl will include 'Violet Hill', a song that will appear on the forthcoming LP.

So, the nice-music-for-your-mum band is dead - long live the painfully-nice-music-for-your-Gran band.

An internet diversion

Have you ever wondered what Conor McNicholas carries in his handbag?

Conor McNicholas and his media

We know he meant it in jest, but there was something telling about Conor McNicholas' explanation of his magazine habits in Monday's MediaGuardian:

There are lots of magazines I read from a work point of view because I'm constantly looking for good ideas to steal.

Wouldn't the world be a happier place if he was reading magazines to see who was stealing his ideas?

More interesting is his take on new media:

But I've almost completely given up on MySpace and Facebook already. They're really great fun for three weeks, but I just don't have the time any more. If you're 15 years old, though, and fantastically self-obsessed, they're a brilliant invention.

Alas, space is not on hand for him to explain if he also sees users of the NME's social networking tool, MyNME, as "self-obsessed" fifteen year-olds.

Bragg: Morrissey shouldn't sue

Billy Bragg, writing for the The Guardian about the Morrissey/NME spat, comes out broadly in favour of the NME's right to publish:

From a man whose whole career has been based on the articulation of sensitivity and victimhood, this is more than just heavy-handedness. Any court case will only result in his questionable assertions on immigration being aired anew - something you'd imagine he'd want to avoid. He may hope, in going to law, to shut the NME up, wait until the fuss dies down and quietly withdraw the writ. But that has been the tactic down the ages of those wealthy folk who are self-centred enough to believe that they are above criticism.

In other news, Andrew Collins spent Saturday at a Royal Festival Hall event marking Billy Bragg's fiftieth birthday. Guess who turned out:

There were two NME editors in the room: Neil Spencer, now a registered astrologer of course, and Conor McNicholas, who was unsurprisingly tired of talking about Morrissey, but in good spirits otherwise.

Morrissey: "I'm not a racist"

Morrissey has issued a statement denying everything:

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.

Although, of course, McNicholas stressed in the paper that they didn't think he was "a racist", but then this is an argument where close attention to detail should be important, but just isn't happening.

Take, for example, the constant conflating on all sides of "a racist person" - someone whose political beliefs have an element built on the supposed superiority of some races, and "something being racist" - a thought or an action which has been dictated by an awareness of racial difference rather than because the architect of that action is "a racist." Nobody much believes that Morrissey is a racist, but much of his thought on immigration is racist. It's very easy for Morrissey to stand up and say "I'm not a racist" - but that, really, isn't the point:

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.

Which is clear, and unequivocal, and heartfelt.

Mozzer suggests he's being stitched up because he turned down the chance to headline an NME gig:

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.

That's quite a bold claim: that Conor McNicholas has been motivated purely by malice.

Although quite how McNicholas' malice would lead Morrissey to start talking about immigration isn't clear.

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.

We're not entirely sure why Morrissey is so keen to share the history of the NME, and I'm not sure its entirely accurate. Unless Morrissey is surprised that a magazine no longer features writers from fifteen or so years ago, he seems to be claiming that the people who wrote for the NME in the 90s have vanished from the face of the culture: Andrew Collins, Stuart Maconie, Danny Kelly? Gavin Martin was in the Mirror talking about Cerys Matthews only yesterday. Paolo Hewitt is still knocking out two or three Paul Weller books every year.

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.

Is it really the case that Burchill and Kent are so important to the current NME? Sure, the magazine trades on the name and brand which those writers helped to build up - but look at the NME, with its Frank Gallows cool lists: do you really think it is selling itself to an audience who revere Charles Shaar Murray, Morrissey?

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.

Really, Morrissey? You're the only 'old' NME name who gets covered in the current paper? What about Ian Brown? What about Jarvis? What about Shaun Ryder? The eye-wateringly awful 'get the Sex Pistols to number one' campaign of a couple of months back?

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.

'Fleshy conversation' and 'editorial naughtiness' - it's like he's morphed into an ITV impressionist doing Stephen Fry.

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.

Jonze is lucky he doesn't mean to be rude. God alone knows what he'd have got then.

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.

It is, indeed, depressing and surprising to hear Jonze didn't know the song - although we suspect that claims to not know "anything" about Bowie might have been hyperbolic.

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.

Fascinatingly, while taking quite some time to detail the David Bowie conversation, Morrissey skates over who first brought up the topic of immigration. Did Jonze lead him down the street, or did Mozzer happily volunteer the observations?

He doesn't say, instead deciding to highlight Jonze's poor grasp of London geography:

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.

This is a splendid piece of misdirection. Again, it's embarrassing for Jonze to apparently not be aware where Knightsbridge is, but it's hardly important - the NME story wasn't built on the question of Morrissey suggesting that a particular London postcode had been lost; that Jonze isn't familiar with the area isn't the actual point.

I chose to mention Knightsbridge because it had always struck me as one of the most stiffly British spots in London.

Morrissey, presumably, isn't that familiar with the area either, then: given the presence of the Egyptian-owned Harrods, a number of tourist attractions and a slew of foreign embassies, surely Knightsbridge is anything but?

Morrissey then details the extent of what he says was a stitch-up:

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 1988 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.

Once again: owning a collection of world cinema DVDs doesn't mean your veiws on immigration aren't racist, and running over to the bookcase to show you can't be bad because you like Toni Morrison books isn't exactly engaging with the question, either.

And - since Morrissey claims to be so intolerant of people twisting and turning the truth - how come he just assumes that McNicholas would be "repulsed" by his world cinema films? And if so, why did Conor grant him space to mention them in the disputed piece?

What does a desire to play in Iran have to do with whether you believe people from other countries, other cultures have any place in the UK?

And, while we know that it was intended as a joke (a rare glimpse of a well-humoured man who has long since disappeared), is it really wise for Morrissey to suggest that he's a victim of Morrisseyist forces? To compare having an interview printed with a negative spin to being the victim of racism? At the very least, it suggests a lack of empathy and self-importance.

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.

But then, like Bob Hoskins, you did get into the car of your own volition, Morrissey.

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.

This, presumably, explains LMHR's sudden yanking of the web posting condemning Mozzer, then.

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.

Impassioned stuff. What's missing, though, is any explanation of what he actually said. Yes, the interview may have been written to show you in a terrible light; yes, your interviewer might not have known about Bowie or Knightsbridge - he may even have had a runny nose.

But you don't deny your comments about how "the gates are flooded" or that "the British identity has disapperared" following an "influx". You don't seek to explain what you meant; to contextualise your words. Given an unfettered platform, you simply ignore the part of the interview which genuinely upset and disappointed people.

A masterpiece of misdirection. You have proved that you're not a racist - something you've not been accused of. You have done nothing to engage with the claims that your views on immigration and 'British identity' have racist undertones, though. The support for Love Music Hate Racism is welcome, but if you're going to start throwing firecrackers about immigration around, you should at least have the guts to continue the discussion when challenged.

Morrissey: the thin line between nostalgia and racism

It took many years for the NME and Morrissey to make up after the paper called him on his flag-waving, skinhead-teasing live appearance at Madstock in Finsbury Park. It seemed, though, that passing time and changes in the editorial team had smoothed over the breach. In 2004, he once again graced the cover.

So it was that Tim Jonze went off to interview Mozzer for this week's paper, expecting a fairly dull elder-statesman-of-rock-speaks piece.

That was, until Morrissey started to talk. Jonze asked about the state of the world:

"Can we help but be annoyed? Certainly in England, everyone is taxed for everything under the guise of saving the planet..."

If this sounds more like the sort of thing you'd expect to see in the Telegraph op-ed page than the NME, more is to come. Mozzer grumbles how there's "no democracy" in England, before moving on to the state of Britain:

Britain's a terribly negative place.

This from Morriseey, who has already spent three columns grumbling and moaning about everything from the way people write about him and Marr to how people carry cameras with their phones.

And it hammers people down and it pulls you back and it prevents you.

So far, he sounds a lot like those other expats who go off to live in tax exile and pretend it's a cultural rather than an economic decision, like Michael Caine.

Also, with the issue of immigration, it's very difficult because although I don't have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British identity disappears. So the price is enormous. If you travel to Germany, it's still absolutely Germany [...] But to travel to England and you have no idea where you are!"

Oh.

Not, of course, that he has anything against people from other countries.

He stresses that he's worried about the loss of identity and concedes that there's something "nice" about the enrichment offered by immigration ("but you have yo say goodbye to the Britain you once knew"), before worrying that, ooh, you don't hear English voices any more:

[T]he change in England is so rapid compared to the change in any other country. If you walk through Knightsbridge on any bland day of the week you won't hear an English accent. You'll hear every accent under the sunapart from the British accent.

The converstaion turns to Bengali in Platforms, which Morrissey defends again on the grounds that the song was about someone who didn't belong, "just didn't", but not because of race.

So far, then, this is what you'd expect - a rich ex-pat muttering away about immigration "diluting" a nation, complaining about how you hear funny foreign voices on the bus - it's clear that, as with Dannii Minogue's racism over lunch with GQ a few years back, although this is unpleasant, it's being offered without malice. It's the soft racism that pervaded my parent's generation - "nothing against people from overseas", it's just they're different. Xenophobia from a fear of change, and lazy scapegoating of an easy target to blame.

It's disappointing, of course, to hear this sort of hateful rubbish being trotted out - an intelligent man who complains about the British government and ruling classes and media apparently getting his worldview from the news pages of the Daily Mail. We do love, by the way, that Morrissey cites Knightsbridge as the exemplar of Britishness - hanging around outside Harrods, a shop that sucks in tourists, you would expect to hear the sound of people from overseas.

There's worse to come, though. Worried by the tenor, Jonze sought a second interview to give Morrissey room to - presumably - explain the whole thing away as a silly misunderstanding. That didn't quite happen. Explaining his reasons for accepting a chance for clarification, Morrissey starts off well:

I just think it could be construed that the reason I wouldn't wish to live in England is the immigration explosion

He does mutter on that, rather, it's the "expense" and "pressure" which keeps him away, but the mere fact that he speaks of immigration as an "explosion" rather than an ongoing, two-way process that's been happening as long as humanity have been able to build boats hints that he does see people from overseas as a problem.

Surprisingly, he then claims that the face of Britain in Jean Charles DeMenzes, and how you don't "shoot someone seven times in the head by accident". This is quite surprising - does Morrissey feel that he'd be at risk of an accidental execution if he lived in Levenshulme? Did a man who lived in LA - a place not exactly unknown for difficulties with police over-reacting - really find the prospect of Lancashire so frightening?

Sadly, the question is left hanging, as Moz is pressed on if he regrets anything he said:

In my life, my favourite actor is an Israeli, Lior Ashkenazi, and my favourite singer was born in Iraq and now lives in Egypt.

Oh, god; he really is using the "how can I be racist, I watched all of Roots and once went to see Sammy Davis Jr play" defence. Albeit slightly QI-ed up.

The NME points out that immigration helped his parents into Britain:

Yes. But once again, it's different now. Because the gates are flooded. And anybody can have access to England and join in.

Apart from being sickening - flooded? - this simply isn't true; it's the sort of ill-considered rubbish you hear BNP supporters bleating. Anybody can have access to England? Really, Morrissey? Have you ever spent any time at a immigration office? Who do you think are all those people being deported constantly?

Of course, Morrissey tries to stress that he's only being sensible - you can't let everyone come in and sit on your bed, apparently - and denies being inflammatory. He then worries he's going to be stitched up - although, if he doesn't think he's being inflammatory or offensive, why would he be worried by that?

This is clearly contentious material - indeed, Conor McNicholas feels the need to produce an editorial column to stress that, you know, Morrissey isn't racist, probably:

I'm convinced Morrissey is ultimately just a nostalgic creature who pines for the England of his youth

Oddly, though, this doesn't stop McNicholas slapping this on the coverline:

Bigmouth Strikes Again: Morrissey "The gates of England are flooded. The country's been thrown away" Oh dear. Not again.

- which hardly suggests that the paper sees this as just a swansong for a prewar Blighty that never existed.

Meanwhile, True To You Morrissey fanzine carries a piece by Moz manager Merck Mercuriadis, giving a Morrissey view the background to the interview. He says they'd heard NME was planning "a hatchet job":

We immediately contacted the magazine's editor Conor McNicholas who refuted the suggestion that the NME would be anything less than supportive and personally posted on the site categorically denying the "rumours and untruths."

Clearly, rather than accepting that their man wasn't hatcheted, but more slapped himself round his own head, Mercuriadis then quotes an email he claims he got from
Tim Jonze:

"Hope you're well. I should mention that for reasons I'll probably never understand, NME have rewritten the Moz piece. I had a read and virtually none of it is my words or beliefs so I've asked for my name to be taken off it. Just so you know when you read it."

And, indeed, the article does appear under a clumsy "interview: Tim Jonze words: NME" byline, which makes the first person nature of the article a little odd, to say the least.

Morrissey's management sent an email to Conor; the response - claims Mercuriadis - was deliberately delayed to avoid any legal action keeping the paper from entering distribution. The response is quoted in full on True To You, but this is pretty much the tenor:

Obviously no-one is accusing Morrissey of racism - that would be mad given what Morrissey says - but we do say that the language Morrissey uses is very unhelpful at a time of great tensions. I am - as I say in the magazine - fully confident that Morrissey's comments are simply the result of a man in his 50s looking back nostalgically on the England of his youth, but his reasoning for that change is unreasonably skewed towards immigration and as a title we think that's wrong. I think he's simply naive and doesn't understand the atmosphere here. I don't think he wishes anyone any harm but I don't think he understand the climate or the possible interpretation of his comments either.

We wonder if McNicholas actually paused to consider - given the "climate or possible interpretation of his comments" - whether running a coverline of "the gates of England are flooded. The country's been thrown away" would be helpful or not?

Mercuriadis throws himself on our mercy:

When reading it we request that you think for yourself and consider what is question and answer and what is inflammatory editorial on the part of the NME which we assume can only be intended to create controversy to boost their circulation at the expense of Morrissey's integrity and for which no journalist is willing to be credited. It might as well say "anonymous."

It's true that the NME doesn't exactly come out of this looking great - it's trying to have its 'Mozzer race row' piece while desperately stressing that it doesn't believe Morrissey is racist - but the trouble is that even if you ignore the confused editorialising in the article, well, yes, Morrissey does still come across terribly. Not calling for race riots, perhaps, but using inflammatory, ignorant language and unacceptable imagery and singling out "otherness" as being a threat to "Englishness".

It's noticeable that Mercuriadis doesn't quite have the confidence to leave it there, but feels the need to stress just how not-racist Morrissey is:

As we all know, the NME does not speak for its readership, the artists do. Artists like Morrissey. The NME also does not speak for Morrissey. Anti-racist songs such as "Irish Blood, English Heart," "America Is Not The World" and "I Will See You In Far-Off Places" tell you the true measure of the man.

Well, perhaps they do. One has that clunky bit about how we shouldn't feel racist standing by the Union flag (which sounds like the sort of thing the UK Independence Party trot out); the other two contain kneejerk anti-Americanism which - while it might be delightful to those who indulge in geopolitics by numbers - hardly is the same thing as a condemnation of racism. In fact:

And don't you wonder/ why in Estonia they say/ hey you, you big fat pig, you fat pig, you fat pig

sounds suspiciously like lazy all-Americans-are-fat stereotyping to us.

It's true, though, that he does lament there never being a "black, female or gay" president, so how could he be racist, eh?

Somewhat surprisingly, Mercuriadis signs off by publishing a letter from Mozzer's legal team to Conor - one that's covered in "not for publication"s and "strictly private and confidential"s all over it.

The legal letter insists that describing Morrissey as racist would be "malicious" - although, as we've seen, the NME bends over backwards to deny that it thinks Morrissey is racist and threatens withdrawal of planned Mozzer 7" covermount, besides other comments. It also demands McNicholas apologies to Morrissey for - apparently - having told Tim Jonze that Morrissey wouldn't want "a [black person] living next door".

It's all a bit of a nasty mess - Morrissey revealing more deeply the unpleasant side to his character and then attempting to use legal letters from this being shared; the NME trying to take two positions at the same time; and a suggestion that McNicholas apologise for something he may or may not have said in private.

No, Morrissey doesn't think he's being racist; he doesn't realise he's stirring up a hornets nest. That's what actually makes it worse.

[Thanks to Duncan for the link]