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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment

Who’d blame them for being miserable now?

The Smiths in 1987
The Smiths (left to right) in their good hair days … Andy Rourke, Johnny Marr, Morrissey and Mike Joyce. Photograph: Andre Csillag/Rex Features

I am glad Dave Simpson enjoyed Johnny Marr’s recent performance at the Apollo in Manchester (Tales from the city meet Smiths and Banana Splits in Marr’s Manchester marathon, Reviews, 27 October) but why the gratuitous sideswipe at the other members of the Smiths? Johnny may well have an “eerily youthful face and teenage-looking hair”, although I’m not sure what this has to do with the quality of his music, but why describe his erstwhile colleagues as being “less perfectly preserved”? I had dinner with Mike Joyce (the drummer) on Sunday night and I’m pleased to be able to tell fellow Guardian readers and Smiths fans that he was looking extremely fit and very well preserved, even if his hair is perhaps no longer “teenage looking”.
Bob Wood
Manchester

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