One of the unexpected pleasures of having young children who play rugby on a Sunday morning, is that one of the other dads just lent me Mark E Smith’s autobiography. I’m glad I didn’t shell out for the hard-back as it’s a slim volume, but I did chuckle at the things he had to say about the BBC and Johnny Cash.
They’re an odd bunch at the BBC. I remember having to meet these two media graduates just before they started filming that documentary… what a pair they were! One of them was this girl, a festival type, a Jo Whiley-ite. She’d just come back from some festival or other, and that was all she could talk about… First thing she did as she sat down was cross her legs as if she was about to do some fucking yoga – a modern hippy, in other words. I offered to buy her a drink but she’s like, ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly have another drink. I drank so much at this festival’… and she never made an effort to get her round in. What are they teaching them at the BBC?
I liked the way everyone started jumping on the Johnny Cash bandwagon as well. If you were a Cash fan in the 70s people thought you were a racist. Nobody admitted to it… I find it horrible the way they’ve made money out of him, releasing all these maudlin recordings. Give me early Cash any day… The film was a disgrace as well… Would you rather see Walk the Fucking Line with River Phoenix’s daft brother or Cash Live at San Quentin?
And just the odd beautiful turn of phrase:
You can bet some strange things go on behind the doors of the FA. They’re like a cult; a randy cult souped up on good wine, expensive fruit and nice clean sausages.