In the Dec. 10-16 volume of L.A. Weekly...

Morrissey

Anyone who went to October’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and later read coverage in the L.A. Times might have wondered whether the writers had attended a completely different concert or were smoking something stronger than all the pot being passed around. Predictably, much ado was made of Beck and Rage Against the Machine, while nil was said of the laughably described "mainstream" Morrissey. This would’ve worked if the first day hadn’t become a Mozzhead convention of pale-skinned Morrissey clones burning under the sun waiting for their favorite mope-on-a-rope to sing. Morrissey’s about as mainstream as Gwar, proving to be a bigger agoraphobe and recluse than even Michael Jackson. Neither he nor his music have been explained much, with his self-indulgent whines shifting from disco, Thatcher-bashing nationalism in the ’80s to vegetarianism. Once head of England’s New York Dolls fanclub, this ruling monarch of morose and misery’s fanatical devotion has only grown since the Smiths days. Even after his poorly received latest album, My Early Burglary Years, and without a current label to call home, Morrissey’s been a figurative finger in the face of critics who’d like to keep him toiling in the shadow of Smiths fame. At the Hollywood Palladium, 6215 Sunset Blvd.; Wed.-Thurs., Dec. 15-16, 6:30 p.m. (323) 962-7600

—Siran Babayan