An Introduction

Hello,

My name is Lewis Watkins, I am a Music Journalist undergraduate studying at Staffordshire University and would just like to say thank-you if you are taking the time to read my articles for this blog. I would also like to mention that I have started this blog later than I should of due to my inability to decide on what I really wanted to write about, so sorry Sue for when you read this; but I shall not let you down or myself for that matter.

I was originally going to do a blog on animal conservation as that is a subject close to my heart and is a cause in which I intend to champion later in my life. However, the only reason I am studying my degree is due an epiphany moment of when I heard The Smiths in my Mother's car when I was an early teenager. It may seem profound of myself to declare that The Smiths 'Changed My Life', but I can honestly say without a shadow of a doubt that the acoustic's that my youthful brain was blessed with, was a pivotal moment in my life and it only seems fitting that I should share this wondrous affinity I have with The Smiths to the rest of the world. . . By the world I mean most likely friends, family and anyone I can coerce into reading what I have to say on a band that not only dictated my education and career; but also my own personal association to the world of music and society as a whole.

I would like to the time to thank Alex Wood for whom without I would not of been able to channel such an infatuation of music without our long listening, playing and discussing drinking sessions in which would most likely have us both left without enough vocabulary to put words to the way we both felt about such a privilege to have another soul captivated by exactly the same condition; Smithism. It was either that or we were both just drunken idiots and this sense of extrasensory belief could just of been the gin, either way; we was on a different dimension of understanding.

In the coming weeks I will be providing all manner of original writing about The Smiths, Johnny Marr and Morrissey. Tracks of the day (or every other day), literature reviews of The Smiths, influence of The Smiths and hopefully some live reviews if they ever get back together. . . I guess solo work and The Cribs (great band) will have to do until the bank balance breaking event of a reunion, this would be all the more easier if I was a teenager in the 80's; at least I did not suffer the wrath of Maggie. . . It's a shame David Cameron is not an anagram for Margret Thatcher, would of made for a cliché fact.

My next post tomorrow will be a discussion on The Smith's song that changed my life and hopefully you can comment on your favourite Smiths song which would be ravishing!

"It's gruesome that someone so handsome should care"