Manics primer, for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
so_many_fandoms
Jan. 24th, 2011 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perfectactorWell, you know what I'm going to say.
I'm selfish. Being so selfish and self-involved I want you to slash MY boys, because I need MOAR fic.
Nicky - http://fuckyeahnickywire.tumblr.com/
Richey - http://richey.tumblr.com/ (Bonus 'looks a bit like MikeyWay sometimes.' :P )
James!!! - http://fuckyeahjdb.tumblr.com/
Sean (Most criminally underrated member of a band, *ever*. I fancy him for more than one reason.) - http://fuckyeahseanmoore.tumblr.com/
Together they're the Manic Street Preachers. http://fuckyeahmanics.tumblr.com/
In my opinion, there aren't enough *good* resources on them (unless we go to printed bios - actual books), so let me tell you why I love each and every one of them - or why they're slashable.
Richey - ranted a lot about his sexuality. As I was commenting in discussions on him before, it seems as if he was trying to make a point whenever he brought up the subject, but he never seemed to reach a conclusion about himself. One of the options is that he wasn't completely straight (eg. : "I think Brad Pitt's fantastic as well. Oh yeah, phwooo, he's The One! I dream about him quite a lot. Nothing sexual happens but I dream about just being round him, having a drink . . . I hardly ever dream about girls."), and that he may have had a bit of a misfortune trying to reconcile it with his very well-publicized misandry as well as other issues.
Basically if you Google him and see one of his online bios, you'd see a lot about his self-injury as well as an an half-arsed attempt by the writer of the bio to diagnose him (I'm very analytical of it, so I've tried to find out if it's a trend among fans or it's based on something, and for all I know, there isn't any publication from a reliable source which says what diagnosis he had,) so instead I'm going to offer a list of what I do like about him:
* his crossdressing seemed a part of his identity, since school, (these are the words of his highschool friend): "I remember Richey's gothic phase, when he was wearing eye-liner and Oxfam coats and stuff. Image-wise he was kind of androgynous even then, and there were early signs of anorexia. I mean, in Wales you don't find that high cheekbones occur naturally - you need to starve yourself. At one point, he befriended this boy whom nobody else would talk to - this boy was universally ignored. Richey got to be really good friends with him.
Richey was certainly never acting a part, he was completely on the level. I think maybe he would have been disappointed with the way the Manics have gone nowadays, but while we didn't discuss aspirations that much, he did sometimes tell people that he'd be famous. Not in an arrogant way - he's one of the nicest blokes you could hope to meet, and he didn't specify that he'd be a pop star. I mean, at that point everybody knew that he couldn't play a thing. "
* He's unbelievably childish, and I know it's something most people would say in a negative way, but I actually love it, and think it's one of the most 'Richey' things about him. Early on, my favourite quote by him was on how he insists to pronounce things his own way, and later he makes a point about intelligence in a beautifully philosophical way:
Richey: "Rim-bored. Rim-bough. How do you say it?"
Interviewer: "Rimbaud", I say, in French.
Richey: "I insist he's called Rim-bough. Sounds better than Rambo. Like Americans always say Von Gogh 'Von Go',"
Interviewer: That other self-mutilating asylum-dwelling artist...
Richey: "And make the 'Go' go on forever: 'G-o-o-o-o-o'. It's Van Goff to me. I know it's wrong but I don't care. One thing I am f***ed off about, being misrepresented, is I don't think people believe I read books. I think they don't even - it's all they all the time isn't it? I don't know who 'they' are - but they think the quotes just come with the sleeve, and I don't even choose them. I am not stupid. I might come across as stupid. That's nothing to do with academic qualifications. I think there's a difference between intelligence and knowledge."
He was distraught about his dog dying, and people speculated that might have led to his disappearance. He claimed that his dog, who died at age 11, was a better friend to him than any human.
He wore an 'I miss my virginity' badge on his last interview (a fan made it and sent it to him.)
Even Nicky called him 'baby' in that motherfucking love song he wrote for him.
* He seemed to have the axis of what I call sexy qualities (that don't get mentioned much, since there's been a lot of revisionism of his image) - Coolness/coldness - sarcasm - existentialist philosophy. His friends called him 'Android'.
Nicky -
* He ships himself with Richey quite a bit! From wearing a shirt of the two together on more than one occasion, to having a sticker of them on his bass, and even that drunken acceptance speech at an awards ceremony I sent you when he pronounces the phrase 'I slept with Richey!' twice.
* Has a lot of weird habits/ personality flaws. He even writes them into his songs!
Mr. Carbohydrate, his most autobiographical song.
He makes collages, loves dogs, ogles Marilyn Manson's butt...
He sleeps 14 hours a day
He waters his plants with Evian, and adores Dyson hoovers, etc.
* Can't find the suitable interview quote now, but definitely wrote a song about Identifying with his feminine side, and then some more.
James -
Hnnnnng, how do I begin being coherent about him! I'm going to start with the respectful input that he writes half the music, has made up a lot for Richey/Nicky's incompetences at guitar/bass with his mean lead-guitaring skillzzz and is a great singer.
But I'm shallow. He's got broad shoulders, his moobs get the most adulation I've ever seen among fangirls, which can only be a good thing about the fandom, and he's really fuckin' well hung.
He's got great canon for him and Richey (not only because they look good together, OK?) But also because there were some of the most WTF? rumors in fandom surrounding the two.
* Richey was said to lose his virginity to an older woman at some kind of music industry party. According to a rumour published in their most respected biography ('Everything' by Simon Price.) James took that woman aside and confronted her and actually yelled at her for doing it. As I said to someone before, it could either mean they're really involved in each others lives, or that the others were really guarding Richey.
* In the early days, when most of the fandom revolved around fanzines and some of the band members had mail connection with fans, James was rumoured to send 'hate mail' to some Richey girls (I have the online source, I'm just lazy.)
Apart from the rumours, I personally think he seemed to have the most insight about what Richey's lyrics were about, as well as James seeming to be one he could talk to when things got rough (Richey seemed to have a lot of emotional outbursts during the recording of the first album, he told James that if the band split he'd have nothing left, even though it was the band's own resolution to split after one album. Also, James was the one Richey called after River Phoenix had died, he seemed to be affected by that as well. And during Richey's hospital stay James had spent a lot of time with him, teaching him to play guitar. And James was the one who was supposed to go with Richey for the promotional tour in America before Richey'd gone missing.)
Sean -
Like I said, he gets a lot of respect from me. I'll just copy some facts from the bio -
'The least rock 'n' roll member of the band, right down to his mastery of the trumpet (a less rock 'n' roll instrument it would be difficult to name; One pictures him, cherubic cheeks puffed out and ruddy, like Neighbours' tuba-tooting Harold Bishop)- and he don't care. Like the sardonic sticksman of The Rolling Stones, Sean views the entire rock 'n' roll circus with a mixture of detached amusement, world-weary boredom and out-and-out cynicism.'
'He once spent an entire Sounds interview silently collecting twenty-pence pieces for the parking meter.'
'It is also worth noting here that Sean co-writes all the Manics' music (how many archetypical comedy drummers can claim that?). Listen to the awesome martial rigour with which he drives 'Faster', or to the subtlety and grace with which he guides 'Motorcycle Emptiness' - to pick two random examples - and it is clear that the silent partner in the Bradfield/Moore partnership (a bond strong enough to allow the band to carry two self-confessed musical incompetents) is every bit as crucial as his all-singing, all riffing cousin.'
'The best shag in the whole of Wales' - James on Sean. > ... They're cousins. *thud*
'I say 'childlike' rather than 'boyish' because there is something girly about Sean. He actually has a far more natural androgyny than his lipstick-wearing side-kicks (Smash Hits once printed a picture of him next to one of Helena Bonham Carter, and 'amusingly' switched the captions.) Even as a child he was often mistaken for a girl and, in 1995, his appearance was still enough to confuse Eunice, a 37 year old mum interviewed in Young, Pretty & Fucked fanzine. 'Are they all boys? That one looks like a girl!'
This may explain why, when Richey and James experimented with facial hair, Sean really went for it, piercing his eyebrow into the bargain - it was a rebellion against his own boyish/girlishness. Behind his shades (aviator, Lennon, ski), hats (Soviet, UN, Bobble) and beards (stubble, goatee, grizzly) and with his radio mike, Sean has often seemed to be in hiding, craving obscurity. He looks like the member of Metallica that even Metallica fans can't name.
Sean is also a little self-concious about his figure. He once stormed out of a Melody Maker photo session for which he was required to strip naked and be covered in gold spraypaint, and, during the Manics' glam era, and he often delcined the others' requests to participate in provocative dress. As Nicky Wire remembers: 'It was always "Come on, Mooro, get this fucking blouse on!" and "NO! FUCK OFF" '
'He has a sewing fetish and enjoys DIY. He is into Aleister Crowley. He believes that the world is dominated by computers (the irony being that he is addicted to them). He would rather play his Sega than talk in interviews (to this day, Moore carries a notebook with his highest Game Boy scores in it). He is the only member who could read a map, and consequently the only one who ventures out sightseeing when on tour. At home, he is never seen on the Bristol club scene. His idea of going out is riding his Vespa to Weston-Super-Mare, having tea on the beach, and riding home again.'
'As Guto from Super Furry Animals told Iconoclastic Glitter: You're in a bar with Sean and he'll buy the entire top shelf, like, because he can.'
'Introducing the band onstage, James' description of 'Seanus Moorus' (when it doesn't involve his glossy bob and a plea for bottles of Pantene) is invariably something like: 'A genius consumer, a man whose spending power is so gargantuan you all want to be his girlfriend.' Sean Moore owns things you didn't even know existed (A digital video disc Walkman?!). He was one of the first people in Britain to own a Tamagotchi. in 1997, playing the 'We Love Us' quiz on Radio one's Mark Radcliffe show, he won an electric footspa. almost inevitably, he already had one.'
'Sean's reticence can be easily mistaken for hostility. As Manics superfan Gill Armstrong once wrote: 'Sean . . . Seems to have an invisible wall up around him, an aura of "Go away." ' This is partly down to his protectiveness and fierce loyalty towards his band-mates, as if adhering to omerta, the Mafia's code of silence. Not that the speak-no-evil chimp doesn't let the occasional jewel slip between his fingers. He is a rock 'n' roll Calvin Coolidge, a man of few words, but whose rare gnomic utterances reveal a deliciously mordant wit.
Shortly after the '4 REAL' incident, I had pointed out that, to keep the hype momentum going, the next time Richey slashed his arm it would need to be live in CNN. Sean, master of the pomposity-puncturing soundbite, looked up from his Game Gear and said: 'We're going to cut Richey's head off'. On another occasion, I asked: 'Where's Richey? Gone to bed?' Sean replied: 'Richey doesn't go to bed. He goes to the abyss.' At the time of writing, Sean Moore is possibly the only person in rock who doesn't take Manic Street Preachers entirely seriously.'
I'm selfish. Being so selfish and self-involved I want you to slash MY boys, because I need MOAR fic.
Nicky - http://fuckyeahnickywire.tumblr.com/
Richey - http://richey.tumblr.com/ (Bonus 'looks a bit like MikeyWay sometimes.' :P )
James!!! - http://fuckyeahjdb.tumblr.com/
Sean (Most criminally underrated member of a band, *ever*. I fancy him for more than one reason.) - http://fuckyeahseanmoore.tumblr.com/
Together they're the Manic Street Preachers. http://fuckyeahmanics.tumblr.com/
In my opinion, there aren't enough *good* resources on them (unless we go to printed bios - actual books), so let me tell you why I love each and every one of them - or why they're slashable.
Richey - ranted a lot about his sexuality. As I was commenting in discussions on him before, it seems as if he was trying to make a point whenever he brought up the subject, but he never seemed to reach a conclusion about himself. One of the options is that he wasn't completely straight (eg. : "I think Brad Pitt's fantastic as well. Oh yeah, phwooo, he's The One! I dream about him quite a lot. Nothing sexual happens but I dream about just being round him, having a drink . . . I hardly ever dream about girls."), and that he may have had a bit of a misfortune trying to reconcile it with his very well-publicized misandry as well as other issues.
Basically if you Google him and see one of his online bios, you'd see a lot about his self-injury as well as an an half-arsed attempt by the writer of the bio to diagnose him (I'm very analytical of it, so I've tried to find out if it's a trend among fans or it's based on something, and for all I know, there isn't any publication from a reliable source which says what diagnosis he had,) so instead I'm going to offer a list of what I do like about him:
* his crossdressing seemed a part of his identity, since school, (these are the words of his highschool friend): "I remember Richey's gothic phase, when he was wearing eye-liner and Oxfam coats and stuff. Image-wise he was kind of androgynous even then, and there were early signs of anorexia. I mean, in Wales you don't find that high cheekbones occur naturally - you need to starve yourself. At one point, he befriended this boy whom nobody else would talk to - this boy was universally ignored. Richey got to be really good friends with him.
Richey was certainly never acting a part, he was completely on the level. I think maybe he would have been disappointed with the way the Manics have gone nowadays, but while we didn't discuss aspirations that much, he did sometimes tell people that he'd be famous. Not in an arrogant way - he's one of the nicest blokes you could hope to meet, and he didn't specify that he'd be a pop star. I mean, at that point everybody knew that he couldn't play a thing. "
* He's unbelievably childish, and I know it's something most people would say in a negative way, but I actually love it, and think it's one of the most 'Richey' things about him. Early on, my favourite quote by him was on how he insists to pronounce things his own way, and later he makes a point about intelligence in a beautifully philosophical way:
Richey: "Rim-bored. Rim-bough. How do you say it?"
Interviewer: "Rimbaud", I say, in French.
Richey: "I insist he's called Rim-bough. Sounds better than Rambo. Like Americans always say Von Gogh 'Von Go',"
Interviewer: That other self-mutilating asylum-dwelling artist...
Richey: "And make the 'Go' go on forever: 'G-o-o-o-o-o'. It's Van Goff to me. I know it's wrong but I don't care. One thing I am f***ed off about, being misrepresented, is I don't think people believe I read books. I think they don't even - it's all they all the time isn't it? I don't know who 'they' are - but they think the quotes just come with the sleeve, and I don't even choose them. I am not stupid. I might come across as stupid. That's nothing to do with academic qualifications. I think there's a difference between intelligence and knowledge."
He was distraught about his dog dying, and people speculated that might have led to his disappearance. He claimed that his dog, who died at age 11, was a better friend to him than any human.
He wore an 'I miss my virginity' badge on his last interview (a fan made it and sent it to him.)
Even Nicky called him 'baby' in that motherfucking love song he wrote for him.
* He seemed to have the axis of what I call sexy qualities (that don't get mentioned much, since there's been a lot of revisionism of his image) - Coolness/coldness - sarcasm - existentialist philosophy. His friends called him 'Android'.
Nicky -
* He ships himself with Richey quite a bit! From wearing a shirt of the two together on more than one occasion, to having a sticker of them on his bass, and even that drunken acceptance speech at an awards ceremony I sent you when he pronounces the phrase 'I slept with Richey!' twice.
* Has a lot of weird habits/ personality flaws. He even writes them into his songs!
Mr. Carbohydrate, his most autobiographical song.
He makes collages, loves dogs, ogles Marilyn Manson's butt...
He sleeps 14 hours a day
He waters his plants with Evian, and adores Dyson hoovers, etc.
* Can't find the suitable interview quote now, but definitely wrote a song about Identifying with his feminine side, and then some more.
James -
Hnnnnng, how do I begin being coherent about him! I'm going to start with the respectful input that he writes half the music, has made up a lot for Richey/Nicky's incompetences at guitar/bass with his mean lead-guitaring skillzzz and is a great singer.
But I'm shallow. He's got broad shoulders, his moobs get the most adulation I've ever seen among fangirls, which can only be a good thing about the fandom, and he's really fuckin' well hung.
He's got great canon for him and Richey (not only because they look good together, OK?) But also because there were some of the most WTF? rumors in fandom surrounding the two.
* Richey was said to lose his virginity to an older woman at some kind of music industry party. According to a rumour published in their most respected biography ('Everything' by Simon Price.) James took that woman aside and confronted her and actually yelled at her for doing it. As I said to someone before, it could either mean they're really involved in each others lives, or that the others were really guarding Richey.
* In the early days, when most of the fandom revolved around fanzines and some of the band members had mail connection with fans, James was rumoured to send 'hate mail' to some Richey girls (I have the online source, I'm just lazy.)
Apart from the rumours, I personally think he seemed to have the most insight about what Richey's lyrics were about, as well as James seeming to be one he could talk to when things got rough (Richey seemed to have a lot of emotional outbursts during the recording of the first album, he told James that if the band split he'd have nothing left, even though it was the band's own resolution to split after one album. Also, James was the one Richey called after River Phoenix had died, he seemed to be affected by that as well. And during Richey's hospital stay James had spent a lot of time with him, teaching him to play guitar. And James was the one who was supposed to go with Richey for the promotional tour in America before Richey'd gone missing.)
Sean -
Like I said, he gets a lot of respect from me. I'll just copy some facts from the bio -
'The least rock 'n' roll member of the band, right down to his mastery of the trumpet (a less rock 'n' roll instrument it would be difficult to name; One pictures him, cherubic cheeks puffed out and ruddy, like Neighbours' tuba-tooting Harold Bishop)- and he don't care. Like the sardonic sticksman of The Rolling Stones, Sean views the entire rock 'n' roll circus with a mixture of detached amusement, world-weary boredom and out-and-out cynicism.'
'He once spent an entire Sounds interview silently collecting twenty-pence pieces for the parking meter.'
'It is also worth noting here that Sean co-writes all the Manics' music (how many archetypical comedy drummers can claim that?). Listen to the awesome martial rigour with which he drives 'Faster', or to the subtlety and grace with which he guides 'Motorcycle Emptiness' - to pick two random examples - and it is clear that the silent partner in the Bradfield/Moore partnership (a bond strong enough to allow the band to carry two self-confessed musical incompetents) is every bit as crucial as his all-singing, all riffing cousin.'
'The best shag in the whole of Wales' - James on Sean. > ... They're cousins. *thud*
'I say 'childlike' rather than 'boyish' because there is something girly about Sean. He actually has a far more natural androgyny than his lipstick-wearing side-kicks (Smash Hits once printed a picture of him next to one of Helena Bonham Carter, and 'amusingly' switched the captions.) Even as a child he was often mistaken for a girl and, in 1995, his appearance was still enough to confuse Eunice, a 37 year old mum interviewed in Young, Pretty & Fucked fanzine. 'Are they all boys? That one looks like a girl!'
This may explain why, when Richey and James experimented with facial hair, Sean really went for it, piercing his eyebrow into the bargain - it was a rebellion against his own boyish/girlishness. Behind his shades (aviator, Lennon, ski), hats (Soviet, UN, Bobble) and beards (stubble, goatee, grizzly) and with his radio mike, Sean has often seemed to be in hiding, craving obscurity. He looks like the member of Metallica that even Metallica fans can't name.
Sean is also a little self-concious about his figure. He once stormed out of a Melody Maker photo session for which he was required to strip naked and be covered in gold spraypaint, and, during the Manics' glam era, and he often delcined the others' requests to participate in provocative dress. As Nicky Wire remembers: 'It was always "Come on, Mooro, get this fucking blouse on!" and "NO! FUCK OFF" '
'He has a sewing fetish and enjoys DIY. He is into Aleister Crowley. He believes that the world is dominated by computers (the irony being that he is addicted to them). He would rather play his Sega than talk in interviews (to this day, Moore carries a notebook with his highest Game Boy scores in it). He is the only member who could read a map, and consequently the only one who ventures out sightseeing when on tour. At home, he is never seen on the Bristol club scene. His idea of going out is riding his Vespa to Weston-Super-Mare, having tea on the beach, and riding home again.'
'As Guto from Super Furry Animals told Iconoclastic Glitter: You're in a bar with Sean and he'll buy the entire top shelf, like, because he can.'
'Introducing the band onstage, James' description of 'Seanus Moorus' (when it doesn't involve his glossy bob and a plea for bottles of Pantene) is invariably something like: 'A genius consumer, a man whose spending power is so gargantuan you all want to be his girlfriend.' Sean Moore owns things you didn't even know existed (A digital video disc Walkman?!). He was one of the first people in Britain to own a Tamagotchi. in 1997, playing the 'We Love Us' quiz on Radio one's Mark Radcliffe show, he won an electric footspa. almost inevitably, he already had one.'
'Sean's reticence can be easily mistaken for hostility. As Manics superfan Gill Armstrong once wrote: 'Sean . . . Seems to have an invisible wall up around him, an aura of "Go away." ' This is partly down to his protectiveness and fierce loyalty towards his band-mates, as if adhering to omerta, the Mafia's code of silence. Not that the speak-no-evil chimp doesn't let the occasional jewel slip between his fingers. He is a rock 'n' roll Calvin Coolidge, a man of few words, but whose rare gnomic utterances reveal a deliciously mordant wit.
Shortly after the '4 REAL' incident, I had pointed out that, to keep the hype momentum going, the next time Richey slashed his arm it would need to be live in CNN. Sean, master of the pomposity-puncturing soundbite, looked up from his Game Gear and said: 'We're going to cut Richey's head off'. On another occasion, I asked: 'Where's Richey? Gone to bed?' Sean replied: 'Richey doesn't go to bed. He goes to the abyss.' At the time of writing, Sean Moore is possibly the only person in rock who doesn't take Manic Street Preachers entirely seriously.'
