Chapel Walks, M2 1AE

After Johnny Marr left school he worked in a number of clothes shops in the city centre. The first place was ‘Stolen From Ivor’ which was in the Arndale Centre where he worked on a Saturday.  Just as an aside, in 2019, to celebrate the Arndale’s 40th birthday, Mike Garry, a Manchester poet was commissioned to write a poem about it. Johnny Marr gets a mention...

From there, after finding it ‘too straight’, he got a full-time position at Aladdin's Cave. It had a more rock and roll vibe and more importantly, played better music. Whilst here Johnny and Angie used to make trips to Johnson's in the King's Road in Chelsea to purchase clothes to sell back in 'the Cave'. I'll cover this in a bit more detail once I get round to covering Morrissey's Chelsea flat in what will probably be in a few months time.

The next step on Johnny’s retail career was getting a job in X Clothes, a new shop that opened at 19 Chapel Walks. The shop attracted local musicians and most of the bands signed to Factory were customers. It was here that Tony Wilson asked Johnny if he’d be interested in joining Factory band Section 25. Even at this stage Johnny’s vision was to have his own band so he declined the offer.

At this point in time Johnny was still living at home, one of his customers, Ollie May, told him about a spare room in the house that he was staying at. Johnny took Ollie up on his offer and moved out into an attic room in Bowdon. More of which later…

Ollie May ended up being The Smiths’ first roadie.

Whilst working at X Clothes Johnny got to know the owner of the store next door which was called Crazy Face. The music they played was different and included blues, rock ’n’ roll and soul. Johnny was intrigued by the sounds and one day nipped next door to introduce himself to the owner, Joe Moss, with the words “Hi, my name’s Johnny, I’m a frustrated musician”. Joe asked him whether he could show him how to play the intro to The Temptations ‘My Girl’. 

The next day Johnny popped round to Joe’s office at 70 Portland Street and played ‘My Girl’ and ‘The Tracks of my Tears’. Joe was immediately impressed with Johnny’s ability on the guitar. He must have had a similar feeling to the one we all did a year or so later when we heard The Smiths for the first time.  

‘How does he manage to play like that?’

I can still clearly recall the moment I heard Johnny Marr play for the first time. I inadvertently stumbled across the Derby Assembly Rooms gig whilst tuning in my small portable black and white TV in my bedroom in December 1983. I sat on the floor in front of the TV totally transfixed by what I was seeing and hearing. The noise Johnny was creating sounded like three or four guitars not just one. The way he was playing looked effortless and it has to be said he looked very cool as well. 

Johnny started spending more and more time with Joe and, as the legend goes,  was inspired to seek out a certain Steven Morrissey after watching a video about songwriters Leiber and Stoller. 

After Johnny met Morrissey for the first time at Kings Road, Johnny received a phone call on the X Clothes phone the next day. It was from Morrissey confirming his interest in moving forward with forming a songwriting partnership. 

Once Johnny and Morrissey started writing together Johnny spent more and more time in Crazy Face discussing plans for his new project. Eventually Joe offered Johnny a job running a new Crazy Face outlet at 70 Portland Street.

The old X Clothes shop has ‘Union Buildings’ inscribed above the door.

Crazy Face was situated to its left as you look at it with ‘Chapel Walks Chambers’ inscribed in stone on the first floor.