Someone Tried To Explain Who Johnny Marr Is To Mike Joyce, AKA The Ex-Drummer For The Smiths

Imagine, if you will, that you are in attendance at a gig for The Last Shadow Puppets at a club somewhere in Manchester. 

It's a Sunday night in mid-July. You're rocking out, watching Alex Turner do his best impression of a human being and quietly hoping someone falls over, before, suddenly, without much warning, there he is: Johnny f*cking Marr, ageless guitar icon. Brought on stage by Turner and his bandmate Miles Kane to cover Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me, a classic by The Smiths, the band that made Marr's name. This may supplant your wedding night as the Event Of Your Life.

In your excitement, you turn to a silver-haired man in the crowd beside you, effusively informing him of the identity of the newcomer onstage and the history behind his sudden appearance, and why that matters. "See the guy on the right with the black hair?" you say, a hint of know-it-allism peeking through the cracks in your voice as you yell to be heard. "That's Johnny Marr, the guitarist from The Smiths, and this is a Smiths song they're playing."

The entire time, you're blissfully unaware that the man to whom you're explaining all this spent several years as the drummer in the exact legendary band you're telling him about.

This is precisely what happened this past weekend to Mike Joyce, who along with bassist Andy Rourke formed the less-spoken-about half of The Smiths for most of their implosive tenure. He's there in basically every press photo that was released, not to mention video clips and concert footage. And yet this guy, clearly fancying himself some sort of guru whose knowledge is too precious to be withheld from the world, is so oblivious about what he looks like that he betrayed his own self-appointed expert status in one misguided helpful aside.

Taking to social media to recount the incident, Joyce said that he "didn't say owt" (anything) — "I just couldn't".

In fairness, neither Rourke nor Joyce has historically been as "visible" as either Marr or The Smiths' frontman, Morrissey — in fact, both ended up taking the other two Smiths members to court in the early and mid-1990s over a royalty dispute that turned particularly nasty — but that's still a pretty rough turn of events to have to stomach.

Watch footage of Marr's guest appearance below (via NME).