A few words between old friends.

I found this amusing picture over at the Morrissey Daily community on LJ a couple of weeks ago. I think its fair to say a good number of people who are Smiths/Moz fans are also Cure fans. Sure not everyone loves both bands, but chances are if you listen to one, you listen to the other. The Cure is my favorite band, so they will always have a place in my heart. But I absolutely adore Moz, and the music he's made (both solo and with the Smiths).

Morrissey and Robert have been feuding for years now. There have been some pretty memorable things said by both in the press. Here are some of the more infamous quotes:

"If Morrissey says don't eat meat, then I'll eat meat, because I hate Morrissey"- Robert

"The Cure, a new dimension to the word 'crap'."- Morrissey

"Morrissey's so depressing, if he doesn't kill himself soon, I probably will."- Robert

So basically, they don't like each other all that much.

I bring this all up now because on Friday, it was announced on The Cure's website that Perry Bamonte and Roger O'Donnell are no longer in the band. Yahoo! News says that Robert kicked them out. Billboard, Filter, and Contact Music all have the story as well. A week ago, there were rumblings over at A Chain of Flowers that two members of the band were leaving. But no one knew if it was just a rumor or a trick or what. But looks like it was all true. Someone made a post about the departure in Oh No They Didn't, and there's an interesting thread about whether or not Morrissey could kick Robert's ass in a fight. So of course that made me think of the picture above.

Like I said in my LJ last week, it might not seem like a big deal to some for there to be a line up change in The Cure. There are are so many ex-members from that band (Porl Thompson, Lol Tolhurst, Andy Anderson, Boris Williams, Mathieu Hartley, Phil Thornalley, Michael Dempsey) and at times its hard to keep straight who was in the band and when. But the most recent 5 piece lineup of Robert Smith, Simon Gallup, Roger O'Donnell, Perry Bamonte, and Jason Cooper was the one that I was most familiar with. These were the five faces that wallpapered my room at the start of my Cure obsession in high school. And while Robert is the only one that I've ever met, I'm still a little sad to see Roger and Perry go.

When a group of people make such great music together, it's hard to imagine that they could ever not get along. It might be difficult for us as fans to see what could possibly come between them to cause them to go their separate ways. We want to think that they're perfect and that they love one another unconditionally, and that their particular outfit will continue to make the music that we love. But people change, and friends grow apart. Just like the rest of us, musicians have problems with one another, get in fights, have differences of opinion, and sometimes can't work things out.

I look at The Smiths. Still to this day, people adore that band. They worship them. It's great knowing that you can go to a Morrissey concert in the year 2005 and hear him perform Smiths classics such as There is a Light That Never Goes Out, Big Mouth Strikes Again, Rubber Ring, and How Soon is Now? And while the guys who back Morrissey onstage are phenomenal, I think there's a little part in even Smiths fan that wonders what it would be like if Johnny Marr was performing with Moz again. Pigs would fly before the Smiths would get back together, which is why it was pretty hysterical that VH1 tried to perform this impossible task on their Bands Reunited show. But as long as Johnny and Moz are here on this earth, its a fantasy that is hard not to entertain. To stretch your mind even further and wonder what the two could do together if they decided to write new songs. How amazing would that be?

Roger and Perry had a nice run with The Cure. On his official website, Roger thanked his fans for all of their support and wished the band the best in the future. But who knows. This may not be goodbye forever. I mean, it is The Cure, and ex members have been known to return.