Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Night Voices by Rob Smith Song of Solomon. This passage, from Chapter 1 , describes Pilate’s singing about Sugarman as prepares to fly off the roof of Mercy Hospital. In contrast to Ruth Foster, who wears expensive clothes, Pilate wears only an old quilt. Wearing the quilt shows that Pilate belongs to the community but is alienated from it. Pilate demonstrates her pride in her culture through the quilt, a traditional, homemade item in African-American households. Unlike Ruth, Pilate is proud of being a black woman and does not need to disguise herself in the clothing of the white upper-middle class. On the other hand, Pilate’s outfit is different from the winter coats worn by the rest of the crowd, making her look like an outsider. Although she is visibly poor, Pilate’s attitude demonstrates her strength. When Robert Smith towers over the crowd, only Pilate is brave enough to look him in the eye and respond, singing. Pilate’s song describes Robert Smith’s frustrated desire to escape. The song also foreshadows the novel’s central conflict: flying away is liberating but hurts those who are left behind. Robert Smith. Robert Smith is an English musician and the lead singer of the goth rock band, . He appears in the Season One episode, "Mecha- Streisand". Contents. Background. After Leonard Maltin and Sidney Poitier struggle to defeat the mighty Barbra Streisand, Robert Smith is called in, who, like Maltin and Poitier, can transform into a Japanese kaiju form. Smith turns himself into a giant Mothra-style kaiju and destroys Mecha-Streisand with a sonic scream and his "Robert Punch". Robert Smith lent his voice to his character in "Mecha-Streisand". Robert's monster form is a parody of Mothra, a Toho Studios monster who has appeared in four of her own films as well as several Godzilla films. The twin fairies who appear alongside Mothra, however, were parodied with Poitier rather than with Smith. He appeared in the background of MTV news in "Timmy 2000". He was mentioned in "201". Kyle, Stan and Cartman all appear to be big fans of Smith with Kyle shouting to him that "Disintegration is the best album ever!" and Cartman stating "Robert Smith kicks ass" (despite being kicked in the nuts by him a few seconds earlier). Even Jesus Christ proclaims him to be "Our Savior". In South Park: The Stick of Truth and South Park: The Fractured But Whole there is an instrumental background song during some of the Goth Kids tasks that features the main riff to The Cure's song "". Considering The Cure are probably the most famous goth rock band in the world; the goth kids are likely big fans. Appearance. Robert has messy, black hair, a small nose, and thin, black eyebrows. He wears a light purple button-up shirt with black pants and white sneakers. Six Different Ways The Cure’s Robert Smith Won Our Hearts. The Cure’s Robert Smith is perhaps one of the most beloved musical icons of our day. A living legend, Smith’s mainstream popularity is shocking if looked at objectively—as the post-punk musician is in many ways lauded as the patron saint of misfits and outcasts. Regardless of this, Smith has undeniably has a spellbinding ability to compose passionate music that brings together fandom who know that, however odd or ordinary, they are indeed not alone. To quote one of these fans: “For some of us he’s just the voice of our souls. And I’m sure he doesn’t need everyone’s love. He is just himself. As it should be for all of us.” Anti-Image. When David Bowie calls you an eccentric, it probably means that your unconventional persona is perhaps so bizarre, it even rivals that of and Bjork. Such is the case with Robert Smith, whose backcombed hair has superseded that of Albert Einstein’s in the echelon of wild hairdos. This taken together with his messy use of lipstick and eyeliner created the archetype for what is “Goth”. Regardless of whether or not you think Smith meets the criteria for the above label, he ultimately doesn’t take himself too seriously and could care less what anyone else thinks. This is evident from a recent interview the celebrated singer made with Time Out London: “You’ve had a rocky relationship with the word ‘goth’. Does it have anything to do with you? ‘Not really! We got stuck with it at a certain time when goths first started. I was playing guitar with Siouxsie And The Banshees, so I had to play the part. Goth was like pantomime to me. I never really took the whole culture thing seriously.’ But you’re a goth icon! You’ve spent the last 35-plus years wearing black outfits and make-up! ‘It’s just a theatrical thing. It’s part of the ritual of going on stage. Also there is the prosaic reason: I have ill-defined features and naturally pale skin. I mean, not at the moment, because I unfortunately fell asleep in the sun yesterday – very un-goth.’” Smith then went on to close the interview with self-effacing charm: “Anyway, one day my hair will all fall out and I won’t look gothic any more. So just wait for that.” Helping Fellow Musicians. Technically Robert Smith played alongside Joy Division three times, but one of those times was the infamous March 4th Marquee Club gig series of Sundays where The Cure chose a different band during each night of the residency. This attitude continued with the booking of tour support band’s like and also the trees , Shelleyan Orphan , and Cranes , as well as with Mogwai and Interpol (among others) performing at 2004’s Curiosa concert tour. This trend continues to this day, with 3 of the above bands slotted to at either the 25th annual Meltdown Fest in June, or The Cure’s 40th- anniversary concert, and the Pasadena Daydream Festival. One of the bands on the bill for the 2018 40th Anniversary event that took place in London’s Hyde Park was the newly reformed Slowdive . In a 2014 interview with Post-Punk.com, the band had stated that it was their dream to open for The Cure. Robert Smith has now made that dream come true. But it doesn’t stop there, as we can verify that for Meltdown Fest Robert Smith did indeed send a personalized letter to each band requesting that the play the event—which meant a lot to newer and more underground acts such as Kælan Mikla , The Soft Moon , The KVB , and Tropic of Cancer. Kælan Mikla with Robert Smith at Hyde Park. Compassion and Forgiveness. Our editorial staff wept several times while reading Cure co-founder Lol Tolhurst’s memoir Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys, that recounts his disintegration into alcoholism that resulted in his being ask to leave the band. Tolhurst would later sue Smith and Fiction Records, claiming joint ownership of The Cure, and royalty payments, which was ultimately a painful experience for all. Tolhurst would eventually come to terms with his alcoholism, and after years of sobriety, with the reconciliation with Smith culminating with the two , and performing together one more time during the “Reflections” series of concerts in Sydney, New York, London, and Los Angeles. Love Of Poetry and Literature. Far from being one to charm with superficial wit, Robert Smith perhaps is more concerned with the deeper emotional content culled from the books upon his shelf. Starting with his exploration of absurdism in Albert Camus L’stranger in the band’s first single “”, to angry the nihilism of Pornography, and the Nietzschean idea of transcending despair through art during the production of Disintegration. The album Faith had songs inspired by the steampunk Gormenghast trilogy of novels, and the stand alone single “Charlotte Sometimes” was based on the book of the same name featured author Penelope Farmer’s series of three fantasy novels featuring the Makepeace sisters, Charlotte and Emma. (The b-side “Splintered In Her Head”, and The Top track “The Empty World” are also based upon Charlotte Sometimes as well). Kiss me Kiss Me Kiss Me’s “ How Beautiful You Are” lyrics are almost identical to Charles Baudelaire poem called The Eyes Of The Poor, which begins with the line, “So you would like to know why I hate you today?” And the album Wish’s track “Open” has lyrics that allude to Sylvia Plath with the line “and the way the rain comes down hard / that’s the way I feel inside…” resembling what she originally penned in In Letters Home : “I am glad the rain is coming down hard. It’s the way I feel inside. His Professionalism. Robert Smith is a very hard working musician, who at one point was a member of The Cure, The Glove , and Siouxsie and the Banshees— all at the same time. When the workload was too much for him, he did the right thing and quit The Banshees and The Glove to focus on The Cure. (Note that Smith joined Siouxsie & the Banshees twice, the first time replacing guitarist John McKay when he quit in 1979, and the second time after John McGeoch had a breakdown and was dismissed in 1982). Early in The Cure’s career, Robert made it a point to not overspend on extravagances, and keep the band economically sound, despite drugs and alcohol use. Robert has also ensured to this day that neither he, or the band had any harmful publicity, save for the unfortunate legal battle with Tolhurst, for which the former Cure drummer and keyboardist takes full accountability for. Additionally, Robert Smith has stated that he is not comfortable with politics being expressed through music, which is ironic however, because of both the band’s frequent donations to Amnesty International , and by the singer/songwriter “non-political” stance against racist’s co-opting the existentialist song “Killing An Arab” into something literal. Smith would later during the promotion of the Standing On A Beach/Staring At The Sea compilations request that radio stations not play the song, and to this day when The Cure perform the track live, do so with variations on the lyrics such as “Kissing An Arab”, or “Killing An Ahab”. His Romance and Family. Robert Smith and Mary Poole have been together since a 14 years old Robert had asked Mary to be his partner for a school activity in drama class. Mary would become his partner for life, as the couple would marry in 1988. Mary appears in the 1987 video for The Cure’s hit single “Just Like Heaven”, dancing with Robert on the cliffs of Beachy Head, and the next year the Cure singer would penn “Love Song” as as a wedding present for Mary. The couple have no children, with Smith stating in an interview with the Guardian that: “I’ve never regretted not having children. My mindset in that regard has been constant. I objected to being born, and I refuse to impose life on someone else. Living, it’s awful for me. I can’t on one hand argue the futility of life and the pointlessness of existence and have a family. It doesn’t sit comfortably. Despite this, staunch atheist Smith loves Christmas, and it is alleged that he and his wife Mary spoil mercilessly each of their 25 nephews and nieces. Rob Schmitt: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know. Rob Schmitt is the co-anchor of Fox & Friends First , which airs at 5 a.m. on weekdays, along with Jillian Mele. Schmitt joined Fox News in June 2016 after honing his reporting skills at local TV stations. Schmitt is not shy about how much he shares on social media. The 36-year-old Indiana native has posted several shirtless photos of himself on vacation. What he does keep quiet are details about his dating life. If Schmitt has a girlfriend, he is keeping her under wraps. He has never been married. Back in business baby #foxnews A post shared by Rob Schmitt (@rob__schmitt) on Sep 24, 2018 at 3:11am PDT. Here’s what you need to know. 1. Rob Schmitt Grew Up Near Indianapolis & His Mother Was an Immigrant From Iran. Rob Schmitt was born August 13, 1983. He was raised in the suburb of Carmel, located just north of Indianapolis. He shared in a Fox News segment in 2017 that his mother’s family immigrated from Iran in the early 1970s. His mother, Farzaneh, met his father, Robert, in Cincinnati. They got married in 1976. Schmitt stayed relatively close to home after graduating high school. He attended Indiana University in Bloomington, which is about 70 miles south of his hometown. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism in 2005. 2. Schmitt Worked at a Golf Club in High School & Still Enjoys the Sport. Rob Schmitt as a child. Rob Schmitt loves to golf and he’s been playing the sport for the majority of his life. His mother shared that when she was pregnant with Rob, his father went out and bought a plastic golf club. Schmitt said he learned to golf alongside his father at the Brookshire Golf Club in Carmel. He then got used to early morning hours when he got a job at the golf club in high school. In the Fox News segment referenced above, Schmitt’s father recalled that he used to ride his bike to the golf club at 5 a.m. Schmitt has kept up with the sport and has taken to the links alongside co-anchor Jillian Mele, who also enjoys golfing. They both participated in the Ray Pfeifer Foundation Golf Classic in June 2018 at Lake Success, New York. The annual event raises money to help September 11th first responders, firefighters and police pay for medical expenses that aren’t covered by insurance. Read More From Heavy. Steve Doocy’s Family: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know. 3. Rob Schmitt Has Never Been Married & Keeps His Dating Life Under Wraps. Rob Schmitt’s marital status is single. He has never shared any photos or dropped any hints on social media about his dating life. Sultans A post shared by Rob Schmitt (@rob__schmitt) on Apr 8, 2018 at 6:09am PDT. But Schmitt’s not shy about sharing photos of himself being goofy with his friends. And he’s not bashful about posting photos of himself without a shirt. His social media photos include multiple comments from fans praising him for his good looks. In September 2017, he went on vacation to Italy with his mother. One commenter teased Schmitt about it, writing, “Finally, a pic of you with a beautiful woman.” Co-anchor Jillian Mele is also single, leading to speculation that perhaps the two coworkers have a relationship that is more than just professional. Commenters on social media have posted messages about a possible “showmance.” But neither Schmitt nor Mele has indicated they are anything more than friends. Read More From Heavy. Carley Shimkus: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know. 4. Rob Schmitt Worked at Three Local Stations Before Making the Move to Network News. Rob Schmitt began his news career in Miami, Florida. He was a weekend anchor at the ABC affiate WPLG-TV in 2008, according to his Facebook page. After three years, Schmitt traded in southern Florida for southern California. He went to work as an anchor and reporter at CBS Los Angeles in 2011. In 2013, Schmitt made the move to New York City when he was offered an anchor job at WNBC-TV. He served as a weekend anchor as well as the noon weekday show. He contributed to reports for the evening programs as well. Schmitt transitioned into network news in 2016 with the move to Fox. He indicated on his Twitter bio that he strives for a middle-of-the-road approach to the news. The bio reads, “The answer is rarely to the far left or right… but somewhere in the middle…” 5. Rob Schmitt is Lactose Intolerant. In today’s ever-liberal woke society – I’d like to call attention to lactose intolerance shaming and the biggest bully EVER @JaniceDean pic.twitter.com/5IjiHjENPF — Rob Schmitt (@SchmittNYC) June 27, 2018. Rob Schmitt cannot handle a glass of milk. He shared on Fox News that he is lactose intolerant. He has joked on-air and on social media that his fellow Fox anchors have ribbed him for this allergy. On June 27, 2018, the news team was eating ice cream on the show, with Rob quipping, “I love these friggin’ jokes about me all the time.” You can see the video embedded above. Schmitt joked on Twitter, “In today’s ever-liberal woke society – I’d like to call attention to lactose intolerance shaming and the biggest bully EVER @JaniceDean.” Schmitt also shared with fans the medicine he keeps with him for the rare occassions when he eats something that includes gluctose. He posted a photo of a Lactaid packet, tagged Jillian Mele and Janice Dean and included the caption, “Happy National ice cream cake day.” The Cure's Robert Smith: 'I was very optimistic when I was young – now I'm the opposite' The singer and songwriter has been curating the Meltdown festival, and is planning to record the first Cure album in 10 years. But will it be fuelled by magic mushroom tea? Last modified on Mon 3 Dec 2018 15.13 GMT. T he first thing Robert Smith does is apologise for the makeup. He hasn’t worn it since his last concert with the Cure, in December 2016, but he has a photoshoot today at the Royal Festival Hall and thinks his features are too indistinct without it. To be honest, I would be disappointed if he wasn’t wearing it, along with his regulation baggy black clothes and silver jewellery. Since 1983, the sooty eyeliner, blood-smear lipstick and cobwebbed forest of hair have made him a human logo, transmuted, through the work of people such as Tim Burton and Neil Gaiman, into visual shorthand for the morbidly romantic. He looks like the Cure sound. Even without the warpaint, Smith finds it hard to blend in. In 1989, at the height of his fame, he moved to the quiet south-coast village where he still lives with his wife, Mary, and gamely attended a meeting in the village hall. “It was pretty chaotic,” he sighs. “I was asked to leave, for no reason other than I wasn’t welcome. I thought, ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake.’” He clasps his hands over his face, just like he does in photographs. For someone who once sang “It doesn’t matter if we all die”, Smith has an endearing relish for the bathetic comedy of life. Like the time, during the first Gulf war, when he held a press conference to explain that the Cure’s 1979 debut single Killing an Arab was a reference to L’Etranger and not, as some US radio DJs thought, an Islamophobic anthem. “It was totally surreal, explaining Camus to a sea of utterly bemused faces.” Or the time that he interviewed David Bowie for Xfm and arrived so drunk that he proceeded to talk over his hero for two hours. “I think my opening gambit was, ‘We can both agree you’ve never done anything good since 1982,’” he says, wincing. For all his easy, blokeish charm, Smith means as much to millions of people as Bowie meant to him. This year, the Cure are marking the 40th anniversary of their first concert under that name (they started in 1976 as Malice) with a flurry of activity. Smith has been rummaging through boxes for a documentary directed by regular collaborator . “I knew a few people wanted to – what’s a nice way of saying exploit? – celebrate the 40th anniversary with projects,” he says. “I said no, but I knew that they would probably go ahead anyway unless I made it very obvious that we were doing something.” The Cure may even make their first album since 2008, but we will get to that. The Cure in 1987. Photograph: Dave Hogan/Getty Images. First up, Smith is curating the Meltdown festival at London’s Southbank Centre: a walloping 90 artists over 10 days. Smith will close the event under the name Cureation 25 – which promises a lineup of previous bandmates and more – shortly before the Cure headline a sold-out Hyde Park. “Meltdown’s going to be doom and gloom and Hyde Park’s going to be hands in the air,” he says. He sent a handwritten letter to each name on his wishlist and almost all of them said yes. It’s striking that everyone on the lineup, from the Manic Street Preachers to Mogwai, Nine Inch Nails to the Twilight Sad, has been influenced by the Cure in one way or another. Does Smith only like bands who like the Cure? “I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many artists who don’t like the Cure,” he says. “I think people admire us, even if they don’t particularly get the music. It sounds very conceited, but it’s not about me, it’s about the band. We’ve stayed true to ourselves. If you’re in a band, you realise how hard that is. I think people admire our tenacity.” The Cure’s position is certainly enviable: loved with cult-like fervour yet mainstream enough to be covered by Adele (Lovesong) and featured in Ant-Man (Plainsong). There’s even a Reese Witherspoon romcom named after their 1987 hit Just Like Heaven, not that Smith has seen it. They are the only band, Smith notes, who are routinely perceived as both suicidal and whimsical. And they have maintained their integrity. Currently without a record label, manager or publicist, they tour (often) or record (not so much) only when Smith feels like it. It’s not true that he’s the only Cure member who matters (if bassist left, then “it wouldn’t be called the Cure”), but he has always been in the driving seat. When was the last time he did something he didn’t want to do? He points at my Dictaphone and laughs. “Sitting here.” The Cure tore through the 80s the way the Beatles rushed through the 60s, or Bowie the 70s: wildly prolific, constantly changing. “It is weird looking back,” Smith says. “Everything was done at an incredibly fast pace. Life was whizzing by.” For a 19-year-old neophyte from the suburban West Sussex no-man’s land of Crawley, Smith seemed uncannily self-assured. “Where did that grotesque confidence come from?” he says drily. “Probably punk. Most of the punk bands were fucking awful. I thought we were all right and we were getting better. A lot of it was bluff and bluster at that age.” Within a couple of years, the punk boy wonders had evolved into avatars of doom: 1981’s Faith sounded like inching through a chilly fog. “I thought, ‘How much bleaker can we get? Either we make very, very tiny noises at the end of a concrete bunker and I whisper over them, or we do something different.’” Hence 1982’s Pornography, a churning inferno of rage, nausea and despair. “There was a lot of tension in our personal lives,” he says. “The music’s always reflected, to a very large degree, how I am mentally.” The strain of playing emotionally crushing songs every night, in various states of narcotic disrepair, broke the band. Smith joined Siouxsie and the Banshees and planned to use the Cure as a vehicle for “sort of stupid” pop songs such as The Lovecats – until the stupid songs became hits. “I suddenly thought, ‘Well, actually, this is more attractive than slogging my way round the world with the Banshees!’ So I was never quite comfortable with my reasons.” Then again, he says, a cynical careerist would not have followed up with the queasy psychedelic splurge of The Top. Drummer , he says, “used to make a huge pot of magic mushroom tea at the start of every day and it just went on from there”. Only with 1985’s did Smith decide to get “professional”, rearranging the studio for each song and pinning guidelines to the wall. “For the first time we were creating sounds as well as songs,” he says. The instructions for the desolate Sinking, for example, were: “We must cry by 6pm tonight.” The Cure became so big internationally that promoters began calling them the Pink Floyd of the 80s. Smith considered 1989’s exquisitely morose Disintegration his masterpiece; the record label thought it was commercial suicide – it sold 3m copies. Whether in or out of the charts, the Cure occupied a bubble of their own, regularly anointing a symbolic nemesis. “It was generally Duran Duran,” Smith says, “which is really sad because they loved us and they used to come to our shows. But they represented everything we hated: the whole glamorous 80s, consumer bullshit; this horrorshow that we were up against.” Smith also had a long-running feud with Morrissey (“I never really understood it”), in which he has proven to be on the right side of history. Robert Smith playing live in Santiago, Chile, in 2013. Photograph: Zuma/Rex. The hothouse of success drove Smith to escape from the capital. “I survived; a lot of people that I left in London didn’t.” By the time of 1992’s Wish, with its jaunty hit Friday I’m in Love, the novelty of being huge had evaporated. “I was coping in a slightly disturbed way with what was going on,” he says. “I felt it was at odds with what I’d started out doing. I couldn’t understand how we could be so successful and still be honest. With hindsight we were, but I couldn’t see it.” So when the Cure were elbowed aside by Britpop, he was relieved. “I felt more comfortable being slightly outside of what was going on, because that’s how I’d felt from the very start. Had we kept pushing it, I don’t think I’d have survived it – not in one piece, anyway.” These days, the Cure are predominately a live act, renowned for their epic, multi-encore shows. In Mexico City, as a 53rd-birthday treat, Smith tried to break Bruce Springsteen’s record of 4hr 6min, but miscalculated and fell three minutes short. “I was a bit crushed,” he says, “because we could have honestly kept going for another half an hour.” Friends, bandmates and critics have all suggested he leave the audience wanting more, but he keeps going because he enjoys it so much, and because he thinks he owes it to the fans. “I still think of that person who’s there thinking, ‘I wish they wouldn’t stop. I wish they wouldn’t stop.’” Hyde Park, he warns (or promises), will be a relatively brisk two hours.