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Underground > Radio & Music >

You Man U, you? You fookin Man U?

10:21 / 03.04.02

Inspired by Plums' thread over in the Film section on 24 Hour Party People, I'd like to find out what people thought of the whole Madchester scene of the early 90s.

Were the Happy Mondays the greatest, most shambolic, most "punk" band in the world, or were they just a bunch of scallies who got very, very lucky?

Did you wanna be adored?

Were you at Spike Island?

Remember when every band in the North West suddenly discovered some Manchester connection to get them into the scene - even the Charlatans from leafy Cheshire?

Remember when Mark E Smith took his ball home and said: "We're not a fucking Manchester band. We're a fucking Salford band."

Did you wear hooded tops, flares and necklaces made out of bits of wood?

Do you remember when you heard Wrote For Luck remixed by Andy Weatherall and it was the best fucking thing you'd ever heard?

Did you love seeing awkward indie kids drop E and dance with hardcore ravers to the same music?

Or was it all just a flash in the pan that doesn't really deserve to be immortalised in a movie?

Plasticfacecarntsmilewhitehout.

10:28 / 03.04.02

When I say "Andy Weatherall", I obviously mean "Vince Clark". Andy Weatherall did Hallelujah. The old memory's not what it was.

gozer the destructor

11:55 / 03.04.02

My first warehouse rave, walked in to Hallelujah, slouched shoulders ryder-esque, a mop that would put clint boon to shame, a hooded t-shirt with james' flower, knowing every single lyric that brown and squire had put to paper, laughing at northside for wanting to be mancunian and loving them all the same, wondering if the La's would be the next beatles, smiling at flowered up pretending to be the mondays,shaun ryder talking about feeding the pigeons on the word, Joy Division was already mythical by the time I got into the Carpets...happy happy days

The Natural Way

11:59 / 03.04.02

Yes. Remember it well. Too young for spike Island (14/15), but oh how I wished I was there. I wanted a long sleeved T w/ the "Londis" logo on it. Instead I settled for the aforementioned pink lennons, stupidly long hair, stripy T shirts, day-glo hoodies and garish sinbads. Oh, and I had a few pairsaflares. Obsessed I was, but getting stoned/inhaling aerosol (don't do it kids: it's real bad and good for big death!) and prancing round the campfire all night to "I am the Ressurection", "Tommorow Never Knows" and general Mr. Fingersy-style houseyness was as good as it was gonna get for little old me.

But it was damn good.

Was it the drugs, the hormones, the feeling of belonging to a scene...or was there really something in the air back then? Felt real good and waaaay optimistic.

12:18 / 03.04.02

...except for the New Fast Automatic Daffodils, the Manchester band that nobody talks about anymore, who were angry and abrasive even though they grooved like a motherfucker.

12:44 / 03.04.02

I was going to mention the New-FADS in my first post, Jack. Their "Music is Shit" EP is sublime. I still dig the old vinyl out to chill out to after a radge day at work.

The Natural Way

14:06 / 03.04.02

Being a youngcock, I was only familiar w/ a couple of their tunes. I remember something about deserts growing "three miles a year", or some such business. Liked it, tho'.

14:32 / 03.04.02

The desert grows three miles a year...
it just grows
it just grows...

That would be "Big," from the Pigeonhole album. There's a cool kinda proto-techno remix (with cut-up vocals) on an EP.

I'm partial to their sophomore disc Body Exit Mind, meself... a little tighter and more textured, not so much the amphetamine rush of the earlier stuff: the creepy stalking bassline of "Kyphos," the ironic hand-claps on "Beatlemania," the full-on roar of "Bong," and of course the almighty "Stockholm"...

Sorry. A bit carried away, me.

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:35 / 03.04.02

As might be obvious from being able to watch 24HPP at all, *was* a massive baggy kid. And as such looked pretty ridiculous, seeing as there were about ooh, four of us, in the entire school (south of england), influenced by a mate's older brother.

Huge flares/dungarees, red kickers, red beanie hat, long sleeved tie-dye roses t-shirt or the perennial Joe Bloggs 2-colour hoodie. So stylish, me. (and possibly one of those cool as F**k shirts, gawd help me)

Have a massive fondness for it all, probably partly because it was the only time I was ever in on something reasonably near the beginning... remember ranting about the Happy Mondays for ages being in the aforementioned gang of four, and then seeing that fantastic Top of the Pops at the height of the 'Mondays/Roses/ anyone as long as you pretend you're a Manc' period... (soup dragons anyone?), doing the whole 'seeee, i told you so' routine.

Some truly awful bands as well as some damn good ones.... Despite thinking now that Shaun Ryder is pretty much a prat, I'm in the 'great and shambolic' camp as far as the Mondays go.

And remember arguing with my dad for weeks becuase he wouldn't let me (a tiny 15-year old girl) go to Spike Island with my friends. Sax, I'm tres jealous.

Can't think why.

and as a product of all this Madchester madness, have been listening to old NFADS tape for a while now...

And what about the proper acid house stuff - 808 state, a guy called gerald etc etc.

Anyone read Manchester, England, Dave Haslam's fantastic story of the city?

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:38 / 03.04.02

god yeah, and 'Desmond' and 'Little Matchstick Owen'.

Fab.

Before you even get me started on Joy Divison/New Order, who aren't at all baggy, but if we're talking Manchester Music.

Btw, does anyone know, did Tony Wilson really turn the Smiths down for being 'bookish'?

14:46 / 03.04.02

Were the Happy Mondays the greatest, most shambolic, most "punk" band in the world, or were they just a bunch of scallies who got very, very lucky? – Sax.

I saw the Mondays here in NYC back around 1990. I wish I could remember who they opened for – I want to say Jane's Addiction, but I'm genuinely not sure. It was definitely shambolic, and definitely great.

Also saw Black Grape about 5 years later, and although Shaun Ryder had an extremely difficult time getting up off the chair he was sitting on, it was still a very entertaining gig.

No star here laces

15:20 / 03.04.02

Zeus jeans. Bloggs hoodie. Troop tracksuit. Curtains haircut.

Loved Mondays, hated Roses, going to pimp NFADS up in the guilty pleasures thread in a minute.

Up in Edinburgh we weren't really aware of baggy as a 'scene' that much. Just thought those clothes were what ravers wore - the same people were all wearing head to toe 'Dready' a couple of years later. Or maybe it's cos I was 13 and clueless. I had tapes with the Mondays rubbing shoulders with the Doors and N Joi...

I do tend to think the whole scene gets over-mythologised as it was the last interesting thing to happen in british rock music, and for all that it was actually just hanging onto rave's coat-tails. Edinburgh has had a retro-Madchester night doing a roaring trade for about 8 years now, which I find kind of scary, and I'm betting they never play the remixes there, only the album tracks.

17:40 / 03.04.02

"Shall we take a trip down memory lane..."

Personally, I love and loved baggy. I was a bit young (12) back in '89 when it all kicked off, but it was pretty much my start point of 'modern' music - I didn't listen to much but '50s rock and roll until I hit about 13, when I picked up a Smash Hits with the Stone Roses on the cover. (One Love had just been released - I even managed to get a 'banned' T-shirt of the original cover later on, though I'd still like that one Ian Brown had with all the tenners round the neck.)

For some reason, I wanted to find out more about this band, so I got a tape of their album off someone older at school in return for a book. It was one of the finest albums I'd ever heard, and remains so still.(In fact, I'm so sad that I pretty much own everything they ever did, except the remixes. I can't bring myself to buy them, even though I'm generally a fan of the remix.)

It was mainly the Roses at first for me, although they broadened my tastes as I began to watch The Chart Show for the 'indie' chart and got into other bands. I also think baggy still strikes a chord for me as it was the music which I grew up in other ways to. I still remember when 'Loose Fit' (and 3AM Eternal - not baggy, but still a great song) got banned during the Gulf War.

And I went straight into other kinds of music as a result of baggy's cross pollination.

05:14 / 04.04.02

Plums: "And remember arguing with my dad for weeks becuase he wouldn't let me (a tiny 15-year old
girl) go to Spike Island with my friends. Sax, I'm tres jealous. Can't think why. "

It was actually quite a shit gig, technically. Ian Brown stank to high heaven. But the memory of it is just very, very sweet - the actual feeling that at 19-years-old I was attending something "very important".

MC Tunes, though. Christ.

05:15 / 04.04.02

Plums: "And remember arguing with my dad for weeks becuase he wouldn't let me (a tiny 15-year old
girl) go to Spike Island with my friends. Sax, I'm tres jealous. Can't think why. "

It was actually quite a shit gig, technically. Ian Brown stank to high heaven. But the memory of it is just very, very sweet - the actual feeling that at 19-years-old I was attending something "very important".

MC Tunes, though. Christ.

05:17 / 04.04.02

Double double good.

07:53 / 04.04.02

It was actually quite a shit gig, technically. Ian Brown stank to high heaven. But the memory of it is just very, very sweet - the actual feeling that at 19-years-old I was attending something "very important".

I have a housemate who plays his bootleg copy of the Spike Island gig constantly and frequently informs me to "ignore the singing, the band are on amazing form". I believe there's a clause in his 'early 90s baggy retroist' contract that means people who were at Spike Island have to be treated to kissed feet and showers of flowers..

08:03 / 04.04.02

I shall go and wash my toes and be back directly.

Also saw the Mondays at Lancaster in 89. Bez had broken his leg and just sat on the edge of an amp with hisleg in a pot, shaking his maraccas and looking wired.

Goodness Gracious Meme

19:35 / 05.04.02

"the only rhyme that bites" (cue cowboy music)

ouch.

and Ty, that was exactly my point, the typical history of the manchester thing completely ignores the scary notions that ther might have been eek - black people and eek-dance music, involved.