happy mondays

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I might go back to the "Time Machine" thread and change my answer. This is the band I probably would have liked to have seen the most. Their shows must have been a complete mess.

― J-rock (Julien Sandiford), Thursday, 16 September 2004 04:34 (8 years ago) Permalink

The G-Mex video is a riot. Soaked in MDMA. Bez is enjoyable to watch.

― mentalist (mentalist), Thursday, 16 September 2004 04:37 (8 years ago) Permalink

they are horrible

― gaz (gaz), Thursday, 16 September 2004 04:43 (8 years ago) Permalink

well i wouldn't invite them over to mum's

― mentalist (mentalist), Thursday, 16 September 2004 05:39 (8 years ago) Permalink

Rowetta has just auditioned for the X factor! And she's through!

― Madchen (Madchen), Saturday, 25 September 2004 18:08 (8 years ago) Permalink

Yeah, that was truly mad! It was weird that no-one involved in the programme made that connection...

― M Carty (mj_c), Saturday, 25 September 2004 19:21 (8 years ago) Permalink

The book of 24 Hour Party People by Tony Wilson goes to great lengths to talk about Bernard Sumner's production on the first album without ever explicitly denying the John Cale credit. Maybe the John Cale credit was a joke? It doesn't sound like an oversight/fabulation on Tony's part - he talks about how Bernard was the secret great producer of the 80s, inheritor to Hannet's mantle on his Bemusic stuff yadda yadda, but that with the Happy Mondays he was dumbfounded by their sloppy genius and just recorded them straight.

The book also suggests that the group were taking Es and listening to house when Tony first met them, which may owe a bit more to creative license.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 26 September 2004 11:32 (8 years ago) Permalink

Does anybody have a reasonably accurate Bemusic discography - I know the obvious, but..

― Jedmond (Jedmond), Sunday, 26 September 2004 14:19 (8 years ago) Permalink

Maybe the John Cale credit was a joke?

i can remember reading an interview with cale where he mentioned recording the mondays. he said something about how he was trying to get straight and hid in the control booth cos they were running around like maniacs and offering him all sorts of temptations in the chemical department.
i think barney produced the 'freaky dancing/ the egg' single though.

― zappi (joni), Sunday, 26 September 2004 14:29 (8 years ago) Permalink

The "can I get an 'E'" line from the movie was cheap but hilarious.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Sunday, 26 September 2004 23:53 (8 years ago) Permalink

Also, I remember Uncut's New Order history which described Bernard high on acid in the studio with a lab coat on. I think he's an amazing producer.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Sunday, 26 September 2004 23:54 (8 years ago) Permalink

My friends and I covered "Bob's Yer Uncle" for our high-school talent show! It was a combination of the album version and the remix with the synth-line. We even had a Bez and a Rowetta - and we won!!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 27 September 2004 00:13 (8 years ago) Permalink

yeah, Barney produced first Mondays single, Cale first Mondays album. Wilson confused? someone please publish book in Australia and reveal.

― kit brash (kit brash), Monday, 27 September 2004 00:43 (8 years ago) Permalink

Jedmond - try here for a start: http://www.ltmpub.freeserve.co.uk/bemusicnotes.html

― Bill E (bill_e), Monday, 27 September 2004 00:56 (8 years ago) Permalink

It's published in Australia Kit - someone gave it to me for my birthday this year.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 27 September 2004 07:07 (8 years ago) Permalink

little matchstick owen.. genius

― nick.K (nick.K), Monday, 27 September 2004 08:25 (8 years ago) Permalink

woo!

though I've been looking in Kinokuniya for a year and it wasn't on Chaos when they had a book department :(

― kit brash (kit brash), Monday, 27 September 2004 12:27 (8 years ago) Permalink

Tim, you really have to get 'Twice As Nice' if you enjoyed CAI.

http://home.wxs.nl/~frankbri/ltm2398.html

Absolutely worth the price for the staggering version of Shark Vegas's 'You Hurt Me' [Could still be a massive hit if rereleased], and 52nd Street's ultra-funky 'Look Into My Eyes'. Even the Royal Family and The Poor track is good.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Monday, 27 September 2004 13:06 (8 years ago) Permalink

Bill E - thanks for the info (it's safely fallen into the must aquire section)

― Jedmond (Jedmond), Monday, 27 September 2004 21:06 (8 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

The Peel Sessions are not to be sneered at, yo. In fact, I'll go as far as saying the Peel versions of "Freaky Dancin'" and "Cob 20" are the equivalent of aural heroin.

― Dare Of The Hog (Bimble...), Sunday, 24 September 2006 10:10 (6 years ago) Permalink

Also "Olive Oil", too.

― Dare Of The Hog (Bimble...), Sunday, 24 September 2006 10:11 (6 years ago) Permalink

more leik aural kfc amirite

― EsteBAN LOUIS JAGGER (ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!!), Sunday, 24 September 2006 10:34 (6 years ago) Permalink

Heavens, no. I'm a vegetarian.

― Dare Of The Hog (Bimble...), Sunday, 24 September 2006 10:50 (6 years ago) Permalink

wouldn't stop you "going for a kentucky"

― kit brash (kit brash), Monday, 25 September 2006 00:05 (6 years ago) Permalink

Hahaha! Okay I totally get the joke now, thanks guys.

― Dare Of The Hog (Bimble...), Monday, 25 September 2006 09:45 (6 years ago) Permalink

3 months pass...

tart tart a lost classic too.

i just found out : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GktTYL7FO4E

― pisces (piscesx), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 16:14 (6 years ago) Permalink

love the delightful 12"

― PAUL FUCKING ROBINSON (electricsound), Thursday, 18 January 2007 00:11 (6 years ago) Permalink

You fuckin' betcha! I just put that in a podcast I did...

― White Dopes on Punk (Bimble...), Thursday, 18 January 2007 05:07 (6 years ago) Permalink

The Happy Mondays' reputation seems to describe a great divide between American and UK pop aesthetics. In the US, they're just another early-90s cutout bin band, like EMF or Jesus Jones, as some of the comments above attest. I was an American living in England as they emerged, and they utterly baffled me. I remember a NME review of the time describing how they were the summation of all that was great about Manchester from the Buzzcocks to the Fall to New Order to the Stone Roses. But to my ears, they took the weakest elements of all those bands. I appreciate the looseness, the regular guy appeal, but for me the beats don't gel and the songs seem hook-free. My English bandmate was shocked and gleeful that I was looking to unload my copy of Bummed.

― bendy (bendy), Thursday, 18 January 2007 13:28 (6 years ago) Permalink

yer bonkers

― pisces (piscesx), Thursday, 18 January 2007 13:37 (6 years ago) Permalink

Heresy it may be but I don't like Bummed much either. 1st album and Pills & Thrills I do like though.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Thursday, 18 January 2007 14:01 (6 years ago) Permalink

Absolutely OTM.

― White Dopes on Punk (Bimble...), Thursday, 18 January 2007 21:27 (6 years ago) Permalink

In the US, they're just another early-90s cutout bin band, like EMF or Jesus Jones

no people actually remember who Jesus Jones and EMF were and could name a song by each.

― M@tt He1g3s0n: oh u mad cuz im stylin on u (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 18 January 2007 21:29 (6 years ago) Permalink

yep. i like a few songs a lot but overall they just don't connect w/my merkin sensibilities.

― ZR (teenagequiet), Thursday, 18 January 2007 21:43 (6 years ago) Permalink

I listened 'Bummed' years after I'd got and liked 'Pills N Thrills...', and it was a disappointment for me too. Most of the songs on 'Bummed' are not loose, just terribly boring. But persuade me to make another try with this album, because I like the singles, and 'Pills'.

― zeus (zeus), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:33 (6 years ago) Permalink

They are either sublime or horrible. Bummed is horrible.

― everything (everything), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:47 (6 years ago) Permalink

bummed is great! however i prefer the single versions of lazyitis and wrote for luck, and the first album is more fun. don't dig pills & thrills much these days

― jimbo (electricsound), Friday, 19 January 2007 00:00 (6 years ago) Permalink

Bummed plays as more of a cohesive album than the others, the result of a distinct period of creative energy and the influence of Hannett. They could play/play together better by this time (and it's largely the last time they would do so), and Shaun had developed his authorial voice in a way that marks the songs as being of a piece. It's no surprise that it took re-recordings of two songs to actually make an impact as singles, but listen to it as its own piece of work, not a bunch of songs by a band that sometimes managed hits. The inner sleeve, presumably deliberately on the Carrolls' part, sets the tone of awkward distasteful material that becomes compelling based on its textures.

― nu-mongrel (kit brash), Friday, 19 January 2007 02:19 (6 years ago) Permalink

Bummed is the sound of Krautrock recorded at the back of a blazing barn, the funk that dare not speak its name. Unfriendly and muddy, as if the band that recorded it were more interested in doing Cacktory proud than unscratchin their pretence that the Kuff-Dammers were invisible. Queue righteous indignation as some middle class cunt pretends that going to East Leicester Academy of Tossery makes you a Prophet of sjarevestetey/

― God Bows to Meth (noodle vague), Friday, 19 January 2007 02:59 (6 years ago) Permalink

Survey says no. Sorry.

― everything (everything), Friday, 19 January 2007 03:59 (6 years ago) Permalink

i love them (i was also a yank abroad at the time of their eminence, in my case in manchester). when "step on" came out you pretty much couldn't walk a block without hearing it. my favorite thing is that "hallelujah" ep that i think was a u.s.-only release, collecting a handful of singles (including the bummed remixes and "clap your hands," plus of course two mixes of "hallelujah"). but i like the first 3 albums all to varying degrees; "bummed" is kind of a downer, but it's a deliberate downer (and the most likely of theirs to at some point be hailed as a "lost classic").

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 19 January 2007 05:10 (6 years ago) Permalink

Hahaha...good lord Noodle, what are you on about? Whatever it is, by all means, keep going! ;)

xxpost

― White Dopes on Punk (Bimble...), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:08 (6 years ago) Permalink

I dunno Bimb, I've lost myself at the end of that sentence. Bummed is wonderful tho, thick, muddy, mostly songless gloopy riffola that sounds the best of all their records, even though it mightn't be the best. I have a hell of a lot of time for Yes Please too. I think the neglected albums help you to hear their virtues without the dazzle of poptastic hits. Lumping them in with the Stone Roses and the Mock Turtles seems more ridiculous with each passing year. They're totally Factory, post-punk cracked funk angular nihilst Manchester death disco.

― God Bows to Meth (noodle vague), Friday, 19 January 2007 09:01 (6 years ago) Permalink

I like both Bummed and Pills..., but they're very different records. I think their best record is the Madchester Rave on EP, which is a bridge between the two- the dayglo funk of Pills..., crossed with the murky locked grooves of Bummed.

Noodle OTM as well- the Mondays were in a totally different place to nearly all the other baggy scene bands.

― Neil Stewart (Neil Stewart), Friday, 19 January 2007 10:52 (6 years ago) Permalink

noodle vague is doing a better job of describing this band's genius than anyone in the past 10 years. sure, they lost it at the end ("yes please!" is, in parts, excruciatingly bad) but "bummed" and "pills ..." are hewn-from-stone classix. even at the time, i couldn't understand why more people didn't realise this. with the passing of years, it seems even more obvious.

wrecked, wracked, rotten fucking genius. GOD, i loved that band.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Friday, 19 January 2007 11:24 (6 years ago) Permalink

Achh, I think I only ever loved their first album and today, I'd probably only listen to "Cob 20"

― is anyone anticipating the new Baaderonixx? (baaderonixx), Friday, 19 January 2007 11:39 (6 years ago) Permalink

double double good

― vita susicivus (blueski), Friday, 19 January 2007 11:48 (6 years ago) Permalink

Nice one, top one, sorted!

― Neil Stewart (Neil Stewart), Friday, 19 January 2007 11:50 (6 years ago) Permalink

I much prefer the first Black Grape album to any Happy Mondays LP.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Friday, 19 January 2007 11:58 (6 years ago) Permalink

You've said this before Nick, I think, but I can't agree. It's a better Pop record for sure, but it's the bleakness under the smiley that I love the most and Black Grape never got that down.

― God Bows to Meth (noodle vague), Friday, 19 January 2007 12:00 (6 years ago) Permalink

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