Scene 29: An Italian Restaurant in Manchester

Gareth Evans is meeting with the Stone Roses & a lawyer brought by Andy Couzens – they are eating spaghetti & drinking red wine

Gareth Evans
Tuck in boys, drink as much wine as you like
Gorge your gullets upon this restaurant’s
Gastronomical specialities
With this day as delicious as thie sauce
For if I can turn Ocean’s Eleven
To the coolest venue in the city
I can make you the best band in the world

Lawyer
I don’t like it

Gareth Evans
You what

Lawyer
This contract

Gareth Evans
What

Lawyer
This contract, well, if you can call it that
Is fundamentally slave ownership
William Wilberforce would be in fits

Gareth Evans
When did you start playing with the Roses

Lawyer
Andrew’s father’s happen’d to have hired me
To check that everything is above aboard
& I’m certainly glad he has done so
This is not a mangement agreement
At thirty-three-point-three-three-three percent
For 10 years on the band’s gross revenue
Before even expenses taken out
Is plainly parental gaurdianship,
Extortionate, outrageous, disgraceful,
An embarassment to the industry
& even to humanity

Gareth Evans
You what?
It’s fair reward I think for all the time
& cash I’ll be investing in the band
Ten years together seals seriousness
A paltry one or two is mere nonsense
No thing of depth meaning can be aspire
From such a rapid union, ten years
Of magical music making will mean
A lot of money, plenty to go round

Andy Couzens
Of which you’ll be getting a third, Ian
Reni, Pete, John

Pete Garner
Look, Andy, we don’t mind
It’s ridiculous, but we get to jam
Every day thro top drawer speakers

Ian Brown
At this strike of time we have made nothing
& a third of nothing is still nothing

Gareth Evans
You’ll be making money very soon boys

Reni
I’m happy with the tickets & free drinks
Benefits to outweigh any pitfalls
Of signing with Gareth

Andy Couzens
You’re kidding me
John, mate, what do you think

John Squire
I’m cool with it

Andy Couzens
Lads, come on, think, you’re really having this
{The rest of the Roses shrug their shoulders}
For fucks sake, I cannot sign this, this, plague,
It’ll eat away & destroy us all
I mean, who the fuck is Gareth Evans
Whose firebombs at the end of his tongue
Divides our happy band, a basilisk
With poisonous, obstacalizing breath
His bullshit stinks like a treacherous quag
Our songs are amazing, how can we stoop
Hook, line & sinker to this parasite
& with an inky stroke hand them over
I refuse his pen, I’m leaving the band

Exit Andy Couzens

Lawyer
Lads, think this thro like a careful mother
I suggest that none of you sign this turgid
Toilet paper piece, wipe your ass on it
Sure, but offering consolidation
Signatory is tantamount to death
Well, your musical suicide lets say

Gareth Evans
Oi, is there any chance you can fuck off

Lawyer
Don’t say nobody warn’d you

Ian Brown
Jog on mate

John Squire
Whatever’s in that contract, I respect
Your transparency, no hidden clauses
I’ll sign

Reni
Me too – pass us a pen Gareth

Gareth Evans
Boys, this is the best thing you’ll ever do
I promise you one thing – you’ll be massive

Ian Brown
That’s what we want to hear, I’ll sign it too

Pete Garner
& me

Gareth Evans
Boys, my boys, more wine, no, champagne
Its time to celebrate – oi, per favore
A bottle of expensive champagne please
& five flutes

Ian Brown
Andy won’t be coming back
But in a way it simpler makes all things
Four is the magic number for a band
The Beatles & the Doors are testament,
Their music is supreme, the Rolling Stones
Could easily have overdubb’d guitars
Besides, with four, we’d only need one car

Reni
The songs are gonna be able to breathe
Give everyone a turn, a chance, to shine
As soaring soundscapes open up untied
From rock & roll convention

Pete Garner
I agree
As when the Margrave marched with Marlborough
& Eugene to their Danube destiny
& with his fifteen thousand men was sent
Away from Blenheim, on to Ingolstadt
Weakening the host, but interferance
In the battleplan now firmly removed
Thus executed into perfection
Guys, when ditching Andy Couzens we too
Shed heavy weights that draggeth to the goal
Better to climb a mountain like a goat
Or swim a river upstream, salmon strong

John Squire
Tis the right thing for me, as sure as breath
Creativity should be a pleasure
But writing with Andrew became a chore
Him chugging chords along to lovely lines
He’s old style rocker, while I’m

Gareth Evans
Genius
Pure genius

Waiter
Here you are

Gareth Evans
Excellent

Reni
Nice one mate

Gareth Evans
Lets pop this baby open…
Here you are boys, time to toast the future
I’ve just found what the world is waiting for
To you, the Stone Roses, & your success
{They toast}
So moving on, leaving residuum
Beginneth by releasing a record
As soon as possible, something to mark
A new beginning, change of personelle
& fresh realisation of talents,
All this beguiling swagger, confidence,
All well & good, we know you will be huge
But something has to happen on the way
From steps come strides, from strides come gargant leaps
What have you got to give the world today?

John Squire
We have a song call’d Sally Cinnamon
A radical departure from our sound
Its softer than the rest, but then a pearl
Appears in the middle eight, firm, yet true,

Gareth Evans
Sounds perfect – lets record it very soon
There’s a flicker of light in the shadows
I will spend hours on end phoning the press
Music magazines, record labels, send
Hundreds, no thousands of tapes to the world
Push’d into the national consciousness
I’ll tap you into the great tradtion
To which you are heirs natural, as when
Sang the Syrian cabaret hostess
Her hair bound back, held by grecian headband,
Thighs quivering to rhythmic castanets
Danc’d intoxicated in dark taverns,
Or when the citharoedi pluck’d their lutes
With ivory plectrums in the forums
As the nightingale sings with flawless voice
Some in this wide creation forechosen,
To garnish the strokes of the galley slaves
To fill the headphones in the factories
To fuel the jukebox grooving on tables
& you shall prove, my boys, the greatest yet
Once more, lets drain our glasses, lets rejoice
& toast the Roses

Ian Brown
Yes

Gareth Evans
The Stone Roses

They toast

---

SCENE 30: The Boardwalk, Manchester

The Happy Mondays are finishing their set

Shaun Ryder
Are you ready – lets go – Up, up, away
It was Mad Cyril lads, lets have a look

The Happy Mondays play Mad Cyril

Shaun Ryder
Thank you very much – we are the Mondays
Happy Mondays, yeah, & you’ve been, well, you

Shaun Ryder gets off the stage – Nathan McGough approaches Shaun with Tim Booth

Nathan McGough
Shaun, Shaun, come here, that was brilliant

Shaun Ryder
Was it

Nathan McGough
It was yeah, look, there’s somebody
I’d like you to meet, this is Tim, Tim Booth

Shaun Ryder
Alright

Tim Booth
That was bloody magnificent

Shaun Ryder
Was it – but we’ve been on for hours ha’nt we

Nathan McGough
Nah mate, you’ve just been on twenty minutes

Shaun Ryder
Fuck off

Nathan McGough
No swear down, just twenty minutes

Tim Booth
If you can do more than twenty minutes
You can support my band on our next tour

Shaun Ryder
Whats your band

Tim Booth
James

Shaun Ryder
Ah, James, you guys are good
Your English country garden poet-rock
Is proper good man, yeah, yeah, I like it

Nathan McGough
It is a great opportunity, Shaun

Shaun Ryder
Right, right, yeah, well let me speak to the lads
But I’m sure they’ll be proper up for it
But for now lets get the fuckin’ beers in
Lads, to whet our mutual flatteries

Shaun puts his arms around Nathan McGough & Tim Booth – exeunt

---

SCENE 31: Wolverhampton, the office of Revolver FM

A leopard-skin pants-wearing, long hair’d Paul Birch is working in his office with his assistant, Mandy – There is a knock on the door – Mandy opens it

Mandy
Hello

Gareth Evans
Hello there – thanks for having us
Its quite a drive from Manchester you know
Lots of bloody traffic, but Im here now

Mandy
Here comes another full of joy & mirth!
Who are you again

Gareth Evans
I’m Gareth Evans

Mandy
Were we expecting you

Paul Birch
Ah, Gareth mate
Welcome – eh, I will deal with this Mandy
Maybe go grab us a couple of brews
Tea or coffee gareth

Gareth Evans
A milky tea
No sugar please

Paul Birch
I’ll have my usual

Exit Mandy

Paul Birch
So the Stone Roses

Gareth Evans
Man, they are so good
They’re selling out the International
In Manchester – my club with every gig
Their following grows bigger, & their songs
Are deft, orpehean miracles of sound

Paul Birch
You know we’re a heavy metal label

Gareth Evans
Course, but, you know, guitars are guitars
& these boys wield them like kaleshnikovs

Paul Birch
Well, I’ve had a listen, they’ve got something
I don’t know what exactly, but it shows
More importantly my A&R man
In Manchester, Dave Roberts, writes for Sounds

Gareth Evans
I know him – he’s always calling me up
Pestering for tickets, he gets them tho

Paul Birch
Well, thanks to your kind generosity
I spoke to David just the other day
Whose unbias’d opinion, Gareth,
Declares your band are gods immaculate
I’ll be history maker, he tells me,
If FM Revolver releas’d the first
Single by the Roses, & so Gareth
I’d like to pay for some studio time
& get a single out there, distribute
As widely as we can

Gareth Evans
That’s brilliant
You won’t regret this

Enter Mandy

Mandy
Coffees gentlemen

Paul Birch
Well, Mandy, looks like we have a new band
On the books

Mandy
Really

Gareth Evans
Yes, the Stone Roses
My band, they are going to be massive

Mandy
We hear that every day, Mister Evans
Gareth Evans
You don’t sign the Roses every day tho’
I am no helmsman of a ruin’d boat
But stand a Viking chieftan at the bow
Of some sleek dragon galley roaring in
To Lindisfarne in the days of Cuthbert

Paul Birch
Do you know which song you want to release

Gareth Evans
The band want to do Sally Cinnamon
The third track on the demo I sent you

Paul Birch
I’ll have to put it on again, its here
Somewhere
{starts looking for the demo tape among many}
We are simply inundated
By wannabe rockers, most of whom shit

Mandy
{holding the Stone Roses demo}
Is this it

Paul Birch
That’s the one, put it on please

Gareth Evans
Each song should have tape-counter number

Mandy
Which track is it

Gareth Evans
Number three, its so good
As Mefistofele match’d Goethe’s Faust
Transcending Gounod’s popular piece
Sally Cinnamon is a sybarite
Luxuriant grown from its sixties roots

They listen to Sally Cinnamon

Paul Birch
That was great

Mandy
Really good

Paul Birch
Eight track yeah

Gareth Evans
Yeah

Paul Birch

To tell you the truth that sounded smashing
Instead of splashing out hundreds of pounds
Thousands even, I know an engineer
In Macclesfield with a cool studio
Call’d the cottage, magician at the desk
He’ll wave a wand of wonder oer the works
AN overdub or two, redo vocals
Shall turn that demo to the real thing

Gareth Evans
I’m sure the lads will agree to that yeah,
The sooner the single’s out the better

Paul Birch
Welcome aboard the good ship Revolver
{they shake hands}

Gareth Evans
The lads are going to be buzzing, Paul
Thanks once again

Paul Birch
No sweat

Gareth Evans
Felicities!
This song is gonna send them to the stars