SCENE 13: Summer 1985, The Hacienda

Mike Pickering & Peter Hook are in the Gay Traitor at the Hacienda – the Happy Mondays are drinking at another table

Mike Pickering
I’ve got to admit I’m loving the tape
Who is the singer

Phil Saxe
It’s that lad there, Shaun
The scally prince, encentr’d in his pals

Mike Pickering
Well, he souds bit like Fergal Sharkey
Tries to impersonate Ian Curtis
But massive are his spirit’s melodies
Stringing Joycean streams of consciousness
Like flying falcons flashing swift, serene,
Across the Happy Monday’s wondersound
The fragrant scent of a rich-bodied wine
That’s yet in a bottle of white lightning
I hear the sea blue holy birds of song
Hovering above your iron forge grooves
Strutting rythyms dominated by bass
Hypnotic, repetetive, relentless,
Smart guitar’s arpeggios somatic

Phil Saxe
I’m gonna start a movement with these lads
That Shaggy, Scooby Doo look will glow great
Apparell’d in bell bottoms from my shop

Peter Hook
Tell me that you are both fucking joking
That fractious rabble of Dickensian
Ne’er-do-wells bubbling from the sink estates
Of Little Hulton like sewerage ooze,
More likely to achieve their slice of fame
Upon CCTV than MTV
To sign such a bunch of ill-manner’d scroats
On the basis of one tape, ignoring
Plenteous innate dodginess, insane!

Phil Saxe
Better to catch a cygnet than a swan

Peter Hook
To sign another band now makes no sense
From the initial estimate, they said
Seventy Thousand, half a million
Drain’d from the office coffers, each grand scheme
Of architecture needeth paying for
& Hacienda hospitality
Dressing rooms decorated flowers
& riders even film stars would approve
Fritters money away like ten-arm’d men
& stock take’s just a joke, you’ll spot our staff
From clutching beer-crates on their journeys home
Its us, New Order, buying them their booze

Enter Tony Wilson & Rob Gretton

Tony Wilson
Hello! Hello! good evening everyone
Where are they then, today’s starling darlings
Can it be these adorn’d paisley shirts
Are you the Happy Mondays, whom I’ve heard
Are possibly the greatest thing since… me

Phil Saxe
Tony

Tony Wilson
Mr Saxe

Phil Saxe
May I introduce
Shaun & Paul, they’re brothers, Mark, Paul, PD

Tony Wilson
Welcome within the Hacienda, boys
This is the Gay Traitor’s inner sanctum
& where the best of business undertook
So Shaun is the singer, right

Shaun Ryder
I am, yeah

Tony Wilson
Then let us have a private tete-a-tete

Rob Gretton
Who wants a drink, lads, on Factory

Paul Ryder
Dya have any of those fancy cocktails

Rob Gretton
How about a ‘slow hot fuck on the beach,’
Its absinth whipp’d cream & caramel
Its absolutely fuckin’ delicious

Paul Ryder
Aye, go on then

Mark Day
Can I have a tetleys

Rob Gretton
Coming Phil, I’ll get you one as well

Phil Saxe
Cheers

The Happy Mondays (minus Shaun), Phil Saxe & Rob Gretton go to the bar

Tony Wilson
Your full name

Shaun Ryder
Shaun William George Ryder

Tony Wilson
Where are ya from

Shaun Ryder
Salford, different breed,
Home of the Salford Sioux, Buffalo Bill
Had come to town with Little Bighorn braves
& his Wild West show, then they dissapear’d
Vanish’d under the arches at Greengate
Wanted by Washington’s authorities
But hidden by locals, war warriors
Had won their respect, felt a kindred kind,
A century later lacing our veins
Races native American blood!

Tony Wilson
Good, without Salford Manchester’s dull
A lesser constellation it would be
Without jabbering authenticity
For we are all of Lyra, in the north
& this great city Vega, why would I
Want to ever leave here, as a farmer
Enjoys his fertile pastures, so do I,
Fuck London’s major music business schmaltz
This urban sprawl of ours contains the best
Of songsmiths & musicians, & your boys
Among them, I’m delighted to meet you

Shaun Ryder
We’ve kind of met before, well, in a way,
I went to see the Buzzcocks at Belle Vue
I was a sixteen-year-old terrier
& saw you there, & threw my plastic pint
Right at your head

Tony Wilson
I don’t remember that

Shaun Ryder
It missed, destroy’d some lassies mohican
She weren’t impress’d

Tony Wilson
I bet she wasn’t Shaun

Shaun Ryder
I was just showing appreciation
I grew up watching Granda Reports
& loved ‘So It Goes,’ how Joy Division
& the Buzzcocks wer bothy Manchester bands
& you’d put them on the television
I was, I am, I’ll always be a fan

Tony Wilson
Why do you want to sign to Factory

Shaun Ryder
Its all about the freedom of focus

Shaun Ryder
Let Paul’s sole purpose be his bass-playing,
Mine lyrics, & smoking lots of Dennis

Tony Wilson
Dennis

Shaun Ryder
Dennis Law, draw

Tony Wilson
I like a smoke
Anything good going around your way

Shaun Ryder
Got some lovely squidgy black in from France

Tony Wilson
Ooo – I ‘an’t ‘ad any black for ages
But let us drop digression from discourse
To succeed you have to be your own band
Carve market-slices being just yourselves
As a lie never lives to growing old
Ignore the perfum’d pomp of popular
You have evolved from leaping ancestors
To true flying fish, exocoetidae,
A product of smirking stirpiculture

Enter Mike Pickering & Rob Gretton

Mike Pickering
So, Tony how’s it going

Tony Wilson
You were right

These boys are something else, & if you want
To sign them you can sign them

Mike Pickering
You mean that

Tony Wilson
Of course, welcome to Factory Records

Shaun Ryder
You fucking dancer, Tony, nice one mate

Rob Gretton
I want to put you on with New Order

Tony Wilson
Its time to embark on something diff’rent–
To break the past’s inextensible hold
Lets be Stravinskys, Bartoks, Hindemiths
Antiromantic neoclassicals
Whatever it takes to drive phasmatics
Out of our zeitgeist, forging better things
The psychedelic carriage of your dream
Clad in our company’s crabskin armour
Will start or end the business of revolt
Against the lary, lager-swilling herds
Packing discos with drivel & dribble
Across the land; the fates have chosen us
This thunderclap, this scourge, this Manchester
To render the true British genius –
From Italy painting, from Russia prose,
From Austria, Germany, opera
But Britain has its songs & poetry
& you, Shaun Ryder, are its fresh glory

Shaun Ryder
So, Tony, what about the contract, mate

Rob Gretton
Well, Factory don’t do contracts

Shaun Ryder
They don’t

Mike Pickering
There‘s not an advance either, however
This is a meritocracy, do well
& you’ll get paid, its all up to yourselves

Shaun Ryder

Fair enough

Rob Gretton
We’ll pay for your recordings
& tours all the other things, but not
Money in your bank accounts directly
Until your records sell

Shaun Ryder
That’s brilliant

Tony Wilson
There’s a wonderful quote
From Samuel Cornelius Phillips
You know, the Sun Studios in Memphis
Allow musicians the space to expect
The freedom to find what they want to do
Well, nice to meet you Shaun, I must be off
The local council has sent in its scouts
Some license or other we’ve neglected
I’ll see you soon

Shaun Ryder
Nice one, Tony

Tony Wilson
Bye boys

Exit Tony wilson

Mike Pickering
Manchester’s maverick pain in the arse

Who drives us round the bend, who’s heart of gold
Enables all of this; blissful ignorance,
Luck, cheek & magic; the Factory firm
Has seen a mirror image in your band
Among the fake fables & platitudes
The modern music scene has fast become
Mark my words, the Happy Mondays will shine!

---

SCENE 14: Old Wellington Inn, Manchester, Summer 1985

Garry Johnson & his photographer, Bob, are waiting in the Old Wellington Inn

Bob
Manchester is such a fucking shit hole
A horrible, a dirty, scruffy place

Garry Johnson
Its not so bad, I’ve got family here
You’ve got to love the northern way of life
A neon light in a shite grubby sea
As London is all anonymity
Manchester’s just a family of friends

Bob
So why the Stone Roses, what’s so special
About that demo tape to come this far

Garry Johnson
Its like, I hear a calling of the tribes
& the celebration of a nation,
In mutters of discovering powers
There’s something quite organic in the sound
Like jessamine awash in honeydew
Mixt with the edginess of urban drudge,
There’s hope & beauty, clumping pain & loss
& hear they come, all four of them, at last

Enter the Stone Roses

Garry Johnson
Hello lads, which one is Ian,

Ian Brown
I am

Garry Johnson
Nice one – thanks for getting in touch with me

Ian Brown
Safe, mate, I’m a fan of your poetry

Garry Johnson
Sweet, so, this is my photographer, Bob
We’ll do the shots after we’ve ended here
Bob, get the drinks in, what ya having lads

Reni
I’ll have a coke

Pete Garner
Me too

Ian Brown
A coffee please

Garry Johnson
You guys don’t drink

Andy Couzens
Never in the day times

John Squire
I sometimes have a tipple – rum & coke

Andy Couzens
Can you get me a lager shandy please

Bob
I’ll bring them over

Garry Johnson
Take a seat here lads
Ian, I’m so glad you sent me the tape,
Its not been off at the Sounds office since
You do not need to be a Mystic Meg
To understand your massiveness at hand

Ian Brown
Glad you like it, we’re excited you’re here
I’ve bought a copy of Sounds e’ery week
E’er since I can remember, so am chuff’d
The band’s first interview will be with you

Andy Couzens
John Squire
You’re much better than Melody Maker
& NME, that’s for sure

Garry Johnson
We do try
So let’s begin shall we, this dictaphone
Shall capture all we say, to be transcrib’d
{Garry sets the tape going}
So, as we reach the end of eighty-four
How do you see the voyage of thy verve
Crossing unpathed waters to shores yet dreamed
& do you have set goals

Ian Brown
Of course we do
But not one of ordinary design
We want to fly, but not by flapping arms
Like all the normal aviary beaks

Andy Couzens
We want to be unique in projection
But forced to out of keen neccessity
Factory do not like us, that’s for sure
Tony Wilson hates us, resentments surge
Thro tribal stances & dirty verdicts
With us you hear the fiuture of music
Against us, a tuneless metal racket
We polarize opinion

Garry Johnson
Do you find
Tony Wilson’s power in the city
Has undermin’d your cause

Reni
It fucking has
He is actively trying to stop us
Doing anything, each corner’s turn
He’s always there shutting the fucking door

Pete Garner
It seems like we’re on the city’s black-list
& getting gigs a nightmare no young band
Should ever have to honestly endure

Ian Brown
So we’ve tried something diff’rent as we are
Opposed to all of those raincoat-wearting
Cliquey & elitist Manchester bands

John Squire
Weve played a lot in london – to define
Ourselves as a national band, not just Manchester

Reni
This city’s a wilderness of venues
But down in London we’ve already play’d
The Moonlight Club, The ad Lib, The Marquee,
Dimngwalls in Camden, The Greyhounf, Fulham,
The first stage Jimi Hendrix ever graced
When he first came to England, sixty-six

Garry Johnson
What do you think of the Hacienda?

John Squire
We’re anti-Factory, so its shit
But not because of that, because it is

Ian Brown
Its empty, its freezing, the bands hate those
Diabolical, echoing acoustics
Intefering with the sound, messy mix
Of dodgy pitches in a big tin box

Andy Couzens
Factory’s pretentiousness incarnate
Their cultish, media-power’d hipness
Suffocates the city, brainwash binges
Marketed in coffee shops by muppets
Clad in dark overcoats, swapping vignettes
On poetry & weird subtitl’d films

Garry Johnson
You’re about to do something diff’rent, right,
To burst thy matrix straightjacket, a gig
In a warehouse

Pete Garner
That’s right, the Flower Show

Bob
Here we go

Garry Johnson
Thank-you Bob

Bob
No problemo

Bob hands out the drinks

Bob
I’ll just go on the fruity for a bit

Garry Johnson
The Flower Show, tell me all about it

Ian Brown
Beyond the local treadmill band support
We needed something to give us an edge
Operating outside the manual
That turns all groups pedestrian, to bores
So Stevie Adge epiphanized the deed
A warehouse party at the heart of town,
He’d gone to one down Hackey, East London
& saw a most definite potential
To do the same in relique Manchester
& say fuck you to Wilsons of this world

John Squire
As when the blessed Michelangelo
Marble carv’d from the Carrara quarries
Creating the heartbreaking Pieta
& David, more lifelike than life itself
We’ll make those bricks & mortar come alive

Reni
How much more time & headspace does one gain
Not looking at your neighbours acts & thoughts
But only at the things one does oneself
Tho’ ephemeral fame’s for the masses
Convention’s paths legends never follow

Garry Johnson
So, what shall be the running gist tonight

Andy Couzens
The plan is to play inbetween DJs
An all night party, actively apart
From all those sterile, beaurocratic beers

Ian Brown
A generation wishing it was born
Forty years ago, to breathe the sixties
Now makes its mythomemes, of better dreams
Topping all legends chronicled before

Garry Johnson
So where’s the gig, how do I find you boys

Reni

Well, keep it quiet, mate, but Fairfield Street,
Beside the Star & Garter, just behind
Piccadilly Station, where you shall find
A spacious, disused British Railways arch

Pete Garner
We’re not sure if anyone will turn up
But hopefully they will, including you

Garry Johnson
Of course we’ll be there, who’s else expected

John Squire
Despite we’ve never play’d a gig at home
There’s many Mancs already on our side
We’d gave a demo to Tony The Greek
On Piccadilly Radio was play’d
Receiv’d a rare, overwhelming response
& we were soon book’d to do a live show
Bootlegs of which I hear in passing cars

Garry Johnson
That’s great – I’m sure its gonan be pack’d out
Your music is the freshest thing I’ve heard
In quite a while, so lads, shall we begin
The shoot

Ian
Sure

Garry Johnson
Bob, hey Bob, the boys are primed & ready
For all your magic moves behind the lens

Bob
Alright lads, follow me, I’ve got a plan
I wanna mix urban depravation
With northern swagger by graffiti glazed

Exit John , Andy, Pete, Reni & Bob

Ian Brown
Nice to meet you Gary

Garry Johnson
You too Ian
My pleasure, I am a fan already
& as a writer love your lyric-blade
A sharp & bloodstain’d weapon awesome forg’d
Do you realise how evocative
How enigmatic & how intriguing
Your words which work on so many levels,
& just how deepy powerful they are

Ian Brown
There’s not a thing I do not think about

Exit Ian Brown

---

SCENE 15: Fairfield Street, Manchester

The Stone Roses just finish their penultimate song of their set at The Flower Show. Ian in black cropp’d hair moves in & out the crowd, Andy Couzens weaves about the stage, Reni is stripp’d topless & is rushing on amphetamines

Ian Brown
Thanks to all who came, a famous display
We really appreciate the trouble
Each one of you has taken to get here
A lovely mix of funksters, goths & punks
Time underlines thy final chance to dance
Anyone who’s anybody knows it
So this is the last song – This Is Tell Me

The Stone Roses play Tell Me