The De-Monkeyfication of The Stone Roses

What's with all the King Monkey Bollocks?

Anyone who has attended an alternative disco in Scunthorpe (or I suspect any small Northern town) will be aware of the inevitable effect ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ and ‘I am the Resurrection’ by The Stone Roses has on certain individuals:

•  They start talking in a Mancunian accent despite usually hailing from the surrounding villages of North Lincolnshire with names like ‘Arsethrottle’, ‘Swellingsworth’ and ‘Kirton on Fettle'
• They descend upon the dance floor with an arrogant simian swagger, pint glass raised as if to say ‘I am celebrating the joyous and rare occasion of The Stone Roses being played at an Indie Disco but will glass you as soon as look at you if you disrupt my utopian vision of an Indie Boy wonderland
• They stare longingly into the eyes of the next ‘King Monkey’ and recite Ian Brown’s lyrics to one another as though he personally carved them onto their arse
•  They shake an imaginary Tambourine and/or pair of maracas in the air whilst pouting like Liam Gallagher

This ritual has a strange and contradictory nature exemplified by the atmosphere of arrogance and potential violence bubbling under the surface of what should really be the benign act of having a little dance to your favourite song. The music in question doesn’t sound like Slayer or have any particular aggressive qualities and yet to a certain breed of male it signifies a call from the wild to assert their masculinity with as much machismo and bravado as possible. However, none of this seems to correlate with their often long haired, hippy/mod, otherwise supposedly sensitive and music loving appearance and I begin to suspect that this has more to do with adopting a persona as a fashion statement or as a way to fit in rather than being purely a music loving thing. Ultimately the Indie Boy shtick taken to the extreme appears to just become another social genre for someone who doesn’t appear to have much personality of their own and who wants to conform by seemingly not conforming.

I’m aware that this could be interpreted as offensive, extremely generalized, pretentious and judgemental snobbery. Well it is; sort of. The thing is, I love The Stone Roses; in fact I’d probably put them up there with my favourite bands and yet I don’t feel compelled to change my accent, swagger round like a dickhead and kick someone’s head in whenever I hear their music. I also get frustrated when I try to tell others how great they were/are and find that they have been put off by this image and I don’t blame them. If I had never heard them and judged them purely on the behaviour of their fans then I would probably just assume that they were some jumped up pub rock band consisting of a gang of football hooligans. Fortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Most people have heard about the first Stone Roses album and/or the aforementioned singles taken from it. It consistently tops polls as one of the greatest albums of all time and I think the fact that it is regarded with such reverence is also something that could put off potential listeners who are already less than enamoured with their reputation. The truth is that when you strip all the bullshit away and get past those two indie boy anthems (as admittedly great as they are) you do discover an extremely consistent album that includes perfect psychedelic pop masterpieces such as ‘She Bangs the Drums’, ‘Waterfall’, ‘Song For My Sugar Spun Sister’, ‘Made of Stone’ and ‘Shoot You Down’. John Leckie’s production of the album still sounds fresh to this day and the song writing and musicianship completely shines through. There’s chiming guitar passages, lush vocal harmonies, intelligent lyrics, inventively melodic bass lines and subtly virtuosic drumming throughout; many things that the next generation of bands who claimed to be influenced by the Roses forgot to include in their own music.

A song such as ‘Elizabeth my Dear’ with its anti-monarchist lyrics about assassinating the queen hints that there may be more to this bunch of hopped up Manc monkeys. Supposedly the lemons and French flag on the front cover (also referred to in the song ‘Bye Bye Badman’) are a reference to the Paris riots of 1968 and if you believe Ian Brown, sucking on one allegedly acts as an antidote to tear gas. Throw in references on their second album to Rosa Parks, Jesus being a black woman and the seemingly Buddhist lyrics of ‘Breaking into Heaven’ and you begin to get the impression of a highly intelligent, open minded, free thinking set of individuals with a social and political conscience a far cry away from the swaggering seemingly anti-intellectual movement they would inspire. After years of no official press coverage in the period after releasing their debut, The Roses would return in 1995 giving their only official interview to The Big Issue figuring they’d rather lend the amount of attention they were bound to attract to a worthy cause rather than the NME etc…Yet another endearing move by the clearly liberal minded band.

So everyone knows the story, The Roses released their debut album in the heady second summer of love of 1989 and captured the zeitgeist for a whole generation. They were on top of the world and had created a masterpiece; however legal wrangling and procrastination lead to the difficult birth of their ridiculously anticipated follow up. When it finally arrived as ‘The Second Coming’ six whole years later it was ultimately a cocaine fuelled, self-indulgent, disappointing disaster. WRONG. The Second Coming does sound completely different from the first album but rather than being disappointing, it’s a complete transformation from a band with pure pop sensibilities to a funky, swaggering, bluesy jamming groove machine. Perhaps the songs aren’t as immediate but tracks like ‘Breaking Into Heaven’, ‘Ten Story Love Song’, ‘Daybreak’ ‘Tightrope’ and ‘Love Spreads’ are up there with their best material whilst transcending the formula of their debut and contributing to an epic and profound beast of an album. There seems to be a prevailing attitude that actual skill and musicianship should be maligned but when used in moderation as it is on ‘The Second Coming’ The Stone Roses shine as an extremely tight rock band with a penchant for mind blowing jams. This shit is better than anything you’ve heard from the sixties and as far as the music’s concerned the holy trinity of John Squire, Mani and Reni is really at its peak here; it’s a true shame that they would go their separate ways soon after.

Which leads us to the present; after years of speculation, The Stone Roses have reformed and are promising new material. With such great musicality and a back catalogue as unflinchingly perfect as their own it’s hard to believe that they will be able to deliver anything less than awesome. Inevitably whatever they come up with will be met with a backlash for not sounding like the debut, or even the Second Coming; I’m just trying to stay positive and hope that they surprise us yet again with a unique twist on what the band is perceived to be. In the meantime if anyone has any spare tickets to any of their shows then please let me know…I just hope that Ian Brown’s live vocal performance isn’t as dire as it is often renowned to be (despite sounding great on record) and that I don’t get trampled by a horde of lairy indie boys when ‘I am the Resurrection’ kicks in. Just enjoy the music and forget the shtick!

The birth of a Vinyl Junkie, and a tribute to Mark Lanegan

It all began when I went to see Mark Lanegan at Manchester Academy. As I stood in line after the show to meet and greet one of my favourite artists of all time I struggled with the quandary of what the hell to say to Mark fricking Lanegan. The dude was best mates with Kurt Cobain back in the day, he has a towering and formidable body of work that moves me like no other, and he has Josh Homme on speed dial whenever he feels like a jam. He sat there at the T-shirt stall like a ragged pillar of rock mythology; a tangible physical connection to a world that I had only ever experienced vicariously through records and magazines, but one that had thoroughly shaped my personality and sensibilities both musically and emotionally. And yet there he is; just another bloke, obviously. He is a badass though.

Other than requesting he let me come and hang out in the desert with Josh and the boys and that I appear on the next Queens of the Stone Age album, the only rational option was to grab a copy of his magnificent latest album ‘Blues Funeral’ on Vinyl and shove it in his face to sign. Despite his reputation as a misanthropic and grizzled, smack addled miserabalist, Mark came across as warm humble and gracious; he politely signed my copy and posed for a quick photo. He’s probably just shy I thought as I mumbled a few inconsequential words and shuffled off dazed and confused as though I had just made a pathetic attempt to speak to a girl that I fancied. Despite already owning the album on CD there was something about the thought of getting this mystical artefact home and giving it a proper spin in pure analogue form that appealed to me. Simply the fact that the artwork and record itself were larger imbibed the album with a more seductive quality and the promise of the musical delights within seemed to become more palpable than on that flimsy, diminutive CD.

There was one problem, and that was that I didn’t own a record player. I had amassed a small collection of Vinyl that consisted of a few Doors, Pixies and Bob Dylan records whilst I was at Uni a fair few years back. At the time I had the use of my friend Luke’s deck and went through a phase of mainly re-buying vinyl copies of albums I already owned on CD. I guess it’s a bit of a music obsessive geek thing to do, but it was almost like rediscovering the music for the first time and recapturing the fleeting initial buzz of falling in love with something or someone before it wears off and they become a reliable, trustworthy old companion. It wasn’t until later that I discovered that this was genuinely a worthy exercise and on many occasions the music on record does sound different; better, warmer, bigger and more dynamic like the band is right there in the room with you; you really are rediscovering it like a giddy wide eyed child.

I had often considered purchasing a record player just so that I could crack out those old records from my Uni days and my curiosity about this new Lanegan album was the perfect incentive to do so. As soon as I got it all rigged up and pilfered an amp and a couple of spare speakers from my brother I went about systematically re-purchasing all of my favourite albums on Vinyl. What followed was a glorious re-ignition of my passion for music; I could actually sit there and immerse myself in an album rather than feeling as though I should be pre-occupied with something else while the music played on in the background. No, this time I was engaged in the holy ritual of ‘Spinning the Black Circle’.

When I turned up the volume the music seemed to fill the room rather than simply getting louder and I could distinguish the instruments and various musical passages more clearly. In some cases it sounded as though I was listening to a completely different mix of some of these albums I had cherished for years, and they sounded even better. I’m sure an audiophile would tell me this is all obvious, but for me it was a revelation and I’m sure is the beginning of a new addiction. I think I read somewhere that Vinyl sales have gone up 40% in the last year or so, so I guess there’s something in it. Maybe people are rediscovering the delight in vinyl and realizing CDs and MP3s etc. can be a functional alternative to records but don’t have to render them obsolete. To me vinyl feels more like a luxury when I have time to listen instead of running around with my IPod on all the time, which is fine too.

Mark Lanegan played an awesome set that night and it turns out that ‘Blues Funeral’ is one of his best albums to date. So in tribute to Mark, here is my personal selection of his work. To be honest I thoroughly recommend checking out everything he’s done from about 1990 onwards…

The Winding Sheet by Mark Lanegan (1990) – Immensely atmospheric and sparse. Sounds like you’re living in a shed in Oregon, it’s pissing it down and the roof is leaking, but in a good way. Mainly just acoustic guitar and Mark’s awesome voice. Hugely influential on Nirvana’s unplugged session apparently.

      

Sweet Oblivion by the Screaming Trees (1992) – Much overlooked psychedelic blues/rock band written off as Grunge also-rans and fronted by Lanegan. His totally passionate and emotive vocals come into their own here and every track is a winner especially the triple whammy of the final three songs.           

                                        

Whiskey for the Holy Ghost by Mark Lanegan (1994) – A fuller sound and perhaps more developed and consistent than the Winding Sheet. Contains some of his best solo songs.

Dust by the Screaming Trees (1996) – Contains some of the best Trees songs including ‘Dying Days’ and ‘Halo of Ashes’

Field Songs by Mark Lanegan (2001) – Another solid album. Pretty plaintive and stripped down with his voice on top form and some more great tunes.

Blues Funeral by Mark Lanegan band (2012) – His latest offering merges a bit of electronica in with the dark blues atmosphere and a couple of up tempo rockers. He somehow manages to make it all coherent and it’s pretty astonishing that he’s still releasing some of his best material.

Honourable mentions to the first three Queens of the Stone Age albums and ‘Wheels’ and ‘Stay’ from the album ‘Scraps at Midnight’ (1998) for being two of my favourite songs.

Mark I salute you and If I ever get my own dog, it's going to be called 'Lanegan'.