Long before they were famous for being tabloid newsrag and reality TV fixtures and became a nostalgic festival turn, Happy Mondays were a truly extraordinary and creative force. A raggedy bunch of genuine oddballs and misfits; not from the heavy, inner-city Manchester but from the hinterland suburbs of Salford, Wigan, and Bolton – they were born from 1960s cul-de-sacs, bus stops, chip shops, flat-roof pubs, and working men’s clubs. They were obsessed with funk, soul and psychedelia as much as Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen as well as a penchant for easy listening and trashy pop (the stuff that would later be called ‘Guilty Pleasures’) and they had an idea of mixing all that together. They had an unlikely frontman who could, somehow, pull sensational lyrics out of thin air. They got their mate, the son of a Detective Inspector of Greater Manchester Police, on stage as a freaky dancer. They were ten years early.
It was 1985 before they were corralled into a recording studio to make their debut for Factory Records. The ‘Delightful’ EP was competent but unremarkable save for being produced by Hacienda DJ and future M-Person Mike Pickering. The band supposedly had to record the songs at a faster tempo than they would on stage, at the insistence of Pickering. He probably wanted them to compete with the speedy, jangly 60s psych-influenced indie pop that was beloved of the NME at the time (captured on the C86 compilation). It would be intriguing to hear the loose (fit) slower versions they would have performed at the time. In fact, it would be great to hear anything from the archives; it would be great to hear the rest of the tracks off the 3-track EP – and therein lies the problem with this rather miserly overview of their early Factory singles.
This would have been a fantastic opportunity to present a side of the band that rarely gets heard or seen these days. Happy Mondays are not revered, they are reduced to cartoon Mancs and the narrative is all about the hard drugs, the hedonism and the House and Balearic influenced album ‘Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches’ they made with remixer & DJ Paul Oakenfold in 1990. Most people only know about Shaun & Bez – forever to be paraded as daytime TV chat show staples and doomed to Step On you, and the legacy of their incredible early recordings again and again and again.
The fact is ‘Pills…’ was the right sound for 1990 but it feels rather tinny and dated compared to the astonishing run of albums and singles that came before it. The music the group made on Factory Records in the 1980s was tense, grimy, sleazy, weird and utterly thrilling. Tony Wilson knew what the Mondays were capable of – and getting John Cale in to produced their debut LP was a leap of faith that probably neither party fully appreciated at the time. The ridiculously titled ‘Squirrel And G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out)’ is as far from Shaun and Bez sitting on the sofa talking to BBC Breakfast News as it’s possible to get – it is menacing, chilling and vaguely funky in a way only they could be. They had a killer rhythm section in the making comprising Shaun’s brother Paul and drummer Gaz Whelan. In Mark Day, a beanie-hatted hard rock fan, a they had a remarkable creative guitarist whose lurching, sliding lines are hugely underrated
Their next one, ‘Bummed’ is something else – a gigantic, clattering, malevolent monster of a record – the product of a band of scallies who are off their heads, obssessed with the movies ‘Performance’, ‘Spinal Tap’ and ‘Gimme Shelter’. Their ‘Exile on Main Street’ – it takes them not to the Côte d’Azur but a former slaughterhouse in the godforsaken Humberside market town of Driffield for reasons lost in time. They are whistling in the dark, listening to Acid House and hip-hop tapes on their ghettoblaster while attempting to record a bunch of ‘pub rock on acid’ songs that were seemingly unsuited to raving. In the producers chair, amid the mayhem, is a punch-drunk and out of shape Martin Hannett – long estranged from Factory Records – who seems intent on defying them and making a weird stadium rock goth/country & western/psychedelic funk record – somehow, via some shared recreational interests, they meet in the middle. It’s one of the best things Martin ever did and Happy Mondays greatest achievement by some distance. Double Double Good. They were quite something live around this time too. Have a look at this – I rest my case:
Back to this shoddy compilation then which seems at great haste to get these early, vital recordings out of the way so we can “Call The Fuckin’ Cops” AGAIN. After skipping the rest of the ‘Delightful’ EP (beautifully remastered btw- as is everything here frustratingly enough) we then get an edit of ‘Freaky Dancin’ from 1986 where the Mondays effectively invent the whole baggy/indie dance/Madchester template – three years before The Stone Roses ‘Fools Good’. They were too early again.
Of course we don’t get the full length mixes or it’s enjoyably messy B-side ‘The Egg’ and instead we’re whipped into the bleakly danceable ‘Tart Tart’ from ‘Squirrel & G-Man…’ – perhaps the late Paul Ryder’s finest and most elastic bassline – and the magnificently scuzzy ’24 Hour Party People’ single. We get an edit of ‘Wrote for Luck’ in its orginal guise (featuring one of guitarist Mark Day’s best and most deceptively clever riffs). It’s more deadly variant ‘W.F.L’ remixed by Paul Oakenfold was the moment they truly crashed into the mainstream and someone shouted ‘Think About the Future’. That’s over on Disc 2 but the underrated Vince Clarke (he of Erasure/Yazoo/Depeche) version is nowhere to be seen.
The giddy, Beatles pilfering ‘Lazyitis’ is here at least, the single mix which saw them tackle a brilliantly goofy and unlikely duet with their hero – Wheeltappers & Shunters legend and ‘Wimoweh’ hitmaker Karl Denver.
A complete curveball that made no commercial sense and was all the better for it. This was a last gasp of the C&W weird bar-room brawl vibe of ‘Bummed’- complete with a very Factory Records, very ‘arch’ video of them playing football – in prison, in the rain – with their dad. Directed by the Bailey Brothers, who could perhaps have been to the Mondays what the Tim Pope was to The Cure – putting them in precarious situations on video and making them a whole lot more interesting and mysterious as a result. Poor old Karl Denver got a nasty bout of Pneumonia as a result of being drenched in this clip:
‘Hallelujah’ comes next but it’s a thin 7″ edit rather than the volcanic Martin Hannett 12″ megablast, and there is no room for the original ‘Rave On’ or the other fantastic tracks from the accompanying E.P. that, for better or worse, gave us the term ‘Madchester’ (the fault of either Wilson or The Bailey Brothers depending on who you believe).
And then..here it is…way hey hey hey. ‘Step On’ – followed by the singles from the ‘Pills and Thrills…’ era – forever to be played in the Madchester disco that never ends – bucket hat anthems on repeat on Radio X ad infinitum and ignore the interesting stuff that doesn’t fit the cliches and the easily spun narrative. You all know these songs and it’s this version of the Happy Mondays that sells the gig tickets and gets Bez’s marracas shakin’ to this day.
Next up ‘Judge Fudge’ – the nondescript non-album single and the moment the music press decided to give Shaun and Bez enough rope – and this is followed the passable singles ‘Stinkin’ Thinkin’ and ‘Sunshine and Love’ from their final folly ‘Yes Please’ – which some swear by. The latter was the last single issued by Factory Records before it finally went bust. Not the HMs fault, well not entirely.
Diminishing returns set in, and the rest of this collection is taken up with remixes, several of which were never released in Factory Records and are new ‘updates’ which nobody needs. They’re alright but some, like the ‘Kinky Afro’ Euromix sound particularly tacky with cheesy synth patches to the fore.
There’s loads of great music missing here – you don’t get enough of the Mondays when they were rendering the scaffolding dangerous and Tony Wilson was comparing Shaun Ryder to W B Yeats. Instead you get the stuff where the remixers took over and Shaun could sit on the drum riser phoning it in (ahem).
How about this for instance – Shaun channeling Mark .E. Smith – they even made a video for it :
The saving grace is the artwork for which someone has drafted in some of the team from Central Station Design who did the original HM cover art that adorned a million 6th form t-shirts. They’ve created a wonderful, chaotic bit mix of typography and colourful splurge that suggests the contrast between the Happy Mondays gaudy, unfiltered sleaze and Factory Records’ rather austere and lofty Peter Saville aesthetic. It’s brilliant and the best thing about this otherwise absolute (judge) fudge of a release. There is, apparently, a reissue of their debut album in the works so maybe some of the missing music from here will be on that one – lets hope so and not some pointless contemporary dance mixes nobody asked for.
Still, it’s only Happy Mondays innit. Who fucking cares?
