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Discovered at, where else but Manchester’s Mecca of Mess, The Hacienda, the band were picked from the line-up of a battle of the bands and taken under their wing by Tony Wilson. Fronted by Shaun Ryder and his sidekick Bez, the band released their debut album in 1987 on the legendary Factory Records, including on it the anthem ’24 hour party people’, a track that’s title went on to inspire a film of the same name that recounted the Factor Records glory days and all the chaos that came with it.
The torch-bearers of Manchester’s drug induced ‘Baggy’ Sound, the band rounded out the decade with two more albums, ‘Bummed’ and ‘Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches’ which was a platinum success for the band. With the group now being the walking embodiment of Rave culture, they were seen as a popular commodity worldwide and began touring extensively.
All this cultural opulence came to a destructive peak with the disastrous recording sessions for 1992’s ‘Yes Please’. In short they went to Barbados, took too many drugs, recorded an album with no vocals and bankrupted Factory records in the process.
It was the perfect ending for a band whose career up till that point had been defined by chaos but as the band split up, it left behind an enduring legacy. A key influence on other important Manchester acts like the Stone Roses, the band have also become the headline act of one of the most exciting times in British music. I guess maybe Tony Wilson was right when he said that “Shaun Ryder is on a par with W.B. Yeats as a poet”.
One might assume that the Happy Mondays make a better story than a band, and at points in their storied history they definitely have. Take for example, how the unbelievable tales surrounding their ill-fated recording sessions in Jamaica (including Shaun Ryder holding the master tapes of his own album to ransom while demanding that Factory Records buy them off him before listening to them) only lead to the release of the critical and commercial disaster “Yes Please!” before the band split up for the second time the following year. However, time and hefty tax bills heal all wounds, and while the musical fashion of nostalgic reunion tours may be waning it does still mean that acts that are getting back together are better bands than they were in their heyday. While their legend may follow them around just as much if not more than their classic albums on stage, the band can still slay any audience they’re put in front of with their loose limbed indie-funk.
Even without band mascot Bez hurling himself around the stage with his ever-present maracas for many of the songs (arthritis curtails even the freakiest of dancin’), the Mondays have got to the point where they can turn any venue they play into a heaving club during the height of the Madchester era. At this point they are a true outlier in British music, as few acts are playing that style of music and fewer still playing it at the level the Mondays are at, so every time one has the opportunity to see them you can also bet that they’ll be playing to a crowd that truly believes in the band. It’s rare to witness an audience that’s willing to give themselves to any band, for some it’ll be to relive their glory days, for others, it’ll be to experience them for the first time if they weren’t around at its peak. It takes a special band to create that effect on people, and the Mondays do that every time they play. So put aside your preconceptions and witness the original Party People do what they do best as soon as possible.
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