Four albums. Three you could call classic and one near miss. It’s odd as there is a weird symmetry between Happy Mondays and their fellow lauded Mancs The Smiths when it comes to their recorded output. You have the promising debut, the leap-forward cult classic follow up, the celebrated third and the could-have-been-great fourth. Yet you only seem to see think pieces or coloumn inches covering Moz and co with not as much coverage on the Mondays’ first life which is a shame as personally I feel the Mondays are more vital in understanding our recent past and especially our present where club culture is massive and dance music has become the biggest form of music there is. Yes Please – Happy Mondays". The Irish News. 2 August 2013. Archived from the original on 10 October 2021 . Retrieved 14 October 2021.

A fictionalised depiction of the band is featured in the 2002 film 24 Hour Party People, with Danny Cunningham as Shaun Ryder and Paul Popplewell as Paul Ryder. Paul Ryder himself had a cameo role in the film as a gangster and Rowetta appeared in the film as herself. [18] Third incarnation [ edit ] The band signed to Creation Management in 2015. They have announced an international tour to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches. Happy Mondays toured the US and Canada with The Psychedelic Furs in late 2009 with Paul Ryder's son and Shaun Ryder's nephew Jake Ryder filling in for Gaz Whelan on drums. [24] Despite relationships between Happy Mondays members straining, Ryder told McGough they had written enough material for another album. [16] The band and Factory Records wanted to enlist Oakenfold and Osborne for their next album, but the pair was fully booked until June 1992 at the earliest. [17] Concerned that they could not wait that long, McGough and Wilson decided to look for other producers. [18] Paul Ryder was listening to Conscious Party (1988) by Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, learning that it was produced by Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club members Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, and thought they would be ideal producers for Happy Mondays' next album. [19] Around the same time, the band had a new booking agent, Ian Flooks, who also worked with Frantz and Weymouth. When Flooks caught wind that the band were looking for producers, he suggested the pair. [20]That probably explains why it was a much darker and more somber album compared to the upbeat and carefree Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches or the euphoric Madchester Rave On EP. Clearly, they knew the party was coming to an end and the hangover was about to hit them like a locomotive. “Kiss me for old times sake/ Kiss me for making you wait/ Kiss me for screwing everything in sight/ Kiss me for never getting it right,” Ryder sings on the seductive and silky lead single “Stinkin’ Thinkin,’” which is one of the few highlights on the album.

J.P.Gorman (26 April 2007). "Happy Mondays' Bez Denied Visa For Coachella" (News article). Pop Blend. Cinema Blend LLC . Retrieved 6 May 2012. Probably one of the most infamous albums to ever come out of Manchester, Yes Please! is perhaps best known for the fact that its cataclysmic critical and commercial failure bankrupted Happy Mondays' label, Factory Records, as a result of the band bleeding out the latter’s funds over the course of a chaotic and artistically stagnant production. How about the publicity you, Maria and the exhibition has caught over the last 6 months. Its been really well received hasn’t it, on many different levels. But what would you like to think the images and the whole idea behind it can influence in other artists and those who have Downs Syndrome maybe? Warburton, John; Ryder, Shaun (2011). Hallelujah!: The Extraordinary Story of Shaun Ryder and Happy Mondays. London: Virgin Books. ISBN 978-0-7535-0781-0. Indeed it is, must be rewarding to recieve such reactions to the artwork. So which would you say are your stand out pieces from the exibition?

Notes

In his years away from the Happy Mondays, Ryder released an album with another group, Big Arm, in 2008 and moved to Los Angeles in the late 00s. He also performed live with the New York funk group Tom Tom Club, whose members Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth (also of Talking Heads) had produced Yes Please!. This is also the ‘first’ collaborationExhibition held in the history of art between a (so called) established Artist and a person with Downs syndrome – so we are proud of that fact. In place of the kind of creative unity required to navigate such headwinds, the Happy Mondays had mutiny in the ranks. Reflecting on the group’s choice of producers, in Twisting My Melon, Shaun Ryder complained that “the rest of the band didn’t get it; they didn’t understand that our fans liked our sound. They thought that if we could incorporate Chris and Tina’s sound into the Mondays’ sound, then all the Talking Heads fans would get into it and we would break into a much bigger market. But it doesn’t work like that.” Author of Nixon in New York: How Wall Street Helped Richard Nixon Win the White House, published in 2018.

This for me stands up with the Best. I willcontinueas always to make art, its the only thing I can do. We are hoping to take this Exhibition to other parts of the country, and we are also in talks about taking it to New York, for which we will be working on new works for. And I will continue toencourage Maria to paint and draw. Released on August 31, the lead-off single from Yes Please!, Stinkin’ Thinkin’, debuted on the UK chart at number 39. Barely a month later, its parent LP stalled at number 14. The only international chart troubled by its presence was Australia, at number 99. According to Shaun Ryder, “it was not a good album. There were no catchy grooves… it had absolutely no character. Yes Please! wasn’t the Mondays. It could have been anyone.”The working-class son of a postman and nurse, Ryder was born in Salford in 1964, and was a self-taught guitarist. He said it was only later in his career that he “learned what the different strings were. I’d call them the fat one, the thin one and the one down from the fat one.” As determinedly hedonistic as his bandmates in daily life, there was nevertheless something solid about his playing. In a outfit whose musicianship was occasionally called into question – Shaun claimed that former Smiths bassist Andy Rourke had attempted to form a band with the Mondays’ keyboard player Paul Davis, giving up when he realised “that lad can’t play a note” – Paul’s bass provided an anchor, something the listener could latch on to amid the confusion. Happy Mondays Chart History (Dance Singles Sales)". Billboard. Archived from the original on 10 October 2021 . Retrieved 10 October 2021. And I’ve just asked Maria and her favourite is ‘Beach Fish Boat’ (below), Mariasays –‘More Stand Out’