Library Rock's Backpages

Happy Mondays

Happy Mondays

57 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By writer | Most recently added

Happy Mondays: Dream, Drink or Die

Interview by Jon Wilde, Sounds, 27 September 1986

HAPPY MONDAYS wear flappy flares and absent grins. They wear tatty beards and talk complete rubbish most of the time. JONH WILDE sifted through the ...

CDs: The Slipped Disc

Report by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 27 February 1987

Compact Disc has brought the second coming of The Beatles and the promise of a revolution in the rock industry. But is it a sound ...

Happy Mondays: Squirrel & G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Can't Smile (White Out) (Factory)

Review by Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, 18 April 1987

BLUR. The boys from Happy Mondays skitter past us on the rob down the Arndale. Loose limbs and flares kick dust into everybody's eyes. ...

Happy Mondays: The Rock Garden, London

Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 2 May 1987

HAPPY MONDAYS is where the repetition-repetition-repetition of post-Velvets jangle-drone meets the repetition-repetition-repetition of '70s funk. Imagine a cross between the Blue Orchids and Hamilton Bohannon, ...

The Fall/The Bodines/Happy Mondays: International, Manchester

Live Review by John Robb, Sounds, 2 May 1987

STRANGE HOW, these days, any gathering of vaguely well known groups always makes you think of charity and polished consciences. But tonight seemed to be ...

Happy Mondays: "Everything Else Is Foreign, Innit?"

Interview by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 9 May 1987

HAPPY MONDAYS box ears as Factory's rhythm frenzy new boys. DELE FADELE is welcomed to their working week. ...

Happy Mondays: The Monday Club

Interview by Robin Gibson, Sounds, 9 May 1987

More Factory fodder as the label present HAPPY MONDAYS — a group who've festered in Manchester for five years and who are now about to outrage the nation's ...

Happy Mondays: Black Horse, Camden, London

Live Review by Roy Wilkinson, Sounds, 16 May 1987

STUMBLING ON like a misdirected sextet of Stretford End psychopaths who've come down for the match and somehow ended up in this scale model of ...

Happy Mondays: Black Horse, Camden, London

Live Review by Roy Wilkinson, Sounds, 16 May 1987

STUMBLING ON like a misdirected sextet of Stretford End psychopaths who've come down for the match and somehow ended up in this scale model of ...

Happy Mondays — Funk Disc Location

Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, 28 November 1987

UNTAMED AND UNRELENTING, Happy Mondays have still managed to carve out splinters of ordered funk from their fractured pop chaos. Ian Gittins struggles through a ...

Happy Mondays: Vile Bodies

Interview by Jon Wilde, Melody Maker, 12 November 1988

In Manchester "shit" means great. Yet a year after Happy Mondays' shit debut album, Squirrel And G-Man, some critics have already written off the band. ...

Happy Mondays

Profile and Interview by Martin Aston, Auckland Star, 1989

IF PUNK WAS the answer to the broad lack of genuine invention in the musical mid-70s, then the Acid House phenomenon answered those who believed ...

Happy Mondays, Kit: University of London Union, London

Live Review by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, 18 February 1989

LAUGHING MAD ...

Happy Mondays: Madcap Laughs

Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, 15 April 1989

IAN GITTINS JOINS THE MANCHESTER REPROBATES ON THEIR TOUR OF IRELAND AND WITNESSES MAYHEM, MADNESS AND BAFFLING BRILLIANCE. ...

Happy Mondays: Haçi*nda, Manch*st*r

Live Review by Helen Mead, New Musical Express, 20 May 1989

THAT MONDAY FEELING ...

Happy Mondays: Thieves Like Us (and so do the police)

Interview by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 16 September 1989

Just back from their first trip (sic) into the Satan-worshippin' heart of Amerika, HAPPY MONDAYS tell JACK BARRON how they proved more than a match ...

The Stone Roses and The Happy Mondays

Report and Interview by Nick Kent, The Face, January 1990

AFTER A YEAR of underground success, Stone Roses and Happy Mondays crowd into a Top Of The Pops dressing room to celebrate their entry into ...

Happy Mondays and A Guy Called Gerald Hit the Northern Lights

Report and Interview by Andrew Smith, Melody Maker, 30 March 1990

They came, they saw, they got wrecked and the police were called. Last week, Andrew Smith travelled to Reykjavík with both bands and witnessed scenes ...

Happy Mondays: Homage to Catatonia

Report and Interview by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 31 March 1990

It's just another manic HAPPY MONDAYS, as the Manc scuzz bags-made-good wreak havoc in a nab-it-all frenzy through Europe on their way back to a ...

Step Right On Up: Happy Mondays/808 State: G-Mex, Manchester

Live Review by John Robb, Sounds, 31 March 1990

With rave rock shifting into top gear, 8000 watch its spiritual fathers Happy Mondays go mad in Manchester G-Mex. John Robb witnesses one of the ...

Madchester vibes in the area... it's the Happy Mondays

Interview by Sylvia Patterson, Smash Hits, 4 April 1990

Shaun! Bez! Gaz! The other blokes! It's the Happy Mondays! And they're such rock 'n' roll degenerates they make Guns N' Roses look like Yell! ...

Summer 1990: The Madness

Report and Interview by John Robb, Sounds, 14 April 1990

With The Stone Roses at Spike Island, the Mondays at Glastonbury and numerous other raves, the summer of 1990 should be one to remember. John ...

Happy Mondays: Wembley Arena, London

Live Review by Barbara Ellen, New Musical Express, 21 April 1990

IN THE ARE(N)A! ...

Ryders On A Storm: Happy Mondays in The Altered States of America

Report and Interview by Betty Page, Vox, October 1990

"GET THAT THING off, man... get that dangerous f***ingmotherf***ing thing off!" Shaun Ryder has just had the tip of my sleek black Olympus micro-cassette machine ...

Happy Mondays: Afro Divvy Act

Interview by James Brown, New Musical Express, 6 October 1990

Get your hands on your handbags HAPPY MONDAYS are back. After a long hard summer recording in Los Angeles, the ugliest band in Britain have ...

Happy Mondays, Donovan: Wembley Arena, London

Live Review by John Harris, Sounds, 24 November 1990

FUNNY GAME, this pop business. You can either master its niceties, turn yourself into a big bucks circus and revel in the fact that you'll ...

Happy Mondays' Shaun Ryder

Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1990

IT IS FOUR in the afternoon and Shaun Ryder, the allegedly handsome front man of Happy Mondays, is enjoying his breakfast. Manchester being the only ...

Happy Mondays: Pills 'N' Thrills And Bellyaches (Factory)

Review by Betty Page, Vox, December 1990

IT MAY TAKE a while for the nation to be convinced of Happy Mondays' worth, to believe that they're not drug-dealing lowlife scum pissing around ...

U.K. Indie Dance

Report and Interview by Tony Fletcher, Spin, December 1990

THE YEAR 1990 has been one of re-evaluation and subsequent rejuvenation for bands in Britain. Spurred on by the excitement of 1988's acid-house scene and ...

Is Shaun Ryder Really A Sex Symbol?

Report and Interview by Simon Witter, Sky, Summer 1990

He's no oil painting but the Happy Mondays' grubby lead singer Shaun Ryder is deluged with love letters from admiring teenage girls. Now the group's ...

Mondays, Bloody Mondays

Interview by Susan Compo, Siren, 1991

As the Happy Mondays prepare to release a live album to counteract/complement the Baby Big Head bootleg, what’s a girl with a book of post-punk ...

Mardi* Grass!: Happy Mondays: La Cigale, Paris

Live Review by Betty Page, New Musical Express, 16 March 1991

(*That's French for the day after Monday) ...

Jane's Addiction/Happy Mondays: Madison Square Garden, NYC

Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 11 May 1991

IT MUST HAVE seemed an inspired notion to pair these unabashed champions of drug culture, but inside sources tell me that it's turned out to ...

Happy Mondays: Renting and raving

Interview by James Brown, New Musical Express, 26 October 1991

SHAUN RYDER Is suing News Of The World after they alleged he was a rent boy before he was a singer. JAMES BROWN hears the ...

Happy Mondays: Working Class Zero

Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 16 November 1991

1990 was the year HAPPY MONDAYS could do no wrong. But this year they've made more headlines than records — Ronnie Biggs, editing Penthouse, the ...

Anthony Wilson: Renaissance Manc

Interview by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 30 November 1991

FACTORY: aloof, elegant, misunderstood Mancunian home of Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, possibly the coolest record label in the world — but there are ...

Happy Mondays: Yes Please! (Factory)

Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 5 September 1992

NO THANKS ...

Happy Mondays: ...Yes Please!

Review by Max Bell, Vox, October 1992

HAPPY MONDAYS' fourth album arrives in a cloud. The nest of vipers stirred by Shaun Ryder's interview with the NME last year is one factor ...

Happy Mondays: Brixton Academy, London

Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 19 October 1992

THESE ARE troubled times for the Happy Mondays. Their new album, Yes, Please!, reputedly went over budget and has not had the sales to compensate. ...

Happy Mondays: That Monday Mourning Feeling

Report and Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, December 1992

FOR NO IMMEDIATELY discernible reason, Shaun Ryder is attempting to perform a party trick and failing miserably. He is trying to flick a cigarette (one ...

Factory R.I.P.

Report by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 5 December 1992

FACTORY RECORDS, arguably the most influential record label of the Eighties, fell into the hands of the Receiver last week — after months of speculation ...

Happy Mondays: It’ll End In Tears…

Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1993

IT WAS KENTUCKY Fried Chicken that did for the Happy Mondays, according to eye-witness accounts. The band were all foregathered at EMI's London HQ with ...

Black Grape: Forget It All For An Instant

Interview by Lisa Verrico, Vox, July 1995

After all the pills, thrills and bellyaches, Shaun Ryder felt peckish — so he nipped off to Kentucky Fried Chicken. It took him three years ...

Black Grape: Shaun Ryder Q+A

Interview by Cliff Jones, The Face, August 1995

Call the cops! Manchester's premier exponent of hooligan rock is back, and sounding better than ever. Cliff Jones grills the Black Grape head honcho on Star ...

Madchester: My Baggy Hell!

Memoir by Susan Corrigan, i-D, October 1995

Five years ago an explosion of music, drugs and flares hit a certain Northern city. Now with Oasis, the Stone Roses and Black Grape in ...

Shaun Ryder: Sleazy Ryder

Interview by Lisa Verrico, Vox, October 1995

In the first of a series never, ever to be continued, Shaun Ryder presents his passport to the land of a thousand karma sutra babes. ...

The Haçienda: Working on a Building of Love

Retrospective by John McCready, The Face, May 1997

It gives us such great joy to sayThat fifteen years ago todayA club was born — the HaçiendaA venue for the maddest bendersSo as you ...

Acid House: '88 State

Retrospective and Interview by Andy Crysell, New Musical Express, 25 April 1998

Disco biscuits, gurning, raves, sartorial bonkersness, and, um, Guru Josh! The ACID HOUSE scene brought us many things when it exploded in 1988; it also ...

The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays: What The World Is Still Waiting For?

Retrospective and Interview by Jack Barron, Melody Maker, 13 March 1999

It was the scene that produced some of the best bands the world had ever seen. Now, with the Happy Mondays reforming end The Stone ...

Happy Mondays: 192-Hour Party People

Report and Interview by Jack Barron, Melody Maker, 15 May 1999

The Kings of hedonism HAPPY MONDAYS have just completed their triumphant eight-date comeback tour. We joined them on the road to hear about their slightly ...

Happy Mondays: Greatest Hits

Review by Ian Fortnam, music365.com, August 1999

Of course, this whole Mondays comeback nonsense merely drags the hard-won bad name of everyone's favourite Manc scamps down to even lower levels of infamy. ...

Robbie Williams, Gomez, Happy Mondays, Placebo, Stereophonics: Slane Castle, Dublin

Live Review by Robin Bresnark, Melody Maker, 4 September 1999

RELIGHT MY EIRE! ...

Shaun Ryder: "I look all right, don't I?"

Interview by Ted Kessler, The Guardian, 20 June 2003

Two years ago Shaun Ryder was finished. He had lost his money, his mates and the plot. With a new album out, he tells Ted ...

It's a very happy Monday for Bez

Report by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 24 January 2005

Victory for the man who tried to escape Celebrity Big Brother. ...

Salford Lads Club

Essay by Steve Redhead, Rock's Backpages, August 2007

'YOU SALFORD NANCY Boy!' was a regular insult hurled from the wings at the late Anthony H. Wilson, educated at De La Salle College in ...

Happy Mondays: Manchester Arena, Manchester **

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 8 May 2012

LIKE a musical version of a Civil War re-enactment society, the elder statesmen of Manchester's fabled 1980s rock scene are returning to relive their youthful ...

Happy Mondays: Brixton Academy, London

Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 13 May 2012

IF YOU DISCOUNT HIS PROPENSITY for using the f-word, you could call Shaun Ryder a solid citizen these days. The Happy Mondays' leader is slim, ...

see also Black Grape

see also Shaun Ryder

RSS

back to LIBRARY

COPYRIGHT NOTICE