Latest / DISGRACELAND / Happy Mondays: How Thieves, Drug Dealers, and Would-Be Kidnappers Took Over Madchester’s Music Scene

Transcript

Happy Mondays: How Thieves, Drug Dealers, and Would-Be Kidnappers Took Over Madchester’s Music Scene · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: The story about Happy Mondays might be one of the
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: most transgressive rock and roll stories that I've ever told.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: The group was started by a teenage thief who, if
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: you can believe this, once bit a dog while completely
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: high on acid. The bandmates were nearly killed trying to
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: score crack in Harlem in New York. They introduced ecstasy
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: to Manchester, England, and ran the small army of dealers
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: who sold it at the legendary Hacienda nightclub. These guys
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: stole their own records from their record label so that
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: they could sell them and support their drug habit, and
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: of course they tried to kidnap both Donovan and Johnny Marr.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Happy Mondays did all of this while making great music,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: music that would come to define an era known as Madchester. Now,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: unlike that music I played for you at the top
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: of the show. That was not great music. That was
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: a preset loop from my mellotron called Salford's Slow Dance MK.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Two.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I played you that loop because I can't afford the
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: rights to it. Must have been love by Roxette, And
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: why would I play you that specific slice of pretty
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: woman's soundtracking cheese Could I afford it? Because that was
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: the number one song in America on June twenty second,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety and that was the day that Happy Mondays
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: arrived at Glastonbury for the biggest show of their career,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: bringing with them a level of criminality in chaos so.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Problematic that it would literally shut down the esteemed festival
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: for a year.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: On this episode, thieves, dealers, kidnappings, crack, ecstasy, transgression galore
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: and Happy Mondays. I'm Jake Brennan and this is discrete Land.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: There wasn't an art to the thieving. It was never
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: meant to be this graceful, poetic thing. It was all
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: action and adrenaline. It was smash grab, take whatever you
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: could sell. Here in the dirty old town of nineteen
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: seventy Salford, that's the city directly.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Next to Manchester, England.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Easy targets for thieving were easy to find. One of
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: the pubs kept its overstock of booze unguarded in a
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: garage next door, so when no one was looking, you
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: went ahead and got access to the garage by hook
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: or by crooker, whatever was needed, and you took as
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: many bottles as you could fit into your sticky fingers,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: and then you hauled ass down the cobbled street. Not
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: just booze though, clo bikes, whatever you could get your
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: hands on, you would steal and you would sell. He
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: didn't do it just for the money. You did it
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: because you might get caught. And that means your heart
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: pound in your blood pump, and that gave the whole enterprise,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: meaning thinking that you could get caught, that gave you life.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Sean Ryder had been a thieving little Salford punk ever
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: since he was a kid, and as anyone worth their
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: salt from Salford will tell you, that's an even tougher
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: breed of thieving little punk than they were raised across
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: the river in Manchester. Sean's delinquent interest went beyond stealing,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: though He started fire as he set off smoke bombs,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: He dropped bricks from highway overpasses, and he imagined that
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: he looked cool doing it, as well as cool perhaps
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: as Steve Marriott of the Small Faces or David Bowie
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: on Top of the Pops.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Even cooler was David Essex.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: David Essex oohs.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: That blue Jean baby clean rock and roll rebellion in
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: the film That'll Be The Day and equal stardust David
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Xcess rocked on. But Sean Ryder was no matinee idol
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: like David Essex, and he wasn't a rock star with
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: a stylish mod haircut like Steve Mario. He couldn't even
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: play an instrument at fifteen years old. He was just
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: a high school dropout who barely knew the alphabet. He
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: was a dropout who needed a job, a real job,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: because Petty Thievery wasn't going to cut it anymore. So
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Sean Ryder found work at the postal service. Like his
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: father before him. It was all so predictable, so boring,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: and job this boring required a little outside influence to
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: make it more tolerable, which is how Sean Ryder wound
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: up delivering the Royal mail as a teenager while tripping
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: his brains out on LSD.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: The acid kicked in a little earlier than usual. Not
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: that he was complaining.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: LSD made his sole sucking postal wrote that much more
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: or bearable. Some people got paranoid on acid, not Sean,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: and he had plenty to be paranoid about the scam
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: he'd been running with those yellow pages, the ones he
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: got paid extra to deliver the thousands that he said
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: he delivered, even though he never delivered a single one.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: It put him under the microscope. And now some Internal
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Affairs Division or whatever the Royal Mail called it was
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: watching him every step of the way. He was walking
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: his route and doing his best to remain upright while
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: a row of houses began to droop to the ground
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: like he was in a Salvador Dolly painting. Can you
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: imagine delivering the mail on acid, turning of stuff letters
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: through a slot in the door while the door is
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: talking to you. Even worse delivering the mail high on
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: lsc was when that dog started barking at you. It
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: was the same thing every day, that dog yapping and
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: snarling at Sean like it wanted to kill him. He
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: could picture the headline dog bites mail man.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: What a cliche.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: But that wasn't gonna happ today, because as Shawn got
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: closer and the dog got louder, Sean, in his highly
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: altered state, he got himself a better idea. He reached
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: down and took the dog in his hands, and as
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: he did so, the dog didn't bite him as he
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: would think, given how this is all played out, Instead,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Sean Rider bit the dog. Yes, a teenage mail man
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: high on acid, bit the dog that had been harassing
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: him every day on his mail route. And so Seawan
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Ryder's career in the Royal Mail ended. So now, at
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: age eighteen, Sean Rider was on the dole unemployment, sitting
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: around board and pretending to be depressed so that his
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: doctor would prescribe him meds.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: That he could use to get high.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Even at this young age, Sean knew he was not
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: cut out for a regular day job. On the other hand,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: he couldn't sink into a life of total criminality, because
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: that was just another kind of dead end, or required
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: an outlet where he could exercise his long held criminal
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: impulses but do so in a socially acceptable way. You
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: can't do that if you're working for the postal service,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: but you can do that if you're in a rock band.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And I'm not talking about David Essex or David Bowie.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about something more attainable, like the local bands
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: who had begun to make a go of it in
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: South or to Manchester, like Joy Division, who had recently
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: made themselves into New Order following the sudden death of
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: the lead singer Ian Curtis. Didn't matter that Sean and
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: his friends didn't own any instruments. They could steal those.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: And it didn't matter that Sean could even play an instrument.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: His friend Bez Mark Berry he couldn't play for shit.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Bez couldn't write his way out of a paper bag either,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: But Bez, like Sean, was rock and roll.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: To his core.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: In his autobiography Twisting My Melon, Sean Ryan wrote, Bez
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: was actually a pretty talentless set anything apart from being Bez,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: but he was really fucking good at that.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: Me and Bez were always rock and roll. We were
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: rock and roll long before we were in a band.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: It just came naturally.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: So the musically challenged Bez would become a member of
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: the new band that Sean Ryder was creating, playing a
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: role that only Bez could play, the guy who dances
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: wildly and erratically on stage while shaking the moraccas. And
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: that band, Happy Mondays, came together as naturally as rock
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: and roll came to Sean Ryder, with Shawn's brother Paul
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: on bass, gas, Whelan on drums, Mark Day on guitar,
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: and Paul Davis on keyboards. Happy Mondays, with Sean Ryder
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: as their unlikely lead singer, began rehearsing in an old
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: mill that doubled as the site of illegal bare knuckle
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: fighting competitions. Much later, in hindsight, Happy Mondays would be
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: praised for how they've been ahead of the curve, for
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: how they took the acid house music soundtracking the underground
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: in Detroit and Chicago and applied it.
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: To the British post punk at the time.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: But honestly, I don't think it was that calculated at all.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: He had a group of guys who were unemployed and
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: some of whom had zero musical.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Skill, but all of whom had the attitude, with.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: No other prospects and no goals beyond their stated goals
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: of one getting high, two getting laid, three partying all night,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: and four making music inspired by a lifetime spent listening
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: to everything from reggae and Northern soul to led Zeppelin
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: and James Brown. The whole affair was kind of halfway
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: between survival instinct and doing something quote unquote on a lark.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: But I don't think innovation was ever part of the
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: equation or Happy Mondays even the name Happy Mondays was,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: in Sean's words, kind of a shit name, and that
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: was intentional.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: I don't agree. I think it's an awesome mame.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: But anyways, all of this is not to say that
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Happy Mondays didn't have ambition, because they did, and that
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: ambition soon had them pursuing the hottest spot in town.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: This is the.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Legendary Hacienda nightclub in Manchester, and yes it's always this
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Latin here. It was opened to nineteen eighty two by
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: New Order and their manager along with Tony Wilson, the
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: British empresario and co founder of.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: New Orders label Factory Records.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: The Hacienda was modeled after dance Atteryria in New York City.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: In addition to featuring seminal performances from Manchester bands like
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: The Smiths, The Stone Roses and Oasis, the Hacienda was
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: also ground zero for house music in the UK, with
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: DJs spinning wax from Chicago, Miami and Detroit. The Hacienda
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: was totally home grown, just like Factory Records. In fact,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: when he started Factory, Tony Wilson established the record label
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: as the antithesis of your standard label. The artists owned
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: the music. The label owned nothing, they say. Tony Wilson
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: wrote that down in his own blood on a napkin
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: or some rather than drop evil corporate contracts with his band.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Fucking crazy, I know.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Anyway, Happy Mondays knew they wanted to leverage their own
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: homegrown appeal to be a factory band, and they also
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: knew that their way to factory was through the hacienda.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: So they slipped their demo to someone who is friends
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: with one.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: Of the club's DJ's up there in the booth.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: And that guy, the one with the headphone, that guy
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: you see it right it that's Mike Pickery.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: He DJ nude naked.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Totally buck ass naked on Friday nights, get your head
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: out of the gun, or not nude in that way,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: it was just a night, a.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Dance night called nude. Anyway, the DJ Pickering He.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: Passed the tape along to Tony Wilson, and faster than
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: the bpm of some acid house single on Hauss he
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: had a turntable. Happy Mondays were soon on their way
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: to making their first Hobum.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Squirrel in g Man twenty four hour party. People, plastic face,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: can't smile, white out. That was what Happy Monday's called
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: their nineteen eighty seven debut album on Factory Records. It
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: was a title as cryptic and inside jokey as many
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: of Sean's lyrics that were on That album was produced
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: by John Klee of Velvet Underground, and the record was
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: a more jangly danceable take on joy division post punk
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: meets post funk. It also established Sewan's inclination to steal
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: not only physical things, but melodies as well.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: Future pressings of the album would.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Not include the song Desmond, which sounded way too familiar
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: to the Beatles' Obla Dee Obla Da. It would earn
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: them a cease and desist letter from an attorney representing
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Michael Jackson.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: Who owned the Beatles catalog at the time.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: But if this album riffed on the recent and distant
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: past alike, nothing about it could have predicted the future.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Happy Mondays were about to become not only the soundtrack
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: to the scene that was emerging at the Hacienda, they
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: would become that scene's in house drug dealers and its
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: resident crooks as well. Because Sean Ryder may have now
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: become the lead singer of a band, but that did not.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Mean that he was no longer a thief.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: The druggiest bands in music history seemed to defy the odds.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Take the Rolling Stones, for example, Brian Jones was an
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: early casualty, but his notorious band mate Keith Richards was
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: a longtime user and amuser turned survivor. What's the Dennis
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Leary line about Keith Richards. He's done all the drugs
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: in the world, so now the rest of us have
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: to wait and smoke his ashes when he dies.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Something like that.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: In the nineteen eighties, Happy Mondays were barely known outside
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: of Manchester and they were.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Already defining the odds.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: According to Sean Ryder, by the time they visited New
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: York City for the first time in nineteen eighty seven,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: they were dropping acid on a daily basis.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: But acid wasn't.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: The only drug that interested them. They were self proclaimed
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: garbage heads, and a garbage head did any and all
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: illicit substances that were put in front of them. So
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: when they landed at JFK Airport in nineteen eighty seven,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: shortly after the release of their debut album, what they
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: wanted in front of them wasn't the Statue of Liberty
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: or Central Park or CBGB or any other tourist trap
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: destination of note.
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: They wanted to go immediately to Harlem, where they could
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: procure the drug that was currently all the rage in America,
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: crack cocaine.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: The driver would only take them so far. The car
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: came to.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: A stop and Bez got out.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: They traveled the remaining distance on foot. The dealer was
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: waiting as advertised, and the crack was cheap thirty forty
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: American dollars for a fistful. They returned to their hotel
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: room at the Hotel Chelsea, where nine years prior, the
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: blade of Sid Vicius's knife or someone's knife found its
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: way into the abdomen of Sid's girlfriend, Nancy Sponging. Now
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: being garbage heads and being defiers of the odds, I'm
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: like Nancy and I'm like Sid.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: God rest their souls.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Sean and Bez wanted more crack as soon as they
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: smoked it, so it was back out onto the mean
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: streets of Fierce City.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: This time, however, they were on their own.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: There was no one to drive them.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: High on crack and taking swigs from forty ounce bottles
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: of malt liquor, they stumbled around from corner to corner
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: and they came to a spot that looked familiar. In fact,
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: they were in a completely different neighborhood than before. Standing
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: before them was a different dealer, but that didn't matter.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: This guy had the crack and they had the cash,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: and so the deal went down. And that's when they
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: heard a voice from behind them.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Hey you hey.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Six teenage boys emerged confidently from the shadows. Sean and
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Bez were surrounded.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: The lead kid doing the talking.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Was bug eyed, as bug eyed as Bez was when
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: he was on stage, dancing like a lunatic with his moroccas.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: But this kid wasn't holding maraccas. He was holding a pistol,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: and Bez frantically said.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Something to try to break the ice. He was fucked
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: up and drunk.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: He basically spat his words at the kid with a gun,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: and this pissed the kid off.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: No one likes to be spit on, even.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: By accident, so the kid raised his gun and Sean
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: and Bez were both panicking.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Sean gripped the forty outs tightly and did the math
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: and his crack app of brain to figure out where
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: and how hard to swing the bottle.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: At this kid's head. Thankfully he didn't have to.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: The dealer was suddenly back making the piece, telling everyone
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: to chill out. The standoff was bad for business. Soon
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Sean and Bez were back to the safety of their
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: room at the Chelsea, and shortly thereafter back on a
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: plane home to Manchester where they sought out another drug
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: baby yet to try, but this one wouldn't nearly end
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: their lives. This one they changed their lives. In nineteen
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: eighty eight, Happy Mondays recorded new songs with Factory Records
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: of Steam producer Martin Hannett. In the album that came
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: out of those sessions, Bombed, was released on Factory in
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: November of that year. It was a major step forward
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: for the band. The Happy Mondays were no longer replicating
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: their influences. They were now using those influences to create
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: a new sound. Bombed was an early example of what
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: would become known as the baggy sound, which is to
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: say indie dance music characterized by an intoxicating mixture of
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: psychedelia and acid house. And if their label mates knew
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Order were tight as a metronome, Happy Mondays were the opposite.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: They were as loose as those clothes that people were
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: now wearing while dancing to this so called baggy sound.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Bummed in particular, was heavily influenced by the American house
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: music being spawn regularly at the Hacienda nightclub, as well
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: as the music of talking heads, pornographic magazines, porno music
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: from Amsterdam, and crime films, and specifically the nineteen seventy
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: film Performance starring Mick Jagger. But most of all, the
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: new album was influenced by the drug ecstasy. Ecstasy, or
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: E as it was known, found its way into Manchester
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: via Amsterdam. Happy Mondays were not only the first ones
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: in town to do this drug, they were also the.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: Ones dealing it at the Hacienda.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: And if you partied at the Hacienda club back around
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven or eighty eight and someone slipped you
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: some ecstasy, that someone was most likely Sean Ryder or
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Bez or another member of the Happy Monday's small army
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: of dealers, and the Happy Mondays were fiends per E.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: They ate it around the clock, and they sold it
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: for twenty five pounds of pop. And when money got tight,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Sean stole copies of his own band's records from the
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Factory Record label offices and sold them to local stores
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: and used the money to buy more ecstasy. I don't
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: think it's hyperbolic to say this, but without Happy Mondays
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: acting as Manchester's unofficial ecstasy supply, the sweaty, baggy era
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: defining scene at the heart of the Hacienda would not
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: have been the same, plain and simple, even if some
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: of their contemporaries, like New Orders Peter Hook regarded them
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: as shifty eyed street punks who would just as soon
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: steal from your wallet as it would get you high.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: And Peter Hook wasn't wrong, That's exactly what they were.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: The confluence of psychedelic rave music with the Happy Monday's
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: NonStop supply of ecstasy was clutch, and the Happy Mondays
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: were so crucial to this whole thing that when the
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Hacienda shut down at two in the morning every night,
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Sean Ryd would return home to his flat only to
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: find a line of people at his door stretching around
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: the block waiting to buy more ecstasy. Eventually, Sewn Ryder
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: had assembled a crew of twelve people to move the
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: drug in the club and keep Manchester rolling. And when
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: the cops got wind of what he was doing and
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: tried to crack down because club owners had complained about
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: the drop in alcohol sales, because people who were high
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: on ecstasy only drank water nut booz. Seawan Ryder kept rolling,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: kept dealing, kept slinging that ecstasy. Even when a sixteen
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: year old girl named Claire Layton collapsed on the floor
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: at the Hacienda and died because of a rare reaction
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: to the drug. None of this dampened attendance at the Hacienda,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: nor did news of Seawan riders bus on the Island
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: of Jersey.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: When customs found cocaine in his luggage.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: It was all part of an outlaw culture that was
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: growing in and around Manchester, an outlaw culture than in
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: the fall of.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty nine was fine given a name with the
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: release of their Madchester ravon EP. Happy Mondays unwittingly coined
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: the Madchester term, though no one in that scene at
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: that time ever called it that. The Madchester EP contained
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: the excellent track Hallelujah, which became the Monday's biggest hit
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: to date, cracking the top twenty in the UK and
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: landing them in appearance on Top of the Pops where
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Sean Ryder had watched David Bowie perform all those years ago.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Soon the group was no longer playing smaller venues like
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: the Hacienda. By nineteen ninety, Happy Mondays were performing to
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: sold out crowds at Wembley Arena and even headlining the
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Glastonbury Festival, all of which coincided was Sean Ryder's first
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: foray into Herod. Sean Ryder, Bez and the entire Manchester
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: movement was high as fuck and about to get even higher.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after this.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: We're, we're, we're.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: There was always a scheme.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: There was the pub hoping scheme that was a pre
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: fame scheme, one that took place during the eight mile
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: walk Sean.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And Bez made from their place to the Hacienda.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Every day, they would stop at pubs along the route,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: and inside each pub they'd locate a single woman nursing
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: or drink.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Bez would then talk.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Her ear off while Sean rooted around in her purse
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: and took whatever cash he could find. And there was
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: the Kidnapped Donovan's scheme that was a post fame scheme
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: that was done because well, I don't know what to
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: tell you. Sean Ryder and the guy's in Happy Mondays
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: just really loved Donovan and wanted to, in their words,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: capture him and take him to the Hacienda party. This
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: is how it went down. The tour manager pokes his
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: head into Donovan's dressing room and the tour manager says,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: excuse me, Donovan, there's some guys from Manchester who just
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: watched your show and they wanted me to tell you.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: They're waiting for you out back with a van.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: A van.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Donovan asked, what is it that they want. The tour
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: manager explains that.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: They'd like to capture you and take you to the
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Hacienda nightclub in Manchester. Capture the tour manager says, well,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: that was the word they used. Yes, Donovan wants to
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: know why, so the tour manager explains they didn't give
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: a reason. Good lord, Donovan says, is there another way
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: out of this place?
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Okay?
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: So that scheme didn't go quite as planned. The Happy
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Mondays were not able to successfully kidnap Donovan. They did
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: name a song after him, though, and obviously their failure
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: to learn aging folk star and to their van did
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: not dampen their spirits, because they soon rebounded with their
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: epic Glastonbury scheme.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: And this is.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Actually a multi layered scheme which handsomely demonstrates just how dangerous, reckless,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: and transgressive Happy Mondays had become by nineteen ninety. Now,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: first you got to remember, for a van like Happy Mondays,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Glastonbury was a huge deal.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: Seventy thousand people.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: It was the biggest show of their career to date.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: So naturally, Happy Mondays wanted their friends there with them
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: to celebrate, so they requested over two hundred complimentary passes
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: for friends from Manchester. But even that wasn't enough, so
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: they packed a computer printer along with all of their
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: instruments and all their drug paraphernalia, and then they used
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: that printer to print out extra complimentary passes on site.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: We're talking like another thousand passes. Many of the holders
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: of these passes were like Happy Mondays themselves, living completely
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: outside the law. So when they got to Glastonbury, they
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: did what criminals do. They robbed tents on site, they
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: sold drugs, They shook down vendors to collect some bogus
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: tax as though they were mafia members, which I guess
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: in a way they kind of were. But this whole thing,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: all this activity it would directly result in a record
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: two hundred and thirty five arrests at Glastonbury, fifty thousand
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: pounds in damages, and to Glastonbury getting canceled the following year.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Let me say that again, Happy Mondays were the reason
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: that there was no Glastonbury Festival in nineteen ninety one,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: and when it did return in nineteen ninety two, a
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: ten foot fence had been built around the entire festival site.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Happy Mondays.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: But back to nineteen ninety The next part of Happy
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Monday's multi layered Glastonbury scheme was selling counterfeit merchandise.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: Yes, in addition to selling.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Shirts at official merch stations on the festival grounds, the
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Happy Mondays had their people out there slinging bootleg goods
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: as well. One of their promoters, this guy they called
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: John the Phone, was in charge of the bootleg merch money.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: He kept it stash safely out of sight.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: A biker crew caught wind of this buried treasure and
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: they kidnapped John the Phone to find out where the
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: money was hidden.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: They took John to a dilapidated farmhouse. They tied John.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Up and they tried to beat it out of him,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: but John the Phone wasn't talking. John the Phone held
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: the line all weekend long. Sean Ryder was unaware of
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: John the Phone's dire situation because Sean Ryder spent the
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: majority of the Glastonbury weekend lying in the luggage compartment
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: of the Happy Monday's tour bus smoking heroin. He had
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: started using the drug back when he got a brutal
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: sunburn at a gig in Spain. The pain was unbearable,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: so someone suggested he smoke some heroin and now here.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: He was a so called garbage head, an indiscriminate drug
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: user who does everything yet gets addicted to nothing, slowly
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: but surely getting addicted to heroin. Sean Ryder was using
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: dope when Happy Monday's made their next record, Pills and
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: Thrills and Belly Aches, with English DJ Paul Oakenfold producing
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: with songs like Kinky Afro, Bob's Your Uncle and Step
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Up on. The album was Happy Monday's most assured and
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: musically rich to date. It was also their first to
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: feature backing vocals by new member Rowetta, who brought a
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: classic soul vibe that perfectly complimented Shawn's untrained Everyman Vocal Cadence.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: The album peaked at number four on the UK Album Chart,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: where it was certified platinum. In the United States, it
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: broke into the top one hundred of the Billboard Album Chart.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: The Happy Monday's decision to work with Oakenfold would reportedly
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: inspire U two to incorporate electronic music into Octang Baby
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: the following year, and likewise for Blur to work with
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: electronic producer William Orbit for their album. Thirteen Pills and
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Thrills and Belly Aches was released on Factory Records in
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: November of nineteen ninety, and with it the legend of
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Happy Monday's those chaotic thugs who literally shut down Glastonbury
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: was exploding.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: This meant an appearance.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: On MTV in which Sean Ryd joke that he used
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: to make money working as a male prostitute. It was
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: typical rock and roll fuckery, but the British tabloid News
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: of the World ran with it as if it were
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: actually true. Sean was so pissed off that he showed
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: up to a Manchester bar wielding a three fifty seven magnet.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: His intention had been to shoot a hole in the
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: roof in order to fully demonstrate his anger. Instead, a
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: cooler had prevailed and he simply smashed a mirror with
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: a bottle instead. The violent outburst only made what should
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: have been a celebratory time more tense. Sean's brother Paul,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: along with the other guys in the band, were finding
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: it difficult to enjoy their newfound success because the press
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: only cared about Sean and Bez. In fact, their guitarist,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Mark Day, was ready to quit altogether. Factory Records, meanwhile,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: a label built on idealism rather than capitalism, was hemorrhaging money,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: as was the Hacienda, the club that Factory had a
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: stake in. Too much cash wasted on drugs and frivolous
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: things like the infamous boardroom table that was suspended from
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: the ceiling of Factory's offices, and because of this, Factory
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: desperately needed Happy Mondays to record their next album as
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: soon as possible in order to leverage the group's current
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: success and help keep the whole operation aflow.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: But there was the little issue of Seawan's heroin habit.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: One concern was that the album would never get made
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: if he wasn't moved far away from where he could
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: score that particular drug, and this is why a plan
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: was put into motion for Happy Mondays to travel to Barbados,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: where they would record their fourth album at Blue Wave,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: a studio owned by Eddie Grant from The Equals Eddie Grant,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: the guy with the Electric Avenue Hit, Chris Franz, and
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Tina Weymouth from Talking Heads. They were going to produce
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: the Happy Monday's next record at Eddie Grant's place. In
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: the group's outgoing guitar player, Mark Day would be replaced
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: by Johnny Marr from The Smiths. The smith This had
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: been broken up for about four years. When Johnny Marr
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: walked into Seawan Ryder's flat, he found himself face to
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: face not just with Sean, but with Happy Monday's manager
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: and the rest of the group as well, minus the
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: guitarist Mark Day. Johnny Marr quickly learned he was there
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: to be coerced into traveling to Barbados, where he would
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: perform on The Monday's new album in place of Mark Wait,
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: did I say coerced?
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: Actually the word Johnny used when.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Talking about this was kidnapped, just like Donovan, because in
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: addition to everyone standing in front of him making demands
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: behind him, flanking the single exit out of Sean Ryders'
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: flat were two very capable, very qualified, very large men,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: and no doubt, from Johnny Marr's estimation, their one job
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: was to not let him leave until he agreed to
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: go to Barbados. Johnny had to admit that Barbados sounded
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: like a good time. But Barbados with Happy Mondays the
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: most transgressive rock and roll band on the planet at
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: the moment, would they even get out alive?
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: It didn't matter.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Because Johnny's wife was about to give birth to their
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: first child any day now, and he wasn't going anywhere.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: But Sean Ryder dug in in the moment Johnny's wife
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: went into labor, he said they'd put Johnny on the
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: first plane back to Manchester. In Sean's eyes, it really
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: was that simple. Life really was that uncomplicated. You wanted something,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: you took it. You wanted money, drugs.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: You wanted Donovan to go party with you at the hacienda,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: you wanted Johnny Mar to become your guitar player.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: You just made it happen.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: But Johnny Marr wasn't going anywhere besides Mark Day, their
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: original guitarist would quickly return to the fold, perhaps feeling
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: threatened by the whole getting replaced by Johnny Marrthing so
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Happy Mondays were soon on a plane without Johnny, en
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: route to Barbados, where they'd find no heroin, but where
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: they would find plenty of crack cocaine, as well as
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: the beginning of the end a truly mad era. From
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: the start Happy Mondays Factory Records, the Hacienda Madchester. It
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: was all supposed to be big fun, even if Tony
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Wilson would tell you that there was at one time
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: a larger goal of musical revolution with an impact that
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: rivaled punk rock or hip hop for those on the
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: front lines. However, like Sean Ryder, fun was the endgame.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: The more hedonistic and debauched the better. Just earlier this
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: year twenty twenty six, in an interview with The Guardian,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Sean Ryder said, quote, my thought process when we started
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: The Mondays was I want to be in a band,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: I want to shag birds, I want to travel around
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: the world, I want to party all night, and I
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: want to take drugs.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: Unquote.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: It's fair to say that he accomplished what he set
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: out to do, and he was really good at it,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: just like Bez was really good at being Bez. But
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: on January seventeenth, nineteen ninety two, when a plane carrying
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Sean and the rest of Happy Mondays landed in Barbados
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: to begin sessions for their fourth studio album, Fun, was
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: at a premium. Everything was work, everything was maximum effort.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: The bliss out baggy grooves that were the Monday's bread
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: and butter refused to flow forth. Sean was too busy
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: jonesing for a fix to focus on their music, and
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: Bez's lack of musical talent disinterested the album's producers, Chris
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Franz and Tina Weymouth, so.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: Sean and Bez struck out on their own. They scoured
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: the island for drugs.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: First they found weed, Then they found crack, and since
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: they required copious quantities of this stuff, the money quickly
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: ran out. Buying drugs now became as much work as
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: coming up with new songs. They traded Armani jeans and
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Hugo Boss shirts for crack. They rented multiple cars on
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: factories dime just so they could remove the batteries and
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: trade those for crack, And while the rest of the
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: band labored away with Chris and Tina and Eddie Grant's studio.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Sean and Bez slipped outside to Eddie Grant's pool, stole
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: a plastic sunludger, carried it down to the street and
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: traded it for crack. Sean even lied to Tony Wilson
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: and said he was going to burn the master tapes
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: from the sessions thus far if Tony didn't wire the money.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: The money Tony sent was for the band members per deems,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: as well as some of Chris and Tina's producing fees.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: But according to Sean, it was Chris and Tina's idea
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: to shake down Tony in the first place. They were
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: worried about getting paid at all. Knowing what they knew
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: about Factory's financial troubles. It was of a big secret
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: that they were all here of Barbados on some doomed
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Hail Mary mission to save the record label and the club.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: The very fate of Factory could well rest on how
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: good this Happy Monday's album turned out to be and
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: how it performed commercially. The writing was on the wall,
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: but someone has impaired, as Sean Ryder at the time
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: simply couldn't read what the writing said his girlfriend found
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: him on the floor of his flat and burnage, lying
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: in a pool of his own blood with an axe
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: in his head. The papers called it an axe type hammer,
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: a plasterer's hammer, which had been forcefully thrust into his
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: head five times.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: Details aside, the fact.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Remained thirty four year old Dave Robotham, Manchester musician, Factory
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Records artist, member of the Dirty Column and longtime friend
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: of Happy Mondays, was dead. Like Sean Ryder, Dave Robotham
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: had been using hair on the Brown, as Sean would say,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: a darker drug originating from some of the darker elements
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: lurking in and around Manchester. This was becoming increasingly hard
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: to avoid. The darkness was taking over. Gangsters were now
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: running the Hacienda, Knives and guns had replaced ecstasy on
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: the dance floor, and Factory had extended their credits so
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: far that they couldn't even afford to press any new singles.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Whoever murdered Dave managed to slip back under the cover
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: of that darkness. His killer was never found and the
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: case remains unsolved to this day. But the memory of Dave,
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: in the memory of that dark time, was quickly immortalized
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: in the song Cowboy Dave, the final track on Happy
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Monday's fourth studio album.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Yes Please.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: This was the album they tried to make in Barbados.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: The Mondays had returned from the island after five largely
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: unproductive weeks with only one finished song. Upon their return,
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Sean checked into you Have he stayed clean long enough
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: to finish the album at a studio and Sorry. Yes
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Please was released in September of nineteen ninety two to
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: poor reviews. Just two months later, Factory declared bankruptcy. And
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: the funny thing is that had Tony Wilson not done
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: things the way he had, had the label own the
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: music rather than the artists, Factory could have been saved
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: at the last minute in an acquisition by another label,
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: another label like London Records, But that's another story. In
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: this story, Sean Ryder relapses one night. He drinks a
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: bottle of vodka and then decides it's time to go
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: score some junk again, and he winds up crashing his car,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: and since he's not wearing a seat belt, he's sent
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: flying through the windshield.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: He flees the scene, but.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: His car's license plate fell off in the crash. So
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: the cops are led right.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Back to his home. In this story Happy Monday's breakup.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: Just weeks after Factory goes under, Sean Ryder forms a
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: new band, and Black Great, which breaks up at the
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: end of the nineties, paving the way for Happy Mondays
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: to reform with a slightly altered lineup. In this story,
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: the Darkness at the end of the Manchester Era, it
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: never really goes away. In twenty ten, Bez is sentenced
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: to four weeks in jail for assaulting an ex girlfriend,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: and in twenty twenty five, Rowetta, the Monday's longtime backing vocalists,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: takes to social media to accuse Sean Ryder of punching
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: her on a ferry back in the year two thousand.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: It was in the year two thousand that Sean Ryder
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: was honored by the new musical express magazine The Enemy
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: with one of its Godlike Genius Awards. And it was
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: at this awards ceremony that Sean Ryder ran into one
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: of the first people he ever stole from musically, that
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: is Paul McCartney, author of Obla Dee, Obla Da, the
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: song that Sean and crib from for the Happy Monday
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: song Desmond, which had to be removed from their debut album.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Cartney stood next to Sean as the cameras flashed a
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: picture of the unlikely duo would grace the upcoming issue
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: of NME. There was irony here, and it wasn't just
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: about the stolen song. There was the added irony that Sean,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: who was born the year the Beatles released their first
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: single yet who remained at this time a heroin user,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: actually looked older and more haggard than Paul McCartney. And
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: I think it's fair to say, as Paul McCartney or
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: a Sean Ryder or any true rock and roller will
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: tell you, there's a fine line between godlike genius and disgrace.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: I'm Jaith Brennan and this this disgrace sad. All right, guys,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: thanks for checking out this episode of Disgrace land on
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: how mondays. The rockstar antics herein are just completely over
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: the line. Total debauchery, total hedonism. With that said, question
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: of the week this week, what's the most rockstar you've
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: ever been?
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: What's the most rockstar activity you've ever taken part in
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: that you're that you want to share?
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know something, Maybe you got in trouble
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: with I don't know something. Maybe you got away with
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: six one seven nine oh six sixty six three eight
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: When did you act like a rockstar? Leave me a voicemail,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: send me a text at disgrace lampod on the socials
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: Disgrace Lampod at.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: Gmail dot com.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: If you want to email me, make sure you get
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: those auto downloads turned on on Apple Podcasts. I'll see
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: you later. Here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Yours Truly. It is produced in partnership with Double Elvis,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: the Exactly Right Network in iHeart Podcasts.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: Credits for this episode.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Can be found on the show notes page at disgracelampod
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: dot com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member,
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: thank you for supporting the show.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: We really appreciate it.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: And if not, you can become a member right now
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: by going to disgracelampod dot com slash Membership members can
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: listen to every episode of disgracelan ad, free, rate and
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: review the show, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter,
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: and Facebook at disgracelampod and on YouTube at YouTube dot com.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Slash at disgracelampod rock a roller.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: He's a bed band man.