HE didn't know it then, but we know it now: it was a cultural moment, a moment when we generated our own icons and created our own myths. The collison between music, style, lip and swagger that was The Stone Roses was as much to do with time and place as it was with the type of musical ability that is known as "astonishing". The bare chronology is this: they started recording in 1987, released the album of the decade in 1989, they ushered in the 1990s with the Spike Island concert, lost the plot slightly, released a "difficult" second album and this week, they broke up. It's not often you get to use the phrase "an end of an era".
As expected, Mani has gone off to join Primal Scream (a bit of a dream team shaping up there) Ian Brown and the two non founding members of the band will continue to make music, but under a different name, and John Squire will be gigging with his new band shortly. The Stone Roses only released two albums, but like the Sex Pistols - who had a similarly small level of recorded output - their importance stretched far further than what was going on between the grooves on the vinyl.
Just as fellow Manchester band The Smiths were releasing what was to become their final album, Strangeways Here We Come and just before dance/techno became the dominant means of musical expression, the Stone Roses appeared with a seven inch single, So Young - that, strangely enough, echoed the jinglyjangly indie guitar sound of the Smiths' Johnny Marr over a "dancey" rhythm track. The cult had started, and by the time they released Sally Cinnamon, they had refined their Rolling Stones/Love/Can-influenced sound into something that promised much more than the sum of its parts. The swagger, some may say arrogance, had also started: the citizens of Manchester awoke one morning to find the band's name spray painted over most of the city's buildings.
The eponymous debut album (1989) - its cover was a pastiche of a Jackson Pollock painting - defined the term "dance psychedelia". With songs like I Wanna Be Adored, She Bangs The Drums and Waterfall soaked in equal parts of religious imagery, narcissism and sheer rock'n'roll coolness, it was a remarkable collection, a Sgt Pepper of its day, and quite simply the album of the decade.
Ignoring music biz orthodoxy, The Roses didn't tour; they staged one off "events" like Spike Island (1990) when 30,000 followers gathered for a one band Woodstock. The release of Fool's Gold validated their claim that they were the best band in the world at the time.
If their ascent was glorious, the descent was tawdry and drawn out. A prolonged legal battle with Silvertone kept them out of the studio for two years; the subsequent multi million pound deal with Geffen saw them arsing about a studio in Wales for another three years and by the time The Second Coming came out, Britpop was the cheeky new kid on the block and The Roses diversion into 1990s prog rock didn't impact the way it should have. One by one they left: first Reni, then John Squire and now Mani. The fracture is complete but the legacy is intact. File under fab four.
GALLON Drunk, the London good time combo who have been endorsed by both Therapy? and Morrissey, go out on an Irish tour next week with dates in Nancy Spain's, Cork on November 12th, the Mean Fiddler, Dublin on 13th, UCD on 14th and the Empire, Belfast on 15th. The new long player is called In The Long Still Night. Aggressive and exciting are the two appropriate words here ... There's been a lot of fuss and nonsense going on behind the scenes with the Frank and Walters' album. Full story (with pics) next week ... Not a chance of a Beautiful South ticket for the Olympia tomorrow unless you want to make the touts happy ... Back by overwhelming popular demand, amongst other reasons: part two of "where are they now and why did nobody ever tell me they had broken up, I have all their records you know" coming up next week.
