Happy Mondays

Happy Mondays came from Little Hulton in Salford, which in the mid-80s was about as far from the music industry as you could get. Shaun Ryder sang like a man who’d been up for three days – because he usually had been. Bez didn’t play an instrument. He just danced and shook maracas and somehow became one of the most recognisable figures in British music. It shouldn’t have worked. It absolutely did.

Tony Wilson signed them to Factory Records after seeing them at the Hacienda. Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out) in 1987 was rough and promising. Bummed in 1988, produced by Martin Hannett, was genuinely great – dark, funky, Ryder’s lyrics making sense in a way that defied logic. Then Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches in 1990 hit like a truck. Step On and Kinky Afro were everywhere. Madchester had its anthem band.

The Hacienda was their living room. They were the bridge between the indie kids and the dance crowd, the band that proved you didn’t need to choose. The connection to Manchester’s drug culture was never hidden – it was basically the selling point – and it eventually wrecked them. The sessions for Yes Please! in Barbados nearly bankrupted Factory Records. Ryder sold the studio furniture to buy drugs. The label collapsed not long after.

Ryder cleaned up, came back, kept touring. The Mondays still play and Bez ended up on Celebrity Gogglebox and ran for parliament. Only in Manchester. Their contribution was making chaos feel like a valid artistic strategy. The Hacienda’s gone but that energy still runs through the city’s nightlife DNA.