The Stone Roses

Tonight's randomized selection is the Stone Roses. I remember being in the Admiral Rodney (a pub, not a sailor) aged about 19 and a friend of Dan's was back from his first term at Manchester Uni, and he was raving about a band called the Stone Roses, who were going to be huge, etc etc yawn...and so it came to pass.

I was ambivalent about them until Fool's Gold came out; I bought the 12" and then belatedly bought the album, looking forward to their new stuff which if FG was anything to go by would be funky and rocking...

As any fule kno, the much mooted 'new stuff' took 5 years to emerge, and turned out to be a fairly passable Led Zep LP which betrayed the cocaine ingestion of its creators almost as blatantly as Black Sabbath Vol 4.

Never saw them live, perhaps a mixed blessing, given that Ian Brown's pitch is notoriously unreliable, but Ady saw them a couple of times and said they were great.

Someone once said of Rod Sewart, 'never was such a great talent pissed up the wall on such rotten material', (or words to that effect), and it's tempting to cast a similar accusation at the door of the Stone Roses - only Mani went on to anything really worthwhile, anchoring Primal Scream.

Listening to the debut album again, there are undoubted moments of greatness (and plagiarism - ironic that Mani should eventually join the band who's Velocity Girl was ripped on She Bangs The Drums) but there were albums around at the time which I still prefer - by The La's, Shack, and Happy Mondays.