Happy Mondays

Happy Mondays - Early Music

Shop owner and young entrepreneur Phil Saxe agreed to manage Happy Mondays in 1983. They played their fist gig at a ‘battle of the bands’ contest at the newly-opened Hacienda nightclub. The audience weren’t exactly bowled over by the Mondays’ performance, but it brought them to the attention of Mike Pickering, then the Hacienda's resident DJ, and later founder of M People.

In May 1984 Pickering managed to persuade Hacienda owners Tony Wilson and Rob Gretton to sign Happy Mondays to their Factory Records label, home to New Order. Six months later, the Mondays played their first big gig, supporting New Order at Macclesfield Leisure Centre. The Happy Mondays released their debut single in September 1985, the three-track ‘Forty-Five’. The band’s second single followed in June 1986, the double A-sided ‘Freaky Dancin’/The Egg’. Produced by New Order vocalist Bernard Sumner, it captured Happy Mondays’ chaotic live sound on record and, for the first time, revealed that the band had a real potential.

April 1987 saw the release of Happy Mondays’ debut album, but didn’t make any kind of impact on the British scene, probably not helped by the ludicrously long title, ‘Squirrel And G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out)’. Or that it was produced by John Cale, a reformed drug addict appalled by the band's unruly behaviour and chemical intake. In October 1988 second single ‘Wrote For Luck’ was released as the first single from the Happy Mondays’ forthcoming second album. It received mixed reviews, but became a minor underground club hit.

More Music - A Second Album

Their second album ‘Bummed’ was released in November 1988. Producer Martin Hannett hinted at Happy Mondays future dance floor direction with tracks such as ‘Lazyitis’. The single was re-released in May 1989, featuring country legend Karl Denver on vocals. Their EP ‘Madchester Rave On’ released later that same year, cashed in on the burgeoning, Ecstacy-fuelled indie-dance scene in the north-west of England and gives Happy Mondays their first Top 40 hit. Produced by Martin Hannett, it sells largely on the back of lead track ‘Hallelujah’.

In April 1990, Happy Mondays’ cover of John Kongos' 1971 hit ‘He’s Gonna Step On You’ was released as a single in the UK. Renamed ‘Step On’, it went straight into the Top 5 and consequently the band played a sold out gig at Wembley Arena. October that year saw ‘Kinky Afro’ give Happy Mondays their second Top 5 single, and in November, ‘Pills 'n' Thrills And Bellyaches’ entered the UK charts at number 1. However, come 1991, fraught by a press backlash against indie-dance and a growing obsession for US grunge acts like Nirvana, Happy Mondays staged a half-arsed return to the charts with mediocre single ‘Judge Fudge’. It stalls at number 30. In October 1992, amongst rumours of domestic feuds and escalating drug abuse, Happy Mondays released their fourth album ‘...Yes Please!’, but was not received well by the British press. In February 1993 the Happy Mondays split, despite receiving contract offers from other major labels. Ryder reformed the Happy Mondays in April 1999 in order to pay a tax bill, and the band successfully sold out five UK arena shows. The band released comeback single ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ later that year, but the limp reworking of Thin Lizzy's classic peaked at a mere number 35.