M = Media
N = News
RS = Radio Session
TV = Television Appearance
The Stone Roses = Release
16 November 1962 - Gary Nigel "Mani" Mounfield is born.
Notes: Born in Crumpsall, Manchester and raised in Moston and then moved to Failsworth and then, in his early teens, to Newton Heath.
Mani's father Colin was a chef. Before Mani was born, Colin, Manchester born, had a family in Penrhiwceiber, near Aberdare, South Wales. Colin and Pauline met in the 1950's when they worked together in the army. He left the family when his first son, Steve (1958), was three years old. Pauline was a young mother at the time and Steve did not know his father and only found out he had two brothers in Manchester several years later, see 07 July 2013 for the article. Colin would cook for the Manchester United players after training and he became friends with George Best. Nobby Stiles is a distant relative of the family too.
Mani's mum Ann did promotional work and his step-dad Graham worked for G.E.C.
Gary had an Uncle Ian too, who used to ride a Innocenti Lambretta LI 150. Mani swapped his gas fire for it, it became Mani's first scooter.
Graham's step dad worked at the same place John Squire's dad worked (not sure if they ever crossed paths though?). The family's Irish ancestry meant his childhood included Irish-folk music as well as crooner Nat King Cole, rather than rock 'n' roll music.
Gary Mounfield attended Xaverian College, a Roman Catholic grammar school
for boys, in Rusholme, Manchester. Gary left school aged sixteen in 1979.
His brother Greg (Born 1966) would later become a light tech for Andy Couzen's band The High.
24 November 1962 - Jonathan Thomas Squire is born.
Notes: John was born in Broadheath, South Manchester. John and his family, including his mum Margery, who worked at a chemist, father Tom, who worked as a electrical engineer for GEC in Trafford Park, and brother Matt Squire (Born 1967), lived and grew up on Slyvan Avenue in Timperley, Altrincham.
John attended Heys Lane Primary. John went to the same high school as Ian, Altrincham Grammar School for Boys.
Matt Squire would later photograph John's artwork and would be used on the sleeves.
From 03 November 2002 - Sunday Express Newspaper John Squire Interview: "We lived on the same road [Sylvan Road in Sale] but there was a boundary on it that meant we went to different schools, so we didn't meet again until secondary school."
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': When Squire was a kid, he got an autograph from Blue Peters Biddy Baxter. 'I sent her a picture of me guinea pig having a bath in a kitchen bowl,' he says. 'l got a Blue Peter badge and a signed letter from Biddy Baxter, cos it went up on the pictures-of-your-pets board.'
From 02 July 2007 Monday - The Guardian article, John Squire said: Art has always been in my blood. I was the kid who ended up in goal in football matches, and so a visual language helped me win friends at primary school. I remember well the awful realisation that a new boy had usurped my position in the class as the best at drawing. He was gone before the end of the year. I'd like to think he wilted under pressure, but in fact the family moved.
From 13 June 2007 - XFM Manchester Session Interview: Why did you choose this one; ‘Sloop John B’ by the Beach Boys? The first album I bought was a Beach Boys album called ‘Twenty Golden Greats’ I think – great title! – and I think it was just after I was leaving junior school they were the first band that I became obsessed with. So it’s from the first record I ever bought; it seemed appropriate for today.
20 February 1963 - Ian George Brown is born.
Notes: Born in Warrington. Sun sign Pisces. Ian grew up on Foster Street, Orford. His father, George, was a joiner, and his mother, Jean, worked as a receptionist at the BT call centre and later for a paper factory.
His grandfather used to grow and sell his own flowers before the second world war. During the war he lost his land and became a lorry driver. On his first job he crashed and lost the use of both his legs. From 03 January 1998 - NME Magazine: Ian said: “As a young man he had everything, then for the rest of his life he can’t walk further than ten yards.
In 1968 Ian and his family moved, including brother David Brown (Born 1967) and baby sister Sharon (Shaz) Brown (Born 1968), who later worked in an office, to Slyvan Avenue, Timperley, Altrincham. Ian's uncle and aunty lived on Welly Road, Timperley, Altrincham.
In 1969, only aged 6, he met John Squire at a local park. Ian only lived a few homes away from the Squire family.
Ian attended Park Road County Primary Infant and Junior School and passed his 11-plus, he then went to Altrincham Grammar School for Boys, leaving aged 16. Ian, John & Simon Wolstencroft all went to the same high school. Ian would later appear in court testifying against former Altrincham Grammar teacher, Fred Talbot, who was found guilty of sexually abusing pupils during the 1970s (see 27 January 2015 Tuesday).
From February 1998 - Uncut magazine Ian Brown interview: Ian, what’s your earliest memory? “Aged four, laid in some grass, just chatting with a girl and being told I was ‘bad’ and being taken out of school.” What were your family like? “Poor, down to earth. My father was a joiner. He looks like me, yeah. I’ve got a younger brother and sister. I grew up in Warrington, which was grim but fun.”
From 2002 Lindsay Baker Interview with Ian: Brown is close to his parents. His father was a joiner, now retired, and the family's background is in mining and railways. His parents worked hard to get the family out of Warrington and into a house with a garden. "They didn't go out drinking, they gave us everything, every Christmas was happy. All they ever gave me was love." The Browns ran a tight ship by the sound of it - there was a clear sense of right and wrong. You'd imagine that someone so averse to authority might have found this hard, but he has no complaints. "The beatings I got, I deserved." He doesn't want to dwell on this, though. His childhood was "definitely happy". He was raised to be "unafraid". His childhood hero was Muhammad Ali.
10 April 1964 - Alan John Wren is born.
Notes: Born in Wythenshawe, Greater Manchester. Sun sign Aries. His mum, Marion, has six children of which Reni was the second eldest. Reni grew up in Denton with four of his siblings. Three boys, three girls. Reni went to Egerton Park Arts College to do graphic design but was expelled after missing two weeks of the course when his family split up.
From 27 June 1990 Smash Hits Magazine, Reni said: "No one knows where I was born. Me mum was movin' about a lot at the time."
16 November 1967 - Gary Nigel "Mani" Mounfield goes to see Old Trafford to see a Manchester United reserve fixture against Ipswich
Notes:
From March 2000 - Four Four Two Magazine Mani Interview by Matt Allen: Mani has supported United since he was four (when he was still called Gary Mounfield), going to his first match (a reserve fixture against Ipswich) with his dad. By the time he was eight he was hooked, taking his younger brother on the number seven bus that ran from outside his house to Old Trafford.... “I think my love of United was preordained before I was even born because the club is in the family,” he says. “My Auntie Pat is Pat Stiles so there’s a sort of tenuous link with Nobby there. All my family are United. They’re all Irish immigrants living in North Manchester, which is pretty much the hotbed of Man U, so I don’t think I could have been anything else.”
20 February 1968 - Ian Brown's 5th birthday
10 April 1968 - Reni's 4th birthday
28 May 1968 - Ian Brown's sister Sharon Louise (Shaz) Brown is born
Notes: Ian's solo LP Ripples was dedicated to Sharon. Shaz sadly passed 11 May 2015, Ian's Ripples LP is dedicted to her.
From 27 June 1990 Smash Hits Magazine, Ian said: What's your earliest memory? "Being about five, at school and being asked to give out the school mlik. And I refused to do it. I said, 'No - just put the milk crate on the desk. Everybody can get ther own.' I don't know why - I think it was the first day or something, but I thought that if I did it then, I'd have to do it every day so I said no. In the end that's what they did - they put the milk on the table and everyone had to come and get their own. Yeah, I changed the system! From the start. You have to.."
29 May 1968 - Ian Brown watches the European Cup, Manchester United win.
Notes: Ian became a United supporter, aged 5, from this moment on. The rest of his family are blues.
From 01 February 2009 Sunday - The Guardian, article by Luke Bainbridge: When did you start supporting United? When we won the European Cup on 29 May, 1968. My sister was born the day before and when I went into the hospital the day after, United were on the telly. I was born in 63 so I was only five but I can still remember it. Aren't the rest of your family City fans? They're all City. My father and uncles are City. My brother, niece and brother-in-law have City season tickets. My nana and granddad used to buy me City money boxes, flags, things like that; I was, like, "I don't want 'em, I'm United!" My nana had the family's pictures on her wall, her grandkids in a circle, and in the middle was a picture of Joe Corrigan. I'm the red sheep ... apart from my sons, who aren't allowed to be Blues...''
1968 - Ian & John meet.
Notes: They lived on Slyvan Avenue in Timperley, Altrincham. Apparently The Bee Gees lived on the same avenue twenty years earlier.
Danny Kelly interviewed the band in Paris for the NME Magazine in 1989, I presume backstage at the La Cigale gig, wrote: ''...They play and plot the plan together, and they write the songs together. But the working relationship is just the tip of their friendship’s iceberg. They’ve known each other since they were in (presumably flared) shorts: “We lived in the same street in Chorlton. I met Ian when we were four or five,” recalls John with a smirk, “in a sandpit! I was a bit dubious about him, though, because the lad he was playing with was bollock-naked!”
From February 1998 - Uncut magazine Ian Brown interview: Legend has it you met John Squire in a sandpit, aged four. True? “There was a sandpit in the fields near our house. He remembers me being naked, but I don’t know if that’s right. We became friendly at 13 or 14, when we were put in the same class at secondary school. I started chatting to him, and I took “God Save The Queen”, the first Clash LP, and ‘One Chord Wonders’ by The Adverts round to his house. He was into The Beatles and The Beach Boys, but he only had compilations. I played him these punk records, and then a week later he’d bought the Clash and ‘God Save’. He went mad about the Clash after that, following them all over.”
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: He’s got a younger brother and younger sister. Ian’s younger brother Dave was exactly the same age as John’s younger brother Matt. Effectively when Ian and John are 15, and I’m 14, their two younger brothers are the same age, probably maybe 11 or 12, but they were best friends as well. So, when I met Ian and John, their younger brothers were also best friends with each other as well. And they were both cool kids, who were also into punk… so as soon as someone got a new single, it was like oh so-and-sos got a 7inch of whatever and it was quite exciting.
16 November 1968 - Mani's 6th birthday
24 November 1968 - John Squire's 6th birthday
1971 - Ian Brown visited Edwardia, George Best's boutique, Manchester
From 20 May 1989 - NME Magazine, Ian Brown wrote: [Pop stars remember their football-related experiences] IAN BROWN - The Stone Roses.
“Scene: Pavement outside George Best’s boutique, Bridge Street, Manchester. Sometime in the ‘70s, George pulls up in a Lotus Europa with a Scandinavian beauty.
Me and my mates: ‘Hiya George’.
‘Hello boys’.
‘Here sign this George’.
‘No problem lads’.
“To move us from the front of his shop George bought us half a pound of black jacks. Seven years old, getting toffees off George! An excellent day only to be marred later in a chance encounter with George outside Jones’ Kings Road, London.
“’Alright George’. No reply. ‘Yo George’. Silence. ‘George, man’ ‘Piss off pal, on your way’.”
George Best, superstar and arsehole, broke my heart last summer. No more heroes anymore.
From 01 February 2009 Sunday - The Guardian, article by Luke Bainbridge: Didn't you use to hang around Edwardia, George Best's boutique? That's right. When I was seven or eight we used to go into town and he had a boutique on Bridge Street next to the barber. That was one of our haunts, hanging outside his boutique, waiting for him. I remember him pulling up in a yellow Lotus Europa with a blonde. There was a sweetshop round the corner and a few times George got us kids a bag of toffees like Fruit Salads and Black Jacks and said, "You can't hang here all day, lads."
February 1971 - Ian Brown attends Manchester United v. Southampton at Old Trafford.
Notes: It was Ian's 8th birthday present.
From 01 February 2009 Sunday - The Guardian, article by Luke Bainbridge: What was the first game you went to? Home to Southampton in 1971, for my eighth birthday. We won and Alan Gowling scored a hat-trick [United won 5-1; Gowling got four].
1971 - Ian Brown's favourite album of all time, What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye is released.
Notes: According to February 2016 - Q Magazine.
20 February 1972 - Ian Brown's 9th birthday
10 April 1972 - Reni's 8th birthday
16 November 1972 - Mani's 10th birthday
24 November 1972 - John Squire's 10th birthday
1972 - Ian Brown buys his first 7inch single T-Rex - Metal Guru
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': It was in Timperley that music started to have an effect on him. He started ploughing through records that were left lying around. 'My auntie gave me a pile of seven inches. 'It's Not Unusual', Tom Jones; 'Help!' 'I Feel Fine' by The Beatles; 'Satisfaction', 'Under My Thumb', 'Get Off My Cloud', by the Stones; 'The Happening' and 'Love Child' by The Supremes. I would have been seven or eight and I had a little Dansette. They were the first discs I had. I've still got them.'.... The first record that Ian Brown bought was 'Metal Guru', T-Rex's classic 1972 number one — Marc Bolan, the inventor of glam and one of the greatest ever British pop Stars, in his prime. Pop music was part of the young Brown's life. 'When I was a kid, like everyone in the north, I was into The Beatles, then I heard T-Rex's "Metal Guru" and that was the first single I bought from the local market. When I was nine, I was into Gary Glitter: "Rock- 'n 'Roll Part One" was a great record. I still think Slade are great — Noddy Holder was one of the best singers to ever come out of Britain. He had a voice like John Lennon He sung rough, out there, full on...'
From February 1998 - Uncut magazine Ian Brown interview: Who was your first hero? “When I was a kid, there was no-one bigger for me than Mohammed Ali. I can see that ’74 Foreman fight as clear as a bell, and I got all the books. My walls were covered in Ali and Bruce Lee pictures, and later it would have been the Pistols.”
1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: RC: What were your first records? IB: "It’s Not Unusual", Tom Jones; "Help!", "I Feel Fine", the Beatles; "Satisfaction", "Under My Thumb", "Get Off My Cloud", the Stones; "The Happening" and "Love Child" by the Supremes. My auntie gave me a pile of seven inches. I would have been seven or eight and I had a little Dansette. They were the first discs I had. I’ve still got them.
16 February 2000 Wednesday - music365.com Ian Brown Q & A Session: Holly: What was the first record you ever bought Ian? Ian: 'Metal Guru' by T Rex. Aged nine.
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: They went to a different High School to me. I was at Burnage they were at Altrincham Grammar… Burnage was probably the roughest school in Manchester at that point; I didn’t know that when I went there… it’s an all-boys’ school, quite legendary.
From 2002 Lindsay Baker Interview with Ian: One of his most vivid memories was meeting another idol, George Best, when the footballer ran a boutique in town. Brown and his friends would hang around the shop, and Best would turn up in a yellow sports car, always with a girl in the passenger seat, and go to the sweet shop around the corner and get them four Blackjacks for half a penny each. That was when Brown became a Manchester United fan, even though his family supported City. He was seven or eight when his auntie gave him a Dansette record player and some seven-inch singles - The Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Motown, Tom Jones; he's still got them. He and his friends used to build scooters using the saddles from their Choppers ("We weren't mods; just lads with scooters") and ride to Scarborough, Blackpool and Southport, following the northern soul scene. He saw The Clash at the Apollo, The Buzzcocks and The Fall. That's what got him into music, he says.
23 May 2006 09:41 - The Daily Mail article by Piers Hernu: He looks fondly at the Wurlitzer we found in Sheffield for our shoot, which can connect to an iPod. "I remember in particular the tracks that inspired me to sing in those early days - Motown tracks such as Twenty Five Miles by Edwin Starr and I Want You Back by The Jackson Five."
197x - Reni was a ball boy for Manchester City Football Club
From 01 February 2009 Sunday - The Guardian, article by Luke Bainbridge: Were all the Stone Roses United fans? Apart from Reni [drummer]. Reni was City because he's an ex-City ball boy.
20 February 1974 - Ian Brown's 11th birthday
10 April 1974 - Reni's 10th birthday
16 November 1974 - Mani's 12th birthday
24 November 1974 - John Squire's 12th birthday
Notes: Matt Squire bought Elton John - Pinball Wizard (The Who cover) on 7inch. This was the households first rock 'n' roll single. Everything else before then had been taped from the radio or on a handheld recorder in front of Top Of The Pops.
Paperback Writer / Rain was the first Beatles single John bought, they were re-issued in the mid-seventies with green Parlophone sleeves with a band photo to the rear.
1974 - Ian Brown attends Karate lessons at the Red Dragon club, Ashton-on-Mersey, Sale
16 February 2000 Wednesday - music365.com Ian Brown Q & A Session: Karl: What style of karate did you do and would you start it again? Ian: Bujinkai, which is a mixture of Wado-ryu and phonebox boxing. I would start it again, but it would take me at least three years to get back up to the standard I was.
From 01 February 2009 Sunday - The Guardian, article by Luke Bainbridge: You were a big Bruce Lee fan? Yeah, I was bang into Bruce Lee. I started doing karate when I was 11. I went to the Red Dragon club in Ashton-on-Mersey in Sale...
20 February 1975 - Ian Brown's 12th birthday
From 27 June 2010 Sunday 00:04 - The Guardian Newspaper article, by Luke Bainbridge : Ian Brown: Soundtrack of my life - Former Stone Roses singer Ian Brown tells Luke Bainbridge about the records that shaped his life.
MY FIRST ALBUM Jimi Hendrix Smash Hits (1968) - My Auntie Wendy gave me this when I was 12. She was way cool; she looked like one of the Stones girls with a bowl haircut. She gave me all her Beatles, Stones and Supremes singles and her Dansette when I was seven, but I didn't know albums (or LPs as we called them then) existed until she gave me Jimi Hendrix's Smash Hits. Hendrix looked so cool on the cover; there are three photographs of him and it looks like he's moving. He has this purple top on and looks like a psychedelic dandy. It has "Purple Haze", "Hey Joe"... it's basically a greatest hits. The music sounded so strange and otherworldly when I was 12.
10 April 1975 - Reni's 11th birthday
16 November 1975 - Mani's 13th birthday
24 November 1975 - John Squire's 13th birthday
1975 - Ian Brown attends the Karate Championships, Bellvue Stadium, Manchester
From 01 February 2009 Sunday - The Guardian, article by Luke Bainbridge: I used to go to Bellevue for the karate championships.
20 February 1976 - Ian Brown's 13th birthday
10 April 1976 - Reni's 12th birthday
1976 - Ian Brown buys Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The U.K. 7inch
From 1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: RC: Did punk have a big impact on you? IB: Yeah, the band I most got into was the Sex Pistols. My mate had "Anarchy In The UK". He got it in Woolies for 29p ‘cos after that Bill Grundy show, they put the record in the bargain bin! I loved " I Wanna Be Me" on the other side – that lyric about "cover me in margarine" was great.
16 November 1976 - Mani's 14th birthday
24 November 1976 - John Squire's 14th birthday
December 1976 - Ian Brown buys his first LP Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies
Notes: From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': 'Alice Cooper I liked as well. I didn't even know what an album was till 1976 when I got Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies for Christmas; before then it was singles for me. My mum had South Pacific and Perry Como. I had Alice Cooper's 'School's Out', that was what I was into at 12 really. Then Bill Grundy was in the papers with the Sex Pistols and I got really into punk. I got the Sex Pistols and I heard The Adverts on Piccadilly Radio that March 1977 and got their single, 'One Chord Wonders'. I also heard The Clash on Piccadilly Radio when they played...
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: Ian had the first Stooges album… and the Stooges have been my favorite band since I was 15, 16… it was because of Ian I heard it. He’d bought that because the independent record shop in Altrincham had a punk section… and early doors there weren’t that many punk records… and they had the Stooges album in the punk section with sticker on it with punk. And Ian had bought it because it was punk. The record shop in Alty was a pretty good place to hang out; you’d find decent singles and stuff in there. I remember the first time I went round to Ian’s house, his mum saying to him, you’re not hanging round with him, she thought I was bad news. Later on, I teased her about it. But when she first met me, she said to Ian you’re not hanging with him, he’s bad news. Which obviously I’m not.
1976 / 1977 - Ian Brown attends Manchester United Football Club, Old Trafford.
From 01 February 2009 Sunday - The Guardian, article by Luke Bainbridge: Did you go regularly after that? Yeah, especially around 76- 77, the days of Gordon Hill, Stevie Coppell and the Greenhoff brothers. Then I started working and probably didn't go again until the late 80s. I went to the Cup Winners' Cup final in Rotterdam in 1991.
20 February 1977 - Ian Brown's 14th birthday
10 April 1977 - Reni's 13th birthday
April 1977 - The Clash debut LP U.K. Release Date
27 June 2010 Sunday 00:04 - The Guardian Newspaper article, by Luke Bainbridge : Ian Brown: Soundtrack of my life - Former Stone Roses singer Ian Brown tells Luke Bainbridge about the records that shaped his life.... THE RECORD THAT BROUGHT TOGETHER THE FUTURE ROSES The Clash The Clash (1977) In March 1977, I taped the single "Career Opportunities" off Piccadilly Radio, which was the 70s equivalent of downloading, and then the album came out in April 1977. That album started the Roses in a way, because John Squire was getting his head kicked in one day at school; I saw it and thought: that's that kid who lives up our road, so I pulled the other kid off because he'd had enough. I went round that night to see if he was all right, and I took the first Clash album, "One Chord Wonders" by the Adverts, and the first Jam single "In the City". He only had two albums: 20 Golden Greats by the Beach Boys and The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl. So I played him The Clash and he went and bought it the next day, and played it every day for about 18 months, before and after school. That got him obsessed with guitar and made him want to play.
1977 - Ian Brown and John Squire buy Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen 7inch
Notes: John went and bought the 7inch after Ian played it to him.
From 13 June 2007 - XFM Manchester Session Interview: I know you were a fan of John Lydon’s, and you still are, and the next record you’ve brought in to play us is ‘God Save the Queen’ by the Sex Pistols.
JS: Yeah, I thought I should play the song that made me want to pick up the guitar for the first time – I think I was fourteen when I heard this and realised how electric guitars could be made to sound. I started pestering my Dad for a guitar, got a paper round , started hanging around guitar shops on the way back from school. And I think it was the next Christmas I got the guitar...
From May 1995 - The Spin Magazine: (John said) Hearing the Pistols' "God Save The Queen" was a revelation: "It became my mission in life to try to create something with that power, just the noise of that guitar." Before that, it'd had been the Beach Boys' "20 Golden Greats" and "me mum's Beatles LP's".
From 1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: Ian Brown said: ...Then I got "God Save The Queen" the day it came out. I was fourteen. I remember thinking, "oh wow, that Pistols is gonna change the world. And it did, in a way.
From June 1997 - The Guitar Magazine: There was a time, quite a while ago, when one note was all it took to get John Squire excited about guitar. ‘I was 14,’ he intones. ‘There’s a low note on God Save The Queen, probably an A-string, just before the beginning of the second verse. Dowwww! Really fat and thick. One note… raw sex. I heard that… had to go and do it myself.’...
1977 - Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks U.K. Release Date
27 June 2010 Sunday 00:04 - The Guardian Newspaper article, by Luke Bainbridge : Ian Brown: Soundtrack of my life - Former Stone Roses singer Ian Brown tells Luke Bainbridge about the records that shaped his life....WHEN I WAS INTO PUNK The Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks (1977) I was really into punk when I was about 14. My mate bought three copies of "Anarchy in the UK" from Woolworths in Manchester the day after [their notorious appearance on] the Bill Grundy show. Then we bought "God Save the Queen" and "Pretty Vacant" the days they came out. The sleeves weren't ready for "Vacant", there was some problem with distribution, so you had to go back about three weeks later to get the picture sleeve. We couldn't wait for the LP and when it came out it blew us away. I still think it's the best UK album ever made.
13 October 1977 - Ian Brown attends The Stranglers supported by The Drones at The Apollo, Manchester
Notes: From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: ''Pete Garner said: One night we started chatting. I remember Ian saying he had been to see the Stranglers which I was impressed by as he must have been about 13. There was a bit of piss taking going on! John was quiet; he didn’t say much apart from that he played the first Clash album every day, Ian was more into the Pistols and the Jam. John for some reason was never having the Jam.''
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': 'Buzzcocks were the key band at the time. I remember seeing them on the telly on So It Goes, which was the programme that Tony Wilson used to do. It was really important. They were right on it. We would watch it even if it was Elvis Costello, although he was all right when he started. They had some great stuff on there like The Clash live, Belle Vue [at the Elizabethan rooms, Belle Vue, 15 November 1977. They showed four songs on TV. Penetration were on as well. The Banshees before they were signed. Buzzcocks filmed at the Mayflower for two nights. 'Manchester was great in the punk days. We had our own bands like Slaughter And The Dogs, Buzzcocks, V 2 — they were a big band to us. I saw the Drones supporting The Stranglers at the Apollo [13 October 1977]. The Drones album, Temptations Of A White Collar Worker, that was great; there was Ed Banger's "I Ain't Been To No Music School" single. The Drones were one of the first bands I saw. I also saw punk shows at the Apollo — The Clash, The Stranglers — and The Jam at Salford University.'
16 November 1977 - Mani's 15th birthday
24 November 1977 - John Squire's 15th birthday
25 December 1977 - John gets his first guitar for Christmas
Notes: In the next few years John would go through a selection of budget guitars including Satellite and an Aria Les Paul style too.
From 13 June 2007 - XFM Manchester Session Interview: Did your Dad know you were going to make a racket that sounded like the Sex Pistols? JS: I think he hoped I’d progress onto modern jazz...Ok, let’s hear your next choice of music. This is Jimi Hendrix. What made you choose this song?
JS: I told you earlier about the moment of inspiration that came from listening to ‘God Save the Queen’. Immediately after buying the guitar depressed on the windowsill in my bedroom with no amplifier picking my way through ‘Three Blind Mice’ on one string wondering how long it would take, and a few years later my Dad rigged up the transformer from my old trainset to my record player so I could slow all my tunes down and then I’d re-tune and work things out at a much easier pace, and I spent a lot of time with this particular track and a lot of these licks made it on to Roses records later.
From June 1997 - The Guitar Magazine: ‘I probably spent too long practising guitar on my own,’ he muses. ‘We didn’t live in a musical street of school, and it wasn’t until just before the first Roses album that I met another proper guitarist. This guy Ian (Brown) used to work with used to go to a blues and folk guitar teacher in Rusholme; I went to see him I couple of times and he taught me a lot. Apart from that, it all comes from books and cassettes. Plus I had the record player…
Not any old ‘stereogram’, mind. Squire’s industrious father wired up a train set transformer to said LP player allowing with a tilt of the dial, variable voltage. So not only could 45s be played at 331/3, when the guitar parts got a bit tricky 331/3s could be played at, ooh, 121/5. ‘It was so good when I got into Page, Hendrix and Clapton because I could slow everything down and pick out guitar lines. Very helpful.’
From here, Squire absorbed a smidgen of chord theory – ‘I don’t carry it up around here, though (taps head)’ – and cherry-picked the best licks he could from a book called Lead Guitar by Harvey Vincent.’ It came with a flexi-disk and was all blues-based,’ he remembers. ‘That stuff just came easy to me. Dunno why… I just liked the sound. Still do.’
1978 - Ian Brown & John Squire start a musical relationship.
Notes: John Squire began learning to play guitar when he was a teenager. According to Ian Brown, the first song he could play was Three Blind Mice.
'The early days' article by John Robb published 08 April 2011 on louderthanwar.com, Ian Brown said: ''I got to know John (Squire) in about 1977. He was getting his head kicked in at school and I knew he lived up our street and I jumped in and helped him out. That night, because I felt a bit sorry for him, I took some records round. I already had 'God Save The Queen’ the day it came out. I also took the first Clash LP and The Adverts 'One Chord Wonders'. I knocked on his door and took round these tunes. He had The Beatles 'Live At The Hollywood Bowl' and The Beach Boys 'Golden Greats'. I played my stuff and he got it straight away and he got really into The Clash.'' ''Punk was going by end of ’78. We still liked The Jam; 'Setting Sons' had come out. I was into the Pistols, but they split up in ’79. so, I was now into The Upstarts – their 'Murder Of Liddle Towers' was a big tune – Cockney Rejects 'Flares And Slippers', Sham 69’s 'Ulster' – that was their first record and then 'Borstal Breakout' and 'Angels With Dirty Faces'; great records. I was really into them and then I started getting into early mod bands.''
From February 1998 - Uncut magazine Ian Brown interview: What attracted you to Squire? “We were total opposites. I was very outgoing, the kid that would stand on the table in front of the class doing impressions of the teachers. I was the class joker and he was the loner. He got out of sports so he could do art. I think he was the first kid in the school to play truant, and he did that by himself. But at 13, 14, we’d walk the streets together and sit in each other’s bedrooms playing records. He got his guitar aged 15. The first thing he learned to play was ‘Three Blind Mice’. Then he’d play his guitar for me when I went round. He’s a funny kid. I know he’s really, really quiet and doesn’t speak to no one, but when he was with me, he’d never shut up. Everybody knows him as a man of few words, but in them days he was garrulous with me, definitely. I did spend a lot of my life and a lot of the Roses’ life talking for the kid. I knew him so well that I’d finish his sentences off. And then in the end… that didn’t happen...Also, I did karate from 11 to 18. Aged 14, I was teaching it at weekends to grown men. I wanted my own karate school. But John’s getting good now on guitar.
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': For the 14-year-old Ian Brown it was a call to arms, as he remembered to Record Collector. 'Punk changed everything. The band I most got into was the Sex Pistols. My mate had "Anarchy In The UK". He got it in Woolies for 29p 'cos after that Bill Grundy Show, they put the record in the bargain bin! I loved "I Wanna Be Me" on the other side — that lyric about "cover me in margarine" was great. Then I got 'God Save The Queen' the day it came out. I was fourteen. I remember thinking, "Oh wow, that Pistols record is gonna change the world. And it did, in a way. 'The next thing I heard was The Adverts' 'One Chord Wonders' on Piccadilly Radio in early '77....
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': Squire remembers his first brush with Ian Brown. 'I've vague memories of meeting him at his friend's house,' he says. 'It was like an arranged marriage! A parental thing. The school catchment area had a line that went down the street. He was on one side, I was on the other, but eventually we went to the same secondary school. I didn't really get to know him until punk. He was somebody locally who was into the same music. We'd swap records and things. At the time it felt like an illicit underworld.' Brown also turned Squire on to Slaughter And The Dogs. Years later John still really rates 'Cranked Up Really High'. 'The single conjures up images of flailing fists and feet on Saturday night dancefloors in Manchester. It's a blistering track with the ultimate unintelligible vocal.' 'I think London punk bands had more of an effect on my motivation, than where I was from. The whole ethos of The Clash, Pistols, all that era, and the fact that they promoted themselves on the platform of "anyone can do it". I don't know if that was true, but it certainly made me think that maybe I could.' And according to Squire, it was Strummer's impassioned example that was an inspiration. A chance quote from The Clash's vocalist on TV had fired him up. 'This wasn't personal advice, it was advice. Joe Strummer from The Clash turning to the camera in a very stoic move. He was asked if he had any advice for the kids out there and he said, "Believe in yourself, you can do anything you want." That one went in and stayed.'
Sam Wollaston interview with John Squire 16 September 2019: Mainly self-taught then, same as with the guitar, no? “I did go to some lessons with a piano teacher. I took him the only sheet music I could find, which was Rich Kids by the Rich Kids. He tried to play it on the piano and it sounded nothing like the record. I think I had one lesson and realised it wasn’t going to help me get anywhere. So yeah, I learnt from books.” And became very good at it, particularly on the heavy extended riffs of Second Coming. “Yeah, it’s flattering, but I don’t think I’m a very good guitar player, or a very good painter. I listen to my guitar playing, my songs, I look at my paintings, I tend to focus on the faults, things that I could’ve done slightly better.”
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': Pete Garner, remembers just how much John loved The Clash. 'John would play The Clash's first album every day. I remember one day he turned up with a guitar string instead of a shoelace in his brothel creeper. It turned out there was a picture Of Joe Strummer in the music press with the same thing that week. But that's what it's like when you're really young, that's the sort of thing you do, isn't it?'
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: In those days I didn’t know anyone who had the first Clash album so when I met John – and he played that every single day. It was exciting just to meet someone who an album you didn’t have…
1978 - Ian & John meet Peter Garner
Notes: Pete would become friends with Ian & John. He followed The Patrol and would later play bass in The Stone Roses. Peter attended Burnage High School, one of his classmates was Aziz Ibrahim. Aziz would later replace John Squire, after his departure.
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: Original bass player in The Stone Roses (1983-87). I lived in Sale, went to school at Burnage High School. I only lived five minutes’ walk from Ian and John but where we lived there was a brook that’s separates Sale from Timperley; on one side of the brook is Manchester and the other side is WA postcode, Altrincham, Cheshire. I was on the Manchester side. It was just a footbridge but it separates Manchester from Cheshire basically. It was just a good meeting place for everyone from round our way. I used to hang around… and that’s how I met Ian and John basically. Me, and generations older than me, used to hang around on this bridge, just because it was a good focal point, somewhere to hang around. That’s how I met Ian and John, them walking across the bridge when they were going wandering like you do when you’re 13, 14… that’s how I first noticed them and got talking to them..., on the bridge basically. I think it was 77, 78. I was a year younger than them. I was 13. To me it was, oh these two older kids. When I first met Ian, I remember him, what I later found out, lying about all the bands he’d seen like The Sex Pistols....And the Damned? Me and Ian both loved The Damned. I don’t think John did. John was totally obsessed with the Clash. Ian loved the Clash as well, but it was more the pistols and The Damned he loved. Ian had Stretcher Case/Sick of being Sick single which was single you got free if you went to a certain gig in London. Ian being an opportunist wrote to Stiff records and said I’m a massive fan of The Damned and I really need to get the single. So obviously someone read it and ah, and sent it to him. He was the only person who had it, it was like the Holy Grail… a big deal. Gen X? There was two camps. We all loved the first album. It was controversial because they had a guitar solo. The album is packed full of great tunes, and the guitarist is amazing, this guy Derwood… but they got a lot of stick because the last track on the album had got a massive guitar solo in it and it sort of split the camps. You weren’t allowed to do guitar solos. Ian loved Gen X but didn’t like that solo because it was wrong. Me and John both loved the solo… it’s brilliant… unique… but we all loved that album for sure.
20 February 1978 - Ian Brown's 15th birthday
1978 - Ian Brown gets his first scooter, a 1966 Lambretta J 125
Notes: Over the next few years, until 1982, Ian also went through owning a Lambretta GP200 with a Ducati 225 engine in it, GP200 with extended forks, banana seat, leg shields off and Vespa rally 200 with "Angels With Dirty Faces" painted on the side.
1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: RC: They did a song, "SX 225", which links neatly to your scooter days! IB: My first scooter was a Lambretta J 125 from ’66. All over the North in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, there were still loads of Northern Soul and scooter boys. East Manchester was heavy metal, but North of Manchester, it’s Northern Soul. There were still loads of clubs..
Didn’t you ride a chopper Lambretta? IB: Yeah, that was a Lambretta GP200 – extended forks, banana seat, leg shields off. Sweet and Innocenti, it was called. And I had a Vespa rally 200 with "Angels With Dirty Faces" painted on the side. I had five or six over time. We went to all the rallies – Brighton, the Isle of Wight, Scotland, Great Yarmouth. Two years later, I got John into it. He had a GP200 that he made up himself.
March 2000 - Jockey Slut Magazine includes a Ian Brown Q&A Session: Do you still own a scooter? Kevin Richardson, Birmingham. "No. I haven't owned a scooter since 1982. I had a Lambretta chopper with a Ducati 225 engine in it. It could burn off any motorbike from traffic lights for the first 50 yards because it was so light. It was only 18 inches off the ground and painted pink. It had a petrol tank welded on and I took the legs off so it was a proper chopper. I went all over Britain on it, but I'm frightened to death of them now."
1978 - Ian Brown attends:
The Buzzcocks - 26 March 1978 - The Mayflower, Manchester
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': 'I went to gigs in the late seventies. I saw the Buzzcocks in the Mayflower [26 March 1978]. I remember a load of Teds came down because there was some Ted convention in Belle Vue and Buzzcocks were launching their album and Pete Shelley had to stop the fighting...
The Clash - 24 July 1978 - Eric's Club, Liverpool * Support Act(s): The Specials
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Ian Brown said: ''I’m getting older now so I started going to the Russell club and saw Secret Affair, Purple Hearts and the Chords on the same night and a band called the Killermeters from Yorkshire. I saw the first ever Madness show when they supported Dexys Midnight Runners- the local Longsight skins nutted Chas Smash off the stage when he was doing his mad dance- The Specials supported the Clash and Terry Hall had a blonde Sid Vicious style haircut- they were great.''
? Buzzcocks - Belle Vue
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': ...'I remember a load of Teds came down because there was some Ted convention in Belle Vue and Buzzcocks were launching their album and Pete Shelley had to stop the fighting...
From 1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: RC: The Buzzcocks were Manchester’s most successful punk band… IB: I saw them a few times – at the Mayflower in Belle Vue and at a signing at Virgin Records....
? Slaughter & the Dogs - Wythenshawe forum
? Slaughter & the Dogs - Belle Vue
Notes: From 1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: IB: My next door neighbour was a friend of Rossi, the guitarist. I saw them at Wythenshawe forum and the Belle Vue
July 1978 - Ian, John & Peter Garner go to The Buzzcocks - Alexandra Park, Moss Side
Notes: Free show.
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: They met at Strangeways Prison in Manchester and marched with an Anti-Nazi rally to the show. The first gig I went to was The Buzzcocks, July 78. It was free gig in Alexandra Park in Moss Side. It was Buzzcocks, John Cooper Clarke, a band called Exodus, reggae band from Moss side. It was a massive moment in my life. It was the first rally I went to. I jumped on the bus into town, and heard about this gig and we met at Strangeways prison and there was an Anti-Nazi league rally and we marched from there with banners, to Moss side, where there’s a massive free gig.... And IBEX? At his school, like you get fads at school, what kids started doing was using their initials and then putting EX on the end… because that sounded good that just stuck. To this day people still call him Ibex. When I first met him, people were calling him that.
16 November 1978 - Mani's 16th birthday
24 November 1978 - John Squire's 16th birthday
23 November 1978 - John & Ian see The Clash - Out On Patrol Tour - The Apollo, Manchester
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition’...I also saw punk shows at the Apollo — The Clash, The Stranglers — and The Jam at Salford University.'
From 02 July 2007 Monday - The Guardian article, John Squire said: Contrary to popular myth, it wasn't Jackson Pollock or Jasper Johns who first inspired me to turn my hand to painting. I had a teenage infatuation with American painter Nancy Kominsky. I would skip school to watch her show on ITV, feet up with a brew, while she knocked out a still life in under 25 minutes. Another major influence on my work was the imagery surrounding the Clash and the Sex Pistols. It was Jamie Reid's artwork and the Clash's paint-splattered clothing that first drew me towards abstraction.
1978 - Mani attends The Factory Club, Hulme and sees Joy Division & A Certain Ratio
Notes: Mani went to the Northern Soul nights at Pips, club nights at the Reno and Nile in Moss Side too.
1978 / 1979 - Mani joins punk band Urban Paranoia, based in Failsworth.
20 February 1979 - Ian Brown's 16th birthday
14 March 1979 - John & Ian see Joy Division at Bowdown Vale Youth Club, Altrincham
Notes: Ian and John were just 16. I am not sure how many times Joy Division played Bowdon Vale but Ian remembers a show dating from 1978, see below.
From Ian Brown Q Magazine Interview by Howard Johnson: HJ: What was the first gig you went to? IB: I went to see Joy Division at the Bowdon Vale Youth Club, near Altrincham. I was 14 and I went with my friend and his little sister. After the gig she went and asked Ian Curtis for one of his badges and he said he'd give it to her, but only if he got a blow job in return. She was only 12! I remember thinking "What a disgrace!".
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: Him and John saw the Joy Division gig in Bowdon Vale youth club in Altrincham [March 14, 1979]. They went and I was gutted I didn’t go because I always loved Joy Division. There were photographs of the gig and it looked like all school kids.
1979 - Ian & John form The Patrol, Altrincham Grammar School
Notes: Ian, John & Simon all went to the same school and apparently started jamming with Ian & John at school.
Ian finished school with two two O-levels, probably in Geography and Maths.
From 06 March 2009 - Uncut Magazine Interview with Ian Brown: You weren’t always called The Stone Roses – were you called The Patrol, or was there another as well? Yeah! That’s right. We played a few youth clubs and a few bars in Manchester; I was playing bass then and singing some backing vocals. The Patrol was a name that me and John came up with together. There were songs we wrote that were never recorded, but there’s no lost album. I wish there were...
From February 2016 - Q Magazine: Simon Wolstencroft said: “really cool kid (Ian Brown)" with hair like Bruce Lee and a red flash on the side of his shoes is Wolstencroft's earliest memory of the schoolboy Brown. They usually sat together alongside Brown's neighbour, John Squire, the three musketeers who eventually formed proto-Roses punk band The Patrol. “Ian was great at impersonating teachers. He loved making an entrance and making all the other kids laugh. They were both funny, but John had a quieter sense of humour, whereas Ian always had that swagger about him. That glint in his eye. He hasn’t changed.”...
1979 - Ian Brown, John Squire & Simon Wolstencroft meet Andy Couzens at South Trafford College.
Notes: Simon was the first to join The Patrol, shortly followed by Andy. Andy Couzens was born in Stockport, 1962. He was true punk. Andy's parents bought him an MG sports car during his time at South Trafford College, back then it was a big deal to have a car at college. He was into the same music as Ian & John and had a stylish dress sense too. His MG was often used to go to and from music venues with equipment etc.
From 27 September 2013 - Andy Couzens interview: ''How did you first get to know Ian, John, Pete and Reni? I met Ian and John at South Trafford College along with Si Wolstencroft when Ian asked me to join The Patrol.''
'The early days' article by John Robb published 08 April 2011 on louderthanwar.com, Ian Brown said: “He (Andy Couzens) was weighing into this kid fighting and we were impressed with his bottle because the other kid was bigger than him, and we thought, 'let's ask him to be the singer’. He was wearing winkle picker shoes, a long black Crombie and had a spiky haircut, so we knew he was coming out of the same sort of thing that we were'' ''“Si (Simon Wolstencroft) was the first kid I met at school. He was the only person to have Docs [Doc Marten boots] on, so I clicked with him straight away.''
Simon Wolstencroft, From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': Also, he had a guitar as well and his mum and dad had bought him an MG Midget to go to the college. It was a tiny Car but wc could all squeeze into it if someone was squashed between the two front seats.'
Andy Couzens said: You couldn’t even sit under the bridge. It was too small, just a footbridge between back gardens. We sat on it smoking having the odd drink, pulling girls. There was no drugs - even none of us drank properly- Pete might have drank, I never fucking drank never and I don’t like dope. I never have. I remember trying it. I do remember everyone thought that dope was for hippies. I remember us all trying some oil, fucking terrible. I remember it just freaked me out completely. We were out in my car somewhere and Si Wolstencroft who used to hang out at the bridge had to drive home...''
Ian Brown said: ''Si was first kid I met at school. He was the only person to have docs on so I clicked with him straight away. I have been mates with him since I was 11. After The Patrol he played on the original Smiths demo that got them the deal, he said they won’t get anywhere with that weirdo on vocals!... We started a band called The Patrol in 1979. I played bass because it was the easiest thing to play. I must have been a frustrated singer then because I used to write the words and do the backing vocals. I used to say the intros the songs as well. Andy Couzens was the singer...He was a rich kid to us who had his own van and lived in a big house. So, we rehearsed at his house in the cellar. He had the amps and the drum kit; I think my mate Si Wolstencroft and John broke into a school and nicked the school PA. We suspended it down a manhole for two weeks to hide it then sprayed it bright green because the Clash had one that was bright pink.'
Pete Garner: Another weird Ian connection here as well was that a mate of mine from school, Steve Pugh, was a mate of Johnny Marr’s and he introduced me to Johnny and then Steve Pugh became a mate of Ian’s.
1979
The Patrol
Andy Couzens - Vocals & Rhythm Guitar
Ian George Brown - Bass Guitar & Vocals
John Thomas Squire - Lead Guitar
Simon Wolstencroft - Drums
Ian Brown attends:
The Jam - 08 May 1979 - Salford University, Salford, Manchester
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': ...I also saw punk shows at the Apollo — The Clash, The Stranglers — and The Jam at Salford University.'
Madness - 01 September 1979 - Russell Club aka The Factory, Manchester * Support Act(s): The Modernaires
The Chords - 14 September 1979 - Russell Club aka The Factory, Manchester * Support Act(s): Purple Hearts, Secret Affair
Dexys Midnight Runners - 22 September 1979 - Russell Club aka The Factory, Manchester * Support Act(s): Swell Maps, Ludas
Killermeters - Manchester
1979 - Rehearsals, Sale Scout Hut, Walton Road, Sale
Notes: From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: Initially when they started The Patrol they rehearsed at Walton Road Sale scout hut. Simon Wolstencroft has got a lot of stories; he went to school with them and college with them. The gang was basically Ian, John, Si, Andy (once they’d gone to college) and me. They started the Patrol and it was a bit of a joke because I was like the roadie. I was in the gang but I didn’t play any instrument. They were in their first year at South Trafford, so I was in my last year at Burnage.
04 August 2014 Matthew Mead This Is The Daybreak interview: Simon said: I have recordings from this period which will be heard on my podcasts due out in September (the book is due out at the end of October on Strata books).
1979 - Bedroom Rehearsals, Simon Wolstencroft's home, Timperley
The Jail Of The Assassins
Notes: John Squire wrote Jail Of The Assassin and gave Andy the lyrics to sing at their first rehearsal session.
Andy Couzens, From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': There were also some tunes to work on. They had a couple of bits of music. They had had a few jams before I got there. John was the one who got it all together initially. They all went to Altrincham Grammar and had gone through discovering punk, all that sort of thing, so it grew from that really. No songs. Just jammed bits of music. John had brought some lyrics with him that he thought I might want to sing. It was a real Clash reggae type of thing called "Jail Of The Assassins". Pete has a tape of that somewhere Years later we'd always joke that Pete was the Bill Wyman of the gang, hoarding all the stuff. Reni tried to keep stuff as well but could never concentrate long enough. In Sweden Reni kept a really detailed diary, came home and lost it.
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': The distorted rifting through the cheap amps and Andy's coarse vocals were further muffled by the fact that his cheapo mic was jacked up through John's amp, which added to the distorted punk mélée. As he shouted down the mic and attempted to put some punk rock life to John's lyrics, Andy had a good look at his new mates.
Simon Wolstencroft posted a snippet of 'The Jail Of Assassins' on his Instagram page but it has since been taken down. He also posted a short live recording of the band circa 2014, the track was quickly removed too.
1979 - Bedroom Rehearsals, Simon Wolstencroft's home, Timperley
London Night Out / 25 Rifles / Stepping Stone (The Monkees cover) / Johnny B Goode (Chuck Berry cover) / Jail Of The Assassin (Gaol Of The Assassins) / Stars And Stripes / I'm Not A Fool (Cockney Rejects cover)
Notes: Progress with new Squire penned songs and some covers too. The band played Stepping Stone in the Sex Pistols style.
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: They got quite a lot of songs together… One was Stepping Stone; we all loved the Pistols cover. It was nearly all John.
John Squire reveleaed The Patrol covered 'I'm Not A Fool (Cockney Rejects cover)' in the I-D Magazine Interview, late 1995.
From February 2016 - Q Magazine: Simon Wolstencroft said: “Even down to our song titles,” notes Wolstencroft. “Jail Of The Assassins. Too Many Tons. Ian was the bass player. He sang the odd bit ofbacking vocals too. He tried his best.”
21 July 1979 - The Patrol miss out on supporting Adam and the Ants at The Osbourne Club, 255 Oldham Road, Manchester
Notes: The Russell Club in Manchester was known for its punk alternative new wave shows hosted by Factory Records. The club was even billed as 'The Factory' by the organisers. The venue moved to the New Osbourne club; the Factory Records venue organisers carried on for a while booking artists at 'Factory II' before they launched their very own venue The Hacienda. Various sites list the Adam & The Ants venue in Manchester differently. Ian Brown even quoted The Mayflower but this was even before The Patrol were together, so would be incorrect. The John Robb book noted the date as summer 1980 but I could not find any dates for the venues in 1980 on the Adam & The Ants fan sites. Simon's story seems more plausible as Adam & The Ants did not appear at the show as they broke down on the motorway.
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Ian Brown said: ''I guess we were Clash copyists really. We played in youth clubs and we played the Portland bars in town- that was our big gig. One night we could have supported Adam and the Ants at the Mayflower in 1979 (Jan 26th 1979 on the ‘Young Parisians’ tour) but we couldn’t find our van to get into town and no one had a motor and we couldn’t find Andy that night so it was 'fucking hell we could have supported Adam and the Ants' – they were not that big then but everyone knew them- they were a great band though 'Xerox' is a top song. (Indeed, it is!)''
Pete Garner said ''I booked a gig for the Patrol supporting Adam And The Ants at the Osborne. I rang to see what time the Ants were playing and the support band couldn't make it. I said I know a band who could play and I could get them down. Ian and Andy said brilliant but they couldn’t find couldn’t find John. He was sat in a field being artistic! It would have been a bad idea, I guess. We were too young really- a bunch of 16-year-old playing to an early Ants crowd of big mohicaned crazies.''
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: The Osbourne club and the Adam and Ants gig? I loved Adam and the Ants as well, and they were playing the Osbourne club up toward Failsworth and I was dead excited about this gig. And I think I rang the venue to find out what time they were on and the guy said it’s been cancelled. They’ve broken down on the motorway and they’re not going to make it. So, I was like who’ve you got on instead then? He was like well I’m fucked cos I need a band to play. So, I was like I know a band. He was like who? So, I was like they’re great The Patrol, they’ve done these gigs. I was 15 at the time blagging this guy. I was like they’ve got a following… they’ll pull a good crowd, so the guy was like okay if you can get them down. He knew loads of people were going to turn up at the gig and he had no band. So, I had to run round and try and get everyone together and it nearly happened but we couldn’t find John. It turned out, after it was all over and it didn’t happen, we caught up with John and said where the fuck were you yesterday. And I think he was sat in a field chilling, hadn’t told anyone where he was going. Just sat in a field doing what he does…and we were all running round trying to find him do this gig.
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': They also nearly replaced Adam And Ants, just before their big chart breakthrough, at another Manchester venue, the New Osborne club in Miles Platting in the summer of 1980 (now closed, the Osborne would become the Thunderdome — one of the key acid house clubs in Mad-chester with a more street take on the house scene). This was a gig that Garner set up. 'I booked that for them. The Ants should have played the Osborne. I rang up to see what time they were playing and they hadn't made it. I said, "I know a band that could play; I'll get them down." Ian and Andy said, "Brilliant!" but we couldn't find John anywhere. It turns out that he was sat in a field being artistic! It would have been a bad idea anyway, they were too young, a bunch of 16-ycar-olds playing to an early Ants crowd.
Simon Wolstencroft, From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': 'The venue asked The Patrol to step in and play because Adam And The Ants had broken down on the motorway. Luckily we couldn't get hold of Andy Couzens so we couldn't do it.'
Adam & The Ants fan said: ' I particularly remember heading along for an Adam and the Ants gig (before he found out he was a pirate, and to which he didn't turn up anyway) and the local youth took offence/a fence, bottles, bricks etc, to ward off all prospective punters pretty much all the way back to Ancoats.'
1979 - John Squire fails A-level Art at college.
Notes: Sam Wollaston interview with John Squire 16 September 2019: Squire did art A-level at college. He failed it, “because I wasn’t at all interested in the written work, the art history. This idea that museums were filled with dark religious paintings with a high-gloss finish, it made me feel depressed, reminded me of being forced to go to Sunday school.”
John customised his Lambretta GP 125 scooter. John had plated the petrol tank and the forks with copper, and painting the wheel rims with flicks and drips of paint in the Jackson Pollock style. He had noticed the abstract expressionist Pollock via a comment that rock photographer Pennie Smith had made regarding The Clash’s early look.
From 02 July 2007 Monday - The Guardian article, John Squire said: Contrary to popular myth, it wasn't Jackson Pollock or Jasper Johns who first inspired me to turn my hand to painting. I had a teenage infatuation with American painter Nancy Kominsky. I would skip school to watch her show on ITV, feet up with a brew, while she knocked out a still life in under 25 minutes. Another major influence on my work was the imagery surrounding the Clash and the Sex Pistols. It was Jamie Reid's artwork and the Clash's paint-splattered clothing that first drew me towards abstraction.
John Squire said: When I got into punk, Jamie Reid’s artwork for the Sex Pistols and The Clash’s paint splattered clothes inspired my own creations and drew me towards Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism.
1979 - Mani swaps his gas fire for his Uncle Ian's Innocenti Lambretta LI 150 scooter
Notes: Mani's first scooter. Over the years Mani would own over five scooters including a 1961/1962 Vespa Sportique (P registration).
A Spanish Jet 200, Servetta.
GP 200
TV 175
Innocenti Lambretta LI 150
1982 Lambretta (TV 175 gears, clubber exhaust, double twin reverse cone)
From September - October 1999 - On Target Magazine, Mani Interview: "My first ever scooter right, believe it or not, was an Innocenti Lambretta LI 150 an' I swapped a gas fire with my uncle Ian for it - he used to ride it to work. So I swapped this old gas fire that was in my bedroom that I was doing out. I was still a punk at the time. I remember I used to fuckin' ride it around in tartan bondage pants and all that round our way...Was Reni ever interested in scooters? "Too fuckin' dangerous to go on a scooter him! If you'd ever been in a car with him you'd know what I was on about! Fuckin' lively bastard him."
1979 - Mani rides his Innocenti Lambretta LI 150 scooter to Scarborough
Notes: Perry Boys meet up with the Scunthorpe Pathfinders. Mani would also venture down to see Edwin Starr at Great Yarmouth.
1979 - John Squire would go to Pips, Manchester
1979 - Ian Brown would go to Northern Soul All-nighters in Rhyl, Rotheram, Doncaster etc.
From September - October 1999 - On Target Magazine, Mani Interview: I first met John Squire via a friend of mine who's another scooterist. We used to go to a Northern Soul room Pipps in Manchester an' we just decided to get a band together an' what have you. So I started pre-Roses in about '81 with Squire an' all that."
16 November 1979 - Mani's 17th birthday
24 November 1979 - John Squire's 17th birthday
1980
John, Simon & Peter Garner go to The Clash shows:
23 January 1980 - 16 Tons Tour - Technical College and School of Art, Blackpool
25 January 1980 - 16 Tons Tour - King Georges Hall, Blackburn
11 February 1980 - 16 Tons Tour - Sophia Gardens Pavilion, Cardiff, Wales
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: Too Many Tonnes was about The Clash had done the 16 Tonnes tours and it was John writing about that tour.
John, Si and me went on that tour. I wagged my exams to go on that tour. John
and Si had come round to ours, one of those chucking stones at the bedroom
window and said we’re going to see the Clash. I think we went to Chester, somewhere in Wales, we went on various gigs. They said we’re going; do you want to come. I had me CSEs and O-levels coming up but there was no way I was missing out on the Clash. So as an adventure we fucked off and went. We met the Clash and they were all great, treated us really well, exactly as you’d want someone to be who was in your favourite band. I told Strummer I should have been doing my CSE’s and O-levels and he said don’t worry about it I’ve only got 3 o-levels, it doesn’t mean shit… and he wrote on my programme, Joe Strummer 3 O-levels okay. So, when I ended up getting one O-level I was like fuck it I’ve got that. I didn’t care at the time. I was like 15 and Strummer was probably 28 or something… probably now it would look sinister. It was a massive influence on my life… from meeting Strummer, when we ended up being in a band together, and we had kids coming up to meet us, because of being fans of bands who’d treated us really well, I think influenced us. There’s no way I’d ever be a cunt to some kid who comes up and tells me he likes the music. I did meet some bands who were cunts when I was a kid and I’ve never forgotten it. The Police were one.
Ian, John, Simon & Peter Garner go to The Clash - 02 February 1980 Saturday - 16 Tons Tour - Apollo, Manchester * Doors Open: 19:00 * Ticket Price: £3.00
03 February 1980 Sunday - Pete Garner & Ian Brown attended the recording of The Clash's 'Bankrobber', Pluto Studios, Granby Road, Manchester.
Notes: Friend of the band Peter Garner went down to The Clash recording session. Peter would later play bass for The Patrol, The Waterfront and eventually The Stone Roses. The recording session date has been noted as 01 & 02 February on various Clash fan sites, also the date of the show has been noted as the 03 & 04 too.
1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: RC: Didn’t you hang out with the Clash for a while? IB: We were in town in Granby Row, where Pluto Studios was. We heard these drums and it turned out it was the Clash doing "Bankrobber". So we knocked on the door, they let us in and we hung around for a day. They were nice, sound. Topper was just regular. Strummer was a bit of a weirdo. He sat under this grandfather clock, clicking his fingers in time with it. I thought, what a dick!...
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: And you were in the studio when the Clash recorded Bankrobber … We were there all day; they were totally cool. That was half the reason the band were so great really. I remember the story totally different to Ian. Basically, we went to see The Clash at the Apollo. We were chatting to people after the gig and somebody came up with this rumour, they were going to record the new single in Manchester the next day, on the Sunday, this story went round. The next day on a Sunday met up with Ian as I did normally and we were talking about the gig and saying this thing about recording in Manchester do you reckon it’s right. We just went fuck it got on the train and came into Manchester and thought we’ll just go round the studio and find them. So, we got to Manchester and I went I don’t know where any studios are do you? And the only one we knew was one near Granby Road, Pluto, so we walked up. It started raining, we’re both there soaking wet and we realised how stupid this is. As if we’re just going to walk up to the studio, they’re going to be there and let us in. We got to the studio and this car pulled up and Topper got out of it… and we went fucking hell we’ve been looking for you… and they saw us as two soaked kids outside and went oh come in man. We went in and sat there and they spent all day recording Bankrobber. By the end of the day, and I love Bankrobber, but I was so sick of it… after you’ve heard it for six hours on the bounce… they were fantastic, there’s not many bands who’d do that.
From February 2016 - Q Magazine: Simon Wolstencroft said: ''...Clash. When they came to Manchester and recorded Bankrobber at Pluto Studios, Ian managed to get in and meet them. Me and John missed out and were both absolutely gutted.“
20 February 1980 - Ian Brown's 17th birthday
1980 - Ian attends Master Toddy’s, Karate Lessons, Manchester
From February 2016 - Q Magazine: “Ian was still doing his karate as well. He used to train at Master Toddy’s in Manchester. You’d catch him sometimes practising moves, but he never really spoke about it.” Turning down his chance to try for a black belt, Brown‘s interest in karate was gradually superseded by music — flitting between punk, reggae and Northern soul and scooters, avoiding stereotypical mod tribalism by customising his Vespa with song titles by Sham 69.
1980 - South Trafford College * Supporting: Scorched Earth & Fireclown *
(Unconfirmed Setlist:) Jail Of The Assassin / London Night Out / Too Many Tons / 25 Rifles / Up On The Roof / Blockbuster (Sweet cover) / Stars And Stripes
Notes: Ian swapped with Andy, Ian sang Up On The Roof & Blockbuster and Andy played bass. Blockbuster was based on the cover version by The Cockney Rejects. Ian Brown would meet Michelle (‘Mitch’) Davitt at the college and would end up becoming a couple. Peter Garner and his older sister attended the show too.
Andy Couzens said ''...Ian used to sing one song, a version of Blockbuster!!!!! We probably did 6 or so gigs...''
Simon Wolstencroft, From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': Like many pre-punk teenagers it was glam rock that informed Si's musical tastes. 'When I first went to school The Sweet were my favourite group. I had pictures of The Sweet all over my bedroom wall. They were my favourite group till The Clash came along. With John it's hard to say what he was into — maybe Bowie obviously and perhaps Slade, maybe some heavier stuff but I'm not sure.'
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: I think they only did about six gigs; it’s like a school band, rehearsing in a scout hut in sale. Supported Scorched Earth at South Trafford college… I’ve still got the poster...The Patrol. The Blockbuster cover was via THE Cockney Rejects…? Yes, because they covered it. So, the Rejects, Angelic Upstarts…? There’s some great records from that period. It has got some horrible associations with it but the first Rejects album we all loved. It just sounds like The Pistols basically, the guitar on it… and we all loved Steve Jones… the Upstarts we all loved and Ian met Mensi and became friends with him. I never met him. The Murder of Liddle Towers, we both had that, loved it… I’m An Upstart… classic of the time...You played South Trafford College a couple of times? It’s their college. My sister came to that, my older sister, I seem to remember quite a few people being there. Ian and Michelle met at college and ended up being a couple. I’m sure she was at South Trafford gig but I don’t remember her being at the other gigs… but she was at all the early Roses ones... girlfriends came… I had a long-term girlfriend.
1980 - The Greenhouse, Great Western Street, Rusholme, Manchester
Jail Of The Assassin (Gaol Of The Assassins) / Too Many Tons / 25 Rifles
Notes: 4 Track Demo Recording Session. Jail Of The Assassin, often noted as The Jail Of Assassins is also sometimes noted as Gaol The Assassins. Too Many Tons aka Too Many Tonnes. The session cost the band £125 and was recorded during winter. £125 was alot of money back then and the studio engineer recorded the demos over an already used master tape, so you can hear the previous band ghosting through the recording.
I've read somewhere the band recorded two songs at ULR Studios in Stockport. These were also 4 track demos.
1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: RC: Did you record any demos? No, only rehearsal things. We did a song called "Jail Of The Assassins" and another called "25 Rifles".
RC: That wasn’t influenced by that band, 25 Rifles, was it? IB: We heard about them later. Weren’t they a mod band from Leeds or York? There was another group, the Killermetres (sings) "Why-y-y-y-y-y does it happen to me?" (laughs). They were alright, them, Northern Soul-y....
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': Si Wolstcncroft has a clearer memory of the recording. ''It was recorded above a restaurant called the Greenhouse on Great Western Street at the Rusholme end. We did it at night-time in the winter. We did "Jail Of Assassins", "Too Many Tons" and another one, maybe "25 Rifles". I seem to remember it was a hundred and twenty quid for a four-track studio — not eight-track — which was not cheap for the time when you think about it. The demo sounds not bad for our age; it even sounds half reasonable now. I think that was John's influence. John knocked the songs into shape, and me and Ian worked round what John did. I was aware it sounded very Clash-like when I got a cassette at the end of it. I was reasonably happy with it.' Si ponders the Clash-influenced lyrics. 'I'm not sure what "Too Many Tons" was about. "Up On The Roof — Ian sang that one, it was Clash-related, about Paul Simon-on being prosecuted for shooting prize racing pigeons in London. The Clash came into everything we did in a big way.' It was their one and only demo.
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Pete Garner said: ''Ian was a pretty rudimentary bass player. His was playing was pretty basic- classic punk style. John’s guitar was really Clash. Their songs were like three chord versions of The Clash and called Jail Of The Assassins, Up On The Roof and 25 Rifles. They recorded a demo of ‘Jail’ and '25 rifles' at some 4-track studio in Stockport. The master tape the studio used had something else on it, and you could hear the old songs leaking through - he didn’t do a good job on the demo...''As far as I know John wrote everything - ”Jail’ was from a slogan on a Strummer t shirt, it was a total John thing doing that- picking one thing out and making a song out of it. They also had a song called 'Stars And Stripes' which was like their version of the Clash’s 'I’m So Bored Of The USA'.''
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: The Patrol demo is fairly poppy… Gaol of the Assassins there’s a guitar solo, which is already almost Roses…You can already tell it’s John I think. I can still hear the riff… I was with them when they went to record that. The guy recorded it on a tape that was already used; there was an issue about the quality of it. He recorded The Patrol over another master tape. You can tell it’s John absolutely and a lot of it was John’s tape.
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Ian Brown said: ''We had a song called;'Jail Of the Assassin’ because we thought that was what Strummer had written on one of his stencilled shirts but I’m not sure if he had.
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Andy Couzens said: The Waterfront demo was recorded somewhere in the back end of Denton, somewhere up Mani’s way- in a little studio that someone had set up. We already had done some demos with the Patrol in Rusholme a couple of years before in a studio just off Great Western St where Mick Hucknall did a lot of stuff with his punk band Frantic Elevators- the only reason I know that was that we met him in there.
07 January 2018 - thestoneroses.co.uk published an interview with Matt Mead Notes: ''We interview Matt Mead, who is currently writing the book Flowered Up and who recently was able to share a short clip from The Stone Roses Elephant Stone recording sessions. what’s the holy grail for you in respect of the stone roses. What do you know/believe is still out their Roses wise? Holy grail has to be one of the following: The Patrol demos
Ultimate Live Rarities (IAWS I Am Without Shoes / stoneroses.net (Will Odell). "*IAWS exclusive discoveries - guaranteed best quality recordings you'll find* Sound Quality: A / B / B respectively - Stockholm is a soundboard recording, mostly superb quality - hear Ian change loads of the lyrics to berate the Swedish crowd! There are a few harsh glitches on "Fall" though. Manchester is a great audience recording that captures the ambience of the gig really well. The Patrol demos sound a bit rough round the edges but are still very clear." CD Originally Priced: £11.00, Running Time (Approx):80 mins) CD-R - 30 April 1985 - Kulan Lidingö Stadion (Lidingo Stadium), Stockholm, Sweden (Stockholm Lindigo Stadium, 30th April 1985) Mission Impossible / Nowhere Fast / Tradjic Roundabout / I Wanna Be Adored / Getting Plenty / So Young / Fall / Heart On The Staves / Tell Me - 10 May 1985 - International 1, 47 Anson Road, Manchester, M14 (Manchester International, 10th May 1985) Mission Impossible / Just A Little Bit / Tradjic Roundabout / I Wanna Be Adored / Getting Plenty / So Young / Fall / Heart On The Staves / Trust A Fox / Tell Me / encore: I Wanna Be Adored / Getting Plenty - Rehearsal, Stockport, 1980 (Line-up: Andy Couzens: Vocals, John Squire: Guitar, Ian Brown: Bass, backing vocals, Simon Wolstencroft: Drums) Jail Of The Assassins / Too Many Tonnes
1980 Friday - Vortex, Lymm Grammar School, Lymm
Notes: I think the Vortex was the schools gymnasium.
Date taken from John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition'
March 1980 - Rehearsal Tape
London Night Out / 25 Rifles / Human Disease / Stepping Stone (The Monkees cover) / Johnny B Goode (Chuck Berry cover) / Jail Of The Assassin / Stars And Stripes
Notes: Uncirculated rehearsal tape.
1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: RC: Did you record any demos? No, only rehearsal things. We did a song called "Jail Of The Assassins" and another called "25 Rifles".
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': Quickly the songs came together. Listening to a rehearsal tape from March 1980 you can hear a pretty competent band honing down its Clash chops. The songs charge past, raw vocals over the slashing riffs, 'London Night Out', '25 Rifles', 'Human Disease', 'Stepping Stone' which sounds more like a cover of the Pistols' cover of The Monkees' song than the original. There Was a rudimentary run through of the Chuck Berry standard 'Johnny B Goode' and, changing the tempo, the attempt at The Clash reggae of 'Jail Of The Assassins'. There was 'Stars And Stripes' which was 'sort of our "I'm So Bored Of The USA",' remembers Pete, referencing The Clash's anti-Americana tirade. Garner was sitting in with the band, hanging out at their rehearsals, part of the gang, pretending to be their roadie. They were surprisingly adept for a teenage punk band. Pete remembers how together they were. Si was into Topper. He was aspiring to that sort of level really. Ian's bass playing was pretty rudimentary — classic punk style, the guitar was really Clash. One number was their sort of "Police And Thieves", a bit "Guns Of Brixton" , not proper reggae by any stretch of the imagination, that was "Jail Of The Assassins...", there was also 'Up On Roof.'
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: Were the Patrol any good? I’ve got the tapes of their rehearsals. Sounds great. I was actually a fan of them, even though they were my mates. I loved the way John played guitar. Si was obsessed with Topper Headon and they were surprisingly good for a school band. I went to all their rehearsals. What about John using the art department to knock out flyers and posters? You can put a lot of the group’s stuff down to John. He was definitely responsible for writing a lot of the lyrics, probably a lot of the music, if not all of it… he was very arty and creative. Ian was always brilliant at talking it up. So, if he met somebody, he’d convince them within five minutes that the band he was in was the best band ever. Whereas John would get down and do the work… so it worked out quite well.
10 April 1980 - Reni's 16th birthday
1980 - Ian Brown gets his brown belt in Karate
Notes: Aged 17 Ian trained for 18 months for his Black belt but never finished. By the age of 18, Ian would finish at the Karate club and attempt boxing before retiring the gloves and concentrate more on the music.
From 01 February 2009 Sunday - The Guardian, article by Luke Bainbridge: What belt did you reach? I gave it up three weeks before my black belt, foolishly. I got to my third brown belt, and must have trained for 18 months but never went for it. I was nearly 18, and got this thing in my head about, ' Who are they to grade me?' Trying to be a rebel when I should have done it. It's my only regret, not going for a black belt.
1980 - Ian Brown & John Squire meet Cressa at a Chorlton 'Gladiators' Scooter Club meeting, Beehive, Swinton
Notes: John had a Lambretta GP200. Ian had a Lambretta chopper with a Ducati 225 engine in it
Stephen Cresser aka Steve Cressa, born in Whalley Range in 1965. Cressa would play a part in the change of musical style for the band, introducing John Squire to his record collection. Cressa owned a vast amount of sixties music and more recent indie records too (including Primal Scream, The Jesus And Mary Chain, The Three O'Clock and many more)
Ian and John would meet several characters during the scooter runs and meetings. Mansfield Monsters, The Crusaders (including Johnny Boland) from Stockport, The Spartans from Bolton, The Bogeymen aka Shiteaters, The Virgin Soldiers from Ursham and loads more.
From Simon Spence's Book 'War & Peace': Stephen ‘Cressa’ Cresser was the main bridge between The Stone Roses & Happy Mondays. Saxe thought he was Reni’s brother. Cressa had known Squire and Brown from the early 1980s Scooterboy scene – he didn't have a scooter but would often hop on the back of someone else’s.
Taken from'the early days' article by John Robb published 08 April 2011 on louderthanwar.com: 'Brown’s wanderlust got the better of him and he sold his bass and amp and bought the famous chopped-down scooter, which he painted pink with the Sham 69 song title, 'Angels With Dirty Faces' on the side, and hooked up with a Chorlton scooter club – soon to be joined by John Squire.'
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Ian Brown said: ''We got right into scooters in 1978. We weren’t mods. You were not allowed to be a mod to be on the scooters. We didn’t have mirrors on our scooters. We would take the leg shields off and have them all boned down. I had a pink one and I put Angels With Dirty Faces on the side of it. I had 2 tone suit and I had a green parachute outfit. We used to go London to get 501s, you couldn’t get” em up here. We would get the first train down and last one back at night and you would have the whole day in the Old Kent Rd markets and the old mod shops and get Ben Sherman’s and button downs and buy second hand paisley shirts and tonic pants- Sta press pants- which would get taken in- these were dead baggy ones and they were dead smart. We would wear Doc shoes and monkey boots as well. Back in ”74 when I went to school and wanted a pair of docs and my mother said you’re not having a pair of bovver boy boots- you had to start on monkey boots just like in the film ‘This Is England’. ''When you went to school in your docs you would think you were ace! you think you’re the boy. I had cherry red docs and would polish them up. We were not Perry boys but we did wear kickers as well and Lee jeans and Harrington’s also wicked Fruit of the Loom sweat shirts. We didn’t have wedge haircuts so I suppose we were mod /skin/Perry boys because of the way we looked. We used to fight with the Perry Boys when they come to Scarborough when we were on a run. A lot of the original punks in Collyhurst became Perries in 78/79. They were the first Perrys.''. '''I used to be into the northern soul all-nighters. I was getting into soul- old soul and Motown at the Beehive in Swinton. I met Cressa there. I used to go to the Black Lion on Blackfriars St. in Salford on a Monday night, it was a pound to get in and a tenner to book the room. My mate Mikey said will you go halves with me and we can book the room ourselves. At the time I had left school and was at college because I didn’t want a job and I was a kitchen porter so I didn’t have any money. I was doing my O levels again because I only had 2. My mate said go halves with me and we will share the profits but I said I haven’t got any money so I didn’t do it. He then paid me a tenner a week to stand on the door and check who was coming in. He was a big lad- 6 foot 4 and I would say who was coming in and he would make sure who came in! At the end of the night, we would go to the Cypress Tavern and have a drink and an eat.'''
1980 - Sale Annexe Youth Club, Sale, Manchester * Supporting: Suburban Chaos
Notes: Venue was located behind Sale Town Hall. Russ Hall, the lead guitarist of Corrosive Youth, mentioned he played this show with The Patrol supporting too. Apparently, there was an earlier show at the same venue where the band played with Suburban Chaos, admission was 0.30p.
Simon Wolstencroft remembers Sale Annexe being The Patrol's show. From 04 August 2014 Matthew Mead This Is The Daybreak interview: Simon said: This is where we met Andy Couzens after Ian spotted him kicking someone's head in during lunchtime in the collage refectory. He started singing for us and we did our first gig at the Sale Annexe youth club in 1980. There were about eight songs in the set and we rehearsed at Walton rd. scout hut in Sale...
11 July 1980 Friday - Lostock Youth Club, 'Playing Fields', Selby Road, Stretford * Doors Open: 19:30 * Ticket Price: 0.50p (10 Bob) * Supporting: Corrossive Youth & Stray Dogs *
(Unconfirmed Setlist:) Come On / Jail Of The Assassin / London Night Out / Human Disease / Too Many Tons / H Block / 25 Rifles / Up On The Roof / Blockbuster (Sweet cover) / Stars And Stripes
Notes: Corrosie Youth were formed in Stretford. Info taken from handmade and written poster. Date sometimes incorrectly noted as ''11 June 1980''.
1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: RC: Did the Patrol do any gigs? IB: Yeah, we played about five youth clubs with Corrosive Youth, a punk group from Stretford – we played the Lockstock there.
1980 - The Portland Bar, Portland Street, Manchester * Support Act(s): Corrosive Youth
Notes: The bar was located where Dawsons Music Store is.
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': Pete Garner can't remember The Patrol playing with Seventeen. 'I could swear they never played with Seventeen. We were aware of them but I'm sure we headlined at the Portland Bars with Corrosive Youth supporting.' ... Whether the gig was with Seventeen or not, it was their début in the city centre and was another big step forward for the band. Out of the youth clubs and on to proper stages. Things were starting to happen!
31 July 1980 - The Portland Bar, Portland Street, Manchester * Supporting: Seventeen
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': Says Andy, ''Ian always had to have a microphone so he could shout at people. It was funny. It was good for a laugh. We played at the college and played the Portland bars in town as well...' Andy remembers them supporting Seventeen, who eventually became The Alarm, at the Portland bars, although Pete denies this. 'Me and Ian had been to see them in a few places before,' says Andy. 'We just bothered the guy putting the gigs on there. He said he had Seventeen coming up we grabbed it. Pete Garner can't remember The Patrol playing with Seventeen. 'I could swear they never played with Seventeen. We were aware of them but I'm sure we headlined at the Portland Bars with Corrosive Youth supporting.' Andy later recalled, 'It was our first proper gig with a PA. It was total shock. I could hear myself... .Seventcen were good guys. I liked the band but by 1981 they had turned into The Alarm. I was disgusted with them. One minute they were good and going in a certain direction, then they were all spiky hair and leather belts.'
08 August 1980 - Dunham Massey Village Hall, Dunham Massey, Altrincham * Supporting: Corrosive Youth & Suburban Chaos *
(Unconfirmed Setlist:) Come On / Jail Of The Assassin / London Night Out / Human Disease / Black Flag / Up On The Roof / Too Many Tons / H Block / 25 Rifles / Stars And Stripes /
encore: Blockbuster (Sweet cover)
Notes: Ian sang Blockbuster and Peter Garner played bass on that night. Photograph from the show have been shared online.
Photographs from the show exsist.
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: What do you remember about The Patrol gigs? Gigs with Suburban Chaos and Corrosive Youth… They were like a bunch of lads from Streford. Ian had met ’em. At this point Ian had a scooter and we’d got into different sort of music and he’d met the guys through doing scooter runs and stuff like that. I didn’t really know ‘em but it was just exciting knowing someone else who was in your area who had a band, especially in a punk band. Anarchy In The Suburbs was their classic at the time...Lymm Vortex? And Dunham Massey village hall. I remember Dunham Massey because that was the night, I played Blockbuster. The first time I ever played bass and also the night I copped off with a girl I fancied that ended up being my 10-year girlfriend...There was a song in The Patrol Ian wrote called Black Flag, way before the band
Black Flag. He’d sing that one and play bass… the anarchy flag…The only time I played with them was that one encore at Dunham Massey. I’d never played bass before. I knew the Sweet and Rejects version, so I knew how it went and Ian just showed me the bass line… you play bass I want to sing this one… the only time I played with The Patrol was those three minutes…
1980 - All Day Show, Mini Festival, Alty Precinct, Manchester
Notes: Russ Hall, the lead guitarist of Corrosive Youth, mentioned he played this show with The Patrol supporting too.
1980 - Ian Brown leaves school
Notes: Ian left aged 16 with three O-Levels. Ian worked several jobs over the next few years. His work included being a Kitchen Porter for a Hotel and working at the Job Centre (DSS Centre) in Sale, the building no longer exists.
In a Smash Hits Interview in June 1990, Ian said he spent five years on the dole and used to sign a holiday form and get three weeks advance and go away to Spain, France, Italy, Holland, Berlin. This would lead Ian to go abroad and set up The Stone Roses first tour in Sweden.
Danny Kelly interviewed the band in Paris for the NME Magazine in 1989, I presume backstage at the La Cigale gig, wrote: ''...Having quit school at the first opportunity, Ian quickly discovered that he didn’t have a natural affinity for work either. “The first thing I did was scrub pots! Been left school two days and I’m in this big oven in a hotel with the chef kicking me. That’s when I realised that I didn’t want a job. I stood it about three weeks. “Since then, I’ve done bits and pieces; worked in an office, worked on a building site, worked washing caravans. On the dole mostly…”''
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: Before Ian got the DSS job I remember him doing dishes in a hotel… just odd jobs to basically pay for beer and music… I don’t recall the caravan job.
23 May 2006 09:41 - The Daily Mail article by Piers Hernu: "I couldn't get into revision. The summer nights were too tempting. Plus, we had bands like The Clash, who I went to see the night before my Geography and Maths O-level..."
12 September 1980 Friday - Lostock Youth Club, Selby Road, Stretford * Doors Open: 19:30 * Supporting: Suburban Chaos & Corrosive Youth *
(Unconfirmed Setlist:) Come On / Jail Of The Assassin / London Night Out / Human Disease / Johnny B Goode (Chuck Berry cover) / Black Flag / Up On The Roof / Too Many Tons / H Block / 25 Rifles / Stars And Stripes / Blockbuster (Sweet cover)
Notes: The Patrol were second on the bill to Suburban Chaos. Ian sang Blockbuster. Pete Garner was in the audience at the show and even taped the gig too.
John Daniel (Danny) 'Dannyboy' Said: – I did the poster. The gig went ahead suburban chaos were without bassist Higgy that night as we were not expecting to play until the day. The 3 bands played a lot of gigs together and followed each around, good times .
From February 1998 - Uncut magazine Ian Brown interview: We called ourselves The Patrol. We had a song called ‘Come On’. ‘Come Aaaaann!’. We played a few youth clubs but I didn’t really get anything off it.”
1980 - Ian Brown meets Gary 'Mani' Mounfield at a Scooter Club Meeting, Moston
Notes: Mani rode a Vespa 90. John had a Lambretta 125, Mani remembers Squire was known as 'Red John' Mani remembers him as “a real staunch communist” who “always wore a hammer and sickle badge". Mani and John became friends and they would later form The Waterfront.
From 1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: RC: Wasn’t Mani in the Waterfront? IB: Yeah. I’d known Mani from sixteen. He was from North Manchester, we were from Chorlton. We’d heard about this kid with a swastika on his head, some bonehead who lived near Mani’s who was bullying kids. So we got a crew up to sort him out. Twenty of us went to meet Mani’s crew in this council house. I remember seeing Mani sat down. I’m thinking, he ain’t no fighter. So, one or two of these kids dealt with the bonehead, put him to rest – and that’s how we met!
From September - October 1999 - On Target Magazine, Mani Interview: Did that play a part in the Stone Roses early following?
"It played a part in the Roses getting together really. The first time I met Ian Brown I used to live in North Manchester an' we were havin' some trouble with some NF skinheads so we got in touch with Mike Phoenix who runs Phoenix Heinz. He brought his crew up to join up with our lot to go give 'em a pasting and that and that's where I first met Ian so we sort of clicked from there. Hospitalised these cunts an' then decided to form a band about two years after. I first met John Squire via a friend of mine who's another scooterist. We used to go to a Northern Soul room Pipps in Manchester an' we just decided to get a band together an' what have you. So I started pre-Roses in about '81 with Squire an' all that."...
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Ian Brown said: That was when I first met Mani when was I was on the scooters. I used to hang out with lads from Chorlton and we knew lads from all over the city- Levvy, Longsight, Ardwick, Clayton, Wythenshawe. We also used to hook up with this crew from Moston and Failsworth and we heard about this kid up in Moston who had a swastika on his head, this skinhead who was causing all this trouble- fighting kids. I don’t think he was a proper skinhead because when we went up there, he had a white school shirt and black school kecks on, he was just a fucking idiot. He was causing untold grief so the idea was that 15 of us were going to give it to him. So, we went down from Chorlton to this council house in Moston. Mani was there, he’s got a thick flying jacket on, one of those U.S bomber ones. I remember the first time I set eyes on him and I thought he’s not a fighter, he’s a lover- he’s just here for the cause- not here for the fighting. I remember thinking that the idea was that we were all going to wade in and stop this kid and his habits but this kid called Dave Carter said” let me run up the stairs see if he’s in.’ So, he run up the stairs and the next thing this skinhead comes rolling down the stairs with all his head mashed in. Dave Carter done him on his own and rolled him down the stairs! He was a pile at the bottom of the stairs- job’s done.''
From 06 March 2009 - Uncut Magazine Interview with Ian Brown: How did you meet Mani? I met Mani when I was about 16 years old. We met through Pips nightclub in Manchester and there was a skinhead at the time who had a swastika tattooed on his ‘ead that was causing all the trouble in the bars and clubs, so Mani’s posse came to our posse and asking if we’d go up to their little posse and deal with this guy. So, I met Mani in a council house in Moston in 1980 when there was about 12 of us and about 15 of them and we went to sort this skinhead out. That’s how we met. We were policing ourselves in those days.
What was the time like between that and you doing your big graffiti campaign? The graffiti campaign was probably before Mani joined. Oh, was it? I think so, yeah. Whose idea was that? That was me and Reni. Just you two or did you have a squad? Er, no, just Reni and me. I kept look out, he did a bit, then he’d keep look out and I’d do a bit. We did one on the side of the library in St. Peters’ Square. There was this copper on the corner and I was just watching him, seeing how much we could get in before he walked close. So, you must have covered quite a lot of ground that night then? Was it one night that you did? Yeah, we covered the city centre in “Stone Roses”, yeah, we did.
November 1980 - South Trafford College, Altrincham, Sale * Ticket Price: 0.50p * Support Act(s): Scorched Earth and Strange Behaviour.
(Incomplete Setlist:) Come On / Human Disease / Stepping Stone (The Monkees cover) / Johnny B Goode (Chuck Berry cover) / Jail Of The Assassin / London Night Out / Black Flag / Up On The Roof / Too Many Tons / H Block / 25 Rifles / Stars And Stripes / Blockbuster (Sweet cover) / Boys Cry! (Eden Kane cover)
Notes: The Patrol's final show. Only Blockbuster is confirmed to have been played, Ian apparently sang Boys Cry! too.
Pete Garner, roadie and friend, played bass on some songs too.
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Andy Couzens said: ''The last Patrol gig was at the college that we went to. The last song we played was a cover of 'Blockbuster’ by The Sweet with both me and Ian singing. That was the real turning point- everyone’s tastes started to change slightly after that. Ian got really into his scooters and going out with a scooter mob and hanging out in the Horse And Jockey in Chorlton- he was really into it- like everything he did he sucked it dry. Ian had the first scooter. I went with Ian to buy a Lambretta. I had a Lambretta. He’s one of those people, Ian, who can’t wear a watch, or anything mechanical, it breaks when he goes near it. He bought this Lambretta and it never worked. The thing with Lambrettas that you have to take them apart and clean them. John bought a Lambretta- he didn’t ride it that much but spent a lot of time pulling it apart painting it, getting everything copper plated. Ian’s bike was this amazing chopped down thing painted pink.''
16 November 1980 - Mani's 18th birthday
24 November 1980 - John Squire's 18th birthday
1980 - The Patrol split
Notes: Ian Brown sold his bass guitar and amplifier and bought another scooter.
According to Andy Couzens in 1991 - Rock CD Magazine, they re-formed as 'English Rose' "Cos' of that Jam tracked we liked...". The band was short lived and they never played live. Also 14 July 1990 - Number One magazine article mentions: The Patrol were calling themselves English Rose, after a track on The Jam’s ‘All Mod Cons’ album. In 1982, English Rose were put on ice...
From 1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: RC: The Patrol had obviously fizzled out by then?
IB: It wasn’t serious. I never really wanted to be in a group so I sold my bass and got a scooter with the money - £100...
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Andy Couzens said: I started getting into the Misunderstood (managed by John Peel, The Misunderstood were a psychedelic rock band originating from Riverside, California. In the mid-sixties they moved to London and were one of the key underground psychedelic bands of the period releasing two critically acclaimed singles- “Children of the Sun” and “I Can Take You To The Sun”.) and stuff like that. At the time there was fuck all to go and watch, nothing. The International had just opened and there were loads of bands like Jason and The Scorchers- loads of stuff from the States. I went and they were crap, all rubbish. Brigandage (great early eighties London based punk rock band who were never around long enough to fulfil their potential) who had showed a bit an of promise fell apart on its face. It was a really horrible period. Manchester was really horrible then, it was shite. I still lived in Macclesfield at my parent’s house before I moved into a flat above the Arndale in the city centre and Pete moved there just after me...
Pete Garner said: I was disgusted when they turned mod! Ian got into soul and stuff and I got into the Stooges and the Dolls...I was living on top of the Arndale by then- I remember Andy Couzens moved there after me. (In Cromford Court- on top of the Arndale centre which was on top of the legendary Cromford Court where all the bars had been in the sixties)
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: I leave school in 1980 and then I signed on for a bit and then I got a job in what was my favourite record shop in Manchester, little independent shop. I went to the job centre with my girlfriend and I saw this job advertised for a sales assistant to work in a newsagent/record shop… three months after leaving school… I remember saying to my girlfriend wouldn’t that be ace if that was Paperchase. And it was. It was a YTS thing… I so wanted that job… so for six months you get the same money you were getting on the dole and then after that you might get taken on. I got the job. He basically said what’s your name? You start on Monday… what they were doing was just employing kids on this scheme, the Govt paid your wages, binned them off and then they just got someone else… once I’d been there six months, I went from working in the newsagent to getting my foot in the record shop and then basically running the record shop, so after six months they couldn’t; afford to get rid of me… I was ordering all the stock... it became my shop basically. I was only 16.
1981
30 January 1981 Friday - Ian Brown roadies for Angelic Upstarts - The Sports Centre, Bolton
Notes: Ian also worked for the band at gigs in Oldham, Blackpool too.
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition': Ian told Record Collector, 'I used to go watch The Angelic Upstarts! Mensi — top kid! I roadied for them a few times. I've seen them 15/20 times. Top band. The film that really captures those days was Shane Meadows' Ibis is England. That was great. It was just like it was with the tie-dye jeans and that. It was brilliant. I was into scooters and Cockney Rejects and The Upstarts. I went to several Upstarts gigs. Rob Powell and me roadied for them; four gigs it was. Bolton was one of them. Mensi is a top bloke. The Cockney Rejects were great as well. I read their vocalist Stinky Turner's autobiography the other week. It was brilliant. It wasn't right, them getting tagged with being Nazis. Upstarts got that as well, but Mensi was the opposite to all that. They got that because they are working class from the estates. People didn't understand them.' Pete Garner recalls Ian Brown hanging out with the Upstarts. 'Ian went to loads of their gigs,' says Pete. 'He knew Mensi, their singer...we always knew Mensi's politics were cool; he was a great guy.' Their vocalist Mensi, who brought a street politic and anti-Nazi flavour to the band's lyrics, remembers Ian Brown following the band in 1979/80. 'I remember Ian Brown being around at our gigs in the Manchester area. There was always a crew of people hanging around with us. In those days a lot would happen; we used to fight all the time with the fascists. ... 'Ian Brown was at that gig but whether he was there for the bit after- wards I can't recall. But that was the sort of thing that would happen at gigs at the time. He was at a club in Manchester as well and helped me in with the gear. I think that's where I met him. It was a pretty modern community centre on a housing estate. I used to have to sit everybody down and have a plan of action in case we were attacked. I used to tell everybody what to look for, the badges and the Celtic crosses. I'm sure he was there that day.'
1981 - The Stone Roses meet Johnny Marr in The Vine, Sale
Notes: Pete Garner's mate from school, Steve Pugh, was a friend of Johnny Marr’s and they all met up in the pub. Steve introduced Johnny to Ian & Pete and then Steve Pugh became a mate of Ian’s.
Simon Wolstencroft had met Johnny Marr at the pub previously. They would become friends and eventually play together in two Marr related bands. The Vine became a regular pub for the band until they split.
From 04 August 2014 - Matthew Mead - This Is The Daybreak Simon Wolstencroft Interview: Simon Said: In 1981 I met Johnny Marr in a pub called the Vine in Sale. This is where the Patrol started drinking.
20 February 1981 - Ian Brown's 18th birthday
1981 - Ian Brown starts boxing
From 01 February 2009 Sunday - The Guardian, article by Luke Bainbridge: Did you do any other sports? I did boxing after that for two years, because I thought karate doesn't teach you how to take a punch. After a couple of weeks I realised you have to enjoy taking a punch, and I didn't. So I just did the training instead of sparring because I kept getting hurt. I was 18 and these 14-year-old kids were knockin' me all over.
10 April 1981 - Reni's 17th birthday
1981 - Simon Wolstencroft joined, Johnny Marr’s (pre-Smiths’ band), Freaky Party.
Johnny Marr: Andy Rourke was a friend with Si Woltsencroft. Si had been in the Patrol and he came over to us.
From 04 August 2014 - Matthew Mead - This Is The Daybreak Simon Wolstencroft Interview: Simon Said: Ian and John had started joining the scooter club scene but it wasn't for me. Johnny, as well as bass player Andy Rourke and I, had a band called Freak Party and searched for a singer to no avail. This is when I started dabbling in drugs and this became more important than the music for a while. Tragic really.
Johnny split the scene for six months then rang me one night and said he wanted me as the drummer in his new band The Smiths. I was hanging out with Andy Rourke most of the time at his Dad's house, again, in Sale. I didn't fancy rehearsing in the freezing rehearsal room in Ancoats and wanted to get high with Andy instead. Johnny pleaded with me to record on The Smiths first proper recording, but I didn't like the cut of Morrissey's jib. "Thanks but no thanks" was what I said to Johnny.
1981 - Mani works at an abattoir for four months.
From 27 June 1990 - Smash Hits Magazine, Mani said: "I worked in an abattoir for about four months when I was about 19...It was was horrible. The people who worked there were proper headcases. You'd just walk around and then all of a sudden you'd get hit in the face with a lung or heart or summat...Having your ankles tied together and being strung upside down on a meat hook and having your keks whipped off. Blood and all that poured over yer. But I always tumbled the plot whenever they were about to get me."
1981 - Ian works at The Premier Ringway Hotel
Notes: Ian works cleaning all the hotel bathrooms.
1981 - John Squire works for Cosgrove Hall, Animation Studios, Chorlton, Manchester.
Notes: John Squire did clay modelling for TV productions including the 'Chorlton And The Wheelies', 'Wind In The Willows' & the 'Dangermouse' cartoons.
03 November 2002 - Sunday Express Newspaper John Squire interview: "Bernard Sumner from New Order had left just before I started!"
John Squire said: My first major adolescent fixation was a Belgian military modeler called Francois Verlinden. I studied his techniques avidly, colour washing and dry brushing enamels and scratch building dioramas. I’d wag school to watch Paint along with Nancy, fascinated as Nancy Kominsky built up a painting from a raw canvas in half an hour...
Danny Kelly interviewed the band in Paris for the NME Magazine in 1989, I presume backstage at the La Cigale gig, wrote: ''...Though less traumatic than Ian’s, John’s employed days (which included his now legendary spell with Cosgrove Hall, makers of Dangermouse (“I wasn’t an illustrator, I was in The Mud Pie Department, modelling, good fun…”) failed to satisfy him too...''
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Andy Couzens said: ''There is a gap after The Patrol. John started making models. I remember taking him down in my car with a bunch of models to Cosgrove Hall (Manchester based animation studio where they made TV series” Chorlton And The Wheelies’ and” Dangermouse”. Founded in 1976 by Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall, its first series was Chorlton and the Wheelies, the lead role being named after Chorlton where the company was based. John Squire worked there at this period. He always wanted to make an animated cartoon with models and he was now doing it for a living.''
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: Before Cosgrove, after college, John had a number of jobs? Until he got the job at Cosgrove there was nothing serious. I remember he got the job at Tesco, just working to be able to buy music… And then? John was working at Cosgrove. I can’t remember how we met up again but John put it to me he wanted to make an animated film and wanted me to work on it with him. He would do all the work but we’d write it together… so I said yeah why not. So, the plan was we’d meet on a Sunday and go to Cosgrove Hall…. It was so painstaking, you’ve got a model, just to get five seconds of footage you’ve got to do hours of work, real ball ache… we started doing that and then I realised how tedious it was. So, we storyboarded it. But it was basically John doing all the work, moving all the models and stuff… we were hanging out and doing that…
From 04 August 2014 - Matthew Mead - This Is The Daybreak Simon Wolstencroft Interview: I was still in touch with Ian and John, but mostly Ian during this time, though John got me a job painting the pink inner ears of the cartoon character Danger Mouse. He worked at the acclaimed Cosgrove Hall animation studio in Chorlton. I got bored after about three days though.
1981 - Ian Brown & John Squire go to Chorlton Scooter Club & other scooter rally’s.
Notes: 'the early days' article by John Robb published 08 April 2011 on louderthanwar.com, Ian Brown said: ''In ’81/’82 I went all over – Great Yarmouth, Brighton. Not that many kids from Manchester used to go on all the runs. A hundred of us would go to Scarborough but only a hardcore of ten or fifteen went south, but there would be ten thousand other scooters when you got there on these scooter runs. We used to meet outside Horner’s on Ayres Road in Chorlton. We were the Chorlton crew – the Trojans. We had chrome helmets with a fox’s tail hanging from the back of it. We would take fifteen hours to get to Brighton because we had to use the A-roads. We would sleep in a bin bag in a ditch. The idea was to go there and get girls, it was really all about girls and cheap spend, the soul all-nighters. We’d meet up with people like Steve Harrison (went on to manage The Charlatans), Clint Mansell...''. Pop Will Eat Itself singer, Clint Mansell said: ''A case of mistaken identity, I’m afraid. The Roses used to say they’d bump into me on scooter runs! But I’ve never been on a scooter in my life! I met Mani for the first time when they played Ally Pally and he said ‘it’s great to see you again from all those scooter runs’ but I had to tell him ‘it wasn’t me…’ Shame, really-it certainly would have given me some cred! I wonder who it was?''
From June 1990 - Melody Maker The Stone Roses Supplement: In their first national interview in 1987, Ian Brown told John Robb about the trials and tribulations of his scooter boy days: “The Scooter Boys were not mods. We were a mixture of punks, skins, anyone who had a scooter. I used to see Clinton from Pop Will Eat Itself on scooter runs; we used to get attacked by bikers in Stourbridge (Pop Will Eat Itself’s home town) till we followed Clinton down an alternative safe route. The police would pull me up wherever I went. I was once fined £20 for having condensation on my speedometer.”...
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: Ian and John turned mod which basically meant putting your top collar down, doing it up to the top button and put your hair in a side-parting and then you were a mod. It alienated me a bit. We’d go to parties like you do when you’re a school kid and we went to this one party when everyone had turned mod and the guy wouldn’t let me in because I was a punk. I was like fuck off, three weeks ago everybody was a punk. It was ridiculous like that, kids’ politics. The tribal thing was insane… it was so tribal. If you went into Manchester and just from somebody’s shoes, you’d let on to them and they’d let on to you. It was that tribal… you met people just from that...The Jam… all the other bands like the Purple Hearts, the Chords, Secret Affair, this mini-movement… Ian being into them bands and they turned mod.
1981 - Mani rides his scooter to Keswick
Notes: A Riot broke out between scooter 'mods' and biker 'smellies'.
From September - October 1999 - On Target Magazine, Mani Interview: I was at the riot in Keswick in '81. Yarmouth, Isle Of Wight, fuckin' Morecambe, Blackpool, been all over. We had a right good mob, we used to just live for the fuckin' bank holiday weekend, just meet up about fuckin' sixty or seventy of us sat outside our house, my mam'd have the fuckin' brew on an' all that then we'd set off. Yeah. It was great."...the riot in Keswick petrol bombing the police...burned down a big fuckin' warehouse in Colwyn Bay one year because it was freezin', pissin' down with rain! The fire we started got out of hand and got to the warehouse, the fire brigade were all over!"
1981 - Mani rides his scooter to Keswick
From September - October 1999 - On Target Magazine, Mani Interview: It was Morecambe in about 1981 and all sorts of shenanigans were going on - we'd gone in the wax museum and my mate nicked ET and we put cigs in the fuckin' Pope's mouth an' nicked a big wax skeleton all that an' took photos. We got pinched and had to go to court for nicking fuckin' wax models!"
16 November 1981 - Mani's 19th birthday
24 November 1981 - John Squire's 19th birthday
1981 - Ian Brown lives in Withington with his girlfriend Mitch & sold his beloved scooter.
Notes: 1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: RC: Where are you from originally? IB: I grew up in Warrington until I was six and then I moved to Timperly, South Manchester. But I’ve lived all over: Chorlton, Didsbury , Withington, Hulme, Salford.
1981 - Ian splits up with his girlfriend and moves to William Kent Crescent, Hulme.
Notes: From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Ian Brown said: In 1981 I was 17 and staying in Withington at my girlfriends but then I broke up with her and that’s when I moved into William Kent Crescent in Hulme. I sold my scooter and moved there. Andy Couzens said: I would go round to Ian’s in Hulme. He was living with Mitch, the mother of his children, she was at college with us all- she worked on Brookside. All I remember was his wok! He loved his wok, he fancied himself as a bit of a cook!
From February 1998 - Uncut magazine Ian Brown interview: I don’t drink, I’ve never touched beer since I was 18. It was totally natural.”
From February 2016 - Q Magazine: Unusually for a budding young punk musician, Brown shunned alcohol (he’d later claim he drank his last pint aged 17) instead settling on weed as his drug of choice. "We all started smoking round (former Roses bassist) Pete Garner's house," says Wolstencroft.
1981 - 1982 - Northern Soul Disco Night, Black Lion, Blackfriars Street, Salford, Greater Manchester
Notes: Mike Phoenix and Ian Brown co-organised a weekly Northern Soul / Mod / Scooter Disco. Tom Smith used to DJ along with several disc jockey's. Due to popular demand it moved to the Berlin Club
From 02 February 2000 - Adam Walton Interview for Adam Walton Show, BBC Wales Music, Wise Buddha, London:
AW: Is soul and Motown an important part of your heritage?
IB: I used to put Northern Soul discos on when I was 17, 18 in a place called the Black Lion in Manchester on Blackfriars Street. We used to hire the room, pay the DJ £15. The first week we had about four or five kids, the next week we had 200. The week after that we were locking 200 people out!
From 25 October 2017 - louderthanwar.com, Article by Shop Keeper - Ian Brown rare letter/artefact emerges: Tom Smith DJ, is deeply embedded in the Manchester scene and knew the Stone Roses Ian Brown.
‘I was having a root in the garage & turned up this short note thought to be lost yonks ago. I was DJ’ing a Northern Soul / Mod / Scooter scene night at the Black Lion pub in Salford back in ’82. The promoters were Mike Phoenix & Ian Brown. I was handed this note to read out, written by Ian Brown trying to flog some Lambretta GP scooter parts, a year before he formed the Stone Roses. God knows why I kept hold of this at the time, or how it survived the past 35 years!
I started dj’ing at 17, back in ’76 having amassed a record collection since I was 13, following a visit to West Gorton youth club with my pal Ralph Edghill to see his brother Dave playing tunes. This was the moment that forged my obsession with black music, I was hearing stuff not played on the radio, yet so much better, Donnie Elbert: Little Piece of Leather, Arthur Conley: Funky Street, Jean Knight: Mr Big Stuff, Toots & the Maytalls etc, etc.
In ’76 this passion drew me to Wigan Casino & a desire to return play the tunes I heard there to a wider crowd at local venues around Tameside. Punk was happening & I couldn’t ignore the effect it also had on me via Clash & Buzzcocks, Ramones. I started a residency at the Birch cellar bar in Ashton, where I was free to mix up all of my passions through Northern, Punk, Ska, Dub, Psych…..Etc.
In ‘82 was approached by Mike Phoenix to DJ for him & his co-promoter, a 19-year-old Ian Brown, at a Scooterist / Mod night at the Black Lion, Blackfriars, Salford. I’d arrive with all my gear at 7pm & Ian would help me up the stairs with the load in & set up. When we met, (I was 23) I recall him saying to me, “you’re the manager at Shoppers Paradise* in Timperley aren’t you, I go there shopping with my mam & I thought you were the coolest guy, cos you had a skinhead & wore Docs & had a manager’s badge on” (*Shoppers Paradise, a discount supermarket like Aldi, coincidentally, where Frank Sidebottom’s Lard video was filmed)
Ian either wore a t-shirt with the current Weetabix skinheads ad campaign characters on, or more controversially the Adolph Hitler World Tour shirt, which can in my opinion be forgiven as nothing more than a juvenile attempt at being a bit naughty, but just as well there was no social media then.
One night, he was late in, I asked where he’d been, “just been to see Roman Holliday (group) at The Hacienda” how odd, even then I recall him being very fond of the Northern stuff he was hearing for the 1st time & The Jam & 2Tone stuff, but one particular tune that I used to end the night with, he told me was a personal favourite, surprisingly, the haunting melancholy of Brenda Holloway’s: “I’ll Always Love You”.
The night ran at the Black Lion for 18 months from where it’s popularity saw it move to the Berlin Club.
I next saw Ian when I was resident DJ at The International 1, in ’86 , I asked how he was doing, he said he was in a band called The Stone Roses, & went on to say that name was inspired by the music I played at the Black Lion, “It’s about the edgy hard sound of Punk & rock feeling like Stone & the melodies of Northern Soul like a Rose” Other tales, about my time at the International in the Roger Eagle biog , “Sit Down & listen to This” by Bill Sykes whose classic book on Manchester/Liverpool based music legend is well worth reading (details here), I’m still playing tunes after 20 years non-stop, at The Witchwood in Ashton every Friday night, I tend to let the crowd predict the course of music these days, occasionally indulging myself with a nugget that golden era.‘
20 February 1982 - Ian Brown's 19th birthday
10 April 1982 - Reni's 18th birthday
1982 - Reni joins the band Backhander
Backhanda
Notes: Alan Wren drums for the band Backhander. He attended Monsters Of Rock festival, Donington Park too.
Reni was drumming professionally for The Dealers and Tora Tora. Friend, Simon Wright, left Tora Tora to join rock legends AC/DC in 1983. This pushed Reni's ambition for being a professional musician.
Apparently, Reni was working for Livewires in Chorlton as a 'kissogram' too.
1982 - The Fireside Chaps are formed.
Notes: The band name is short lived and is changed to The Waterfront. In 2018 Mark Savage (BBC Music reporter) wrote an BBC Article for the Record Store Day Waterfront release and said: ''The Waterfront were formed in late 1982 by future Stone Roses stars Andy Couzens, Squire and Mani, alongside David "Kaiser" Carty (vocals) and Chris Goodwin (bass). They never played live, mainly because Squire was working as an animator on The Wind in the Willows.''
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Andy Couzens said: I had started playing with John again at this time. This was as the Waterfront by now. I think we sat and watched a Marlon Brando film one night and got the name from there. Initially we had been called the Fireside Chaps which we thought was funny but when it came to the point of doing the demos we thought, 'fuck we can’t put that on a demo tape box ' so we changed the name. We never played a gig but we went on for about a year of rehearsals in 82/83.
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Ian Brown said: ''...They were called The Fireside Chaps then the Waterfront. I knew Kaiser through scooters from 1980/81. I had actually met Kaiser in the 1981 riots in Manchester when it kicked off. I went down to Moston in the riots and watched Kaiser and the rest of them chucking bricks at buses. Kaiser has been in the army for 20 years since then. I last saw him at the Pistols in Manchester in December 2007.''
1982 - Andy Couzens House, Rehearsal, Macclesfield
Notes: Taken from'the early days' article by John Robb published 08 April 2011 on louderthanwar.com: 'In the meantime Andy – now on guitar – and John got another ad hoc band back together (initially christened The Fireside Chaps) for a laugh, and were rehearsing with a tough looking skinhead on vocals called Kaiser, Mani on bass and Chris Goodwin on drums. The band (Fireside Chaps) rehearsed at Andy Couzens’ house before changing their name to The Waterfront...'
Chris Goodwin said: “We’d jam for an hour then play pool for an hour and a half”
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Andy Couzens ''I always thought that Ian looked a bit like Bruce Lee- he had the same jawbone- I never actually saw him use any karate but I remember he had trained in it for years. When I first met him, he was still into karate. He actually did it when I first met him or he had just stopped doing it. He was a massive Bruce Lee fan. I remember us having fights in Piccadilly gardens fights with beer monsters waiting for buses. A mate of ours called Kaiser, (original singer in the Waterfront- John Squire’s band between the Patrol and the Stone Roses) me and Ian fighting and a couple of lads with us from the scooter runs, one called Keg another one called Mike Phoenix big northern soul freak, the two were menaces they would start fights everywhere you went, middle of Piccadilly at night, I don’t remember Pete being with us at the point, I remember John getting breaking his nose a lot hahaha club Tropicana on Oxford Rd. palm trees inside, remember coming out of there one night and we got a right hiding…we used to go to a club called Berlin a lot.''
1982 - Ian Brown attends Roman Holliday (group) at The Hacienda, Manchester
16 November 1982 - Mani's 20th birthday
24 November 1982 - John Squire's 20th birthday
1983
The Waterfront
David ' Kaiser' Carty - Vocals
Andy Couzens - Rhythm Guitar
John Thomas Squire - Lead Guitar
Gary Michael 'Mani' Mounfield - Bass Guitar
Chris Goodwin - Drums
1983 - Ian Brown works at the DSS office, Dane Road, Sale.
From May 2002 - Trafford Today Newspaper: A colleague recalls him coming in with a list of names and asking everybody which one they thought was best. That was when the band became The Stone Roses....After two years, Ian reluctantly resigned from his job, when a two-month tour of Scandinavia and beckoning stardom meant he could no longer give it the attention he felt it deserved.
20 February 1983 - Ian Brown's 20th birthday
1983 - Rehearsal Space, Andy Couzens House, Macclesfield
Normandy (On A Beach)
Notes: Dave 'Kaiser' Cartey hailed from Moston and was lead singer. Chris Goodwin went onto drum for several bands including a joint venture with Inspiral Carpets Clint Boon and Mani called The Hungry Sox. Chris also went on to drum for Andy Couzens band The High, T Challa Grid and Electronic (Bernard Sumner 'New Order' and Johnny Marr 'The Smiths' pop project).
From the 2018 Record Store Day promo sheet, Chris Goodwin said: “ We used to get picked up in Andy Couzens’ big American car, he had a 55 Chevy, bright red. Andy would pick us all up and drive back to Macclesfield and then take us all home around midnight. Normandy is a belting song. Mani’s bass, Squire and Couzens guitars combining to make a lost classic “
2018 Mark Savage (BBC Music reporter) BBC Article noted: ''Normandy with lyrics written by David "Kaiser" Carty 'The song was inspired by a trip to France where, according to Mani, "everyone around our way all chipped [took] the train and ferry and went to live in Port Grimaud, just outside St Tropez, for the summer".'
1983 - Mani, Stephen “Cressa” Cresser and John Squire meet.
Notes: They take acid together at a flat in Chorlton and listen to music including The Stooges Loose. John and Cressa became close friends over the next few years.
10 April 1983 - Reni's 19th birthday
1983 - Studios, Dukinfield, Manchester
Normandy (On A Beach) - Lyrics written by Kaiser and Mani. Music by Kaiser, John Squire, Mani, Andy Couzens, Chris Goodwin.
Normandy (On A Beach) / When The Wind Blows
Notes: Unconfirmed Studio in Dukinfield or Denton. The demo tape was later released on 21 April 2018 (see entry) on Vinyl & CD as part of the Record Store Day 2018 event, profits went to The Christie charity. The release was brought together by Colin White of Vinyl Revival Record Store in Manchester. The Stereo Masters were on a AMPEX Precision Magnetic Tape Reel. This was the reel that the official releases were sourced from.
From 1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed Interview/article: RC: In between the Patrol and the Roses, John was in the Waterfront…. IB: Yeah. They were like Orange Juice. They were great. They had a song called "On The Beach In Normandy". The Patrol was a racket so I’m into scooters now and all over but John’s still doing his band. He played me a tape and it sounded really good. I was impressed I knew somebody who could play that quality. Since ‘78/’79 John hasn’t done much except play his guitar.
RC: Wasn’t Mani in the Waterfront? IB: Yeah. I’d known Mani from sixteen. He was from North Manchester, we were from Chorlton. We’d heard about this kid with a swastika on his head, some bonehead who lived near Mani’s who was bullying kids. So we got a crew up to sort him out. Twenty of us went to meet Mani’s crew in this council house. I remember seeing Mani sat down. I’m thinking, he ain’t no fighter. So, one or two of these kids dealt with the bonehead, put him to rest – and that’s how we met!
RC: Who else was in Waterfront? IB: Chris Goodwin, who later played in T Challa Grid and the High. He played with Electronic recently. And Kaiser – Dave Cartey – from Moston on vocals. Me and him were joint singers – I joined for a couple of weeks. This was ‘82/’83.
2018 Mark Savage (BBC Music reporter) BBC Article noted: ''The Waterfront's songs have circulated on bootlegs ever since The Stone Roses' breakthrough in 1989. They are scrappy and lo-fi, with the rhythm section suffering a few timing issues, while the vocals lack confidence. But one can certainly hear the musicians' potential. For their first official release, the songs have been remastered from the original studio recording.''
'The early days' article by John Robb published 08 April 2011 on louderthanwar.com, Ian Brown said: From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Ian Brown said: ''The Waterfront played me the demo that they had done- they were sort of Orange Juicey and I wasn’t into that side of it but I thought wow! It sounds dead tuneful- like a proper band, they were into Josef K and Glasgow Postcard sort of stuff as well as Green On Red, early REM, Rain Parade- I never liked any of that. They said do you want to join up singing so I rehearsed a couple of times with them- the idea was for me to join up on vocals with Kaiser and have two vocalists. We never played a gig and it didn’t really happen.''
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Andy Couzens said: The Waterfront demo was recorded somewhere in the back end of Denton, somewhere up Mani’s way- in a little studio that someone had set up. We already had done some demos with the Patrol in Rusholme a couple of years before in a studio just off Great Western St where Mick Hucknall did a lot of stuff with his punk band Frantic Elevators- the only reason I know that was that we met him in there.''
07 January 2018 - thestoneroses.co.uk published an interview with Matt Mead ''We interview Matt Mead, who is currently writing the book Flowered Up and who recently was able to share a short clip from The Stone Roses Elephant Stone recording sessions. You’re a huge Roses collector and i know you’re not able to share some of the items you have or have come across, but what are you top 3 rare items that you have seen/have access too? The Waterfront original reel tape. There’s a article I was asked to write on Louder Than War regarding my finding this. Of late there has been a further twist in the tale. The brilliant Colin White of Vinyl Revival has firmly picked up the mantle and has arranged for The Waterfront tracks to be cleaned up digitally with the tracks getting their first official release on 12”, with all proceeds going to the magnificent Christie’s charity. In the next month or so there’ll be a lot more news regarding this, not only in print but on the airwaves.
From a Chris Goodwin interview by Cai Trefor published 04 April 2018 22:00 from gigwise.com:
What was it like recording the tunes with The Waterfront back in 1983? “It was weird. That was one of our first recordings. The studio was in his front room or garage of this guys house and his whole family came to meet us at the door. We did this recording and half was through recording the songs, his mum would come through with a tray of biscuits, all this rattling going on when you’re trying to record,” says Goodwin. “But, it was charming; very rustic. It sounds pretty good listening back all these years later.
His memory jogged, he adds: “I don’t know why I did this because we had already rehearsed it a particular way, but when we recorded I decided to pick up these two bass drum beats, and I put a floor tom and a snare down and I just stood up to play. I think it’s because I’d seen Bobby Gillespie in the Jesus and Mary Chain stood up playing the drums."
A bit Velvet Underground-y in a way, then?
“Yeah! Moe Tucker… He was doing stuff like that as well. And I remember Martin Hannett with the Roses when he first came he got rid of loads of his drums and sent them up to the toilet somewhere. And sometimes it works better stripped down.”
As for the b-side 'Where The Wind Blows', Goodwin says: "It makes me laugh. When we were recording it we had to do that whistle and we must have done about 50 takes, and we couldn’t stop laughing. If there’s four or five of you stood around a mic and everyone’s flicking the v’s in your face or making u laugh pulling funny faces. Every time I listen to that I hear the whistle and it makes me laugh...."
20 April 2018 - Andy Couzens XS Noize Interview by Mark Millar:...
One of the early bands you formed with John Squire was called The Waterfront which also featured Mani. For Record Store Day you are releasing two tracks Normandy on the Beach + Where the Wind Blows. These songs where only previously available on cassettes handed out to friends and are very rare. Why are they only seeing the light of day now?
I found the tape which I've had for the last thirty-five years, and I was asked by Vinyl Revival if they could put it out to raise money for Christies cancer charity which is a big cancer hospital in Manchester and it seemed like a good idea. It is a limited release, so there's not going to be any digital downloads or anything like that - it's only restricted to Record Store Day.
What state where the recordings in and did they take much work to get them cleaned up?
They were on a quarter-inch reel that I had from the studio at the time, and they just needed baking. That's when they put old tapes in an oven to bake and then send them to a mastering suite. There wasn't a lot of time spent on them, but they got them as clear as they can be.
How did it feel listening back to the songs after all this time?
It made me laugh I hadn't heard them for thirty years. (Laughs) It was hilarious especially the song When the Wind Blows - with the whistling chorus - very funny.
Official Release: 21 April 2018 - Record Store Day 12inch / CD
Bootlegs: The Ultimate Rarities (IAWS I Am Without Shoes / stoneroses.net (Will Odell). *IAWS exclusive - you won't find this anywhere else* Running Time (Approx): 80 mins. Originally Priced: £12.00) CD-R "Piccadilly Radio Sessions, 24th March 1985" (24 March 1985 - Piccadilly Radio Session, Piccadilly Studios, Manchester) I Wanna Be Adored / Heart On The Staves / Tell Me - Strawberry Studios, Stockport 1985, 3am - This Is The One - 1st ever take - Rehearsal, Chorlton, Manchester, 18th March 1986 (18 March 1986 - The Basement, Stockton Road, Chorlton, Manchester) Boy On The Pedestal / All Across The Sand / The Hardest Thing In The World / The Sun Still Shines - Acoustic, c.1986 - She Bangs The Drums / Waterfall - Demo, Bredbury, Manchester, 1986 (1986 - Yacht Club Studios, Bredbury, Stockport) Hardest Thing In The World - Demos, Chorlton, Manchester, 12th December 1986 (12 December 1986 - The Basement, Stockton Road, Chorlton, Manchester) Elephant Stone / Sun Still Shines / Going Down / Sugar Spun Sister
Demos, Manchester, Early 1988 (June 1988 - Coconut Grove Studios, Stockport or 1988 - Acetate Versions. Waterfall (1st Mix) June 1988 - Recording Sessions, Battery Studios, 1 Maybury Gardens, Willesden, North London, NW10 2NB) Waterfall / Shoot You Down - Demos, Suite-16 Studios, Manchester, May 1988 (May 1988 - Suite 16 Recording Studio, Quobeat Ltd. 16 Kenion Street, Off Drake Street, Rochdale, OL161SN) She Bangs The Drums / Waterfall / Made Of Stone / This Is The One - Demo, Battery Studios, London, January 1989 (January 1989 - Album Recording Session, Battery Studios, 1 Maybury Gardens, Willesden, London, NW10 2NB) Elizabeth My Dear - Waterfront Demos 1983, Pre-Roses band featuring Squire, Mani and Couzens. Normandy (On A Beach In) / When The Wind Blows
1983 - The Waterfront split up.
Notes: Ian Brown joined the group for a short time and the split followed shortly after.
Chris Goodwin soon left the Waterfront line-up because of the long journeys to Macclesfield (he had work in a bakery in Manchester at 4am every morning after getting back around midnight). Kazier left shortly after to pursue a career in the army.
From September - October 1999 - On Target Magazine, Mani Interview: What about Keizer? "He used to sing and all that but he got a bit too zeig-hally Mr Keizer so we had to let him go. So I started with John an' then Ian come into the picture. Then I fucked off travelling round France an' all that doin' what you do when you wanna see a bit of the world...
2018 Mark Savage (BBC Music reporter) BBC Article noted: ''Andy Couzens tried to convince future Stone Roses singer Ian Brown to join the band. "John and I had an idea of having Ian and Kaiser at the front trying to do a counterpoint with one another," he told the band's biographer, Simon Pence. "That's what we were trying to push, this question-and-answer thing with these two lads at the front singing sweet pop music." Brown eventually joined the band "for a couple of weeks", but the band split up soon after.'' ''...Couzens eventually left in a dispute over royalties.''
'The early days' article by John Robb published 08 April 2011 on louderthanwar.com, Ian Brown said: 'They were into Josef K and Glasgow Postcard sort of stuff, as well as Green On Red, early REM, Rain Parade – I never liked any of that. They said, “Do you want to join up singing?”' So, I rehearsed a couple of times with them; the idea was for me to join up on vocals with Kaiser and have two vocalists. We never played a gig and it didn’t really happen.”
From John Robb’s The North Will Rise Again Book: Andy Couzens said: Ian started coming down and at one point we had two vocalists. Kaiser’s voice was good on the demo. He could sing quite sweet and with a bit of time we would have developed. We had the pair of them doing a question-and-answer vocal thing and it was great, really good.
John & Andy went on to form The Stone Roses with John's former bandmate Ian Brown (from The Patrol). Kaiser went off to join the Army, Mani & Chris joined Clint Boon's band The Mill. Chris Goodwin would later join The High, formed by Andy Couzens after he leaves The Stone Roses in 1986. The High would also work with Martin Hannett, former roses producer. Mani would later join The Stone Roses in 1987 too.
1983 - Mani goes travelling round France
The Mill - 1983 - Clint Boon meets Mani at the Miners Arms, Oldham
Notes: Clint and Mani were both friends with Chris Goodwin. Chris was drumming in a covers band called 'Weakstones Bridge', who later became the band 'Exit'. The three met together and started jamming together shortly after ever Sunday in The Mill in Ashton-Under-Lyne, where Clint Boon was working.
Mani was living in Failsworth. Chris was in Oldham.
The Mill sessions went on through 1984 into 1985. Recordings included Clint driving over a microphone with a forklift truck, smashing glass and extended jams.
“We formed T‘Mill, which was psychedelic garage rock, with
me singing and playing Farfisaorgan like I do in Inspiral Carpets,"
explains Boon. “We didn’t have a guitarist - if we recorded a track that
needed guitar, Mani would play it. It was quite industrial, with angle
grinders and tapes of heavy machinery. We’d drive a forklift truck over
a mic and see what it sounded like. It was all paisley shirts, bowl—cuts
and The 13th Floor Elevators. Very creative."
From September - October 1999 - On Target Magazine, Mani Interview: Was that The Mill? "No, that was after I started off with Andy Couzens who was in the original Roses line-up. Brummy Rob a Rude boy skinhead who used to used to sing before Brown."
16 November 1983 - Mani's 21st birthday
24 November 1983 - John Squire's 21st birthday
The Angry Young Teddy Bears
Notes: April 2009 for Clash Music, John Leckie said: ''When did you first hear about the band? I first became aware of them when they were called Angry Young Teddy Bears. Someone, I can’t remember who, mentioned this band from Manchester and said they were fantastic...''
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Peter Garner Interview: What about Angry Young Teddy Bears…? There were probably hundreds of names, I don’t remember that one.
John Leckie on The Angry Young Teddy Bears: “That's what the Roses were thinking of calling themselves when I met them," says producer John Leckie. “It sort of suits them in a funny way. The thing about the Roses is that even though there’s a punk heritage there, they’re hippies. Ian especially. It sounds corny, but there’s a lot of love there, and you don’t really get that with other Manchester bands."