Top one, nice one
Thanks to someone on the Word forums, I have discovered that Granada's Celebration: Madchester, The Sound Of The North, an ITV-aired documentary about the, yes, "Madchester" scene of the turn of the decade, is now on YouTube in full. It's an amazing, roomily-trousered, bangin' time capsule from that brief era when MC Tunes and Northside were considered worthy of adulation. But it also presents the first time ever that Stuart Maconie and myself appeared on television together. Well, I say "together" - he and James Brown of the NME parish were picked to front parts of the documentary, being "northern" and everything, and their bits at Afflecks Palace and the Dry bar are a joy unto themselves, especially the sight of Stuart's then-legendary fringe and neat tops tucked into his trousers.
In the section that starts at around five and a half minutes into this, the sixth part, you'll see Stuart "walking and talking" to camera, sweeping around the NME office, circa 1990, from the Thrills desk, past the pre-hotdesk I humbly shared with Fred Dellar (not pictured), pre-staff position. You can see me, briefly, in a religious looking Age Of Chance top, banging away unrealistically on an electric typewriter. And then he's gone, and my TV career is over. I'm so glad to have found this. It speaks of another time, another place.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 2:33 PM
18 Comments
Contact
Andrew at
18 Comments:
From a distant past, before my time all this, but is that Danny Kelly mulling over the Shaun Ryder cover?
Cor! The NME offices, at the time I would have been truly excited about this (I am slightly excited 20 odd years later). It was a great time for music and different scenes - I loved the Inspiral Carpets and saw many of the big bands live around this time, ...it's all comming back - inspirals at reading festival, 100 odd drummer girls on the stage as (artificial) snow fell down and the crescendo of "she comes in the fall" played out the encore!!! I bought NME a few months ago and could not believe how rubbish it was, even given the lack of actual content now given over to adverts the writing was weak. Oh and AoC folks (another great-almost-made-it band) are still making music though not as AoC.
Jim
That is indeed a slimline Danny Kelly, Wowser. (Always a broadcaster waiting to happen, he gets a caption in an earlier installment of the doc.)
Good memories. I was an NME addict at the time, and a regular at the International and Boardwalk. Think we probably romanticise the time, but the Roses at Spike Island was one of my 'I woz there' moments. Though I once saw Northside and the Pale Saints in the same week, they were both crap, and it put me off travelling over the pennines for weeks.
And Maconie did have one of the great haircuts.
I'm sure I have this on VHS somewhere; it was on a bootleg tape I bought at a record fair - most of the other stuff is New Order, Smiths stuff, as I remember.
Isn't there a bit with Stuart Maconie doing a piece-to-camera whilst pissing into a really ornate urinal... or was that James Brown? I'll have to watch it now...
Tut, the Pale Saints were from Leeds.
And just how greasy is Happy Mondays manager Nathan McGough (the son of Roger McGough no less)?
I agree the NME office seemed impossibly glamorous and exciting at the time I watched this.
How convenient they were deliberating over an iconic Madchester cover story at the time the cameras were in rather than the Senseless Things or Cud.
I've seen the documentary on You Tube Andrew. Its Great Maconie's hair reminds me of someone I used to go to school with. Good to see that Pop On Trial that Stuart did on BBC Four again.He should be honoured by Bafta!
Magnificent 'mime typing' there, Andrew. You look very, er, busy.
Stuart Maconie's hair reminds me of EVERYONE I used to go to school with. And several of the teachers. Great stuff.
I remember watching this at the time. Crikey. When did we all get so old?
Older, and wiser, I'd say, Ian. The typewriters certainly improved.
I'm afraid my brother and I still quote the Mighty MC tunes to each other as "you've got nish, clish and bangin'.. you've got nish which means nothing and clish which means nothin' and Bangin' as in that's abangin' tune or that tunes bangin'!" I fear our version of the tape wore thin.
What a delightful vignette from a bygone era. I remember all of those NME covers like they were printed yesterday. And I would love to hear "The Only Rhyme That Bites" just once more.
Andrew, your comedy pretend typing is terrific. As for Stuart's barnet - we all had a pudding bowl 'do' back in the day, although mine curled up at the ends so I looked more like a (female) Baader-Meinhof member than a mad-for-it 24-hour party person.
On a techie note, is that how all covers were pored over in them there pre-desktop-publishing days, using a slide projector? And was that Shaun Ryder's Dad doing the sound check?
A great vid - good times those. I know we all age n change but blimey hasn't Stuart Maconie's voice changed. What is surprising is how badly people dressed at the NME. Given that cameras were there (and they'd have worn their very fave outfit in readiness), everyone looked a bunch of stiffs, except maybe the guy with the shaven head helping with the slides. This isn't a retrospective view: Maconie tucking his top into jeans pulled up too high around his waist was never a good look.
Roger-Putney
Nick, Stuart is seen using the urinal in Dry, and commenting on the "witty" use of a red girder. Photographer Peter Walsh, our pet Mancunian at the time, is seen too.
I can't remember if the iconic Shaun Ryder photo with the giant "E" by Kevin Cummins was actually being debated for the cover on the lightbox, or if it was posed. It's possible it was real. That's certainly how we did covers in the pre-computer age, by projecting the image on the wall, with a blank page layout stuck up there.
It was Shaun Ryder's dad, Derek, at the soundcheck, yes.
Marvellous times, they really were, as Tommy Cockles might say.
Roger, the shaven-headed guy, as you put it, was Marc Pechart, fiery French art editor, much in evidence on the famous Sleeping With The NME b-side to the Manic Street Preachers' Theme From M*A*S*H single. (Have you heard that? It's the actual day in the NME office when the Richey Manic "4-REAL" photos turned up on that very lightbox. It was extracted from a Radio Five documentary, and transcribed in my book. I wonder if I can upload it?)
I think I remember the Radio 5 documentary as well. Doesn't James Brown resign half way through or something?
and i thought i was the only person with one of those AOC tops.
"have they gone all religious then" was the toppermost question of the day whenever i wore it.
mark e/ireallylovemusic
Post a Comment
<< Home