Amazon.co.uk Review
The group disbanded in 1992, amongst accusations of heroin addiction and numerous "I'll never work with them again" claims. However, against sizeable odds, such statements were to prove misguided, and the group's members were indeed to come together once more in one of rock's more unlikely returns. John Warburton's Hallelujah tells the story of how this comeback came about. Warburton and Ryder had first met when collaborating on the latter's column for the British tabloid "news"paper The Daily Sport, and the style of that publication heavily influences the amusingly illustrated book. With chapter subtitles such as "Shaun bites Gaz's head", "Stoned man sets himself on fire", "Lobster enters Shaun's pants", and "Author slaps out fire in socks", the tone is set for what is one of the more entertaining soap operas in rock's more recent past. The author uses a combination of lengthy quotations from such witnesses as Keith Allen, Chris Moyles, Steve Lamacq and Jo Wiley, and his own excitable, exclamation-mark saturated prose to capture the mood of the Monday's late 1990s reformation. Whether it be in describing staged orgies, (one), near-drownings (two), or the rendering of band-members/journalists as being "off their heads" (countless), Warburton's enthusiasm is both amusing and contagious, as he takes the reader through what emerges as the "return of the ultimate rock and roll lifestyle".
Overall, while readers desiring an analytical analysis of tonal coherence in the Monday's music may be forced to look elsewhere, those seeking an afternoon's top-quality amusement could do a lot worse than take a look at Hallelujah. --Steve Price --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Review
Heat
Daily Mirror
Front
Book Description
Product Description
The Mondays were the band who had it all. Credited with a range of achievements, from creating Madchester and introducing indie kids to dance music to bringing ecstasy to Britain, they were the rock 'n' roll story that beggared belief. In Shaun they had an inspired gutter poet; in his sidekick Bez they had a cultural icon.
Hallelujah is the story of how this hapless group of ruffians, thieves, thugs and dealers, prompted by boredom, drugs and a visit from the taxman, got their act back together after six long years and played a sell-out world tour. Along the way a man was set on fire, an orgy was staged, someone nearly drowned and every single band member got lost in Europe. There were guns, writs, jellyfish, fights, copious amounts of class As - and a skull on a stick.
Former Daily Sport journalist John Warburton, Shaun's friend and confident, went along for the ride. He includes contributions from others who've witnessed the madness first hand, including Jo Whiley, Chris Moyles, Steve Lamacq and Fatboy Slim.
From the Publisher
From the Author
Let’s get one thing straight… this is not a rock biog. It’s not an attempt to rehash all the old gubbins about how the Mondays changed the face of music and using words like juncture, genre, crossover, context and juxtaposition, at every, errrr… juncture!
Basically Shaun Ryder fell into my lot while I was working as a journalist for Britain’s most salubrious newspaper, the Daily Sport. Shaun had been taken on as a celebrity columnist, and let’s face it -- a paper which prides itself on the number of nipples it can squeeze into a 38 page edition is the perfect home for the man who almost single-handedly invented lad-culture.
Anyway, we became mates and after a dodgy detox Shaun decided he was going to reform the most roguish band the world has ever known. Easy? Not at all.
What followed made the Blues Brothers and Spinal Tap look like the Salvation Army. There were fights, arguments, a man set on fire, an indoor motorbike rally, a lobster, and… well then it starts to get silly!
Oh, and chemicals. There were also chemicals.
Someone once said to me it was impossible to write anything about the Happy Mondays which wasn’t funny, because the weirdest things just happen to them. This book, I hope, is testament to that fact.
As for me (if your interested), I’m now freelance, 29-years-old, living in Manchester, England, and I now count Shaun as one of my closest pals. That is of course until he reads this book. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
From the Back Cover
Hallelujah is the story of the extraordinary, hilarious and triumphant second coming of Shaun Ryder and the Happy Mondays.
The Mondays were the band who had it all. Credited with a range of achievements, from creating Manchester and introducing indie kids to dance music to bringing ecstasy to Britain, they were the rock 'n' roll story that beggared belief. In Shaun they had an inspired gutter-poet; in his sidekick Bez they had a cultural icon.
Hallelujah is the story of how this hapless group of ruffians, thieves, thugs and dealers, prompted by boredom, drugs and a visit from the taxman, got their act back together after six long years and played a sell-out world tour. Along the way a man was set on fire, an orgy was staged, someone nearly drowned and every single band member got lost in Europe. There were guns, writs, jellyfish, fights, copious amounts of class As - and a skull on a stick.
Former Daily Sport jounalist John Warburton, Shaun's friend and confident, went along for the ride. He includes contributions from others who've witnessed the madness first hand, including Jo Whiley, Chris Moyles, Steve Lamacq and Fatboy Slim.
