Party People
Saturdays are rarely a day of revelation for SOAP, as the weight of Friday nights usually compound on our collective psyche in the form of a throbbing headache. Today, however, broke the bounds of routine Saturday, as I witnessed my first validation of UK club-history comedic biopic ‘24 Hour Party People’. For the uninitiated, The movie chronicles the birth of UK club culture in the late seventies and early eighties through seminal ‘Madchester’ bands like Joy Division and the Happy Mondays through the ridiculous character of journalist/promoter/label manager/nightclub owner, Tony Wilson.
In the film, Shaun Ryder, lead singer of the Happy Mondays, is depicted as a reckless, bingeing, maniac with moments of brilliance during live performances. Beyond that, Shaun is basically a montage of heroin, dark sunglasses, and irrationality. It is worth mentioning, if only for trivia purposes, that the unabridged titled of the Monday’s first album is ‘Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out)’, which I can only hope Shaun helped coin.
Much has been said about Shaun Ryder’s deteriorating personal condition due to a life of extreme ‘indulgence’; Ryder’s name gracing the gossip pages of NME every six months or so at least reassured us he was still alive.
Gorillaz front man Damon Albarn recently threw Ryder back into the stratosphere of minor celebrity with his appearance on ‘DARE’, the hit single and much remixed track off of Demon Days.
This morning, on some random Direct TV channel, they broadcasted the recent Gorillaz Mancheseter performance (meaning Damon Albarn and about 300 other musicians, instruments, and cartoons). The stage was a multicultural/multimedia fest, but everything worked together well, the theatrics and technology blended seamlessly with the cameos (De La Soul, Ike Turner (!), Roots Manuva, Martina Topley-Bird), the instruments, and the choir.
Then came the siren noise introduction of ‘DARE’. Cameras panned though an audience ranging from toddlers to boomers. Ryder’s voice came whirling out of the darkness, off-pitch and off-rhythm, swooning in glorious Northern England accent. The noise of the audience got noticeably louder. Heavy set in jeans and a black leather jacket, Ryder lumbered around the stage like a bear, beverage in hand, his eyes leering at the crowd behind massive black sunglasses. After a bit of singing seemingly whenever and however he wanted, Ryder fumbed through his coat pocket for a cigarette. Towards the end of the song, when he managed to get the cigarette to his lips, duet partner Rosie Wilson actually grabbed the cigarette out of his mouth to keep him from smoking on stage. By this time, Ryder’s general demeanor was visibly frightening children in the audience. And you know what? It was wonderful. The older people in the audience expected nothing less of him. It was almost as if they cheered harder. Certainly Ryder’s performance had brought back memories of the glories of the Madchester scene he helped create. Infact, it was so, uh, “inspiring” that we decided to watch ‘24 Hour Party People’. The movie really does Ryder’s persona justice: Then and still now, Ryder represents that unique breed of party person - perhaps through different vices, perhaps not - that lives life with completely different inhibition and abandon.
Anyway, we looked for the performance on YouTube but only found the version with the cartoons (cover up?). Atleast you can still hear Ryder’s vocals…Fucking priceless.
