Hallelujah!: The Extraordinary Return of Shaun Ryder and Happy Mondays Book

First forming as a collaboration between Shaun Ryder and his brother Paul in 1980, (it was, apparently, "something to do, like"), Happy Mondays were to become one of the classic Manchester bands of the late 1980s/early 1990s. With classic albums such as "Bummed" and "Pills'N'Thrills'N'Bellyaches", (including "Kinky Afro" and "Step On"), the band were to become cultural icons, not least for the numerous "rock & roll" stories of drink and drugs that surrounded Shaun Ryder, and his hilarious dancing sidekick Bez.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 PriceRead More