1986
Ian Brown - Vocals
John Squire - Lead Guitar
Andy Couzens - Rhythm Guitar, Backing Vocals
Alan 'Reni' Wren - Drums, Backing Vocals
Pete Garner - Bass Guitar
1986 was the year The Stone Roses managed to be both chaotic and wildly productive—classic Roses, really. June saw Andy Couzens officially leave the band, a quiet shift that opened the door for the evolving songwriting partnership between Ian and John, who spent hours at each other’s homes with acoustic guitars, shaping melodies, chord progressions, and song structures that would define the Roses’ sound. Reni kicked things off with a dramatic gesture, punching through a glass door at his parents’ house and leaving himself unable to hold a drumstick—minor detail, really—so the band simply taped one to his hand and carried on recording demos like absolute troopers. Between Spirit Studios, the Yacht Club in Bredbury, and a Chorlton basement that doubled as their landlord’s pet project, they churned out early versions of Sally Cinnamon, All Across the Sand, The Hardest Thing in the World, Here Again, Where Angels Play, Bye Bye Badman, and more—some leaked, some lost, some miscredited, all feeding the legend. Meanwhile, Ian and John were quietly remodelling the band’s future with Beatles-grade ambition and a touch of Simon & Garfunkel. And hovering over it all was Gareth Evans, hustling his way into the role of manager with a cocktail of charm, bravado, and sheer persistence—turning up uninvited, pitching the band to anyone who’d listen, and convincing himself as much as anyone else that he was the man to steer them. He stitched together the FM Revolver deal, navigated label confusion, and signed them to a contract giving him 33.333% of their gross earnings—because nothing says “trust me” like a profit share that looks copied from a maths textbook. Gigs fell apart, tempers flared, demos piled up, and yet somehow, by the end of 1986, the band’s songwriting had sharpened, their sound had blossomed, and the spark that would ignite their rise was unmistakably burning.
20 February 1986 - Ian Brown's 23rd birthday
05 March 1986 - King George's Hall, Blackburn * Supporting: Chiefs Of Relief
So Young / All Across The Sand / Boy On A Pedestal / Here It Comes / I Wanna Be Adored / Sally Cinnamon / This Is The One / Love Missile F1-11
Debut performance of All Across The Sand and Sally Cinnamon. The band covered Sigue Sigue Sputnik's Love Missile F1-11 again. Apparently, the band played it four times in a row, although some may have been false starts.
Ian apparently wrote the lyrics for All Across The Sand after reading a book about a mass murderer who used to be-friend his female victims and then bury them under sand.
From Lancashire Evening Post, 13 November 2015 - Friday 4:02 pm, by Mike Hill: King Georges Hall, Blackburn March 5 1986 Booked to support Chiefs of Relief, the paying crowd was largely disinterested in the Manchester lads and this indifference was reflected in their performance. Despite witnessing the live debut of future single Sally Cinnamon, the audience was, in Lancashire lad Robb’s words, ‘bored and lustless’. The Roses responded by performing a cover of Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s synthpop smash Love Missile F1-11 no less than four times before leaving the stage ‘sniggering’. The odd choice of cover had first been aired in Preston the previous year and long since dropped from the band’s set list.
Ian Brown said: There were six people at the show. One of them was a skinhead giving us grief, so I wrapped the microphone lead around his neck and dragged him all round the floor. I had him so there was a bit of give on the lead and I could sing to him on stage. There were more of us on stage than there was in the audience...
16 February 2000 Wednesday - music365.com Ian Brown Q & A Session:
JonN: Who or what is Sally Cinnamon apart from the best pop song ever?
Ian: A fictitious lesbian. The song’s about picking someone's pocket on a train and finding a love letter from one girl to another.
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.
25 March 1986 - Warwick University, Warwick * Supporting: Love And Rockets
So Young / Here It Comes / Boy On A Pedestal / The Hardest Thing In The World / All Across The Sand / I Wanna Be Adored / Tell Me / Sally Cinnamon / This Is The One
Possibly the debut performance of 'The Hardest Thing...'. Love & Rockets was formed by ex-members of Bahaus. Pete remembers 'I was a big Bauhaus fan but they (Love And Rockets) were arseholes...'
1986 - Gareth Ian Bromley Evans take over as the band’s manager.
Gareth placed an ad in the local newspaper looking for new bands, The band responded. Gareth told the band everything they wanted to hear and guaranteed the band more gigs than Howard Jones could ever deliver.
When the band first met, Gareth told them his back stories and convinced them he was a good business man. He dropped his pants and showed the band his most recent business venture selling Pommes, little white men’s briefs with an apple logo. No-one knows why he had to show the band the underpants by removing his trousers, I am sure he had more than one pair to sell.
Gareth would tell so many lies during his employment as the bands manager he even lied about his name. During the Silvertone Court Case (see May 1991). Gareth's real name is Ian Bromley. He changed it while working at Vidal Sassoon in the 1960s. Apparently Gareth had two salons and five or six shared franchise under the name 'Gareth & Collin, Crimpers'. Two located in Piccadilly, Rusholme, Burnley, Bolton etc.
Sue Dean was Gareth's girlfriend, at the time. She helped photograph the band in their early days and promote the band too.
Matthew Cummings helped Gareth and, later, Lindsay Reade co-manage the band too.
From Blood On The Turntable BBC TV Documentary, Howard Jones said:
I decieded that managing Thin Line was more important than managing The Stone Roses...I could have given Gareth a piece of wood and said ''compare the merit of this piece of wood to this "ivan" and he would have said I can't tell the difference....
From Blood On The Turntable BBC TV Documentary, Gareth Evans said:
I didn't really have to convince the band I was the manager for them, because they came to a lot of the gigs we did...a lot maybe an exagaration but they saw I always had a small entourage and I was always around...and maybe I looked the part in those days...I only pulled my trousers down and showed my knickers, It went no futhur.
2013 - David Wood wrote: Howard Jones didn't continue managing the band for long after the single and I believe he didn't have a contract so they could walk away. Someone told me their next manager, Gareth Evans, was in his car with the band one day and threw a load of the singles out of the window and reversed over them but that just might be one of those stories...
From Blood On The Turntable BBC TV Documentary, Andy Couzens said:
He was very cheesy, all the way through and he had a roll of money with a rubber band on it and everytime he stood up or sat down this money would drop out, constantly like 'look at me, I have money' which was just farsickle.
Danny Kelly interviewed the band in Paris for the NME Magazine in 1989.
Gareth Evans? How? Why? “We hooked up with him because he’s such a character, good to have about,” confirms Ian, before John recounts the full, horrific details of the historic coupling: “The first time we met,” the guitarist and sleeve artist grimaces, “he took his bloody underpants off…!” “He was trying to impress us, telling us he was a marketing man. He was saying he could sell anything to anyone, anywhere, anytime. The things he was currently selling were the range of underpants called Pommes, little white briefs with an apple logo on them…’ “He had a whole box of these things in the corner. He could’ve shown us them, would’ve been a lot less bother… But no, he insisted on taking off his trousers and trying to sell us the underpants he was wearing… “In England it’s weird…People have us down as some sort of Manc scallies who spend all our time dropping acid and fucking around…’ After naked club owners, the conversation has, thankfully drifted onto the (for me, a confirmed clothes-pig) difficult subject of Style. I’m sure they’re on the very cutting edge of liberated post-acid couture, but with those gigantic trousers and ‘room-for-one-more’ bell-tent shirts, jumpers and coats, The Stone Roses always remind me of failed extras from Scott Of The Antarctic...''
From February 1998 - Uncut magazine Ian Brown interview: “In 1986.
We’d seen an advert in the local paper, so we went and saw him, I think we’d been in the room two minutes, and he says ‘This is what I do’. And he drops his trousers and he’s got these underpants with an apple on the side. ‘Pommies’ they were called, and he was dealing in ’em.” “We thought he was crazy, but funny. We got on well with him. We thought he was Al Capone, and he thought he was Al Capone too. But we wanted that kind of guy, y’know, a Frank Dileo. So, we clicked straight away. Plus, he owned the International clubs, so we could rehearse there for free and watch the bands for free, which we did. We saw everybody who played the Internationals from ’86 to ’89.”
From Steve Adj interview with Louder Than War (15 March 2017):
If you could and you had the power too, would you change anything about the roses? SA: The management first time round.
From 06 March 2009 - Uncut Magazine Interview with Ian Brown:
I hear Gareth was a bit of a character, to say the least.
Yeah, he was. And we had this kind of thing that all the greatest bands had famous managers. Pistols had McLaren, Stones had Lou Golding, Beatles had Epstein and we wanted the manager like that, that was going to, you know… that was a full-on character. And we wanted someone like that, yeah. Also, he’d never managed anyone else before, and that was an advantage for us. And in massive hindsight, how do you think he did? Um, I can’t deny that the guy… he loved us 24/7 and he was a grafter. He wasn’t frightened of anyone. That was a big thing. He didn’t care that someone was at the top of a company or whoever they were, he didn’t believe anyone was out of reach. He didn’t have any fear of anybody and that appealed to us. Plus, he owned a nightclub, and we could rehearse for free and drink what we wanted. It was his attitude; he wanted to do what we did. He used to back the Workers’ Revolutionary Party newspaper with the guy who used to be Tom McArdle in Brookside, a guy called Malcolm Turney. Him and Malcolm Turney had put the money up to print the newspapers for the Workers’ Revolutionary Party, and he knew Colin Redgrave, and that impressed us, ‘cause me and John were ex-members of the Social Workers Party at the time, we used to go to the meetings an’ all, around the miners’ strike. And that impressed us that he was into revolution. And then, I take it you don’t speak to him anymore? Er no, I’ve not seen Gareth in about ten years. Bit of a fall out was there? Yeah...
1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed
RC: Did you fall out with Howard Jones?
IB: Yeah. We reckoned he was a bit of a dick, full stop, proper.
10 April 1986 - Reni's 22nd birthday
April 1986 - Rehearsals
The Hardest Thing In The World / All Across The Sand / Boy On A Pedestal / Here It Comes / I Wanna Be Adored / The Sun Still Shines / This Is The One / Sally Cinnamon / Sugar Spun Sister / Up And Down
Andy brings Up And Down to the rehearsal room.
From 2001 - I Am Without Shoes Exclusive Andy Couzens Interview:
IAWS: Which songs that eventually made it to 'The Stone Roses' LP did the band have at the time of you quitting?
AC: Finished were; Adored, This Is The One & Sugar Spun Sister.
07 May 1986 - Ian & John attend The Jesus And Mary Chain show in Manchester
John Squire said: I was a big fan of the Jesus and Mary Chain and had an hallucinogenic epiphany listening to them. They were the aural of equivalents of Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings. Never Understand and Autumn Rhythm were fused, I started to write proper songs and paint clothes, guitars, drums and record sleeves for the band.
10 May 1986 Saturday - Manchester University, Students Union, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PR Doors Open: 20:00 Ticket Price: £1.50 (Advance/Student Union Price) £2.00 (On The Door) So Young / The Hardest Thing In The World / All Across The Sand / Boy On A Pedestal / Here It Comes / I Wanna Be Adored / The Sun Still Shines / This Is The One / Sally Cinnamon
Debut performance of The Sun Still Shines. First known live recordings of The Hardest Thing In The World, Sally Cinnamon & All Across The Sand. Advance tickets available from Piccadilly Records and Union Shop. A bootleg tape recording was being sold in 1989 on Kensington Market, London.
1986 - Gareth Evans offers The Stone Roses a parental guardianship contract.
Gareth offered the band a parental guardianship agreement, rather than a music managment business agreement. This was start of the friction between management and Andy.
From Blood On The Turntable BBC TV Documentary,
Andy Couzens said: It was a parental guardianship agreement rather than a management, music business management agreement which gave him all sorts of rights over all of us.
From 2001 - I Am Without Shoes Exclusive Andy Couzens Interview:
IAWS: Why do you think that you and Evans never got on?
AC: Evans, in his own words, thought I was 'nouveau riche'. But I thought it was probably more to do with the fact that I questioned his contract and insisted my lawyer looked at it.
24 May 1986 - Warwick University, Warwick
31 May 1986 - McGonagle's 'McOnagles', Dublin, Republic Of Ireland
The regular crowd at McGonagle's were a heavy metal/rock audience. The show ended in a riot. Andy's crowd-pleasing attempt, playing Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water' riff was the final straw. The show ended; the band argued in the dressing room with McGonagle's manager regarding their fee. The Stone Roses said something along the lines of: You either pay us or we go out there and the place gets trashed...they were paid off.
Andy Couzens last show. Andy flew home the following day rather than catching a ferry with the rest of the band.
From Blood On The Turntable BBC TV Documentary, Andy Couzens said:
"We had a gig in Dublin and I got something to deal with, my mum died, my mummy, so I bought myself a plane home and didn't think anything of it."
From Blood On The Turntable BBC TV Documentary,
Gareth Evans said: I blew my top, I was very annoyed, very dramatic statement, but they went in a van together they should come back together.
From 2001 - I Am Without Shoes Exclusive Andy Couzens Interview:
IAWS: What was the most bizarre gig the Roses ever played during your spell with them? Was it the gig at McOnagles, Dublin, in 1986?
AC: Yeah, a mad night, but all the gigs were. The night in Sweden where Ian sucked the barrel of the gun some nutter pulled, or the night the police showed and arrested the whole audience just before we went on, or or or or or - you get the picture.
From 06 March 2009 - Uncut Magazine Interview with Ian Brown:
How did his (Andy Couzens) role fail? John didn’t want to play with him. John was getting better and coming out with these lovely lines and Andy would come in with these big chuggy rhythm guitar parts and cover it up. So, John came to me and said he didn’t think he could play with him anymore. The reason he left was that we played in Dublin in ‘86 and had to get the ferry home and it was like a 10-hour wait, but Andy flew home and that was the last time we played with him.
01 June 1986 - Andy Couzens officially leaves the band.
The band had a meeting with Gareth at The International club after the Dublin show. Andy left the band as Ian & John sided with Gareth regarding the his early departure after the Dublin Show, despite Andy Couzen's mother passing away.
Andy was apparently offered a cash sum, by Gareth, to leave the band officially.
From Blood On The Turntable BBC TV Documentary,
Andy Couzens said: Basically I was the most disloyal person on the planet and I wasn't really interested in what he (Gareth Evans) had to say about it but I turned round to John & Ian and said 'are you having this?' because he was there shouting to the left of me. And they both went (shrugged shoulders, palms out). So I just got out and left...Gareth offered me £10,000 to leave the band. I should have taken it because he was desperate to get rid of me
From Blood On The Turntable BBC TV Documentary, Gareth Evans said:
I wasn't keen to get Andy out, I never thought of it, until John Squire told me he didn't like writing with Andy, in a low voice, and he said to me 'he had to go' but he didn't know how to do it..so I did. Andy didn't have any talent, he was an old style rocker and that wasn't the way they were going. If I'd have maken Andy Couzens a cash offer, to make him leave the band, then maybe I did, maybe I did but he would have took the money. There isn't a man on this planet that wouldn't have took £10,000.
I think he arrived at the offices of the International and started talking to me and er I think between myself and the doorman we tried to wash his hair...in the toilet...
Andy Couzens on this claim: He's a liar, I was a very nasty young individual and no-one ever layed a hand on me...
From 27 September 2013 - Andy Couzens interview:
Was your falling out with Gareth Evans the main reason for you leaving the Roses?
I did have a row with Gareth but to fall "out", I would have to have been "in", which I wasn't. It was the lack of support from Ian and John in relation to Gareth's ridiculous behaviour which caused me to leave.
08 June 1986 Sunday - Junction Box Festival, The Polytechnic, Mandela Building, 99 Oxford Road, Manchester M1 * Doors Open: 12.00-22:30 * Ticket Price: £8.00 Line Up: New Model Army, The Frank Chickens, The Stone Roses, The Mighty Lemon Drops, Ghost Dance, The Wild Flowers, Laugh, Big Red Gun
The Stone Roses somehow found themselves third on the bill—tucked neatly beneath Frank Chickens and headliners New Model Army—at a weekend festival masterminded by Steve Adge (who was clearly auditioning for his future role as their full-time tour manager) and Mark from Blackmail Records. Tickets could be procured from The Blackmail Organisation, the same industrious crew who co-ran Manchester’s Warehouse Shows throughout 1985, including the two that gave The Stone Roses some early stage mileage.
It was a two-day affair, and Saturday’s lineup was a gloriously eclectic parade featuring The Men They Couldn't Hang, A Certain Ratio, Terry & Gerry, Swing Out Sister, Quando Quango and more—proof that the festival bookers either had impeccable taste or simply refused to say no to anyone with an amplifier.
1986 - Riverside, Newcastle * Supporting: That Petrol Emotion
June 1986 - The Warehouse, Leeds
June 1986 - The Three Crowns Club, London
Apparently, Ian Brown sat down on a stool for most of the gig, looking bored.
07 July 1986 Monday - The Ritz, Whitworth Street, Manchester
Here It Comes / The Hardest Thing In The World / I Wanna Be Adored / So Young / (Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister / Boy On A Pedestal / Sally Cinnamon / The Sun Still Shines / This Is The One / encore: So Young
Debut performance of (Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister, with alternate intro and lyrics too.
Rick Jones was the sound man for the show. Rick started out in the music business in the mid to late 1980s, after studying sound technology at a college in Old Trafford. He worked for a live PA company in Manchester who at that time did gigs for Factory Records. He said: “I did one of the first ever Stone Roses gigs at The Ritz in Manchester. It was a Monday night and it was around the time that they’d just written Sally Cinnamon. “Those were great memories. You knew they were going to go on to big things."
Notes: From Debris Magazine 1988 Interview:
Ian; “Sally was a sort of semi-conscious effort to shake off So Young, which unfortunately sounds quite gothy and was big in the Ritz. People actually thought we were goths and were pissed off that we had short hair!"
July 1986 - The Three Crowns Club, London
11 August 1986 Monday - Mardi Gras, Liverpool * Ticket Price: £1.00 (Advance) £1.50 (On The Door) * Supporting: Innervision. Here It Comes / The Hardest Thing In The World / I Wanna Be Adored / So Young / (Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister / Boy On A Pedestal / Sally Cinnamon / The Sun Still Shines / This Is The One
Original date was changed to 11 August 1986. Advance tickets were available from Cafe Society, Probe & Wavertree Records. The Danny Boys were first on stage.
Innervision (Ken Kelly. Frank Perry. Mark Jennings. Rob Carubia.) Ken Kelly, 3rd July 2012, said: With all the excitement surrounding The Stone Roses' return and sell out dates over the last few weeks I have decided to do my first ever blog surrounding my own band (Innervision) appearance with The Stone Roses back in 1986. This last week I have been contacted by several friends, ex band members and a journalist as everyone seems to be writing a new book on The Stone Roses and wants any past info on the band. I also needed to correct some information once and for all as nobody seems to know the exact date of the gig. The date was 11th August 1986 although the original date had to be changed at least once on the request of The Stone Roses' manager. I'd played at the venue 2 or 3 times that year and if it wasn't for photos, tickets and posters then I'd be confused as well. Most of the Stone Roses websites, books, biographies etc seem to list this gig as the 11th August or with a question mark except it seems for journalist John Robb whom I've been told lists it as late 1986 with the support band being the Danny Boys in his book about The Stone Roses. While John has always come across on TV or Radio as a well informed and thoroughly decent guy, I have to inform him that he is completely wrong and needs to change some of the details in his book. There was only one gig in Liverpool with The Stone Roses in 1986 and the band playing that night with The Stone Roses was my band Innervision. Around about June 1986 Innervision had parted company with several members due to the usual musical differences and now consisted of only myself Ken Kelly and Frank Perry as the ever-present song writing team. Knowing that we had a following and especially in Liverpool having just played to a sell-out crowd at The Mardi Gras club a few months earlier on the 14th February I wasn't surprised by the phone call I was about to get from The Stone Roses' manager Gareth Evans. I very soon found out that Gareth not only managed The Stone Roses but also ran the Internationl club in Manchester as well as a record label. It turned out that Gareth had some major record companies interested in The Stone Roses but these companies wanted to see them play live outside of Manchester to prove they had a following elsewhere.
Somebody had informed Gareth that I ran a record label in Liverpool and that I also had a band with a following that had very recently managed to fill the Mardi Gras club. Gareth's suggestion was that Innervision should do a gig with The Stone Roses at The Mardi Gras club as this would be beneficial to both bands with major record companies in attendance. The suggestion was to pool resources and that the gig on the 11th August was to be followed by a return gig with The Stone Roses at the International the following month on the 22nd September. In the days running up to the gig I managed to rearrange the posters from our Feb 14th Mardi Gig in to A4 flyers and A3 posters to include The Stone Roses and then set about plastering the whole of Liverpool city centre and beyond with them. My girlfriend at the time worked at the university publishers and would help with typesetting and printing in her lunch breaks...'' ''...So with about three days to go before the gig I was a little surprised to say the least when what appeared at least to me to be the biggest poster I had ever seen with our band name on it all over the city. That surprise quickly turned to anger when I noticed that The Stone Roses were in massive letters on the poster with the words 'support from Innervision' in much smaller letters’ underneath. After some ranting down the phone, I was told it was really a double headline show but it had to appear that The Stone Roses were the bigger band (work that one out). In return for going with this I was told Innervision would be the headline at the International club in Manchester the following month with The Stone Roses - a gig that was heavily advertised at the time but we refused to do unless we were paid first. We weren't paid and we didn't play. This subsequently meant we did no more dates with The Stone Roses. As always, I tried to make sure the entire band was together at the venue as early as possible for the soundcheck and that we were sounding as tight as possible given whatever the PA and club arrangements were...'' ''... I'd been there since about 5pm, having had extra involvement in the organisation of the gig and was again surprised to find a bigger PA system and sound engineer already on site which I can only assume had been organised by The Stone Roses manager Gareth Evans. Given the chaos that followed in subsequent years with the band it now seems even more amazing to be told on arrival that The Stone Roses had done their soundcheck and left for something to eat. They definitely seemed organised and well prepared for the gig. If I'm being perfectly honest, I didn't know too much about the band back in 86 apart from the fact they were getting some good write ups in the music press and causing a bit of a stir especially in and around Manchester. There was certainly no hint of how big things were going to go for them in the next few years. Of course, there will always be someone who says they followed them from the start and knew they were going to be the biggest band in the world but I was there chatting with them, sharing the stage with them and I knew hardly anything about them. You just don't know who is going to be a massive success tomorrow but there I was standing near the staircase in the Mardi Gras club checking sound levels when Ian Brown knocks me on the shoulder and says thanks for doing the gig Ken. No arrogance, no funny business, just genuinely friendly. The rest of The Stone Roses were all stood together near the top of the club stairs in solidarity which again seems nothing like what was to follow but that is how it was. At this point having shook Ian's hand and realised they had watched the end of our sound check I didn't care who went on stage first. I just had a feeling it was going to be a good night and a good gig. Ian said they were leaving to meet somebody and would be back in time to catch our set and they left. The ice was well and truly broken. I think we went on stage around about 9 to 9.30pm with maybe around about 100 fans at the venue and nowhere near the packed club we'd had for our gig a few months earlier in February. This was due in part to it being a week day, having to find new members quite quickly and only having a month to drum up support for the gig but I'd say 80% of the crowd were people we knew or who had supported us previously. A few songs into our set it was noticeable towards the back of the crowd that another 15 or 20 people had just come in to the venue having just arrived by mini bus from Manchester. They were already a bit worse for wear and very noisy but it definitely added to the atmosphere in a positive way and helped liven up the already assembled crowd to get behind us more. With just 4 songs left of our set and still no sign of The Stone Roses I thanked people for turning out for the gig and introduced our song Reincarnation before seeing Ian Brown and the rest of The Stone Roses arrive at the back of the club. They shook hands with a few of their friends who had arrived with the late party, some of whom I am now reliably informed were members of The Happy Mondays although I didn't know that at the time. We finished our set to good applause and shouts for an encore. We were about to do two more songs including a new one when someone from the club said we could only do one more song or we'd be cutting down the amount of time The Stone Roses had on stage so this was to be our last song. We came off to great applause eventually reaching the back of the club where Ian Brown greeted me with a "good gig mate" even though I knew the band had only been back in the club for the last 4 songs and the encore but I appreciated the fact they had seen a portion of what we were about which was far different musically to The Stone Roses with lots more electronics.''
''The Stone Roses arrive on stage. At this point I'd had all my chats and given thanks to friends who came out to support us that night. I decided to settle down at the side of the stage where our equipment had now been moved to and see what this band The Stone Roses were all about while finishing off our free cans of lager from the club. I had just said my goodbyes to photographer and good friend Ian Stading (who would later join the band and take photos for my album covers) who had managed to take quite a few photos of us on stage with all of The Stone Roses equipment around us notably Alan "Reni" Wren s drums. He would take lots of extra pictures of anything and everything just in case it was that special photo but that night he left without taking any photos of The Stone Roses on stage. A mistake he probably doesn't want reminding of. I'm just glad to this day that many of my friends witnessed that gig, that I kept some of the posters and flyers and that Ian documented my band on stage with all of The Stone Roses equipment and Reni's drums. The rest of the night is remembered in snippets as my free drinks were now well and truly kicking in. I remember sitting on the side of the stage thinking how good the guitarist was, how loud they were and how much use they were making of the PA that night (probably far too big for the venue). I remember just how confident they were and how cool they acted. This band meant business. I looked down and Ian Brown was wriggling on the floor with the microphone over his head and then it happened. I'd not seen this band before and I felt for him when he opened his mouth and hit that first note as flat as a pancake. I thought we've all been there before and hit a duff note at the wrong time. He'd been OK with me and I'd just shared the stage with him and I wanted him to get back in tune but alas it didn't happen. The important thing was that the band worked as a unit and the sound and vocals worked as a unit. There was no denying that the band had something special and that Ian Brown as a front man had something very special that went way beyond just vocals. I left shortly before the end of the club's cut off point for music and what must have been a few songs short of the end of their set. The club was now half empty with many of my friends and our band's fans having left. Our gear and equipment was in the van and I was being offered a lift home so reluctantly I decided to go with the intention of phoning Gareth Evans the next day to ask about our gig at The International the following month with The Stone Roses.''
August 1986 - Barrow, Barrow In Furness
1986 - Reni injures his hand
Reni put his fist through a pane of glass in a door at his parentss house and he still has the scar. He couldn’t hold a drumstick, so he made the band tape one to his hand so he could play.
1986 - Spirit Studios, Tariff Street, Manchester
Sally Cinnamon / All Across The Sand
Apparently the debut 'Sally Cinnamon' single pressing includes All Across The Sand and Sally Cinnamon from this session but its believed that those tracks were recorded at Yacht Club Studios in Bredbury, see below.
Here It Comes was incorrectly credited to be recorded at Cottage Studios during the single mixing sessions.
1986 - Yacht Club Studios, Bredbury, Stockport
Sally Cinnamon / All Across The Sand / The Hardest Thing In The World
Only The Hardest Thing In The World has been leaked from the session. I believe these are the '8-track Demos' which are referred too on the 1988 - Ian Brown Demo Mix Tape.
Sally Cinnamon and All Across The Sand would appear on the 1989 re-issue. Sally Cinnamon would later be referred to as the 7inch mix.
Tim Vigon, Made Of Paper Fanzine, claimed to own demos.
1986 - Yacht Club Studios, Bredbury, Stockport
Here Again / Sally Cinnamon / The Hardest Thing In The World / This Is The One
Here Again, the existence of this song (and session) is only known through the biography "Breaking into Heaven" by Mick Middles. Apparently it was one of four songs that was recorded there over a three day recording session. Just prior to these recordings Reni had smashed up one of his hands, which was in a sling, yet he still managed to drum on the demos.
22 September 1986 Monday - International 1, 47 Anson Road, Manchester, M14 *Cancelled*
Ken Kelly, 3rd July 2012, said: ''This is the gig we refused to do after a financial disagreement with the Stone Roses manager. Notably we had been given another Monday night just as we had done for The Stone Roses gig in Liverpool and always a difficult night to get people to attend following the weekend...'' ''The next few days passed and it was clear that I was either only managing to phone Gareth Evans when he was out of his office or he didn't want to speak to me. Eventually Gareth sent me some details of our gig at the International Manchester on the 22nd September 1986. True to his word we were the headline and we had a support band but no mention of The Stone Roses playing the gig with us this time. He told us The Stone Roses were playing a different venue in Manchester now but in October or November as they had become much bigger. What, in a month?" I said. "Precisely", he said and that is why you'll only be getting petrol money and expenses for your gig. We won't do it I told him and furthermore I wanted payment in full up front before the gig or we wouldn't turn up. He laughed and told me that we would turn up because it's a prestige gig and it's good for your band. We didn't turn up, he shouted down the phone hours before the gig and that was the end of our involvement with Gareth Evans, The Stone Roses and The International club in Manchester.''
16 November 1986 - Mani's 24th birthday
18 November 1986 - The Stone Roses sign a parental guardianship contract with Gareth Evans: When the contract was initally offered Andy Couzens refused to sign.
The agreement was signed on the 18 November 1986. Gareth Evan's company title was Starscreen Ltd. The company would absorb several of the roses assests in the future and would feature on nearly all the roses contractual performance agreements.
The contract's address was noted as: 47 Ansons Rd. Rusholme.
Details included 33.333% for Gareth & his business partner in gross earnings for the next ten years, before expenses are paid to the band.
From Blood On The Turntable BBC TV Documentary, Andy Couzens said:
He's a salesman, a rather nasty cheap salesman. We'd been blacklisted by City Life, factory...we couldn't get a gig anywhere...Tony Wilson hated us, he actively tried to stop us doing anything, every corner we turned we felt like he was there shutting the door y'know? We wanted nothing to do with at all.
From May 1990 - Sky Magazine, Jon Wilde article: Mick Middles Said:
“He would pester me to write about them all the time,” Middles recalls. “One night he turned up at my flat at ten o’clock in the evening. All the lads piled out of his jeep and into my living room expecting me to interview them. My girlfriend was sitting there washing her hair. I couldn’t get rid of them. I had to throw them out after midnight. Gareth was saying, ‘No one wants to know about us, we’re not going anywhere’. The group were just sitting there in their paisley shirts, their mouths wide open, not saying a word.”
1986 - Home Recordings, Manchester
She Bangs The Drums / Waterfall
Ian and John acoustic recordings. As part of the new song writing partnership. Ian and John would go round to each other’s homes and work on material together. They would come up with melodies, chord progression and song structure too.
Waterfall's melody was heavily influenced by the song "April Come She Will" by Simon and Garfunkel.
From Debris Magazine 1988 Interview:
Who writes the songs?
Ian; “We both do it, at the same time, with an acoustic guitar. And we both think up the vocal tune."
1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed
RC: There was no record for two years. What happened during the interim?
IB: We sacked Howard Jones and decided we needed to write some tunes. We had energy but we didn’t have the melodies. So we concentrated on learning how to write and shape them. We’d worked out our earlier songs in rehearsals, then I’d come up with the words. This time, me and John would sit down with an acoustic guitar, write a song and then apply a rhythm to it. So we made it more musical.
From February 1998 - Uncut magazine Ian Brown interview:
Was the band’s sound evolving? “Yeah. At first, we had lyrics and choruses, but they weren’t proper songs. Then about ’86 or ’87, me and John started working closer together. We’d write a song on an acoustic guitar and then take it into the rehearsal room, whereas before we’d just all throw out what we had. I was listening to Prince Far I, loads of black music. There was this tune called ‘War on the Bullshit’ by Osiris, which I used to play all the time, along with The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Hendrix and Love’s Forever Changes. John used to buy Mary Chain and Primal Scream records, but we didn’t. Andy Couzens went and now we were starting to shape songs.
She Bangs The Drums, this version included all Ian Brown's lyrics. As the song was developed, the verses were based on Ian's lyrics whilst John was responsible for the chorus. The acoustic version here sounds like John is singing.
Waterfall was primarily a John Squire composition although Ian did contribute to the lyrics, as the song progressed.
1986 - Home Recordings, Manchester
By My Side
Ian and John acoustic recordings. Authenticity of this recording remains unconfirmed too. The recording sounds too clean for the home recording equipment the band had access too at the time, track plays through and then again in reverse too.
1998 - Record Collector, December 1997 - Hotel, Park Lane, John Reed
Me (Ian) and John went to Italy once just to write and we slept rough – we took an acoustic guitar and sleeping bags. We came back with three or four tunes. Wow, this is great. Well, no, they’re like the Beatles!
24 November 1986 - John Squire's 24th birthday
1986 - Gareth Evans contacts FM Revolver Records
Gareth got confused with FM Revolver and the indie label 'Revolver' based in Brighton.
David Roberts was writing for Sounds Magazine. He got to know Paul Birch who ran Heavy Metal Records by reviewing some of the releases. Paul hired Dave as the A&R Director for the record label, who later became FM Revolver.
Gareth Evans knew Dave Roberts as he was a regular to the International clubs, reviewing several bands. Gareth put him on the guest lists for the bands he was reviewing, Dave met the Roses and was handed a demo tape.
Dave informed Paul about the band and they formed label spin off 'Black'.
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Interview with Dave Roberts
A&R at FM Revolver / Heavy Metal Records:
I lived in Macclesfield. I went to the University of Manchester. I was writing for Sounds. I got to know Paul Birch [the boss] at Heavy Metal Records, before it became FM Revolver. I’d reviewed some of his records and he said, Do you want an A&R job part-time and listen to this sack full of demo tapes. I was doing that a couple, of days a week and I ended working there full-time. During that time, I was still doing lots of reviews in Manchester and I got to know Gareth at the International. He would put me on the guest list for different bands I had to review. Then when I was doing FM Revolver, he rang one day and said, I’m managing this amazing band, The Stone Roses, they’re selling out the International, big following here and then he was asking about the label and distribution. I think somewhere in there he got us confused with Revolver which was based in Bristol, which was part of that whole Rough Trade / Cartel distribution network; a network of independent distributors/labels. I think he got me confused with that. Anyway, I went to see the Roses and met them a couple of times and heard some demos, including Sally Cinnamon, which was amazing. I went to Paul [Birch] and said we should be branching out into different types of music. We set up this label identity, Black, and I went to Red Rhino [part of the Rough Trade / Cartel network] to do distribution via them because the Heavy Metal Records’ stuff went through a major distributor and it didn’t feel right the Roses stuff should be on there...
December 1986 - The Stone Roses sign a deal with FM Revolver Records
The Stone Roses signed to FM Revolver in December 1986, joining the label’s freshly minted Black Records imprint—a move that felt less like a major-label coronation and more like a polite indie handshake with big dreams behind it. Still, it proved a quietly pivotal moment. The partnership led to the release of Sally Cinnamon, the sparkling early single that hinted at the sonic swagger soon to come. And while the relationship between band and label would later sour faster than a forgotten pint, this short-lived alliance marked the moment The Stone Roses began their ascent from local cult favourites to one of Britain’s most influential guitar bands.
From Blood On The Turntable BBC TV Documentary, Gareth Evans said:
I couldn't get them in the office. John Squire walked in and made an excuse to leave the office and he was outside on the lawn in hysterics, I think Paul Birch had a hairnet on with leopard skin trousers on that day, but Ian Brown knew they needed a single.
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Interview with Dave Roberts - A&R at FM Revolver. In the contract there was an option to record an album as well. I can’t remember what the budget was but we had to pay a certain amount to pick up the option to go and record a first album...Was the contract with FM revolver for two singles and an album? Did you start to record a second single after Sally? It might have been two singles and an album… it’s bringing back a vague memory that we did pencil in some studio time for another single and I hate to say it but I think Paul didn’t want to pay for it. He was umming and arring about whether he wanted to pay... and the band wanted a bit more money and I think at that point, contractually, there was supposed to be an small advance of something and I think it would have started to cost Paul money, whereas the first one, it wasn’t too difficult to get the remixing done at the Cottage and get the single out… when it came to paying for proper studio time…and I think Gareth wanted a PA for them to rehearse with - there was something that was going to cost money and I’d had to go back to Paul to say, We can do this session but it’s gonna cost this and it’s gonna cost £500 or whatever, either an advance or something toward this PA or equipment… and at that point Paul started umming and arring. No-one cared about the first single he was not sure he wanted to spend £1,000 or whatever it was going to cost on doing another one. I think that’s wrong about us booking the studio and the band not turning up. I don’t think there was commitment on either side. Maybe Gareth subtly was trying to get out of it [the contract], because maybe he was getting interest elsewhere, so it wouldn’t have been in his interest to push us either if he thought he could get a better deal elsewhere.
12 December 1986 - The Basement, Stockton Road, Chorlton, Manchester
(Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister / Going Down / The Sun Still Shines / Elephant Stone
The master reel was sold at auction on 21 / 22 February 2014 at Omega Auctions, Stockport and sold for £3000. Recorded on AMPEX Precision Magnetic Tape, house ina white box with blue ampex writing with handwritten 'STONE ROSES (recorded at Stockton Rd) sugar spun sister going down sun still shines elephant stone'
Elephant Stone is a short but sweet arrangement with different lyrics to the one we all know.
The Sun Still Shines is a wide stereo mix and still remains unreleased today, their best unreleased song. There is also a remix where the stereo isn't as wide, it has been folded down from the same wide stereo source which is widely available on various bootlegs.
Going Down is a stripped back acoustic, unplugged arrangement complete with xylophone. (Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister includes additional Reni backing vocals and some alternate lyrics too.
From John Robb's book 'The Stone Roses - Reunion Edition':
Manchester radio DJ Alison Bell lived in the flat above the demo space. 'l lived in a rented room in a house on Stockton Road, Chorlton. The landlord, Russ, was in a band called Playing At Trains. Russ was friends with the woman who ran a shop called Magic Balloons at the end of the road [where Stockton Road met Beech Road]. It was a kind of fancy dress hire shop/party shop etc. Reni used to work for her from time to time and that's how Russ knew him, I think. 'Russ had a 16-track recording studio in the cellar/basement — the room below mine. The Roses recorded a demo there in about 1986. It had "Elephant Stone", "Going Down", "Sugar Spun Sister" and an un- released track called "Sun Still Shines". At least creatively 1986 was ending on a high note!''.
12 December 1986 - Chorlton, Manchester
Where Angels Play / Bye Bye Badman
John & Ian acoustic 4 track demo recording. The recording has also been credited to 'June 1988 - Coconut Grove Studios, Stockport'. The recording appeared on The Stone Roses 2009 Remastered Deluxe Demos Disc.
December 1986 - Chorlton, Manchester
Sally Cinnamon / All Across The Sand
Dates taken from Bootleg source. Sally Cinnamon & All Across The Sand are noted as monitor mixes. The original Sally Cinnamon single pressing used a unique recording of All Across The Sand and the longer version of Sally Cinnamon.
The versions recorded here were the ones that appeared on the 1989 single, 1995 Complete Stone Roses etc. Sally Cinnamon is often noted as the '7inch Mix' despite the initial release being a 12inch only press. The 7inch Mix is in fact the demo version of the song, All Across The Sand found on CD and all subsequent pressings is also a demo version. The original version only appears on the debut pressing of Sally Cinnamon. Here It Comes is also referred to as a demo version, it was recorded during the same session as the All Across The Sand CD B-Side.
From Simon Spence War & Peace Unedited Interview with Dave Roberts - A&R at FM Revolverr. We took those demos, which were 8-track demos and, because we didn’t really have budgets to go recording stuff and I thought they were great in their own right, we took them to a producer/engineer I knew who had a little studio in Macclesfield called The Cottage...In that Sally Cinnamon period… They had great songs and the chemistry between them was amazing. Reni’s a great drummer and brought something special to it, John’s a great guitarist and Ian’s melodies –the song writing was just amazing. Those song I was listening to in demos and in rehearsals subsequently became the bulk of the first album… the first album was still that indie jangly guitar thing, they just wrote better songs than anybody else, then it was the whole attitude thing, then it was the whole Madchester thing, then Fools Gold came subsequently.