1994 - John Squire continues creating art:
'Love Spreads' - Featuring a gothic cherub atop a heraldic shield, a detail from the Newport-Monmouth road bridge.
1994 - Dodgy crown Ian Brown King Monkey
The Guardian run a story about Ian Brown referring to himself as King Monkey, as Dodgy are asked about any Stone Roses stories by the newspaper. The Guardian ran the story.
Apparently Ian would not talk to anyone unless address as King Monkey. Dodgy were also recording at Rockfield, the same time as the Roses. They also told The Guardian Newspaper they were rehearsing a 20-minute version of That’s The Way (I Like It).
From 2000 - VH1's The Wire -FOOL'S GOLD: IAN BROWN by Alison Tarnofsky: Why are you called the King Monkey? Your first album was called Unfinished Monkey Business, and there is a song on the new album called "Dolphin's Are Monkey's." Is this all just a coincidence?
IB: It comes from when the Roses were in the studio for three years, and the press wanted some stories but they couldn't get any. There was a band next door called Dodgy, they phoned them up and Dodgy said as a joke, "Oh, Ian Brown, he won't speak to you unless you call him King Monkey!" as a joke. They believed it and it was pretty funny because it's quite seen as an intellectual paper, The Guardian. So for them to believe his story and then write it, and it just stuck, so they call me King Monkey. Unfinished Business, because the Roses finished.
From March 2000 - Jockey Slut Magazine includes a Ian Brown Q&A Session: Why the monkey business? Phil Pemberton, Sheffield
IB: "They used to call me simian and I didn't know what that meant. I looked in the dictionary and it said it meant "monkey-like", which I thought was pretty offensive at the time. When the Roses were in the studio in the drummer from Dodgy who were in the studio next door to us, was interviewed by someone who asked him if he had any good Roses stories. He said: 'Ian Brown will only be addressed as King Monkey', and they believed him and wrote it. I just kept it up, the monkey business."
05 January 1994 - Ian meets Oasis
Liam and Noel Gallagher, who are recording their debut LP at nearby Mono Valley, bump into Ian Brown at WH Smith's. Ian tells them he heard them on the 04 January 1994 - Evening Session, BBC Radio 1 (Recorded December 1993) the night before. Ian praises the band, especially Cigarettes & Alcohol.
"Youse are them guys out of fucking Oasis, aren't you? I fucking heard you on the Evening Session Last night.. 'Cigarettes And Alcohol' ... fucking 'ell man, it's about time."
January 1994 - The band travel to New York to begin the first of several discussions with Peter Leake, hopeful manager for the band.
A contract is never produced and proposals are dropped in June. Peter Leake (manager of Natalie Merchant, The Cowboy Junkies & The Waterboys) never manages the band.
1994 - Second Coming Demo Tape
Breaking Into Heaven / Drivin South / Tightrope / Ten Storey Love Song / Day Break / Untitled / Untitled
Good Times (Let It Roll) / Untitled / Angel Of Bedlum / Untitled / Untitled Track / Begging You / Untitled / Love Spreads
Titles taken from a photograph of a C-90 cassette tape from the second album recording sessions. Featuring various rehearsals, demos and more.
From 01 March 1995 -'The Face Magazine' Issue 78, March 95: John talks about the writing of the album: “Well, Ian and I had this spell of going away to write together and invariably we ended up avoiding work. But we realised we needed songs, the agenda had speeded up and it wasn’t just a question any more of doing it when we felt like it,
Then I went off on my own to write, and really it all started to flow from there. These songs are certainly more introspective because I wrote alone a lot.” And finally, in a roundabout way, we manage to do something John says he feels intensely uncomfortable doing.
We talk about John Squire. About his state of mind, his state of circumstance, his state of grace. In particular we discuss some of the “raw nerves” he hinted had been addressed on the album when he spoke to The Big Issue. While John is still cagey about putting too much on the record, the current personal dilemas he faces do seem to be documented fairly clearly on “The Second Coming”.
From Autumn 2001 - Mojo Collections Magazine Number 4 'David Bowie' - War Of The Roses article by John Harris... “Daybreak was recorded totally live,” says Mani. “Me and John went in and did Straight To The Man [the one solo Brown composition] in about two takes for lan. And I remember recording Good Times: we went out and watched this meteor shower, and then went in and recorded it.
We threw it down live; you can hear it speeding up as we get more excited. It was one of those.”...“We’d go off on a tangent,” says Simon Dawson, “down another route, and go, ‘OK. That’s cool. Now let’s get back to where we were’ [laughs].
Some of that stuff ended up as B-sides. And Reni, especially, would go right out there — kind of in a club direction, which wasn’t really right for that album. That stuff all got put on to DAT, and when we finished the album Ian took all those tapes away in this pillowcase.”
From 01 February 2009 Sunday - The Guardian, Ian Brown article by Luke Bainbridge: Mani [bass player, now with Primal Scream] is the most United crazy lad I've met. In 1994, when we were recording Second Coming, Mani was saying, "We're goin' to have a great year next year. We're going to win the league and we're going to go to America." That's how he graded his life [laughs].
“There’s been a lot reported in the press about John and his cocaine habit,” says Dawson .. “And you know, I never saw him take cocaine, ever. And I was with them for 14 months. He was taking cocaine, he’s said so himself but I never saw anyone taking it.
“There was a problem with Ian and the amount of smoke he was doing. That was difficult to cope with. It was difficult to under stand what he was saying. And when he was very stoned, it was very difficult to understand what he was saying.
And sometimes … there was stuff happening that was a bit odd. Like when he shaved his head, and Reni did the same thing to try and hold it all together.”
Brown later admitted as much: “I smoked too much. It just turned my head to mush. If you smoke all day and night you just get hyper-critical and you never get to the end of anything.”
February 1994 - Doug Goldstein takes over management of The Stone Roses
Geffen appointed Doug Goldstein as the bands manager, he managed the band between 1994 and 1995.
The band met, with Guns 'N' Roses manager, Doug in Manchester. Former Led Zeppelin manager, Peter Grant, was offered the publicity and affairs job too, he declined.
John said: “If we want to make it in America we have to pay an American manager,”. The decision led to another bust between the band. Apparently Squire wanted to replace Mani during the sessions due to his lack of input, even though John was taking complete control of the record.
February 1994 - Mani steals a tractor and robs Oasis's stash.
At 3am the band had smoked all their weed. “Mani” stole a farm tractor and set off across the fields to Monnow Valley studio, a few miles away, where Oasis were working on their debut LP.
Mani broke in and lifted their stash driving back on his “borrowed” John Deere. “And that story just sums him up," says Clint Boon, “Mani is the best example ever of the working class ruffian everyone adores. You’ll never meet anyone else quite like him. He is a truly great human being, and a fantastic musician.”
February 1994 Authors notes
While The Stone Roses were deep into recording their long-awaited second album Second Coming, they hit an unexpected creative roadblock: they’d run out of cannabis. Just a few miles away, Oasis were busy laying down tracks for their debut, Definitely Maybe, at Monnow Valley Studio—unknowingly sitting on the solution to the Roses’ very specific problem.
Enter Mani, The Stone Roses’ bassist, who at the time was enjoying the less-than-subtle effects of a mushroom trip. Rather than let geography or common sense stand in his way, Mani devised a plan. He hot-wired a farm tractor, pointed it across the fields, and set off into the night like a psychedelic John Deere bandit.
When Mani arrived at the Oasis residence, the band were fast asleep, dreaming rock ’n’ roll dreams. That is, until Oasis bassist Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan woke up to find Mani leaning over his bed, reaching for what Guigsy later described as a “big nugget of hashish” sitting casually on his bedside table.
Liam Gallagher, never one to undersell a moment, later summed it up perfectly:
“Mani stole the tractor and came to our house. We were in bed at midnight, drunk like pigs, and Mani was coming to try to steal our weed.”
Britpop history, ladies and gentlemen—powered by tractors, mushrooms, and extremely casual drug security.
February 1994 - Driving South Sessions, Rockfield Studios, Wales Overdub sessions for the LP.
February 1994 - Paul Schroeder quits as producer.
The band were taking so long he, reluctantly, left due to a prior commitment to producing his sister's band.
From NME Magazine 19 February 1994:
''THE STONE ROSES 'Long-awaited album ‘The Second Coming‘ looks likely to be delayed yet agaln. The LP, currently scheduled for a May 9 release with the single ‘Love Spread‘ due to precede it is not expected to be ready in time.
The release date is now likely to be later in the summer.'' ''Sources close to the band suggest that only four songs are near completion, but that none of Ian Brown's vocals have been added to the backing tracks.''
From NME Magazine 02 April 1994 ''The Stone Roses second album looks likely to be delayed even further, following news that the band have parted company with their second producer, Paul Schroeder. Schroeder returned to London earlier this month to take ‘time out‘ from recording sessions with the band at Rockfield Studios in south Wales.
According to sources close to the band, however, Ian Brown and co have promoted engineer Simon Dawson to the production chair, making him the third producer to take charge of the group's follow-up to their acclaimed 1989 debut. John Leckie, who produced the debut album, parted company with the band during the Rockfield sessions last year, after which Schroeder stepped in.
A spokesperson for the band's record company Geffen declined to comment on Schroeder's departure, apart from confirming that the album is not actually scheduled for release on any specific date. Next month is the fifth anniversary of the release of ‘The Stone Roses‘.''
From April 1995 - The Guitar Mag Feature:
Paul Schroeder came and rescued the sessions after Leckie's departure with a sterling stint at the controls, the results of which form the backbone of Second Coming: Breaking Into Heaven, Driving South and the careering bar-house guitar boogie of Good Times all have the Schroeder stamp.
Due to a prior commitment to producing his sister's band, however, he reluctantly had to leave. "He'd have been an arsehole not to go," says Brown. "Family commitments are important."
20 February 1994 - Ian Brown's 31st birthday
From March 1998 - The Band (gigging, recording, making it) Magazine, Ian said: Reni gave me a guitar in 1995, he came shouting into my room one day going 'John don't wanna work with me, he don't wanna work with you so here's a guitar. One day you'll thank me for it'. A year later, I picked it up and started to learn....
From April 1995 - The Guitar Mag Feature:
Reni bought Ian a guitar for his birthday and he is apparently a good strummer himself these days: "I've got about 20 songs finished, just observations and that. I try and write stuff that's not specific so that people can try and work out their own meanings."
From 06 June 1998 - Melody Maker Magazine:
"Yeah, he bought me an acoustic guitar because he was pissed off that I was pissed off that John wanted to do everything on his own. He just walked in one day, handed me this guitar and goes, Fucking 'ave him - one day you'll thank me for it'.
23 February 1994 - The Stone Roses Japanese Re-release Date
February 1994 - Ian Brown goes to TJ's, Newport to see Novocaine supporting Dub War.
March 1994 - Simon Dawson steps up as producer.
Breaking Into Heaven (Intro) / Ten Storey Love Song (Partial) / How Do You Sleep (Partial)
From May 1995 - SOS Sound On Sound website, Article By Matt Bell: At this point, Simon took over as producer, a move he stresses caused few problems. Although the band had been working with John Leckie in different studios, only a few parts of what he had recorded were kept — notably the long intro to the first track, 'Breaking Into Heaven', and the preliminary drum tracks to 'Ten Storey Love Song' and 'How Do You Sleep'.
I first asked Simon if he had encountered any problems blending the feel of this older material with the tracks he was laying down: "No, that wasn't a problem at all. In terms of feel, the way the guys had been recording was very live, and that's where I was coming from, so that wasn't difficult. Technically, yeah, it was a bit of a feat getting the crossover at the mixing stage between the intro of 'Breaking Into Heaven' and the actual song — just getting it to sit."
As far as the material Paul Schroeder had recorded was concerned, the problems were less acute. Some of what had been recorded was scrapped and re‑recorded, and the material which was reused had been recorded originally at Rockfield anyway, so there were fewer technical differences to match up. And, as Simon explains: "Over the time I was engineering for Paul, I think the guys came to respect my opinions. So, when he left, it seemed like the natural thing to take over"..."On 'Breaking Into Heaven', the song was going to be faded out at the end, but during one of the takes, instead of finishing the song, the band suddenly dropped down into this brilliant groove right at the end. I think it's probably the best eight bars on the album.
That just had to go on. It was such a great groove that I took that eight bars and edited it in at the front of the song as well. That's how the main part of the song starts now — the vocal used to come in straight away, but now you get that great eight bars first."...The Neve played a vital part in the sound, mixing and construction of the album, as Simon explained at length.
"I'm definitely a Neve man, having done most of my work at Rockfield — they're really warm desks, and I know them really well." "The Recall facility on the Neve was really useful for storing settings. For example, the EQ on some of the rhythm loops we used was really important. Over a long period of time, you might forget what you were after when you first set the EQ — so being able to instantly recall the settings helped to establish continuity in the mix.
The reason I used the computer the whole time — and in fact, the main reason we went 48‑track on a lot of the material — was to build up the album. I didn't like to lose anything, any of the vocals or guitar. A lot of people compile guitar tracks from lots of different takes, and wipe out what they don't use, but we archived more or less everything.
I'd do mixes on the computer using mutes and faders, and then if at any later stage John [Squire] said "oh, I remember doing something great with feedback there", I had the freedom to come back to it. We could play about with takes and decide which ones to use later." I asked Simon whether the album had been recorded to analogue or digital: "I'm an analogue man, because that's my experience, and digital machines are still extremely expensive."
March 1994 - Simon Dawson steps up as producer, TV Lounge, Rockfield Studios, Rockfield, Monmouthshire, Wales, NP25 Tightrope
The current project's, in-house Rockfield engineer, 33 year old Simon Dawson, steps up to produce the record. The recordings continue at Rockfield.
From April 1995 - The Guitar Mag Feature:
It doesn't end here. Given that the recording sources were so disparate (ranging from a 16-track Fostex machine to a full-blown 48-track setup), given that some tracks were recorded with the full benefit of state-of-the-art studio technology while others were little more than fleshed-out demos (Tightrope, recorded in the Rockfield TV lounge using just a stereo Neumann, being the obvious example) there is a surprising uniformity to the mix on Second Coming and the album has a distinct 'sonic character'.
This, Squire claims, is down to Bill Price - most famously, the man who mixed the Sex Pistols' Never Mind The Bollocks. Price provided a completely fresh set of ears and was able to sort the many layers of guitars which Squire had recorded, erased and re-recorded into some sort of order.
"I loved Bill's work," says Squire. "With Begging You he was begging us - forgive me! - to let him re-do it another way. He really struggled with it for the album and still thinks he can get even more out of it.
I'd like him to do a triple-length version and stick it out as a single actually."..."My favourite track on the album at the moment is 'Tightrope'," reveals Squire. "That was an acoustic jam made in the TV lounge of the place where we were staying. The vocals are Ian, Reni and me and it was like, 'Okay, have we got it all worked out? Yes? Okay, let's roll it right now!' It's first take with some bass and drum overdubs,
I really enjoyed the simplicity of that track, maybe that's why I like it so much compared to the rest - it was the least painful to make."
From May 1995 - SOS Sound On Sound website, Article By Matt Bell: Simon Dawson said: One song, 'Tightrope', was jammed almost entirely around one mic, allowing for no mistakes to be made while recording....
'TIGHTROPE' "This was done all around one mic. The band did try an electric version when they were still recording with John Leckie, which actually works pretty well too, but they wanted a more laid‑back kind of vibe to it. For me, the finished version conjures up a picture of a guy sitting in a flat or something with some coffee, picking at his guitar, and then somebody picking up some bongos and joining in. You can hear things dropping on the floor, and the singing's a bit out of tune, but it's a great song."
You can hear the producer giving instructions in the background.
John Leckie, Paul Schroeder or Simon Dawson? Leaked Mid 2003 again from a Mani tape. Apparently Mani gave copies away to close friends and some fans too.
March 1994 - The Stone Roses feature on the cover of VOX Magazine, March 1994
1994 - Unconfirmed Location, Studios, Ian Brown & John Squire Session - Your Star Will Shine.
Ian & John run through You Star Will Shine a few times. On the complete tape you can hear Ian and John talking in-between attempts too. John even sings a few lines to show Ian the melody. John uses Nashville tuning for Your Star Will Shine. The song was written during the recording sessions.
From May 1995 - SOS Sound On Sound website, Article By Matt Bell: Simon Dawson said: "This was written at Rockfield, by John. He demo'ed it in his bathroom with his Portastudio, so the acoustic had this very bright sound to it which we really liked. We tried to recreate that in the live room at Rockfield, using Nashville tuning on his acoustic, which sounds very bright, and added some chorus from a TC Electronic effects unit.
This was one of the ones we used a sample to keep in time on. The clap noise is a real clap — three guys clapping, heavily EQ'd. We sampled them into the TC and then triggered the best one so it's smack in time, just to create a bit of percussion. There's also a floor tom, which is supposed to sound like one of those Irish drums, a bodhran.
"At first, we were just going to use the version we recorded as a proper demo. Reni wanted to play percussion at the same time as John was playing guitar, so we put him in the corridor. They came in and listened to it, and really liked it. I thought, 'we can't go with that', as it speeds up a little at the end of the intro. But they decided to go with that version, and we finished it really quickly, in three or four days."...
The band came to Rockfield with all but two of the numbers that made it onto the final LP already written ('Straight To The Man' and 'Your Star Will Shine' were written while there), and spent hours jamming the material in the studio, usually without click tracks, so that they could change tempo and feel at will.
Occasionally (for example, when recording 'Your Star Will Shine', and 'Driving South') they would jam to sampled percussion loops...."Putting keyboards on the record wasn't my idea. It was always just 'can you try this, Simon, give this a go' , which was great. I never felt like I was under any pressure, and it was really enjoyable to do.
We mainly used the piano in the studio, a Yamaha acoustic. That's what's on 'Love Spreads' and 'How Do You Sleep'. I used a Wurlitzer electric piano on Ian's song, 'Straight to the Man', and there's a bit of it played backwards at the start of 'Tears' , that was my idea, I think. John also had the idea of using a Hammond on the end of 'Daybreak', to try and create a sort of Doorsy kind of feel. It's all from the original keyboards — we didn't see a synth the whole time!"
1994 - Love Spreads Recording Sessions
Bassline, Drums, Guitar, Vocals, Piano & Guitar
Love Spreads Recording Sessions. John and Mani dropped their bottom strings to D for Love Spreads (which, according to Simon Dawson, also featured Squire's backup Les Paul)
Squire said that Reni had “the worst attendance record" during Second Coming.
Reni came up with a nickname for Squire, Ice Cold Cube. The nickname stuck with Ian and he even wrote a song about it, played at Reading Festival 1996 and eventually recorded and released on Ian's first solo LP 1998. The nickname refers to John's attitude towards the recording of the LP and his dictator like state towards the members in the band. At one point Squire wanted to sack and replace Mani, even though he was still grieving for his father who had died. Ice Cold...
From May 1995 - SOS Sound On Sound website, Article By Matt Bell: Simon Dawson said: The guitar sound on Second Coming is much harder than on the first LP, on tracks like 'Love Spreads' and 'Driving South' particularly, and there is more use of distortion. Asked about the overall sound of the album, Simon is quite forthcoming. "Sonically, the album is much bigger than the first album. The guys are quite into distortion — different kinds of distortion.
John, for example, likes digital distortion out of an Akai S1000. To most people, it sounds awful, but it's actually quite an interesting sound. Reni often likes the whole thing to sound distorted."...
John Squire , Guitar "The basic guitar sound is dead easy really. All you need is a '59 Les Paul guitar, a nice old Fender Twin amp that's been hot‑wired, and a Shure SM57 and Sennheiser 421 to mic up each speaker. You send it through a dbx160 compressor, and then straight into the desk. Oh, and you need someone who can play, of course!...
"We tried various setups, but that was the one that gave us the sound we were happiest with. I think if you've got a nice guitar, and you can play, it'll sound good! We didn't use any special tricks to get the sound like that, and we didn't really spend much time getting the sound right either. For most of the album, that's all it is. John's got some pedals as well, an old Echoplex, and an Electric Mistress. They were used quite a lot, but the basic sound was really simple. Nothing was added at the final mixdown , once it was recorded, that was it.
We also used an Orange amp and Orange cab for some of the more distorted sounds, the Hendrix‑type bits, and John also used a Pink Strat, but those were his two main guitars. All that's his backline gear, what he normally takes with him."...
From 01 March 1995 -'The Face Magazine' Issue 78, March 95: You’d go into the studio separately to record your parts.
Mani: Bullshit. Every track on the LP is played live.
Ian: The guitar, bass and drums are almost all live on every track. Everyone was there, man, and no one can get near the sound these three make now. I might never be able to sing like John Lennon, but these three play better than The Beatles now.
From April 1995 - The Guitar Mag Feature: Squire's main amps are Mesa/Boogies and Fender Twins. The Boogies were used for much of the first sessions with John Leckie; the Twins were more favoured when work commenced with Simon Dawson. Squire's favourite vintage Fender Twin is hotwired by a simple retro-fit kit the guitarist found in California. According to Dawson,
"It only costs about $50 and, I dunno, it bypasses something or other, and it makes it sound great!" (TGM understands it bypasses the roll-off filter, and provides a more direct line from the preamp gain stage to the power amp - Anorak Ed) Married to the '59 LP, this amp provided the main 'beef' for Second Coming. A new, but similar Fender Twin was occasionally involved for overdubs, as was a '60s Orange stack....
From P.D. McCauley Interview with Simon Dawson
"We wanted it to sound more live and real, and we tried throughout the making of the record to preserve as much of the band's live sound and feel as possible. You see, you very quickly realise with these guys that they love playing and jamming. I've never played keyboards professionally, but one of the first things that the band got me to do was jam along on the piano with them. It was really exciting for me". “We mainly used the piano in the studio, a Yamaha acoustic. That's what's on 'Love Spreads' and 'How Do You Sleep'.”
''We started from scratch again (Leckie & Schrodeder left), and just had the band play in the studio until Reni came up with something that sounded quite groovy with Mani. John detuned his guitar and came up with the riff that goes through the verse, which I thought was great. We worked from there.''
"The end was quite a problem for a while -- where it all breaks down and then builds back up again. I had the idea of building up a lot of backing vocals, lots of lines and harmonies, and it was difficult getting it all to sit. John had a guitar idea from one of the earlier versions which the band really liked, so he put that it in about three-quarters of the way through the build-up. But he wanted something similar to echo that at the start of the build-up. So that's how you got the piano coming in at the start of that build-up.
For quite a while, the ending sounded quite messy, but it all came together in the end."”
1994 - Ian Brown's Home, Lymm/Warrington
Redemption Song (Bob Marley cover)
Ian & Simon run through Redemption Song, Bob Marley cover version, a few times. Ian Brown plays acoustic guitar and sings whilst Simon Dawson plays the bass & tambourine.
According to 'The Cherub Album' bootleg notes, this was recorded Spring 1994 but I believe it to be later in 1994.
October 2004 Friday 00:00 - The Independent, Andy Gill Interview: "Reni [the Roses' drummer] bought me an acoustic guitar in 1994, and I got the Marley songbook and a blues songbook and started teaching myself. I used to work out the vocal melodies on a little Bontempi organ - that's why they all sound sort of hymn-like, because everything sounded like 'Fight the Good Fight' on this little Bontempi organ!...
April 1994 - Q Magazine announce the new LP title
'Second Coming'
10 April 1994 - Reni's 30th birthday
May 1994 - Gareth Evans issues a multi-million pound writ against the band.
See 15 March 1995 for the Gareth Evan's Court Case, the issue was eventually settled out of court. No sum was disclosed.
From NME Magazine 07 May 1994:
''THE STONE ROSES are faced with the prospect of another long stint in court next year following the issue of a multi-million pound writ by their former manager Gareth Evans.
The band and Evans parted company after their historic legal victory over the Silvertone label. Evans claims he is owed a considerable sum (rumoured to be in the region of £2 million) from several deals, including the band's current contract with Geffen.
A court date has been set for March 15, 1995. Both parties remain tight-lipped about the matter. The Roses are understood to be spending the fifth anniversary of the release of their first album putting the final touches to its eagerly awaited follow-up, ‘The Second Coming’. Meanwhile, Evans is currently contemplating a return to band management with new band The Ya Ya's.''
April 1994 - John goes on a cycling holiday to France
Unconfirmed Location, Simon Dawson Sessions, 1994
Untitled / 'Little Wren Overture'
According to 'The Cherub Album' bootleg notes.
Little Wren Overture are several recordings of Reni playing solo in the studio.
1994 - Second Coming Overdubs and Re-Recording Sessions
Daybreak / Tears / Good Times
From May 1995 - SOS Sound On Sound website, Article By Matt Bell: Simon Dawson said: Several of the final vocal and guitar parts used on the album are 'one‑take' run‑throughs, for example the vocal on 'Tears', the backing on 'Daybreak' ("that was done completely live, except the vocal, which we did afterwards") and the main guitar part on 'Good Times'. Indeed.
Simon sees 'Good Times' as an excellent example of what they were trying to achieve: "'Good Times' is very live. As I've said, the band don't usually play to clicks or anything, and 'Good Times' is a classic example of a song which speeds up all the way through, without it jarring on you. You never think "Oh, they're speeding up", the track just seems to grow naturally into that great guitar solo at the end".
The 'keep it live' philosophy was even followed to the extent that technically problematic takes could be used in the final mix if the performance was deemed worth it: "Sometimes Ian'd pick up a tambourine when he was singing, and that could cause problems.
You can hear it a bit on the beginning of 'Tears', because that was a one‑take vocal which had him with the tambourine and a harmonica all on one track. We happened to capture that one day and we thought it was quite good. There were places like that where we thought, 'oh, we should fix that bit' but for the sake of the performance, we went with what we had."...
1994 - Second Coming Overdubs and Re-Recording Sessions
Begging You
From May 1995 - SOS Sound On Sound website, Article By Matt Bell: Simon Dawson said:
"Other than that, there are a few different loops in there, old soul loops running backwards, slowed down -- so no-one can recognise them -- and there's also a backwards guitar riff, which John had to learn to play in reverse. We turned the tape over so it ran the opposite way, then John experimented over the backwards music until we found something that worked when we turned the tape back over. It became the main riff, and we decided to triple-track it, so John had to do it the same three times, which is quite hard to do over backwards music! There are also some jets in the middle of the song, which John Squire recorded at an air show with his DAT player holding his mic up in the air, and which we layered in."
From P.D. McCauley Interview with Simon Dawson, Regarding the initial Leckie & Schroeder Recordings: 'Begging You': "This was really the main one for sample loops. The loops were done before the group came to Rockfield, by a guy called Brian Pugsley, who structured the loops they had created. John had them on disk, and I think Brian just got them in the right place and at the right time, quite a lot of work,
I think. Brian also programmed a bass pulse, a sample of an oscillator generating a sine wave at a low frequency, which we ended up using in the verses of the song. Mani had come up with a bassline, but we liked the pulse. It was quite difficult though because the pulse was a straight sine wave from an oscillator, it had no harmonics, so we had quite a problem at the mix getting it so you could hear it. We were cutting from the bass to the pulse, and matching it up was quite tricky. You can hear it when you've got a really nice pair of speakers.
14 May 1994 - Second Coming Overdubs and Re-Recording Sessions
Tightrope / Tears / Daybreak / traight To The Man / Breaking Into Heaven
From: 31 July 2014 Thursday - Paul Schroeder Interview:
Were the finished songs on Second Coming always as 'meaty' or did they morph into that over the period of time between albums, or was it ultimately down a result of post production?. How do you think the finished article should have sounded? Post production.
PS: My recollection of the way it sounded was a lot more bluesy yet stripped down and funky. The record sounds how they wanted it to sound.
From Autumn 2001 - Mojo Collections Magazine Number 4 'David Bowie' - War Of The Roses article by John Harris...
Some of the strangeness affected the record: for Tears, the ornate rewrite of Stairway To Heaven that propels the album into the home straight, the group were forced to use a Brown guide vocal.
“I think Ian said to John, ‘You’d have to wake me up, put a gun against my head and walk me down to the vocal booth for me to sing that,'” says Mani. “He didn’t like the song, and we didn’t have a gun.”
From March 1995 - Q Magazine, Who the hell do The Stone Roses think they are? (March 1995) by Adrian Deevoy:
When Second Coming eventually, well, came, the $4million question (as far as Geffen were concerned, particularly) was, Is it any good?
Well, so-called rock overlords, is it any good?
"Yeah," laughs Brown quietly, "We think it's pretty good."
Describe it, as if to an alien.
"It's diverse, isn't it? All the bass, drums and main guitar chops were done at the same time. Only the vocals and lead guitar we overdubbed."...
From May 1995 - SOS Sound On Sound website, Article By Matt Bell: Simon Dawson said: The band came to Rockfield with all but two of the numbers that made it onto the final LP already written ('Straight To The Man' and 'Your Star Will Shine' were written while there), and spent hours jamming the material in the studio, usually without click tracks, so that they could change tempo and feel at will.
Occasionally (for example, when recording 'Your Star Will Shine', and 'Driving South') they would jam to sampled percussion loops. "Reni's great at drumming to loops, you never get any flamming or anything, because he sort of drums around them. He's got a nice, loose, groovy feel, and it always works really well".
In such cases, the band all used headphones to monitor the loop so they could stay in time. "We did try using PA wedges to monitor sounds, but they didn't work, we couldn't get them loud enough for the band without generating feedback, so we stuck to headphones."
The results of the lengthy jams were, of course, recorded, as Simon went on to explain: "The whole record started with them jamming live to DATs — in fact, Ian has got a pillowcase full of DATs from those sessions — because they like to capture anything they can get"...
What, then, was the strange pinging noise on Ian Brown's song 'Straight To The Man', if not a synth? The answer, it appeared, was a Jew's Harp.
"That was quite funny. It was just lying around in the control room the whole time, and I picked it up and started playing it in the control room. Ian went "oh, that sounds good , go in there and put it on. And that was that."
June 1994 - Peter Leake turns down managing the band
June 1994 - Tom Zutaut visits The Stone Roses at Rockfield Studios, Wales
Geffen label A&R man visits the band. Tom Zutaut, who had been instrumental in the career of Guns N’ Roses, encouraged Squire to continue overloading the album with guitars.
The Rockfield Studio bill was estimated to be over £2 million. The band did not sell enough records to cover the bill, hence the bands multi-million pound contract being worthless.
The band take delivery of a fleet of Ford Fiestas whic they race around the lanes, with the lights off. No accdidents happen this time.
From 05 December 1994 - The Big Issue:...
While the Roses were taking their time and getting it right, a frustrated music press was kept in the dark. Articles speculated about the band’s future. Journalists loitered outside recording studios in hope of some gossip.
As Mani says: “The journalists couldn’t find out anything so they made things up.” Like how the band ordered an entire fleet of Ford Fiestas?
“Absolute nonsense,” says Ian. “We only bought one.” What about how you raced cars around Welsh country lanes with the headlights turned off? “That’s absolute bollocks!” says Mani, shaking his head.
“They also said that the first batch of songs that John wrote for the album were rejected by us because they weren’t quite up to scratch. That’s rubbish.”
From May 1995 - The Spin Magazine
The truth is that there was one Ford Fiesta, in which Squire had three minor accidents: colliding with a cow, running over a pheasant and crashing into a car driven by veteran hippy guitarist Steve Hillage.
26 June 1994 - Mani turns up backstage at Glastonbury Festival, Pilton, Somerset and watches Oasis
September 1994 - Tom Zutaut hears the finished recordings.
The tracks are rough and are still in need of mixing. Tom Zutaut claimed the album’s “best work” came in its final months and said the band would break America, that the material had the “potential to put English rock’n‘roll back on the map.”
September 1994 - Beer Davies, the radio promoters, are invited to Rockfield to hear the new recordings.
September 1994 - Gareth Davies & James Chappell-Gill drive to Wales to hear the new music.
As well the Geffen staff, apparently, two builders, from Manchester, are invited to hear the new music. The out of work construction workers are camping nearby and visit Rockfield studios. They meet Ian and he invites them in for a preview.
Reni & Ian play them four of the unmixed tracks.
September 1994 - Mani played Steve from 'Novocaine' a rough mix of the LP.
September / October 1994 - Second Coming Bill Price Mixing Sessions, Metropolis Studios, Chiswick, London
According to the band they mixed the record in New York with Bill?
Bill Price mixed the record. Bill was once associated with The Clash, a punk band who were a big influence for the Roses. Bill was known as the man who mixed Sex Pistols' Never Mind The Bollocks LP and The Jesus And Mary Chain.
More recently Bill had mixed, Tom Zutaut's, Guns N’ Roses’ LP's Use Your Illusion I and II.
According to the November 1994 - NME Magazine, Love Spreads and Your Star Will Shine were mixed at: – at New York’s Sterling Studios with engineer George Marino.
May 1995 - SOS Sound On Sound website, Article By Matt Bell, Simon Dawson said:
For the mixing of the album, Simon Dawson handed over the reins to studio veteran Bill Price, best known for his work with the Clash and the Jesus And Mary Chain.
Why did he feel he didn't want to do it?
"Well, some of the guys wanted me to do it, because that was the natural thing, but I wasn't keen, because I'd spent 14 months in the studio with them and felt really close to it all. I really wanted to stick around, but get someone in with a fresh pair of ears, and see what he came up with."
To this end, Simon remained present while Bill worked, even at the final cut. "He was really good. He came in to do a couple to see how he got on, and did 'Ten Storey Love Song'. Everyone was really pleased, so we were happy to let him do it.
That took the pressure off me, but in the end, it was still very much a team thing, Bill didn't come in and take over. As I've said, it was quite complicated by that stage, because we'd built everything up using the computer on the desk, and there were so many takes running in the computer that I needed to be around to tell him what was going on, there were mutes that he needed to keep, and EQ settings on some of the loops that were important."...
From 01 March 1995 -'The Face Magazine' Issue 78, March 95:
You held the album back when you heard what Primal Scream had done on “Give Out But Don’t Give Up”.
Ian: What a load of bollocks. We’re not in competition with them. There was that old one too about us following Primal Scream around the country once. Rubbish. I’ve only ever seen them twice.
And then there was that rumour that we wouldn’t do Wogan because he wouldn’t interview us. It’s because we wouldn’t ever go on a shit program like Terry Wogan.
From March 1995 - Q Magazine, Who the hell do The Stone Roses think they are? (March 1995) by Adrian Deevoy:
Could you have knocked it off in a week?
"We probably could have knocked it off in a week," laughs Brown, "but it was a case of having the right heads in the room. We just kept doing it over and over until we captured the right one. See, you have to be able to play and these three can play. Any style."
Didn't you ever get bored with the songs?
"Never," says Mani, vigourously shaking his large fur Diddyman hat for extra added conviction. "You can never get bored with making music. You'd get bored if you was a fucking hod-carrier on a building site but not when you're doing something you love."...
And what of the reviews when the LP was finally released? Often cruel and disappointed?
"To be honest," confesses Brown, "I really thought people would be going, Fuck me, they've done it again. Another brilliant LP.
When we mixed it in New York, I thought, they'll hear this and just go, Wow, 10 out of 10. And I was a little surprised when I read the reactions. I thought, maybe they're writing this because we're not talking to them."
1995 Simon Dawson said: I know that Bill [Price, who was called in to mix the album] used quite a lot of Lexicon 480 in the mixes , he had two of them, because we moved on to Metropolis Studios in London for the mixing, and we didn't have chambers there."...
From 1998 - Top Of The Pops Q&A: Robin Jerzy asks:
"Do you regret the way "The Second Coming" turned out?"
Ian Brown: "I'd like to hear a remixed version with a few less guitars. But I have no regrets."
October 1994 - Steve Atherton & the band fly to L.A. and play Geffen the master tapes.
Love Spreads, Ten Storey Love Song & Driving South are outlined for upcoming single releases.
October 1994 - They return and are penned in to discuss the new single 'Love Spreads' with Hall Or Nothing, British publicists and promoters. The band do not appear at the meeting.
Beer Davies are no longer promoting the bands releases, Geffen take control of PR.
From October 1994 - NME Magazine Article: ...
The band are unhappy with the ‘Love Spreads’ campaign. Guitarist John Squire, responsible for all the Roses’ artwork, has decided to re-do the sleeve and ordered his record company to pull all advertising...
November 1994 - Steve Atherton goes to Rockfield, to collect the left over reels and tapes from the studio sessions.
Unconfirmed if this was authroised by the band. Ian apparently holds the tapes from that era now.
From Autumn 2001 Mojo Collections Number 04:
“We’d go off on a tangent,” says Simon Dawson, “down another route, and go, ‘OK. That’s cool. Now let’s get back to where we were’ [laughs].
Some of that stuff ended up as B-sides. And Reni, especially, would go right out there, kind of in a club direction, which wasn’t really right for that album. That stuff all got put on to DAT, and when we finished the album Ian took all those tapes away in this pillowcase.”
November 1994 - MCA Geffen Photo Shoot
The photo shoot included the band wearing life jackets.
The band looked very tired during the shoot.
07 November 1994 Monday- Love Spreads is debuted on BBC Radio 1's Evening Session
16 November 1994 - Mani's 32nd birthday
19 November 1994 - Ian Brown (The Stone Roses) features on the cover of NME (New Musical Express) Magazine
Front page headline read 'Resurrection Kerfuffle! Where the hell have The Stone Roses been?'. The NME priced at 75p.
21 November 1994 - Love Spreads U.K. Release Date
Love Spreads - Written by John Squire. Tambourine by Nick.
Breakout - Keyboards - Simon Dawson.
Label: Geffen Records
Artwork: '' John Squire
Format: 7inch Vinyl. Catalog Number: GFS 84
Format: Cassette. Catalog Number: GFSC 84
Love Spreads
Your Star Will Shine
Format: 12inch Vinyl. Catalog Number: GFST 84
Love Spreads
Your Star Will Shine
Breakout
Groove Harder
Format: CD. Catalog Number: GFSTD 84
Love Spreads
Your Star Will Shine
Breakout
Format: Promo CD. Catalog Number:
Love Spreads (Edit) 4:58
The bands first new material for four years.
John Squire designed the "Love Spreads" cover, using a photograph of one of the four stone cherubs on the Newport Bridge in Newport, South Wales. The cherubs on the bridge are modelled after Newport's coat of arms, which contains a cherub with winged sea lions.
Peaked At Number 02 In The U.K. Charts. Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream hailed the song "as the greatest comeback single ever."
Love Spreads Video
There was two videos produced. The first incorporates home movie footage shot between 1992 and 1994, as well as Mani in a devil outfit and Reni in a chicken suit. The video also includes hidden images.
The second video was produced for the U.S market. The video featured the band playing in front of an oilrig and digging for gold.
From Simon Spence's Book 'War & Peace':
Brown and Reni didn’t want to do any photographs or videos for their comeback with the album Second Coming. Squire would use various clips from the footage he’d taken on his Super 8 camera over the years to make a video for lead single, Love Spreads.
It featured Brown, Squire and Mani in death, chicken and devil costumes. It was easily the band’s best video to date but another disaster as it was deemed so low-fi as unfit for purpose by their new label Geffen.'' The video was directed by Mike Clark and the band.
From December 1994 - Stone Roses Special, Melody Maker Magazine - John Robb experiences the full force of Roses mania first hand in Manchester:
It's 11:30 on Sunday night, Manchester's Market Square sees two long queues snaking in opposite directions from the city centre HMV and Virgin shops. About 300 pop kids are in each queue, some have been here since 6.00pm, they are waiting for just after midnight and the doors to open to be the first on the block to get The Stone Roses' long-awaited new album.
Virgin have got 100 exclusive T-shirts and signed posters, HMV report sales of 250 CDs and 35 people outside their door on the following morning at 7.00am waiting for the album.
On Monday morning, the exclusive T-shirt is all over town on the backs of skinny pop fans who have their ears glued to Walkmans.
"Big Issue" sellers are selling heaps of the "world exclusive" interview and Manchester's cool indie shop Piccadilly has 20 John Squire signed copies of the album ready to raffle.
From April 1995 - The Guitar Mag Feature:
Reni: "John's very meticulous but at the same time he'll pile guitars onto a track like Groove Harder (the b-side of the Love Spreads 12") and it's a mess but it's one of the most exciting things we've ever done because it has atmosphere. All the best stuff we do comes when we capture the atmosphere and experiment, take risks...
November 1994 - Love Spreads Europe Release Date
Peaked in the top twenty in the Swedish Charts.
24 November 1994 - John Squire's 32nd birthday
29 November 1994 - Good Times Chop Em Out CD-R Promo
Chop Em Out Trinity Mews, London, W10 6JA.
Good Times 5:40 (29-11-94)
Chop Em Out usually produced masters for singles, edits and albums too. There is also Ten Storey Love Song Chope Em Out CD-Rs in circulation too.
05 December 1994 - The Big Issue Magazine The Stone Roses interview Issue
Reni missed the interview as he had family commitments. Gary Crossing conducted the interview and wrote the article. The Interview took place in West London (at the press agents office).
Pennie Smith photos were used for the article.
After the exclusive interview for Big Issue was published, the interview article was auctioned at their request to the press around the world. The contract money exchanged for its publishing rights, in line with the magazine's original purpose, was handed over to The Big Issue for the reintegration of homeless people.
The Interview was later used by Melody Maker newspaper & in Japan, February 1995, Crossbeat Magazine magazine published the full interview.
There was three seperate style covers issued throughout the country. Including the 09-22 December 1994 Issue. Each version of the magazine featured a slightly different version of the article. Each version has been edited differently, even the Crossbeat Magazine was slightly different too.
From March 1995 - Q Magazine, Who the hell do The Stone Roses think they are? by Adrian Deevoy:
Why didn't you talk to the press? Were you attempting to create further mystique by only granting an audience with The Big Issue?
"No," Brown says with a don't-be-daft gimace. "I was lying on me bed one night in the hotel in London reading The Big Issue and I thought, We should be in this. Then I went to the studio and Pennie Smith, the photographer, said, The Big Issue called and they want to do a feature with you. I was like, Oh, that's a coincidence. So we did it.
I thought people would think, Right, sound, nice one. But they just got upset because we hadn't spoken to their paper. We never said, We're never going to talk. We weren't scamming it. It was just something more than getting your nipples out to make yourself bigger."...
From February 1998 - Uncut magazine Ian Brown interview:
At this time, it seemed as though the knives were out for you in the music press; perhaps rooted in your decision to give the comeback interview to The Big Issue… “The press were upset. We got letters. But we wanted to use our position to make dough for the homeless.”
From 04 March 1995 - NME (New Musical Express) Magazine:
Later we discuss their equally eccentric and, to be fair, rather altruistic decision to ignore the pleadings and pantings of the British media (yes, including NME) and give their first comeback interview to homeless charity mag The Big Issue.
John shrugs: "We heard a rumour that we were supposed to be doing it and we thought, 'Yeah, that sounds like a good idea'. There was no big Help The Homeless pow-wow or anything."
There is the argument that you could have given a donation privately, like Wham! did around the time of Live Aid.
"We could have done," says Mani, "but I ain't a millionaire with a ten-bedroomed house... I'd rather big corporations would have dipped in and put five grand in to run the place. Be seen to be helping somebody out. All those people you see in shop doorways when you're on your way to work every day. Give them a break."...
05 December 1994 - Second Coming U.K. Release Date
Reached number four in the U.K. charts.
Ian is only credited to co-writing Daybreak, Straight To The Man and Begging You in the sleeve notes.
Breaking Into Heaven's intro was used as the intro tape for most of the Second Coming shows. The Breaking Into Heaven intro is sometimes noted on bootlegs as 'Peace & Harmony'.
The sound in the outro of Driving South is a mobile phone dialling D850 556.
26 April 1997 Saturday - NME Magazine (New Musical Express):
John said: “What? D’ you think that’s my new direction? No, see people never understood than even when I was writing stuff like ‘Driving South’, I was takin’ the piss. It was never meant to be a chest-thumping blues tune, it was a joke. Ring a toll-free number for the devil – it’s got to be a joke, hasn’t it?”
Ten Storey Love Song dates back to 1992.
Daybreak's lyrics are an homage to the Rosa Parks and black culture springing from the Civil Rights movement in the US in the 60's (Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white passenger, which in turn inspired Martin Luther King to initiate the bus boycott...thus , Ms. Parks was the "daybreak" of the Civil Rights Movement).
Consider: "Sister Rosalee Parks / Love forever her name in your hearts" ; "So, why no stack for black on the radio station in this the city? Been going on so long - I'm level on the line, I'm a leaf on the vine of time."
Your Star Will Shine uses Nashville tuning.
Love Spreads drops the bass and guitar's bottom string to D.
The Fozz is a hidden track. Between track 12 and 90 there is 78 silent tracks. The Fozz was apparently a play on the words Folk and Jazz. The Fozz was used as the outro tape for several of the Second Coming shows. Reni played piano on The Foz.
From Autumn 2001 Mojo Collections Number 04:
The album’s title, Second Coming, came from Squire; Simon Dawson says the title was in place by the time the Rockfield sessions took place.
From 06 March 2009 - Uncut Magazine Interview with Ian Brown:
Did you ever feel that bringing out ‘Second Coming’ was going to be as challenging as it actually was, with Britpop and how the music landscape had changed a wee bit?
No, at the time I thought it was great, and we were great and we were going to smash it. When I look back now I think we lost… I’ve got this thing. A lot of bands have got rock but they’ve got no roll. And I think what separated us from other bands in ‘89 is that roll. We had a groove. Other bands didn’t have that groove. I think a lot of other bands jumped on that and, as well as taking the gang mentality that we had, they tried to have a groove.
But, when I look on ‘Second Coming’ now, there’s only a couple of tunes in the groove and it’s mostly just rock. Just boring, I understand now. We should have taken it all back to basics again, whereas we turned into dinosaurs. So… I understand now.
The freshness wasn’t there, you know. It was dark. The first album’s great because it was all light. And we changed the second album because we’d made the light, to make one that sounded dark. But, I wish we’d had stayed in the light.
If you could go back and do anything differently would that be the main thing, or is there anything else you would add?
If I went back, and did anything differently, I wouldn’t have sung Squire’s songs for him.''
You wouldn’t have what?
I wouldn’t have sung the songs that John had written. He took my fun off me there. My fun was doing the lyrics and the melody. Then it’d come to this bad time. He’d come to the recording sessions - he’d come in and he was writing songs on his own. He didn’t want to work with no one; he didn’t want to work with me.
He had to do it on his own and I figured at that time it’s just something… he’s just got a bee in his bonnet and he needs to get it out. And we’ve got a contract for another three albums, so just let him get on with it and, you know, I’ll back him up.
Did you discuss that openly with him or was it just a case of, like, let him knock on?
Um, yeah he knew that I wasn’t happy that we weren’t writing songs together like we used to. And I think I’ve read interviews since where he says he now realises the strength of our partnership. But he didn’t realise it at that time.
From 01 March 1995 -'The Face Magazine' Issue 78, March 95:
Regarding the songwriting credits, Reni said: “Your name only goes into the brackets if you come up with the chord structure or the lyrics,” Reni will add later.
“That might seem unfair to me, because I’m just the drummer and backing singer. But if the initial idea is good, then it deserves getting paid. It’s all about the guts to come up with a concept, put it down and then push it out there; say, ‘Here it is; what do you think of that?’ That takes real guts.”
So what would you like to redo on the album now?
Ian: I’d redo the vocals on “Driving South”. Do it stronger.
Mani: I’d change the bass line to “How Do You Sleep”.
Reni: I’d want to change half the drums!
John: What did the other three say? Oh, I didn’t know any of that. I think I’d darken the album sleeve.
So what’s John like then?
Mani: He’s a real lone wolf I don’t know where the kid gets his juice from but it’s a joy to be in the room with him when he gets in the swing.
Reni: It wouldn’t be right to just say he’s the craftsman. He’s really meticulous, but then he puts those messy guitars lines over everything.
Ian: He’s different. The kid’s a fucking artist, that’s all there is to it.
John: What did they all say? They probably said I’m miserable, capricious and inscrutable, didn’t they?
From May 1995 - Spin Magazine: Elsewhere on the album,
“Daybreak” is an anti-Eurocentric homage to Africa as the cradle of human civilization. And Second Coming’s catchiest tune is “How Do You Sleep,” a jaunty vial of vitriol targeted, says Squire, at “the people who make decisions that are guaranteed to cost lives, like sending troops into battle.”... It’s Squire’s cynical streak that gives the Roses their edge.
“On the first album, if ever a lyric was getting too slushy I’d give it a sick twist. I didn’t have to try for this one.” He cites the devotional ballad “Your Star Will Shine,” an idyllic reverie about watching his daughter sleep whose last lines catch you off-guard: “Your distant sun / Will shine like the gun / That’s trained right between your Daddy’s eyes.”
From: 31 July 2014 Thursday - Paul Schroeder Interview:
What did you think when Second Coming wasn't received as well as people expected it to be, and in particular to the NME's reaction?
It was always going to be slated. We all expected it. The fans bought it though. You have to remember that the first album has this glow about it that cannot be and should not be recreated. You cannot compete with it so we didn't. We made a record we wanted to make. And they will do the same with their next.
From February 1998 - Uncut magazine Ian Brown interview: Another decision that backfired was giving reviewers copies of Second Coming on the day of release. “Maybe we were naïve, but we just wanted kids to have the same chance as a journalist. We weren’t worried what the press would think. I seriously thought it was a great album, I didn’t expect a bad review. One journalist wrote that it was crap; six months later, he told me it was his LP of the year.”
May 2002 - From The Very Best Of 2002 sleeve notes, article by John McCready:
Mani: A lot of people got the wrong end of the stick with The Second Coming. They wanted nice pop songs. We were more like, 'Hey let's show them what we can really do'. There's so much information there. Five years of inactivity just spewing on to the tapes. We were pre-pubescent on the first LP but we came back with hairs round our knackers, man. We'd learned how to play some.
Nathan McGough (ex-Happy Mondays manager), regarding the time it took the band to record the Second Coming, said:
"They can afford it, 'cos they got a million pounds off Geffen!"
Moby said: But the Roses have lost the inertia. Four- and-a-half years does seem on excessively tong time to finish 12 songs. For their sake I hope it doesn't drive them crazy. Ifs really difficult to create something when there's so much expectation, but they run the risk of their public getting very pissed off."
December 1994 - Photo Session
Reni did not attend. The 'Clown' mask replaces him.
Pennie Smith, the band’s on-the-road, in-house lens-woman, is not remotely fazed by the scenario. “You just don’t often get all four of them together in one place at the moment,” she says. “You have to make do. There’s one press shot I did of the four of them before Christmas with Reni wearing a mask. Except it’s not Reni. We just dragged someone else into the shot. No one knew that time.”
16 December 1994 - Second Coming Japanese Release Date
17 December 1994 - The Stone Roses appear on the cover of Melody Maker Magazine
"Welcome To The Resurrection". The Stone Roses are interviewed too.