Date: Sun, 3 Nov 1996 03:20 - 16 +0100 (MET)

THE STONE ROSES
THEY WAY THEY CHANGED MY LIFE

THIS IS ONLY THE DAYBREAK
by Kolbjorn Guwallius

I guess I have to write one of these, since I'm writing a lot on the list. This is a long story but I had to write it, it's up to you if you want to read it. It's about me and what the Stone Roses added to my life.

I didn't buy any records before February 1994, when I was 16 years. I can't tell why but I just didn't. At that point my only CD player was the CD-rom in the Mac. Terrible sound of course from the computer speakers. I bought my real CD a year later. My first record was the CD Lucky Town by Bruce Springsteen. I bought it at a local record store that was closing down so it was really cheap. From that day on I've spent most of my money on music. My record collection has today about 300 items (including singles).

Against the end of 1994 my interest turned from American music to Beatles and post-Beatles English music. In January my friend Erik phoned me and told about that new record he had bought, the band was called The Stone Roses and the record's name was Second Coming. He played me Love Spreads through the phone, and told him yes, this is indeed good. I bought the record a couple of weeks later, along with Oasis Definitely Maybe. Both albums were astonishing, but I listened most to the Stone Roses because it had some soft songs and I wasn't ready for the heavy stuff Oasis produced. At that point, today I consider Definitely Maybe one of the best albums ever made. Anyway, the first song I pointed my ears at was How Do You Sleep, then Ten Storey Love Song. Shortly after I went into the heavier songs and now I couldn't seriously live without any song on this record.

With the Liam Gallagher singing in my brain "Tonight I'm a rock'n'roll star" and John Squire playing the solo of I Wanna Be Adored, I went to one of the two local guitar shops and bought a guitar pack. A cheap copy of Fender Stratocaster and an amplifier. I wanted to play those songs on the Second Coming. I didn't know how to play at all, my playing experiences was doing silly kids songs on the piano and I hardly knew the names of the white keys on the piano. Still I wanted to learn. How do I pick a D chord? A G, an A? It was annoying to feel my fingers touch the wrong strings on the fret board becase I couldn't hold right, feeling that it took ages to change chord but still I tried. Am I too old to begin playing I asked myself, and the answer had to be no because I had just spent 180 pounds on this guitar pack. And because I wanted to learn of course.

Once again, Erik called me on a Stone Roses matter. It was late March 1995 and he had read about a consert in Gothenburg, Sweden's second biggest city (450.000 citizens). It was on the 21st of April. Of course we had to go there. I had then yet to realise how big this band was. I knew Stone Roses had made one album a few years earlier but I had never heard a song from it. It costed 16 pounds so I didn't think I could afford it yet, instead I bought Turns Into Stone, a collection with b-sides from the first album singles at 10 pounds. Certainly a change of style I thought when listening to it, but still I liked it. With that we went to the consert, 2 hours drive from home. It was a small room and the stage was only a feet or two up from the floor. They took their time, John Squire, Ian Brown, Mani and Robbie Maddix. About 40 minutes over time they went on stage doing as always the intro to I Wanna Be Adored, a song I've never heard before. I stood almost at the front for the whole consert and lost lots of water. When the show was over, Ian sang in tune with his beautiful voice, I ran for the bathroom and drank far too much water so I felt sick on the way home. Sick and wet all over and a guitar ringing in my ears at a high level even though it was miles away. But with a feeling I was there to see the best consert in music history.

Guitar playing improved and a while later I could do almost all those standard chords. Except for C and F. Today I laugh at myself then.

That summer I got the first album, a masterpiece that should've been in my life far earlier. And read in the paper that the Stone Roses were going to play the Lollipop Festival in Stockholm, our capital city. The article told that the Roses themselves phoned the festival and wanted to play. John Squire had recovered from his collar bone injury and now the band wanted to get on with their world tour.

Of course the Stone Roses was late on stage this time as well. And Ian was far away on cotton clouds, while John's guitar was present. Hearing the murder of She Bangs the Drums wasn't very pleasant, but who cared really? It was the Stone Roses, and by now I knew most lyrics and knew how important this band was.

At a record fair the autumn 1995 heaven and hell got together. I looked through some records and there they were: Elephant Stone, She Bangs the Drums, One Love and a few others. Expensive but what the hell, the covers were the most beautiful artwork I've ever seen. I became a collector that very moment. Today I have every official Stone Roses record that is not promotion except for the original release of So Young. Some of them I even have on both CD and vinyl.

I went home to my guitar which at this point, around Christmas, had became uncomfortable. I hated playing on it because it wasn't very well built. My fingers hurt and the strings were far to high from the fret board. And the black surface was all covered with grease from too much touching. I think it's fair to say I wanted a new guitar, so I bought an acoustic steel string with microphone. Not as a replacement but as a complement. I started to discover that there is more to guitar playing than just chords and with the Second Coming playing and the amplifier on I tried to play along. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. At least I was getting a better player. I asked the Roses-list for some more chords and came across some pen pals all over the world, among them Chris from Oxford, David, a Swede from Switzerland and Tiffany, a San Fransisco girl. I wrote a lot of letters to a lot of people and started to really discover the advantages of Internet.

Fast forward to spring 1996. David Ucko from the Roses-list tells us there has been a release of a tab book for Second Coming. I order this from England a few days later and start playing. First song is Ten Storey Love Song. Lots of trouble learning that one, I wasn't a very good player compared to the notes in the book. The only problem is that Ten Storey goes into Daybreak. Yes, I had to learn this one too of course. I did! It took me a month or two but I did. Before the summer I knew how to play those two songs completely and fragments of the others. It didn't sound good but it sounded... well I guess it just sounded. John announced that he had left the band and I couldn't listen to the songs for a some time, they didn't feel alive at that moment. I finally sold my guitar and bought an Epiphone Les Paul, which I still have. And I wouldn't trade it for a real Gibson, Epiphone is nicer. I call this one a guitar, my first wasn't. Or at least I don't consider it to be one.

Writing frequent letters to Tiffany from SF, we decided we should try and get together some time. We were both interested in going to England and she had bought a plane ticket because she was going there to work for a while. I was thinking about doing the same thing but as a poor student I couldn't even afford the trip. I also read some letters to the list by a guy named Burnweed@aol.com, no more, no less. His comments appeared sick and totally out of order but they got my attention and I read his One Love Story. The analysis of the songs felt somewhat right so I figured "okay, he's right but he's going to far".

Quit school in June and got a month of work at the local radio station, Radio Match. Improved guitar playing with lots of spare time in the summer and became really good, I mean so-so good. Keeping an eye on the internet I discovered that the Stone Roses was going to play Reading. With the wages from the work at the radio station I bought a plane ticket and went. I wanted to see the Roses and I could visit my friend from the Roses list, Tiffany, who I had never seen or heard. I phoned her from Sweden and it was cool to hear some e-mail words turn live. So I went on the 17th of August. I went to the movies, watching Trainspotting in the biggest city in Europe, London. Stockholm hosts 1.5 million people and that is our biggest city. Think about it. We're a total of 8.5 million Swedes. I met Tiffany the next day. Finally I got proof for what I've already been guessing - the people that write stuff on the internet are real and has a face. We went to Reading seeing one of the best conserts ever. At least I thought so, many didn't, included the NME and MM who did their best to try and kill the Stone Roses forever. Bought a RV-3 reverb and delay and lots and lots of records.

Home to Sweden early September. Unemployment and stuff got in my way and I couldn't get any money at all unless I entered an unemployment program for youth. I didn't want to because it would give me one pound an hour. Instead I picked up my guitar and started playing Second Coming and Definitely Maybe songs over and over all the days through, I made my own solos for Daybreak and Breaking Into Heaven, I played to the live versions and improved and improved and improved and yeah - I'm a good guitar player. I am. I am a good guitar player. It took me almost two years but I did it. Thanks to John Squire. One Love Story, the New Testament made real sense but I'm not going to talk about it here, because I expressed my thoughts on it on the list earlier.

When totally broke I finally got on this unemployment program on the 8th of October 1996. I'm now working for a quid an hour at the same radio station as this summer. I'm happy about the job but not about the payment but I guess there is nothing you can do about it. Instead I finally kicked my old guitar amplifier out of the house this Thursday and got a new one which is ace.

What's going happen in the future with me, my guitar or the Stone Roses or what's left of them I don't know. Has Mani left or is One Love Story true? We know nothing about the future, we only know about the past. I know the Stone Roses changed my life. They made me start play guitar, they made me think twice with their lyrics. Hopefully I'll be able to say in a few years they inspired me to write my own good songs and perform them with my band. But still those two last things don't exist. The only things that exist are a lot of hope, fear, love and billions of people. Some of them have made music and other things we love, others have destroyed peoples lives. Yet others are going destroy lives and yet even more are going to make things that we can love. I hope I can stay with the last ones.

Hold on to your friends.

Kolbjorn Guwallius Your Swede at 3.03 AM on November 3rd, 1996.