Mancunian student newspaper.
Thursday, February 11, 1988 ISSUE 15
STONE THE CROSE
The scene: Withington on a cold rainy afternoon.
The intrepid Mancunion reporter tidies the living room, swears at the broken vacuum cleaner and puts the kettle on.
Enter the first vaguely famous people to stand on my doormat. Ents the home of Lisa Dulledge and eavesdrop for a while.
The Stone Roses are virtually unknown outside Manchester. Here though, they have a great following, so that they now have problems finding venues big enough. Their music is hard to define - I refuse to attempt compari-sons but very infectious and melodic. You get the feeling you've heard the stuff before, but no-one in my house was able to pin it down.
Lyrically they are brilliantly accomplished. John and lan write the songs, partly from life, and the lyrics read like poetry. Their current single, Sally Cinnamon' has a wonderful twist at the end which, if the listener notices it, saves it from slushy oblivion. It's very clever. But there are more important things than lyrics and lan and John wanted to talk about them too. They particularly centred on Clause 28, the government's controver-sial plan to stop the 'promotion of homosexuality. "It parallels with the rise of Hitler," said lan.
"They started off doing trade unions, then they move on to the arts."
Bigotry was high on their list of hates. Personal freedom is important to the band and so they want people to be especially aware of the wider implications of Tory legislation.
"People just see it as a single issue, and it's just a further thing they're doing which means that the country's stepping backwards."
Art as an expression of freedom seems important to the Stone Roses. As we chat ted they mentioned many exhibitions and galleries of varying artforms they had vi-sited. Jackson Pollock is a special favourite he crops up frequently. One of their songs says, Yeah she looks like a painting Jackson Pollock's number five'.
Double-edged? You bet! This is the overwhelming impression I got from their music. It would be easy to dismiss it as just 'poppy' which is a mistake several people have made. There's far more to it than that. But the Stone Roses are willing to accept success on any level they just want their music to be heard by as many people as possible.
But success may mean leaving Manchester, a city which they evidently like, despite problems they see with-in it. The city, like the band's audience, is a mixture of peo-
people.
Ian summed it up. "I think Manchester's a good city because there's so many different cultures. The fact that you've got a lot of kids living up here who are from down south is better than being in one isolated little area.
The Stone Roses should be playing at International II next month. It should be interesting. Don't listen to any one else's opinion of this band hear them yourselves and decide what you think. They seem to stir up intense feelings in people, and love 'em or hate 'em they're definitely worth hearing.