Select September 1996 Issue



HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?


From four-piece god-group to five-man fiasco: the '96 nosedive of the 'Stone Roses'

"You've gone very quiet," said Ian Brown, just as the Stone Roses' set at Reading crossed the paper-thin fence that divides tragedy and farce. And then the shouting started...

Never has the critical fraternity, from the Tilbury World to The Times, been quite so unanimous in loudly slamming every aspect of a group's performance. And rightly so: on-the ground complaints about Ian Brown's appalling vocals, new axe fella Aziz Ibrahim's guitar-shop soullessness, Robbie Maddix's fondness for 'hands in the air'-type embarrassment and every other shortcoming of the New Model Roses were only backed up by Select's acquisition of a surprisingly decent-quality bootleg tape.

No one should have been that surprised. Given a tangled heritage that takes in Simply Red, the long-forgotten Rebel MC, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Hot Chocolate vocalist Errol Brown (no relation) and a teenage outfit called Juvenile Jazz, The Roses MkII were hardly going to scrape the musical sky. Session musicians rarely do...

"How did you find Aziz?" asked one of the press pack, herded into a marquee for a press conference that took place on the afternoon of The Roses' headline slot.

"It's rock 'n' roll," offered Robbie Maddix. People know other people, and I knew him around Manchester."

'Disingenuous' really isn't the word, Maddix - who appears to have steadily seized the reins of The Roses since Reni's departure in 1995 - was a colleague of Ibrahim in The Rebel MC, who became a band once the Rebel himself had managed his first hit in 1989 ("Every body shake your sfuff," it went. The Rebel's here and he's street tuff'). The big-trainers-and-jogging' bottoms outfit strayed well clear of setting the world alight, and the pair eventually eloped, leaving Maddix to traverse the cabaret circuit.

Prior to that, Ibrahim had - as rumoured - been a member of Simply Red. In 1988, he was part of the first leg of the 'Men And Women' tour, sedately strumming along to 'Holding Back The Years' before splitting from Hucko and company by the year's end.

The CV of new keyboard player Nigel Ipinson, meanwhile, is every bit as rum. In 1987, he was a member of Juvenile Jazz, bow tie-wearing winners of Saturday Superstore's 'Search For A Star' contest. Four years later, he joined OMD, helping along live renditions of such classics' as 'Sailing On The Seven Seas'. For some reason, OMD Lynchpin Andy McCluskey declined to talk about Nigel's time with him.

Add to this odorous musical stew such names as Ruby Turner (a soul-centric one-hit wonder who later became a regular on late night telly) and Terence Trent D'Arby - both ex-accomplices of Maddix - and the conclusion is inescapable. Ian Brown and Mani replaced John Squire and Reni with jobbing musical hacks.

Quite apart from Ian Brown's dreadful performance, there was one other rather lamentable aspect of the Roses' set: the bizarre use of a gangly female dancer, who began the set on her own podium, and ended it making strange sprints across the frontofthe stage. Her identity is still unclear, but she reportedly caused a blazing row between the band and Cressa, the Bez like bloke who danced onstage with The Roses Mark 1, until he disappeared from view around the time of Spike Island.
Geffen Records - to whom The Roses are still hitched, and indebted to the tune of £2 million - are making no comment. Lewis Kovacs, their new American manager, told reporters he thought his charges were "just great". John Squire, witnessed walking down London's Oxford Street the day before Reading, is still in rehearsal with his new group. Reni's whereabouts are unknown.

Repeated calls to all kinds of legal agencies failed to produce the kind of last-resort advice that Select wanted to hear. It would be very problematic to sue The Roses for, frankly, not being The Roses. "The only scope would lie with something like the Trades Descriptions Act," says Graham Myles, Press Officer for the Office Of Fair Trading. It's a grey area. The only other option would be to look at Regulations about misleading advertising."

"You could argue that the band were a misrepresentation," says Phil Cartin, a consumer laywer, "but it would bevery difficult and extremely expensive. lf your only argument was that it was a breach of contract because you expected the performance to be good, then they would come backwith a million arguments defending themselves."

So, chaps. Where do you want to start?

JOHN HARRIS & ANDREW MALE







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