The good folks over at Ape Shall Never Kill Ape recently posted some demos from the Stone Roses ‘Second Coming’ album. And they were pretty scathing about the album too! It’s all just opinions of course, but for what it’s worth, I like the Second Coming. Sure ‘How Do You Sleep’ hasn’t stood the test of time, and was regularly skipped when I first immersed myself in the album, but ‘Love Spreads’? Come on! What’s not to like about that? Who cares if it’s the greatest track Led Zeppelin never recorded, it still sounds ace. ‘Daybreak’? “From Moss Side Manchester, to Addis Aba-ba-ba-baa”. It doesn’t get any better than that. So come on Mr Ape. Surely a reappraisal is due.
Of course, The Second Coming wisnae a patch on the first album. That is just accepted fact. If you were there when it came out you’ll know how it exploded like a technicolour blast of guitar pop and blew everything else away. Wedding Present? See ya. Wonderstuff? Beat it. Voice of the Beehive? Exactly. If you weren’t there, where were you? This was the album that got dance folk into guitar music and the pasty faced wallflowers into dance music. Morrissey quiffs were grown out faster than you could say “I am the resurrection” and suddenly flares were back in fashion. The baggier the better. Which I always found strange cos I saw the Stone Roses in Rooftops (£4 to get in, pay on the door – if we couldn’t get in, we were going to go and see Birdland instead) and Ian Brown was wearing a pair of straight-legged brown Levis cords. So, where the flares came from is a mystery to me.
Anyway, here’s a couple of demos from the first album. ‘Waterfall’ is a bit faster than the album version, and speeds up at the end, driven by Reni’s drums. And ‘Made Of Stone’ is fairly similar to the version you know and love, which goes to show that the band pretty much had these tracks rehearsed into oblivion before they came to record the album. Sadly missing, alas, for all you trainspotters, is the recording info. Where? When? I don’t know. My bootleg CD doesn’t say. But, hey, they’re Stone Roses demos from the first album. And they’re pretty decent quality. If anyone out there has a good demo version, indeed any demo version of ‘I Am The Resurrection’, please get in touch. I’d love to hear it.
Lee Mavers once told me, “Stone Roses? (makes throat gagging sound) Stoned Poses more like.” True story that. I also met John Leckie once as well, but I’ll keep that tale for another day.
Finally, if you’re a guitar nerd, and into the Stone Roses, you’ll love this site.
Plain Or Pan 