Stone Roses drag out new announcement like they dragged out that second album

Mysterious (not that mysterious) posters have appeared around Manchester, causing Stone Roses fans to forget how bad Ian Brown's voice is live all over again. Look-In ("NME") reports:

Fans of The Stone Roses are speculating this morning about activity from the band after a series of posters carrying the band's lemon logo appeared around Manchester.

Images of the lemon, which has appeared on the band's posters and album artwork in the past, have appeared around Manchester with sightings confirmed at Close barber's shop on Greater Ancoats Street and the Vinyl Revival record store on Hilton Street.

Eagle eyed fans have spotted that there are 16 lemons on each poster and are speculating that this means an announcement about 2016 is imminent.

Well, yes. Of course it's going to be about 2016, unless they're going to haul ass in a very non-Stone Roses way.

The posters appear in several shops in the Northern Quarter area of the city. One shop keeper told Manchester Evening News that he had been "sworn to secrecy about an announcement due in the next 24 hours".

Telling the MEN that there's an announcement coming in 24 hours isn't really suggesting you've got the hang of this "sworn to secrecy" business.

Of course, last time round, it was Gordon Smart who got most excited. Is he excited now?

Gordon Smart, editor of the Scottish Sun, has also speculated that two gigs at Manchester City's Etihad Stadium could be in the pipeline. "I've felt a disturbance in the force @thestonerosesofficial blue seats, two nights, baggy jeans and a beanie hat...", he wrote on Instagram.

So two nights at Man City's ground, then? That's probably ruined all the speculation, hasn't it?

Gordon in the morning: Gallagher wears out his welcome

For the first time since their cashback, sorry, comeback, it's possible to feel sorry for The Stone Roses: They've got Liam Gallagher troubles:

A source close to both camps said: “It’s all gone a bit sour recently with Liam and The Roses. There was an ugly incident in Dubai when Liam said a few things that were totally out of order. It didn’t go down well at all.

“Ian, John and Reni are all low-profile lads and don’t subscribe to aggro of any sort.

“They were also getting a little bit p***ed off with him ballooning on the side of the stage every time they played a gig. He had to be escorted off at one show and put behind the mixing desk because he was making such a scene.

“He was then slung out of there for spilling beer on the desk.

“He was generally being a bit of a nob — and The Roses can’t be ar*ed with the panto-mime.”

Just while that sinks in, what sort of person censors "pissed" by taking out three letters but "arsed" by just removing the "s"? What's the point of just taking the "s" out of there anywhere?

The idea of Ian, John and Reni "not subscribing to aggro of any sort" is an interesting one. Not sure how far that flight attendant who was told she was going to have her hands chopped off, or Paul Birch, for that matter.

Still, you've got to feel sorry for the band. Liam's already killed off one Manchester heritage cash-cow; surely he won't bring the Roses down as well?

Coachella: You might wanna be adored, but being known would be a start

The All-New Stone Roses might be quite a big deal in, erm, NME editorial meetings, but not so much at Coachella, the Guardian reports:

If the Coachella line-up looked like a triumph for the legends of British guitar music – Blur! Stone Roses! New Order! – then the reality proved sadly different. Not only were most punters we spoke to confused as to who (or what) the Stone Roses were, the crowd for both Blur and the Roses on the main stage was far smaller than the kind they've been commanding back home. Should we mock the Americans for not "getting" them? Or ourselves, for assuming anyone cared about our musical legends?

Handily, Spinner has an interview with the band's biographer Simon Spence which explains exactly why Americans might see the name 'Stone Roses' and assume somebody has badly mistyped 'Rolling Stones'.

Effectively, a mix of hubris, arrogance and bad timing led the band to develop a reputation amongst the music industry, and no profile at all in the wider America:

When Second Coming was released in 1994, they were in serious disarray but promoting themselves in America was a priority. They hired a high profile American manager, Doug Goldstein, famed for managing Guns N' Roses, and finally embarked on a major promotional push. Geffen's head of PR, Bryn Bridenthal, described it as a disaster. Goldstein was fired after few months later. He told me they band displayed a love-hate relationship with America 'We'd love to be accepted but fuck you if we're not,' he said. Ultimately, anyway, the whole thing was doomed to failure because, even though he was there, Reni had already quit the band.

With a replacement drummer, they did a short nine-date tour of the US in 1995 in support of the album. It was not entirely unsuccessful. It was not, however the success Geffen wanted. You're right, the label spent upward of $4 million on the band. The album, however, peaked at no 47 on the Billboard charts. The President of Geffen, Eddie Rosenblatt, told me the name of the band became a verb: 'The A&R guy brings in a band, and you say, 'Well, is this going to be another Stone Roses?'

But the band remain incredibly popular amongst paunchy middle-aged men from North West England.

Azealia Banks believes the Stone Roses are out to get her

See, this is what happens when you give in to the temptation of cash and reunite: you go from being mystical and magical and wind up as a punchline in somebody else's comedy spat. The Stone Roses are being accused by Azealia Banks of sabotaging her set at some random music festival in Australia. Rolling Stone reports:

"Big apologies on behalf of the stone roses to my fans at the festival today," Banks tweeted in the opening shot of her rant. "My ex tour manager made a pact with the stone roses saying they'd sabotage my set because I fired him.. And they decided to check their equipment behind me during my set. Fuck those old saggy white n***as stone roses. I wish them nothing but excrement and death."

I'm not entirely clear what would have been in this deal for the Roses, to be honest. They've never noticaebly been fond of music industry managers, so it seems to be an extraordinary favour to do for somebody.

Aha! But Banks tries to frame the claims as being part of some sort of misogynistic-racist plot:

"Wow! I must really fucking be a superstar... You've got an established band trying to sabotage my lil rap bitch shine," she wrote. "Wow a bunch of old white men trying to bully a young black girl.... What the fuck else is new in this world ???"

So, she wishes "nothing but excrement and death" on the Roses. Which, funnily enough, is pretty much what the reviews for The Second Coming described it as.

Gordon in the morning: Diplocarpon rosae

So far, the Stone Roses reunion has benefited from attendees having turned up convinced they'd be seeing something historic and important. How did it go when they moved into the festival circuit, where the audience are coming in treating them as just one band amongst many?

Didn't go that well:

THE Stone Roses’ incredible run of amazing live shows hit some dodgy ground at V Stafford.

Ian Brown was getting all Bruce Lee with the crowd after a pint of lager clocked him early on.

Then they started Love Spreads four times before they got it right.

John Squire broke a string during a guitar solo and Ian started moaning about the sound.

It's a lot harder when you're not being kept aloft on a sea of goodwill, isn't it?

In other news:

I suspect we're only a couple of years away from the OED adding "not now in polite use" into the entry for boffin. There are many ways you can describe a pretty good mathematician; telling the Sun chose two words which sound - at best - double-edged.

What the pop papers say: Heaton rifled

So, welcome, then, new NME editor Mike Williams. He officially put on the eyeshade on Monday 25th, so this week's edition is his first one.

It marks a complete change from Krissi Murison's reign. Her last issue was dedicated to The Stone Roses reunion, while the first edition of the Williams era, erm, was dedicated to The Stone Roses reunion.

There was a period when The Stone Roses were, arguably, the most interesting band in such parts of the world as NME had on its radar. Even then, they never got two NME covers back-to-back.

Perhaps the incoming and outgoing editor didn't talk through their plans?

Maybe the picture on the cover was just so amazing as to have blown away any other possible choice of front page.

Not really. By any measure, that's a lousy cover. Admittedly, Heaton park was a hostile place for photographers, but was this really the best photo from the night?

Obviously, it's nice to see Reni's one-man tribute to BD from Doonesbury, but... really? There wasn't one where you could say for sure it was John Squire and not a stunt double?

I'm sure it was a moment, but a cover? Really?

And the cover lines themselves, how do they stack up?

Eight pages isn't "massive" for a poster section, although given the magazine runs to just 68 pages these days, many of which are adverts for Bruce Springsteen ebooks and Uncut, it's quite a high percentage.

Liam sings the classics isn't really Oasis reborn, is it? And given that the audience consists mainly of people who haven't bought a record since the Golden Jubilee, what else was he going to do but some songs they might have heard before?

Amazing stories and pics? I suppose "amazing" in the sense that a paid-for publication has filled two pages with a cross-section of bad Instagram snaps and random tweets, but is

"great gig last night"

really an "amazing" story?

How about

"bunch of dicks, haha"

There's a slightly odd photo of some random people outside Salford Lad's Club, but mainly the feature just seems to be designed to reassure people who didn't go that staying at home was the best option. It looks like the writing team did their best to find a "character":

"I came down from Liverpool with a couple of mates; one of them is a proper drug addict. I couldn't be arsed wearing me top today. [...] I'm not arsed, really. I just wanna get fucked up! Have you got any drugs?"

Still, nice to hear Bobby Gillespie enjoying himself, eh?

Actually, that was "Crazy Dave" from Liverpool. There's a Crazy Dave at every gathering of any size. You just don't need to put him in the newspaper.

And the claim that The Stone Roses made history? It wasn't the biggest gig ever; it wasn't their comeback; it wasn't the first gig in Heaton Park. It wasn't the first comeback of a band from that era. It was a success in financial terms, and the crowd who turned up expecting to enjoy themselves went away happy. But does that stack up the NME's claim that

[A]fter all the hype, the excitement, the years of waiting, it's finally happened. And it felt a lot like history.

You'd have hoped for a little more perspective.

The swamping of the issue with Roses makes it hard to get a sense of what the Williams NME will be like - and next week, it's another treading-water issue with the T in the Park review, so we'll still be waiting.

There's still the odd hint of the sort of direction that Krissi tried to take the magazine towards like a generous feature on Haim, which doesn't even get mentioned on the cover.

And there's a considered piece about Gove's attempts to bring back CSEs and O-Levels. The political pieces the Murison returned to the magazine were the highlights of her era, but always felt a bit tacked on to the rest of the content rather than part of a radical thread running through the editorial; never more so in a magazine aimed solidly at solid, middle-aged men carrying a 'won't someone think of the 14 year-olds' bit on exams in the middle.

This, you might think, is as good a summation of the choice Williams faces in the weeks to come - slapping commercially-friendly unchallenging nod-a-long stuff on, issue after issue, or finding a stance and a battle and a voice.

Murison seemed to start with the latter approach, but by the end was reaching for the Gallagher-then-a-list-issue forumula way too often.

That could be the problem, though: in order to sell enough issues to keep going, the NME might have to lose what remains of its heart. The chase for the newsagent casual pick-up could be at the cost of the audience.

Good luck, Mike Williams. Lets hope you can make history.

The Stone Roses: Or something a bit like them

Normally, there's nothing worse than being at a gig surrounded by people bellowing along. I've paid money to hear the singer, not you lot. Shut up.

Mind you, if I'd been at Heaton Park...

I think I'd have been begging the crowd to try and drown this out.

We warned you this would happen.

Over on the YouTube page for this video, stalwart Stone Roses fans - and by "stalwart" I mean 'people who were prepared to pay through the nose to see the band, but didn't know well enough or care enough to try and keep their memories safe' - are trying to argue that this, somehow, doesn't matter.

One line is to dismiss the technology - somehow, the music is recorded tolerably well but those new-fangled microphones will pick up an angel's voice, and make it sound like a wounded bear bellowing in the IKEA warehouse.

The other is to admit that, yes, it sounded dreadful, but that doesn't matter, because Ian Brown could never sing, you're paying for the performance.

Obviously, people who have splashed out a couple of hundred quid shlepping off the Heaton Park are going to try and find a way to justify to themselves what they've done; that's their right. It's almost heartbreakingly brave.

But, come on: what made The Stone Roses was the first album. It was the songs. The performance was a small plastic circle rotating as a little needle pulled across the work of John Leckie and, to a lesser extent, John Squire.

Still, if you take them at their word: where's the performance, then? Brown is tramping about the stage like someone waiting for Wildlife Services to remove an injured bear from IKEA, because he needs to pop in and buy some shelves. His performance consists of turning up in some jeans and singing badly.

Of course you had a great night. Let's just not pretend you were at a great gig.

Gordon in the morning: Jokes have now peaked

Bad news for Dave channel; close down Jongleurs, for comedy has reached an apex and from now, there is only the opportunity to make jokes that are in decline.

The time of this moment in human history was one of The Stone Roses pension fund shows:

STONE Roses hero Mani had Rio Ferdinand in stitches with a cheeky tribute to his beloved Manchester United.

If you are eating, or drinking, you may wish to finish before reading the detail of this jape, lest you spray the contents of your mouth over your screen.

The football-mad bass player flipped his guitar over to flash the message “Mani United” in front of 70,000 fans at Heaton Park on Sunday night.

I know. I know.

It's funny because he's called Mani, and Man United is a football team. And one of the football team was there.

Oh, we talk of it still.

After the gig, Rio chuckled: “Mani United – that was awesome. I couldn’t believe my eyes when he did it.

“The guy’s a genius and the band were amazing.”

A genius, Rio? Why damn Mani with such faint, faint praise?

Mani United. We are simply not worthy.

Taking Codeine again

Never mind the Stone Roses: the only triumphant homecoming of a band who split in the mid-90s this weekend that was worth the candle was Codeine's reunion. The New York Times was there:

“That last song was the last song that we wrote and, um, yeah, it sounds like some of the other ones too,” Stephen Immerwahr said after he sang Codeine’s “Median” at the Bell House on Friday night. It was, like the rest of Codeine’s set, adamantly slow, asymmetrical, morose and drastically dynamic; among its terse lyrics were “grim and pure, like me.”

The Codeine dates haven't been the focus of a circus; there are no acres of photos of drunk forty something pissing and waving their cocks around. The dates didn't attract Liam Gallagher back down to ground level.

And how did Codeine sound?

Oh, yes.

Stone Roses want to snaffle photographers' rights

Given the bazillions of pounds being poured over The Stone Roses on the occasion of their reunion, how disappointing they've attempted to chisel a bit more by making photographers sign rotten contracts:

Photographers are planning to boycott the Stone Roses reunion concerts in Manchester this weekend in a dispute over the use of their images.

They claim a contract issued by the band is unfair as it expects them to surrender all rights to their pictures.

The National Union of Journalists is supporting the boycott.

The band's PR man, Murray Chalmers, is quick to deny there's anything wrong with demanding photographers hand over their rights:

The Stone Roses press agent, Murray Chalmers, said it is normal for contracts to be signed and, as far as they are concerned, "there is no boycott".

"We have a complete list, a full quota of photographers who are covering the concerts," he added.

Ah yes, if someone has signed a contract then it must, by its very nature, be fair. Although if you took that line, The Stone Roses would still be releasing records on Silvertone for tuppence.

Stone Roses have plans to add hubris to comeback

I suppose it's inevitable, but ill-judged: The Stone Roses are going to try and "crack America".

Really? Isn't the comeback money enough without adding a vanity project on the side?

First night: The Stone Roses, Warrington Parr Hall

It's a shrewd move, playing a quasi-secret small comeback gig, especially when you're a band who weren't always that good live in the first place. A sense of occasion, people who feel they're part of a chosen few - you're not going to get bad feedback from that, are you?

More importantly, while the Stone Roses' reputation for clunking live performances was a fair one, they've all got a lot more experience under their belt now, so it'd be worrying indeed if their Warrington Parr Hall date yesterday had picked up where the Reading 'mare left off.

Gordon Smart, of course, would never have had any doubts but did find a subtle way of pointing out that everyone has got older since the last time round:

One [fan] even held up a walking stick as Ian Brown played tambourine and did his trademark monkey-style dance.

The songs were, perhaps wisely, drawn from the first two albums, and mainly the first, but the Roses' ability to try out things that must have seemed a good idea at the time is still there, reports the NME:

There were no new songs, but there were a few surprises. At the end of 'Love Spreads', Brown broke into a rap, which appeared to feature the phrase, "Stone Roses up on the stage".

XFM see a band who have taken the car out of the garage, and are happy to see the engine still runs:

There was no encore, but the band members hugged with a palpable sense of relief.

There's also a reminder of what was most irritating about Roses fans the first time round:

Mani, meanwhile looked, in the words of one onlooker, "Mad for it".

Oh, God, "mad fer it" and the hats. I'd forgotten.

But - with a crowd who had to prove they were fans to get in (although the barrier was 'do you have a CD you can show us') and a few miles from the Roses' Camelot of Spike Island - this was mostly about laying that ghost of 'not being very good live'. It's probably a good sign that Brown could joke about it. The NME again:

Before 'She Bangs The Drums' he quipped: "Are we in tune yet?"

Gordon in the morning: Fool's gold

Gordon will, of course, have fact-checked this claim to within an inch of its life:

[Brad Pitt is] getting into the spirit of living over here by planning a trip to Manchester to watch The Stone Roses

Brad has requested a bunch of tickets for their Heaton Park gigs at the end of July.

A source said: “Brad’s a big fan of the band and will be at a loose end while Angelina is filming in the UK. He’s asked for four tickets and thinks it will be the ideal way to spend a June weekend.”

I'm going to accept that Angelina is filming in the UK. But the rest of it? I suppose there's a possibility that Pitt might show up in the backstage area, but I struggle to believe that he owns a copy of The Second Coming.

Gordon in the morning: Oi, stop talking and look at my wad

I'm delighted to see the pretence that the Stone Roses reunion is about anything other than the money has been formally dropped today, with Gordon running a story which is one stop short of a naked Ian Brown rolling in a vat of ten bob bits:

STONE ROSES bassist Mani was left speechless after visiting a cashpoint – he'd become £1.8million richer overnight.
[...]
Mani told pals back home in Stockport: "It's madness. I only went out to buy milk and things.

"I went to the cashpoint and someone has stuck nearly £2million in while I wasn't looking.

"The whole world's gone crazy. I could have fallen over backwards when I saw the balance."

Gordon - who, you'll recall, is really excited by the comeback - has run this story through his patented HURHURHURTHEYWEREALLONDRUGSatron:

So you can imagine Mani's disbelief when he tapped in his PIN and saw all that loot.

Back in the day, that would have been down to a really good trip.

Right, Gordon. You don't really get the whole drugs thing, do you?

- "I was so out of it on drugs last night, I thought I'd balanced my chequebook"
- "Me too, I was so off my stylus I was convinced I'd renegotiated my home insurance and got a tidy discount."

Gordon in the courtroom

Gordon Smart has been giving "evidence" to the Leveson enquiry this morning; his written submission to the enquiry has just been published.

He seems to print an awful lot of photos of celebrity's kids for someone who takes the PCC code so seriously.

This bit is interesting, where Gordon talks about the use of "sources":

Without further corroboration, that story would not be published. This happens very occaSionally, For example, one member of my staff had a great contact linked to a female pop star. She was reluctant to reveal his/her identity because both she and her contact were aware I was close to the pop star in question and they had concerns about the contact’s anonymity being compromised. The story was published because I was able to corroborate the information officially through the PR company and my contacts.

Gordon also shares the process which went into the publication of the photo from Mani's mum's funeral, and - oh! - the heartbreaking difficulties he faced deciding to publish:

By way of example, this year I chose to print a picture of a band reunited for the first time in 20 years after an acrimonious split. The picture was taken by a pub barman at the wake of one of the band member’s mothers. After careful consideration I decided the story of their reunion was such a positive pieces of news, I felt we could publish the picture despite the circumstances in which it had been taken. The publication of this picture caused some upset at the time amongst certain relatives of the bereaved band member, but I have since spoken to him and he accepted that it was a fair decision to publish

You'll spot that the upset was amongst a number of relatives, who have turned into a "him" by the second clause of the sentence.

And you'd have to wonder at the mindset of a man who - even if a self-justification written months later - would think that it was "positive" that two people had met up at a funeral.

The other strange thing is that Gordon claims that all Bizarre stories are rigorously stood-up before publication; and yet this photo was published connected to a claim the Roses were reuniting. A tale which was pretty comprehensively rubbished as soon as it appeared. Unfortunately, Gordon's written evidence doesn't seek to connect how the story was simultaneously being stood up while being knocked down everywhere else. Perhaps a question for another day?

Gordon in the morning: This isn't actually good news

Worrying Stone Roses intelligence this morning:

IAN BROWN can swap his old Adidas tracksuit for a gold-plated number thanks to The Stone Roses reunion.

Eh? A gold-plated tracksuit? That might have just about worked if he'd gone for 'trainers' rather than 'tracksuit' but gold-plated clothing?

So, yes, The Stone Roses are going to make new awful records:

A spokesman for the band confirmed yesterday: "The Stone Roses are pleased to announce that they have signed a record contract with Universal Music in London and with Columbia Records in New York."

I'll bet they're pleased.

Gordon proves that he never really cared about the band that much:

Fans have been waiting nearly 20 years for new material.

No, Gordon. Fans have been spending nearly 20 years wishing they'd been a one-album band.

Ian Brown: Fast Erratic Acceleration Relief

Nick Freeman, the solicitor who does very nicely, thank you, out of keeping people caught speeding on the road has helped Ian Brown keep his licence despite being clocked doing 105 miles per hour on the M6. After dark:

Brown, wearing a shirt and tie and a large black jacket, thanked magistrates after his lawyer Nick Freeman argued that a driving ban would have caused him "insurmountable" difficulties in relation to seeing his 11-year-old son who lives in London with his mother and in attending Stone Roses band rehearsals which are taking place at "a remote secret location".

You might wonder - especially if you've had a friend or relative killed by a person speeding on a motorway - if the requirements of a man rehearsing for a multimillion pound showbusiness event should be the priority in deciding if that bloke should be on the road.

I mean, we all know how ropey Brown's voice is live, but how bloody remote does the rehearsal space have to be? Is it like Gruinard Island, a place which has to be miles away from where people live and which will be hostile to life for decades to come?

Rehearsing with the Stone Roses might not be a job you can do working from home, but surely the response should be 'he might want to think about moving the rehearsal space' rather than 'go on, then, keep your licence'. Or, given the cash sloshing about for reunion tickets, that Brown might just be able to afford a driver. One who doesn't bomb up the road like a boy racer.

Stone Roses: Choose your hype

Choose which one you wish to believe:

Either way, still quite a dragged-out affair compared with the One Direction sale, which sold out in minus two minutes.

Gordon in the morning: X Factor discounts as Roses return

Here's a surprise: after all the excitement Gordon Smart showed over the Stone Roses reunion, the big story was handed to Tim Nixon to cover.

Gordon was busy on Twitter, though, being slapped down by the mighty Tim Burgess for sloppy attention to detail:

not wishing to be over pedantic gordon but classic line up rather than original would be a better description

Gordon responded:

As always you are correct! But for the sake of Sun readers, that's the original line-up they will remember. I know about Pete G

Eh? The phrase "original line-up" now means "the earliest line-up Sun readers would remember"? And doesn't that paint Sun readers as a bit thick?

@Red_Devil1981 thought so:

slightly patronising Gordon! I think you'll find we know our music mate!

Smart responded by trying to deflect the attacks:

Apologies Matt didn't mean to come across badly. Damn 140 characters! Pls reply to the RT I'm about to fire up!

The RT he "fired up" was this one, from @HerekDales:

there is an advert booked in The Sun next Thurs to sell tickets for #Stoneroses tour. Won't reach many SR fans then

There's a difference between many readers loving the band and most of the band lovers reading the paper, Gordon.

Back on safer ground for Bizarre, the X Factor gets a kicking for having scaled back its ambition:

EXCLUSIVE By COLIN ROBERTSON and ROBIN PERRIE

X FACTOR bosses have quietly dropped the claim that their winner will bag a "million-pound contract" after leaks revealed the act would need to shift FOUR albums to hit seven figures.

I don't think anyone has ever really believed in the "million pound" thing, but it's fascinating that even ITV have dropped the claims.

A show source said: "The bottom line is that unless you have hit album after hit album you will never get anywhere near the £1million from selling records. But it's still a hugely lucrative show."

Yes. For Syco and ITV.

[Thanks to Craig in the comments yesterday for suggesting taking a peek at Gordon's Twitter]

"I don't need to sell my soul..."

So, by the time it became official there was no surprise left: The Stone Roses are coming back.

There's two sorts of reunions; the ones where the band who returns is picking up where it left off; a split which left things hanging, a sense of unfinished business.

And there's the other sort. The sort where the band hope we forget that they'd given up flogging the dead horse.

New material? Really, John? Are you telling us you had songs that were just so good they were beyond Chris Helme's vocal range?

In all the time since the Roses split up, there's been an ongoing debate between people who would have quite liked to hear the band play the songs again, and people who knew what that meant. Nowhere have you come across people who wondered what sort of third album the band would have made.

Maybe it'll be amazing; maybe the magic didn't vanish around the time they flung the last can of paint round the Silvertone offices.

But for now, the future seems to be little more than a man in a beanie hat bellowing "Manchester Vibes In The Area" in a human face, forever.