If you've never heard the Stone Roses, now's the time to fall in love with the four mop-tops from Manchester. If you're already a Stone Roses fan, there are enough rare tracks on this re-issue of their first album to make you fall in love with them all over again. The Legacy Edition DVD of the band's Blackpool gig in 1989 will soon follow. Enjoy!
From Mick Middles:
In Manchester, I can personally recall, the Evans promotional machine was, at once, invigorating and infuriating. At the time I was working as rock critic for the Manchester Evening News. The Evans method wasn’t to post a record and follow up with the obligatory phone call. It was to turn up at my flat at 10 pm, burst flamboyantly into the room and hurtle, arms flailing dangerously, into an absurd diatribe about the traumas of The Roses before herding the band into the same room, where they sat, silent, open mouthed, politely allowing the Gareth show to climb to a climactic flourish. And all this for a few lines in the local press.
In truth, Gareth was one of a number of intriguing characters who helped guide The Stone Roses, from the unfashionable sidelines of Manchester, to the making of this extraordinary album. Directly …. literally, in Gareth’s shadows could be found his enigmatic and often silent partner, Mathew Cummings, whose fiscal brain kept a sharp reign over Gareth’s wildly swaying scams. Within the same managerial team, too, the studied and intelligent rock business brain of Lyndsey Reade, beautiful ex-wife of Factory boss Tony Wilson. And into this curious circle came the ferocious enthusiasm of A & R man Roddy McKenna, a Glaswegian immersed in the Manchester music scene since his days working in the city as researcher for the BBC television programme, The Oxford Road Show. McKenna, who witnessed a particularly powerful Roses show at The International, was convinced that he had found the perfect band to launch the new rock label attached to the Jive / Zomba organisation, a label named Silvertone.
On the International stage, whether in practice or in performance, the transformation was nothing less than staggering. Following a near violent altercation between Evans and Roses guitarist Andy Couzens, and following a tip from Inspiral Carpets mainman Clint Boon, in came bassist Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield. Another catalyst? Possibly … whatever. Things were now flowing sweetly. John Squire’s expanding virtuosity had attained the point where he could lead the band into a new dimension without falling right over that precarious edge, into introspection, into pretension. With Reni, arguably the band’s most complete musician, able to catch Squire’s direction and punch it into shape while Mani’s bass lines were like little gold droplets, falling from the songs with nerve tingling effect. And Brown’s delicious half sung non voice, pinning the whole thing down, making it seem real … adding heart! You think I’m exaggerating? You should have been standing there, that Tuesday afternoon, in the dank, dark, aromatic hell of The International, waiting, for some dubious reason, for Gareth and casting a journalistic ear towards the eerie sound emitting from the practice session. It was, I think … can’t be sure … ‘Made Of Stone’. It just sounded so numbingly beautiful. And my ears, I must explain, were as cynical and jaded as rock affected ears could possibly be. But I was astounded by the apparent transformation here. Once we had a white rock act, full of ideas, fuelled by ambition, arrogant as hell but still, somehow … rather empty. And now! Well, they had attained a blackness? A darkness? A strange echo. Can’t think quite what it was … but it suddenly seemed to mean a whole lot more. I couldn’t believe that Gareth knew quite what he had here.
Technical Information:
Album: The Stone Roses: Legacy Edition (2 Disc set)
Year: 1989/2009
Audio Codec(s): FLAC8
Type: FLAC8 + .cue and split tracks
Bitrate: Lossless
File size: 809 MB
Length: 2:02:43
Tracklisting:
Disc 1 (The Stone Roses):
01. I Wanna Be Adored (4:52)
02. She Bangs The Drums (3:52)
03. Waterfall (4:38)
04. Do not Stop (5:20)
05. Bye Bye Bad Man (4:03)
06. Elizabeth My Dear (0:53)
07. (Song For My) Sugar Spun Sister (3:26)
08. Made Of Stone (4:14)
09. Shoot You Down (4:13)
10. Is This The One (4:59)
11. I Am The Resurrection (8:12)
12. Bonus Track- Fools Gold (9:54)
Disc 2 (The Lost Demos):
01. I Wanna Be Adored (3:42)
02. She Bangs The Drums (3:46)
03. Waterfall (4:45)
04. Bye Bye Badman (4:03)
05. Sugar Spun Sister (3:30)
06. Shoot You Down (4:25)
07. This Is The One (4:00)
08. I Am Resurrection (6:38)
09. Elephant Stone (3:13)
10. Going Down (2:40)
11. Mersey Paradise (2:47)
12. Where Angels Play (3:16)
13. Something's Burning (3:03)
14. One Love (6:22)
15. Pearl Bastard (Previously Unreleased) (3:42)
16. Hidden Track 1 (0:05)
17. Hidden Track 2 (0:05)
18. Hidden Track 3 (0:05)
19. Hidden Track 4 (0:05)
20. Hidden Track (0:38)
Megaupload Links:
FLAC8 + .cue