Well it may be just people trying to fill the vacuum and making assumptions, but the internet rumblings have become loud enough that the likes of NME.com have decided to pick up on it: Stone Roses refuse to comment on split rumour
It has been pointed out on Ian Brown's website forum and the unofficial fansite Don't Stop that the rumours were started by one anonymous post. So either someone has the skinny on this or it's a great example of how false rumours can spread like wildfire. I guess we'll find out soon enough.
This little story and the fact that the Arctic Monkeys are playing Finsbury Park this weekend have reminded me that it was a year ago that I finally got to see the Roses live at Finsbury Park. Really glad I did (though the sound could have been louder). So if it all ends next week I'm grateful for the gig if nothing else.
So still on a Roses tip I've just watched the Shane Meadows 'Made Of Stone' film having 'taped' it off Film 4 recently. It was enjoyable but I really think Meadows could have done better. Once the no-encore-the-drummers-a-cunt incident happened in Amsterdam, Meadows seemed to become too afraid to upset the applecart and backed right off from making the documentary he had started. Maybe he was too much of a fan and didn't want to piss his heroes off and be blamed for further fracturing the band. That ain't a good way to make a documentary film though. And then the Heaton Park gig that the film was leading up to - well we basically get a freewheeling Fools Gold and...not much else (what's happened to the footage for the rest of the gig?). So it kinda failed to be a proper documentary or a decent live film. So in the end the film was enjoyable because of the band rather than the film maker. Worth seeing for the rehearsal footage and the free gig stuff at Warrington Parr Hall basically.
And still on a Roses tip, i found the 2004 documentary below on youtube this morning. Probably a better actual documentary of the band (pre-reformation) than Meadows' film. The manager, Gareth Evans is like some sort of cheesy comedy impersonation of a bad band manager. He's unintentionally hilarious and a cunt at the same time! I'm surprised he agreed to do this as he doesn't come out of it smelling of roses (boom boom), but he definitely makes it interesting.
Was surprised about the stuff around 2 mins into this where the band were "hated by most of Manchester" and their "No 1 enemy was Factory records" Supposedly Tony Wilson was trying to stop them. From what? Being as successful as NO? Then Noel Gallagher's comments: "All the people that worked for Factory were fucking twats... the grey overcoat mob...very fucking dodgy people". How seriously you take Noel and an ex-member of the Stone Roses I guess could be the real question here (didn't the Roses work with Martin Hannett, Hooky and play the Hacienda?). Anyway despite this, worth a watch.
