Everybody’s happy nowadays

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve finally gotten around to doing a couple of 21st Century Things: I finally fiddled with the GarageBand program on the Mac Mini we bought about 8 months ago and I watched the movie 24 Hour Party People and marveled at both the director’s self-referential verité style and Steve Coogan‘s glib narration. The fact that I never paid much attention to the Madchester scene and rave culture did not hinder my postmodern faculties.

As the film moved from the early Factory bands, such as Joy Division and A Certain Ratio (ie, bands I owned albums by and liked) to the later bands I’d missed the boat on the first time around, such as Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, my interest in the film was challenged. The Tony Wilson character’s credibility was challenged too, and maybe it was no coincidence that he was being ravaged by Hacienda drug culture while extolling the virtues of the Happy Mondays frontman. But what do I know? That stuff was fantastically popular for a spell, especially in the UK, where the validity of popular musical tastes has been borne out by as many great and bad acts as our own nation’s hit parade.

I was curious to hear these bands again. It had been years since I heard a Happy Mondays song and watched those videos of vaguely ’60s-influenced guys in baggy, vaguely rap-inspired clothes dancing around like the “toaster” character in any ska band to some overly active snare and tambourine pattern. To my surprise, the first Happy Mondays video I checked out was fairly entertaining.

Then I checked out another video, one a bit darker but still fueled by a hyperactive, rest-free beat and repeating nuggets of rhythm guitar.
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