Pre 1985
The earliest known Mondays recordings come from 1981 and were first mentioned by Simon Spence in his book Excess All Areas. According to him it was recorded on a cassette player in the attic at Mark Day's parents home in Swinton when the band were called either Something in the Attic or Avant-Garde and the line-up would have been: Paul Ryder on bass, Shaun Ryder on vocal and Mark Day on guitar. This is before drummer Gary Whelan joined the band in early 1982 (keyboardist Paul Davis joined the following year) and the three Mondays are still playing with a drum machine - Derek Ryder's Korg Mini Pops.
I don't own this tape unfortunately.
The songs were:
1. Demo #1
2. Demo #2 (Talk it Over)
3. Jam
4. So Pretty
5. Unknown Instrumental
The Bungalow Tape 1983 - This was the next known music from the band and was again recorded in Swinton, Manchester and again was only known about due to the Simon Spence book. Only one song was released from this tape though, a very very early version of Delightful, which of course would not be released officially until 1985 on the 45 EP. This tape is not from my collection.
1983 also saw the first know Mondays gigs:
September - Wardley Community Centre [play tunes Saigon, Red].
October 24th – Blackpool GPO Social Club
At some time in 1983/84 the band had enough songs put down on tape to be classed as their first serious demos.
The tape (shown on the right) came with no track listing so I scribbled down some lyrics the first time I listened to it as you can see from the scrap of paper in the image and tried to work out the song titles from the lyrics, which lets be honest, is pretty impossible for Shaun's lyrics lol. However, I did get Happy Side of You right.
1. Memories (not official name)
2. Leads to Nowhere (not official name)
3. Hold Back The Night
4. See The Sorrow (not official name)
5. Unknown
6. The Happy Side of You
This has now, for obvious reasons become one of the most treasured item in my collection. It was always a favourite due to the early version of three songs I love, in particular The Egg which for me is an under-rated Mondays classic.
Anyway, Horse (Paul Ryder) would send a demo tape into the local radio station KFM at the start of 1984 along with a letter to introduce the band and tell them of their upcoming gig at The Gallery in Manchester on March 15th. Tracks on the tape are:
1.The Weekend Starts Here
2.The Egg
3. Delightful
1984 was also when the band first started jamming out the songs that would later go on to form the first album Squirrel and G-man. The rehearsal tape (on the right) can be split into 14 tracks which features jamming and the early sounds for songs like Tart Tart, Freaky Dancin', This Feeling, Little Matchstick Owen, Enery, Cob20 etc.
Helvetica Light is an easy-to-read font, with tall and narrow letters, that works well on almost every site.
More gigs in 1984:
March 15th - The Gallery, Manchester [Feelin’ Blue]
October 16th - The Hacienda
December 11th - The Hacienda (cancelled)
The tape on the left features an early jamming session for the bands debut album Squirrel and G-Man. Its hard to read my notes on the paper but they say 'Enery Jamming', Little Matchstick Owen Jamming', 'Tart Tart Early Jamming'.
I have no idea what the 'sometimes' and m.c.' means that is printed on the tape.
To the right is 'The Lone Demoer' practice tape and is a very early PD practice tape. There are only a couple of tracks on it but its pretty interesting.
Also from PD I have a band clippings scrap book that he started when the gang first began picking up their instruments and making music way back in 1983. He collected some cool little bits on the way as you can see:
This short article was from a magazine called 'One, Two, Testing' in their demo tape section:
