"MADCHESTER: THE SOUND OF THE NORTH"

Year: 1990
Running time: 100 min.
Language: English
Director: Simon Massey

Synopsis: In March 1990 Granada Television’s Celebration strand filmed a documentary which captured the Madchester scene as its influence began to spread globally. ‘Manchester is now the music capital of Britain, some say Europe, some say the world,’ it boasted alongside interviews with the Happy Mondays, Shami Ahmed of Joe Blogg’s clothing, designers Central Station, Tony Wilson and many other key players in the city’s cultural resurgence.

In this clip, the documentary makers also visited the drab NME offices at King’s Reach Tower to see Stuart Maconie, NME editor Danny Kelly and features editor James Brown plan the cover of the following week’s issue of the paper. The cover image, taken by Kevin Cummins on the roof of the Hotel Suber Maritim in the Catalan beach town of Sitges, showed the Mondays’ Shaun Ryder standing under the building’s rooftop Hotel sign. Cropped correctly, the eventual design would portray Ryder getting on the biggest E of his life.