I'm finally getting around to reading Shaun Ryder's autobiography and enjoyed this passage (I added the square brackets for context.) It's from around the time of Black Grape and they'd just signed to Radioactive Records after a call from Gary Kurfirst:
Comfort's Place [recording studio] was also where I met the most obnoxious people that I'd ever encountered. Their names were Gloria and Nik Nicholl and they knew Chris [Frantz] and Tina [Weymouth]. If only that had been the last time I met them
The Nicholls were tour managers at the time. I remember having a conversation with Nik and talking about Big Audio Dynamite. He started telling me the story of that Big Audio Dynamite tune "Medicine Show" and he said 'That could have been a great record. I tried so hard to get that rubbish off the beginning of it'
I said 'What rubbish?'
'All that "to hang by the neck" and all that
I said 'That was what made the record!' because you'd be in the pub with your mates having a drink and when that bit came on, 'to hang by the neck until dead', which is a sample from The Good The Bad and The Ugly, it would start going off! It was brilliant and all the lads would fucking love it
But Nik was like, 'Nah, that samples rubbish. You don't want that on it'
I just thought 'This guy is just a fucking idiot!'
Shaun Ryder on Medicine Show
Shaun Ryder on Medicine Show
Putting a little stick about. Putting the frighteners on flash little twerps