The Stone Roses. The birth of Brit pop. One of the greatest debut albums ever - the self titled epic, followed by not such a great album Second Coming, followed by the end of the band. It was all over after only a few years, but what a great few years. For me the pinnacle was the almost ten minutes of audio bliss that is Fools Gold. It is the prototype "baggy" moment, where rock and dance meet. The beat is wickedly funky, as is the bass riff, as are the wacka-wacka guitars. The monkey man sings his sing-songy words, the band keeps on chugging, and it's top knotch. I remember thinking that, even at 9 minutes and 53 seconds, it could go on for a couple more and I wouldn't mind. This version of Fools Gold is not the one from the album. It's from a white label promo 12". It has the catalog number STONE ONE etched into it, and an extended version of Elephant Stone on the flip side. It's Fools Gold mashed up with the horn riffs from a classic oldie (which I cannot for the life of me name - can you?) and a bunch of old skool electro samples and some James Brown vocal snippets and a rave-y keyboard bit. It's not nearly as good as the original, but it's still a pretty unique oddity. I tried to find out who did the remix (at one time I thought it might have been A Guy Called Gerald), but failed to find any info at all about it anywhere on the net. If any of you, my gentle readers, have any knowledge of the tune please fill me in.
5 comments:
the horns near the beginning are lifted from "grazin' in the grass" by hugh masekela.
Well...that was unexpected. Definitely doesn't hold a candle to the original, but I know some fellow Stone Roses freaks who will be as amused/befuddled by this as I was. Damn, the album version really is marvelous, isn't it? I had the album on cassette, and it must have been an early version without "Fools Gold"--needless to say, I decided to invest in the CD version just for that one song.
And the mix that A Guy Called Gerald did is called the "Bottom Won Mix," right?
The "Testing testing one two one two.." snippet at the beginning is from Full Force's "Alice, I Want You Just For Me".
What about posting the flip side, too?
huh. the horns that kick in around 0:12 are from some version of "am i the same girl?"
somebody (probably o-dub) did a good history of that song a while back.
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