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PUBLISHED: NOVEMBER 2023

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by Ged Duffy

"A Quite Phenomenal Book"

Foreword by Peter Hook

Introduction by Gary 'Mani' Mounfield

Preface by Jim Glennie

"My favourite band that, at the time, I had the least understanding of how important they could be, was probably Stockholm Monsters, who I still love to this day, even though they lost my fucking guitar or burned it or something, 10 or 15 years ago. Stockholm Monsters were scallys, they were the scally band three, four years before the Mondays, before the Roses. Maybe if I’d have understood it more, maybe I would have done better by them”
Tony Wilson

“I started to get into music early on because all the older guys that lived round our way were into a band called the Stockholm Monsters. They were the first band ever to come from Burnage and I think they had a top 75 hit with a song called ‘Fairy Tales’. From there you get into Joy Division, New Order and then it was The Smiths and then the Roses and then the Mondays and then you start your band.”
Noel Gallagher

“Another band that’s often overlooked in the telling of the Factory Records story but a real favourite of mine. They always seemed to know how to tug at my teenage heartstrings. I have the 7 inch single with two different sleeves and now, thanks to this album, I have the demo as well. This song doesn’t seem to age.”
Tim Burgess

“When I was 10, I was walking down Burnage Lane with my mum when I saw a guy in front of me with white hair and a big black exclamation mark. He was a punk. I later found out that he was a member of Stockholm Monsters… the first band to come from Burnage… Oasis were the second.”
Noel Gallagher

Ged Duffy might be the unluckiest man in Manchester music. He could have managed New Order; he could have been the bass player in The Cult; he could have seen his band, Stockholm Monsters, take the mantle of the Happy Mondays and become the breakout scally-band on the coolest record label in the world... but of course none of this happened.

Told with wit and a photographic memory for gigs and dates, Ged recalls his years as a stagehand at the Russell Club and later The Hacienda, touring with New Order and then turning down the chance to tour America with them, leaving Stockholm Monsters when they were about to hit it big, life in the colony of artists, oddballs and dropouts in Hulme and how he managed to successfully avoid fame and fortune.


Updated with new images and a further two chapters, this is the story of one of Manchester music’s forgotten men.be the unluckiest man in Manchester music.

 



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