Happy Mondays

As UK indie pop and rave culture collided in the mid-’80s, the Happy Mondays were right there in the middle, like the jovial drunk who steps into a bar fight and forces the two adversaries to hug it out.

Originally formed in 1980 by singer Shaun Ryder and his bassist brother Paul, the Happy Mondays signed on with Manchester’s iconic Factory Records imprint and, alongside flagship act New Order, helped bridge the city’s post-punk past with its acid-house future.

But compared to those synth-pop sophisticates, the Mondays seemed less like a proper band than an unruly gang, the sort that would invite their best mate (Mark Berry, a.k.a.