Shaun Ryder – Twisting My Melon Autobiography

I have never been a big Happy Mondays or a Black Grape fan really but recently a friend of mine who I work with loaned me a copy of Shaun Ryder’s autobiography Twisting My Melon. Despite being reluctant to begin reading it I found that after the first chapter of this book I was hooked.

This book is a warts and all document on this rock and roll excess experts life from small town begins to ruling the world and then back down to rock bottom followed by an emergence back to the top. This is a book that is truly for any die hard music fan.

I for one knew a small handful of Shaun Ryder’s work but this book opened my mind to all of the music that Shaun has been involved in and also made me laugh, smile, think and at some points brought me close to tears. This is a true under dog story where few thought Shaun and his band would make, to which these few were then proven wrong.

This book delves deep into Shaun’s way of thinking and his drug habit that despite only starting of with taking club drugs and smoking cannabis on occasions into a drug fuelled nightmare once fame and its pressures came. It was only a decade ago that Shaun Ryder was broke sitting in an unfurnished flat in London smoking heroin with cling on dealers/fans.

Shaun Ryder will fully admit he was a drug addict and a bit of a joke in the eyes of the media who acted like Jack the lad from his teens up until being forty years old. It was with the love of a good women and of all things a reality TV show that helped Shaun through his hard times and catapulted him back into the mainstream once again but this time he was clean as a whistle despite liking the odd pint now and again and a few Marlboros here and there, but compared to twenty years ago that’s nothing.

If you want an entertaining read that will keep you gripped then Twisting My Melon is for you and is available from all good retailers. 8/10
Chris Storey

‘Wrote For Luck’