Amateur Night in the Big Top
| Shaun Ryder Amateur Night in the Big Top | |
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| Studio album by Shaun Ryder | |
| Released | 2 September 2003 |
| Genre | Rock, Electronic |
| Length | 60:02 |
| Language | English |
| Label | Offworld Sounds |
| Producer | Pete Carroll, Stephen Mallinder and Shane Norton |
| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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| The Age | |
Amateur Night in the Big Top is the first official solo album by Shaun Ryder, of Happy Mondays and Black Grape. The album is subtitled "Clowns and Pet Sounds". It was released in September, 2003 and co-produced by Pete Carroll, Shane Norton and Cabaret Voltaire's Stephen Mallinder. It was recorded in Perth, Australia and released on the Offworld Sounds record label run by Ryder's cousin Pete Carroll and Mallinder.
Carroll also founded littleBIGMAN records with Happy Mondays drummer Gaz Whelan and currently manages The Panics, Tim and Jean, Meg Mac and Georgia Fair.
The album was recorded following a Happy Mondays Big Day Out tour of Australia. Shaun Ryder stayed on in Australia moving into Pete Carroll's house where he heard tracks Carroll and Shane Norton were working on for Offworld Sounds.
"Our Pete just said, 'Tell us a story.' I've got that many, Pete reckoned I should record them once and for all" said Shaun Ryder.
Ryder was keen to work on some new material and over a period of early morning sessions in Carroll's garage studio Amateur night in the Big Top began to take shape. The album was never conceived as a commercially focused release-it's an honest hard edge punk record. There's an overall feel and concept; Ryder's lyrics are autobiographical, touching on his early days with Happy Mondays in "The Story" and "1987" while "Clowns" and "Long Legs" express his feelings about the music industry and the legal issues he was facing.
Scooter Girl - "man were not all born equal, you can get stuck with some fucked up people, where the normal is just pure fuckin evil, there's no difference from shit and treacle"
"Clowns" - "I don't want to be beaten to death by clowns, pound for pound, beaten by clowns, big floppy shoes on my head, beating me around until I'm dead..."
"Long Legs" - "Here's comes the pest getting shit off his chest... even a full time coke freak needs some rest....Confessions of the money I hear them all, confessions of the money made a big man small, and I announce to the whole fuckin world I'm not paying for nothing no more."
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Wikipedia