You could say that had the Smack-Happy Mondays not come along, The Haçienda hadn't exploded and Factory Records hadn't been left with its little piece of history, the label might have remained a viable business opportunity and might still be around today, fielding records by Tribeca, Moco or Kinesis.
And the heroes of this alt.reality? Perhaps, pray, the Stockholm Monsters?
Cruelly written out of history by that bloody movie (tho' if you ask ACR about the Tanfastic episode, it might not seem so cruel after all) they were, after their charming debut single Fairytale, the darlings of the department. A revolving landscape around permanent fixtures Tony France (vocals) and Shan Hira (drums), plus sometime members Jed Duffy (bass), Karl France (bass/guitar), Lindsay Anderson (er, trumpet) and latterly John Rhodes (guitar), Stockholm Monsters played out a family affair by their own scally rules.
They only made one album proper, 1984's Alma Mater, but were taken under the wings of Peter Hook, who anonymously produced most of their material, and had early sleeves designed by Mark Farrow - only the greatest sleeve designer in the last 30 years. "They were Tony Wilson's blue-eyed boys at the time," recalls then-manager Andy Fisher with a twinge of residual bitterness. Still, they would both agree about the band's influence. "I would say it wasn't the musical elements to it, it was more the scally, Perry Boy, punkish attitude. I think that was borne through in the way they reacted to people. They weren't popstarry at all, it was all inyerface, fxxx-off sort of thing."
To these ears they sound like nothing so much as the missing link between Joy Division and Soft Cell. But if New Order were to lay the blueprint for the welding of gay black house onto straight white indie, the Monsters' tinnier approach can at least be considered somewhat ahead of its time for threading electronic intricacies onto the same rough pattern.
And they kept up with the Factory propensity to make trouble. "There was a lot of irony in the interviews," admits Fisher, "which unfortunately people didn't pick up on." Could this quote from Tony France be what he's on about, when talking to then-local fanzine Coaster?
"We thought Stockholm was a nice country and we wanted something that was opposite to Stockholm so we chose Monsters." Yet if the grasp of geography then can match the bastard Mondays now, they seem to have been honourable troublemakers in equal measure. Early single How Corrupt Is Rough Trade? holds their end up for the backbiting spirit of the age. And more, says Clarke, "the early Mondays stuff is definitely comparable to the Monsters, but then, that was the Factory sound at the time."
It all went sour with a whimper rather than a glorious bang. A bungled insurance claim after a major robbery left the band without gear for too long, extinguishing their spirit in the process. And by Clarke's admission, it showed in the subsequent demos.
We care now? Because Norfolk-based label LTM has repackaged most-all of their back-catalogue. A new version of the debut, Alma Mater Plus, the plus being such rare seven-inchers as '...Rough Trade' and near-swansong Partyline and a new singles compilation All At Once being the highlights. Nice-but-dim post-script?
Maybe, except that the ACR:MCR site launched by the Urbanite people last year revitalised interest in the band to such an extent that it became viable for them to gig again. Andy Fisher has no involvement with the band members these days, all on with their own lives by now, but he does admit that, "Personally, I'd like to see some of the newer demos we worked on finished off."
Well if that happens, somebody else please plan the tour. Stockholm has still not been granted nation status.
The Stockholm Monsters back-catalogue is out now through LTM Records, via
www.ltmpub.freeserve.co.uk or
www.stockholm-monsters.freeserve.co.uk