HAVANA MOON: Former Happy Mondays leader Shaun...

HAVANA MOON: Former Happy Mondays leader Shaun Ryder hasn’t been able to get a visa to bring his new band, Black Grape, to the U.S. for a tour that was supposed to have started about now. It seems that the State Department needs more time to evaluate the Englishman’s lengthy arrest record for drug and other offenses.

So instead, Ryder is planning to get as close as he can--Cuba. In early December, he will go to Havana to conduct interviews with several U.S. journalists being flown down by his record company.

“I guess in a way what we’re doing is illegal,” says Brendan Bourke, general manager of Radioactive, Black Grape’s record label, referring to U.S. travel restrictions to the communist island. “The U.S. turns a blind eye, but in theory we’re not supposed to be going to Cuba.”

Officially, the U.S. government bans most travel to Cuba and there are no authorized flights there from the U.S. But an increasing number of American tourists have in recent years traveled there via Mexico, Canada or the Bahamas, all of which have more open policies toward the Castro regime. That is the plan for journalists and record company staff going to meet Ryder.

Bourke says that he expects the visa problems to be surmounted soon and that Black Grape will be able to come to the U.S. in February.