Tony Wilson - 1950-2007 - RIP
By: Various Scribes
Tony Wilson sadly passed away last week, after battling a cancer related illness. Rockfeedback was deeply saddened to hear the news, and here offers not one but two obituaries. Tom Hocknell steps up first to deliver thoughts from the point of view of one who saw the whole Factory saga unfurl, whilst Alex Lee Thomson after him assesses the lasting impact of his work kids just getting in to music in 2007. Over to them...
Without wanting to repeat other obituaries in the press, it is important that the passing of Mr Anthony H. Wilson is not left unmentioned by Rockfeedback, before the inevitable backlash. Although Wilson suffered backlash most days of his life, so anything now said which he cannot laugh at, shrug off, or reply to, is frankly tasteless. As a Southerner, perhaps I should leave it to an authentic, Manchester voice - after all this is the man who changed his mind while driving to start a job in London and U-turned back to his old position with Granada Television in Manchester and never left. But he changed my life too.
He was a man who freely admitted to being without musical talent and who surrounded himself with those that did. Through shameless self-promotion and the occasional (ab)use of his position as TV presenter, he put great bands on regional TV. He was at the fabled Sex Pistols gig at the Free Trade Hall in 1976, which galvanised pretty much every band to come out of Manchester for the next 10 years, from The Buzzcocks, The Fall, to Joy Division & The Smiths to Simply Red. It's been said every one of the 40 attendees started a band, although the Free Trade Hall would have been the size of Wembley to accommodate all those who said they were there, but still, dimensions or fact should never confine proud anecdotes, even if they would have sent Health & Safety officers' skeletal personalities into meltdown.
Of course it was Factory Records, named after Warhol's New York factory, that was his passion and it is this which he will be most remembered for. Factory Records, the label that gave us Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, ('signed' after Wilson saw them lose a talent show), and, of course, Northside. Well, surely three zeitgeist bands is enough?
Of course he also had other gems on the roster, A Certain Ratio never quite fulfilled their commercial potential through hop scotching between genres, and of course Vini Reilly's Durutti Column, Wilson's in-house genius, in whom, despite perennially poor record sales, Wilson never lost faith.
A record label needs a big personality, and Wilson rose, at times, a little too well to the sense of on-going occasion. It was possibly Wilson's dedication to putting profits from Factory Records back into the local community, such as opening the Hacienda nightclub in an ex-yacht showroom, which created a certain friction with bands, particularly as they grew in success. Bernard Sumner certainly found owning a showroom particularly ironic while being unable to afford an actual yacht. In fact many of the Factory records failures were due to its, and probably Wilson's, idealism, such as not believing in tying bands to a contract, to indulging their whims and fatally, bank rolling Happy Monday's drug habit in the Caribbean. The Hacienda eventually outlived Factory Records, and was closed down in 1997, as it seemed the only people making money from it were the drug dealers.
There are of course many classic stories involving Wilson - the cost of Blue Monday's sleeve outstripping the profits, the lack of paper contracts with the bands, giving everything involved with Factory catalogue numbers, from posters (fac. 1), Christmas cards (fac 145), adhesive tape (fac 136) to the HQ that contributed to its downfall (fac. 251) and even on occasion, fabulous records, 'True Faith' (fac 183) and 'Step On' (fac 272) to name two. The label often got it wrong, allowing lofty (Wilson) aspirations to get in the way, for although Factory is often credited in gauging the pulse of burgeoning club music in the UK, through the Hacienda, it actually turned its back on setting up a dance label in the mid 80's, which Mute successfully did with Rhythm King. Instead Wilson prioritised Factory's classical music arm. It also often lost bands to majors, most notably James, and he failed with Factory Too, although Wilson cannot be blamed for bands leaving, in his opinion, too early, given they did not actually having contractual obligations anyway. Ultimately it was Wilson's rhetoric that seemed to wind people up, as equally as it impressed, often at the same time, but his enthusiasm cannot be denied. He continued to be active in music until the end, setting up In The City, a music industry conference and festival held annually in Manchester.
I am glad for Manchester, who before his death had already reclaimed him as theirs, and while not retracting the consistent calls of 'twat' that followed Wilson around, he was at least described as 'our twat'. He was fundamentally a music fan, those often forgotten, obsessive people, as important as the bands themselves. And for many, they would not have become fans without him. Listen to music yes, and have room for belongings other than records and CD's, yes, but filling one's life with it, one's very being? No. Certainly my teenage years, without those magnificent singles, those iconic, enigmatic, sleeves without band names or explanation, that unique Factory undersell provoking a unique sense of secrecy, would have been far less interesting. And for that I thank Peter Saville's design, Rob Gretton (1953-99), New Order's music and of course Anthony H. Wilson's spiel and his willingness to put not only his money, but also other people's money, where his mouth was. Finally it is inspiring to imagine that at the end, his sense of injustice over Vini Reilly not becoming a household name contributed to what, very sadly, the heart attack and cancer had already started.
By TOM HOCKNELL
in 1976, when the rest of the country was concerned with merely making do with whatever else the arse end of rock 'n' roll was spiting out, a regional TV presenter by the name of Anthony Wilson took himself down to Manchester's Free Trade Hall to watch a band that he would later describe as causing something of an epiphany. He quickly booked the band, The Sex Pistols, for the next series of his culture show, 'So It Goes', and so it did go until he inevitably moved out of news presenting and into artist management and event promotion around Manchester. The first band to receive his own unique style of backing was Joy Division, whom if you don't know by now - you probably never will. The lines between fact and fantasy, the real from the legend, were notoriously blurred from then on in, Wilson using the power of hype and underground promotion to ensure his, and more importantly his bands, success regardless of image.
He achieved so much with Joy Division, Happy Mondays and then on into New Order and even managed to pull together one of the most legendary night clubs in history along the way. The Hacienda and Factory Records will never be forgotten, not least because of the fundamental impact they had on the Manchester (sorry, MADchester) scene but their rolling effect into the London and national industry, and most of all - their ethos. Tony Wilson signed a contract in his own blood stating that Factory wouldn't 'own' their artists' material and their bands were free to leave at any time without upset. He pioneered the band / management relationship making a label that in itself was the centre of the commotion as much as the people on it, making sure that the music was the most important thing over money. It was the feel of the record, the over-manufactured sleeves or advertising campaigns that went out too late that made the industry change its tactics and wake up to the fact independent music could also be a business, without compromising integrity.
Tony Wilson had a dream of what an independent label should be, and Factory was the realisation of that dream, a place where music had right of way and suit 'n' tie businessmen could wait at the door. He wasted so much money on trying to be creative and thus made a lot of bad, financially crippling, moves that inevitably led to the closure of The Hacienda and Factory, though in their short time had gained more acknowledgement and respect than pretty much every 'major' in the world.
Wilson didn't want fame, he wanted respect and to be known for that respect, and wanted so hard to ensure his name went down in history. He did it by always taking the left-field option and throwing himself into new ventures with a sense of hesitant enthusiasm, not quitting until he was happy with the result. He may have been hated by the majority of his peers, even those closest to him, for being an egotistical straight talker, but he was loved by his fans and achieved his notoriety effortlessly, being immortalised in his own film; the semi-fictional '24 Hour Party People'. It's a shame that Wilson won't get to see the new movie about Ian Curtis due out this Autumn as it will no doubt be yet another testament to how important these two great men were, on their own different though crossing paths.
Tony Wilson wasn't the most liked of men in music, but was certainly among the highest regarded, appreciated and esteemed. He's one of the last industry eccentrics and will be remembered by the bands he championed, the music he took to a national level and the swarms of devotees that owe their belief in the music industry to him. I've always felt envious of people who were lucky enough to be around Manchester and Factory circa the 1980s, and have forever wished I'd been a part of it. I for one will regret having never met him as so many others will, but I am privileged to have been touched by him in some way. If one day somebody turns to me and says, "y'know, you're a bit like Tony Wilson", I'll take it as a good thing every time.
Artists in this article: Tony Wilson