For my sister Margaret – thick as thieves
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Preface
ONE: Ruined
TWO: The Fun Factory
THREE: Good Cop, Bad Cop
FOUR: The Best Thing in Manchester for About Six Months
FIVE: I Was Pissed Off With Him …
SIX: A Big Dirty Hall
SEVEN: You Can’t Put a Price on Irony
EIGHT: Yvette
NINE: Fury of TV Wife
TEN: You’ll Never Make Money Unless You Focus
ELEVEN: London Resisted Him
TWELVE: Twat
THIRTEEN: A Provincial Academic
FOURTEEN: This Thing
FIFTEEN: The Christie
SIXTEEN: 200250100807
SEVENTEEN: Size 40 Million Boots
EIGHTEEN: Cast of characters
NINETEEN: Just the FACs – the Factory Catalogue
Obscure FACs – off-shoots and lesser known Factory related items.
About the Author
Copyright
The first time I met Tony Wilson, he didn’t say, ‘Hello’ or ‘How are you?’ He said, ‘I’ve just been to the most amazing museum space… do you know New York?’
One nil to Tony.
I then had to hand him a cheque to pay him for the television interview we were about to do, despite the fact we were both employees of the company who were going to broadcast it – Granada Television in Manchester. Tony was in a row about money with Granada and was insisting on being paid up front before he held forth on any subject, even if it was for a colleague.
In the space of a few moments I got a small insight into Tony’s world: intellectual pretention, argy-bargy and problems with money. Not a bad introduction to his many lives in just two minutes.
Like many people, I felt like I already knew him. This was the bouffant-haired newsreader who had provided me with the first glimpse of my about-to-be-favourite bands on TV. This was the man whose record company made singles that were often better to look at than they were to listen to. This was the man whose nightclub I’d begun visiting in its opening week in 1982. This was the man I was soon to be sharing an open-plan office with. I felt like I knew him.
Then I started work on this book. Turns out I didn’t know him at all.
The following people definitely helped me know more about Tony Wilson. That there are musicians, DJs, journalists, TV executives, writers, actors, a former Blue Peter presenter, a doctor, a forensic scientist and a man with a papier-mâché head among them says a great deal about the rich palette of Tony’s life. So my thanks to: Mark Alderton, Chris Batten, Peter Berry, Gordon Burns, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Larry Cassidy, Vin Cassidy, Sebastian Cody, Kieron Collins, Kevin Cummins, Pat Dilibero, Ray Fitzwalter, Bob Greaves, Dave Haslam, Professor Robert Hawkins, Alan Hempsall, Konnie Huq, Kathleen Houghton, Don Jones, Tadeusz Kasa, Howard Kingston, Geoff Knupfer, Chris Lee, David Liddiment, Michelle Mayman, Andy McCluskey, Rob McLoughlin, Peter McNamara, Bruce Mitchell, Martin Moscrop, Eamonn O’Neal, Steve Panter, Graeme Park, Craig Parkinson, Max Steinberg, Paul Ryder, Chris Sievey, Mike Spencer, Peter Trollope, Paul Welsh, Jenny Winstone and Dick Witts.
Thank you – only more so – to Tony’s partner Yvette Livesey. Truly a Superstar DJ…
Also: Laura Baynam-Hughes, Polyanna Clayton-Stamm, John Cooper, Ian Cranna, Peter Davis, Simon Donohue, Bob Gallagher, Cerys Griffiths, John Jeffay, Ian Johnsen, Roger Platt, Paul Routledge, Lucian Randall, Lindsay Reade, Tom Smetham and Dave Woodward for their help in making things happen.
Oddly enough, just as I was finishing this book, I had a stroke. That was a funny day. So thank you to the staff at Stepping Hill Hospital, Stockport for looking after me.
Author interviews with Tony Wilson carried out in 1998, 2001 and 2006.
David Nolan – Manchester, England
August 2009
It’s 2001 and a press conference is taking place to discuss the production of a film being shot in and around the city of Manchester, England. The film is called 24 Hour Party People.
There are actors, producers and directors present. Some of them are in visible states of disrepair as some bright spark has decided to arrange this ‘presser’ for the morning after the filming of key scenes realistically recreating a Bacchanalian night at The Haçienda, the nightclub co-owned and co-founded by the person who acts as the film’s central character: Anthony H Wilson.
Nobody calls him Anthony of course – or indeed mentions the H – they call him Tony. And the real Tony has decided to take charge of the press conference. ‘Right, I’m doing my day job now,’ he booms. ‘I’m back on straightforward presenting duties. This is a press conference. Who wants to start? Who wants to start asking questions about this strange film?’
Tony is in his element. He is effing. He is jeffing. He is flinging his own queries in the direction of director Michael Winterbottom and producer Andrew Eaton, ones that are trickier than the ones being posed by the journalists. He is answering questions that are clearly aimed at the comic actor who is playing him in the film, Steve Coogan. He is making comments about people, places and businesses in and around the city of Manchester that the reporters present will be unable to reproduce because of the laws of libel in the UK. And his phone keeps going off. The others shout at Wilson to turn the offending mobile off. ‘Fine,’ he harrumphs. ‘It’s Yvette, my wife…’
Some of the reporters are doing what journalists have been doing to Wilson since the early 1970s. They’re niggling him. Taking the piss. Hoping to get a rise. One in particular keeps returning to one of Wilson’s favourite themes, that music and youth culture renew themselves every 13 years: Teddy Boys (1950), Beatles (1963), punk (1976) and acid house (1989). It’s a neat piece of pop theory and if he’s right there’s another one due in a matter of months. As the PR person winds things up, the reporter tries one last time.
‘Tony,’ the journalist says forcefully, ‘about your theory that there’s a music revolution every 13 years. I would like to say that I disagree with that. I think it’s a load of rubbish.’
Tony Wilson – television presenter, record label boss, nightclub entrepreneur and professional pop culture enthusiast – looks at the reporter with something approaching pity.
‘You’re entitled to an opinion,’ he states. ‘But your opinion is shit.’
What does education do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook
– HENRY DAVID THOREAU
In