Mr Manchester and the Factory Girl: The Story of Tony and Lindsay Wilson

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Seldom-seen archive materials and objects will give visitors an exclusive insight into the Factory Records story, a highlight being Ian Curtis’s Vox Phantom guitar, played live and featured in the official Love Will Tear Us Apart video, which will be on public display for the first time in over 30 years. It sounds like a record that’s taken a long time to make. It sounds like a record that’s been made in difficult circumstances and with different processes involved in making those songs. It’s a flawed record, but it’s not the stinker some people said it was. You describe in the book how Situationist theory influenced Wilson during the period when he was studying at Cambridge University in the late 1960s. How did that inform his worldview and translate into his future endeavors at Factory Records and the Hacienda? In 1984, the group recorded its sole single, a cover of the Joe Meek song " Telstar", with the B-side being "Telstar in a Piano Bar". The song had original lyrics written by Reade in its first version, which were rejected by Meek's publishers, and replaced by more abstract and unintelligible vocals. [2] Lindsay Reade explained: [3] Curtis was in a desperate personal situation. He married Deborah when they were both just teenagers. There is no doubt that he continued to feel affection for her, but he was tortured by conflict, because in 1979, he met and fell in love with Belgian Annik Honore', who interviewed Joy Division and travelled to their gigs. Annik comes across with real integrity. She has never sold out or cashed in on her relationship with Curtis. She was, and still is, an intelligent and cultured woman, and the connection she felt with Curtis was mutual and deep. Attempts to paint her as a groupie are scandalously wide of the mark: she and Curtis never even consummated their relationship; what they had was love in the purest sense. Yet Deborah also obviously loved Ian deeply, and she was not willing to let go, especially since they had a baby daughter.

There were people alluding to the fact that Reni was involved with the wrong type of stuff, if you know what I mean, and went seriously off the rails, but knowing what a professional he was… you should have seen him – this guy was driven. In the studio you couldn’t get Reni to stop playing the drums. This was a guy who truly believed in what he was doing, and knew that he was one of the best drummers. [So] for him to see this thing fall apart about him, and the fallout between John and Ian – it’s no wonder he went off the rails. Sean O'Hagan (3 April 2002). "Guardian interview on the release of 24 Hour Party People". London: Film.guardian.co.uk . Retrieved 25 October 2010. With the thirtieth anniversary of Ian Curtis's suicide (he killed himself on May 18th 1980) just gone, enough time had passed for me to want to read an account of the exceptionally talented Joy Division frontsman's life. Like many who were involved in the music business in 1980, I had not played Unknown Pleasures since Curtis's death as it was just too harrowing. Not that I ever knew or even met Curtis. I saw them live in London's Lyceum in February 1980, and was a big fan of their music, but for me, Curtis remained a shadowy figure - an enigmatic performer whose crazed trapped moth dance mesmerised; a haunting poet whose lyrics and songs could raise goosebumps; and a man with many personal problems including severe epilepsy and a complicated home life.Can't Afford" was an even a bigger US success than "Cool as Ice," entering the top 20 on the Billboard Dance Chart in early 1985. [7]

Nevertheless, his love and need for Annik was unarguable. He continued in his letters to tell her that he loved her and wanted to be with her. It's not difficult to see how he saw no way out of his dilemma. He made little money from Factory Records or the Haçienda, despite the enormous popularity and cultural significance of both endeavours. [9] Both Factory Records and the Haçienda came to an abrupt end in the late 1990s. [ citation needed]

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Early on, I wasn't sure that such devotion to Ian's early life was warranted; plenty of biographies of famous people reduce childhood memories and events to a chapter or two for the better, because the narrative drive sometimes doesn't need exhaustive details like school records or dental appointments and the like. But the book became more interesting (and thus merited a fourth star) when detailing the emerging Manchester punk scene and how Joy Division found their own unique, profound sound. There are better books about Joy Division, honestly (Jon Savage's oral history is the best, though don't sleep on bandmate memoirs from the likes of Peter Hook and Stephen Morris), but this one was entertaining because it presented Curtis as much more than just the portrait that Debbie serves up in her book. However, the planned UK tour in April was cancelled outright, and then in June, they pulled their Glastonbury headline slot. This was blamed on John’s broken collarbone, which he acquired while cycling on holiday. The postponed tour finally resumed in November, wit hall dates selling out in a day. Glory was short-lived: the following April, John Squire left the band – Aziz Ibrahim, also formerly of Simply Red, took his place. Ian Brown, John Squire, Mani and Reni had become household names. They’d even appeared on the national institution that is Top Of The Pops – sharing the stage with brothers-in-arms The Happy Mondays, and performing ‘Fools Gold’ in all its loved-up glory.

Meanwhile, in the UK, Wilson began to include the band on Factory's publicity material. They also appeared twice on his Granada Reports news programme. The title said it all. Expectations were high for the Roses’ follow-up album, and when it finally arrived on December 5th 1994, it fell in the wake of the Britpop wave that washed over Britain. Lead single ‘Love Spreads’ signalled the new direction the music was taking: chunky Zep riffs, gravelly blues, tribal rhythms… The naivité of their debut had given way for an assured yet often indulgent successor. Ultimately, the expectations were just too great a burden. It still really saddens me what happened with the Roses, because they were, or they should have been, one of the great pop phenomenons who went on for years and made ten albums, you know what I mean? But then the other way of looking at it is that for a certain period of time they were the best band on the planet, and nothing will ever take that away.

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There was a lot about him that remained mysterious. In a way, I spend the book chasing him into the quiet moments and his private places, which of course we never got into because he made a lot of his private places even inside his car or his workplace. Everybody had stories about [their] dealings with Tony. In mixing all the chaos, the stories, the confusion, the successes and failures, I'm trying to find the calm at the center of this storm because there was calm. He obviously found time to generate his ideas and passions. I suppose a lot of that is to do with the fact that he was a voracious reader, so maybe you get to Tony Wilson in a really still way where he's reading and thinking. Nice, James (2010). Shadowplayers: The Rise and Fall of Factory Records. Aurum. ISBN 978-1-84513-540-9. Use Hearing Protection: the early years of Factory Records at the Science and Industry Museum is a new exhibition, supported by the Players of the People’s Postcode Lottery. It’s a story that the Science and Industry Museum is uniquely placed to tell. Factory Records was hugely influenced by Manchester’s industrial heritage, which we sit at the heart of, and was progressive in its use of digital and electronic technologies, which are again core focuses of the stories we tell here at the museum.