Cuttings

DIVISION ON • Ten years ago this week IAN CURTIS took his own life on the eve of Joy Division’s first American tour. Since then, his place in rock’s pantheon of doomed poets has been assured by a stream of imitators and admirers and, of course, the subsequent success of New Order. Here, Len Brown talks to Factory boss Tony Wilson and examines the myth, the legacy and the legend of ‘the greatest live performer of his generation’. Pictures: Kevin Cummins "Funny. I was in the car with Barney the other day and I just hit‘Unknown Pleasures’ into the CD. And Barney shouted, ‘Get that f--------in’ thing off, man!’ I had to find an Italian House album before he was happy.” Anthony H Wilson sits opposite me in the controlled chaos of Factory HQ on Palatine Road, Manchester. He puts his boots up on his desk and scratches his legs beneath Pavarotti-sized khaki shorts. Telephones ring incessantly. Calls investigating the whereabouts of Happy Mondays mastertapes; queries about Revenge; someo

A GOSSIP COLUMN • Wahoo, my little cream buns! Yes, I made it back from sunny Macclesfield all in one delightful piece, ready and raring to get stuck into this week's little catalogue of likely misdemeanours. And goodness me, there were enough being committed in wonderful Manchester last weekend to last me a century. Pity I can't tell you what Morrissey was doing on the staircase of the Britannia with a cup full of hot chocolate, or why Johnny Marr was wearing sunglasses at one o'clock in the morning, or why Ian MacCulloch has suddenly become the victim of a phantom pregnancy or precisely who it was who managed to set the fire alarms off in the aforementioned Manchester hotel, thus evacuating the entire hotel register onto the stairs to rub shoulders with the local fire brigade and coachloads of bewildered American tourists. And what was Tony Wilson doing, walking around the G-MEX Centre all day with a camera crew stuffed right up his nostrils? And did they follow him i

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/aug/12/tonywilson Idealist, chancer, loyal friend: why I will miss Tony Wilson Paul Morley pays tribute to his mentor, the man who shaped Manchester's culture from punk to the Happy Mondays and who died on Friday at the age of 57 Sun 12 Aug 2007 16.57 BST Sometimes, Tony Wilson was just too much. Perhaps he was just too much all of the time. Sometimes I hated that he was too much, too sure of himself, too convinced that his ways were the right ways, rampant with self-assurance, self-belief, self-confidence, self-indulgence, a man crammed with busy, swashbuckling selves to the extent you were never quite sure what he was up to, and what he was. Could someone so forward, so garrulous, so indiscreet be trusted? Was he really the idealistic northern philanthropist determined to fight a lazy, complacent and derelict south, discovering and enabling all kinds of local talent to help in his battle for an absurdist form of north-west independence? Or

RENAISSANCE MANC • FACTORY: aloof, elegant, misunderstood Mancunian home of Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, possibly the coolest record label in the world - but there are worries about its health. With lavish retrospective ‘Palatine’ out soon, ANTHONY H WILSON - game show host, clever git, sexy businessman, man who didn’t sign The Smiths - entertains STUART MACONIE with his art of conversation and confirms that, apart from a ‘ripped scrotum’, Factory is alive and well. Factotum in focus: KEVIN CUMMINS Granadaland - 6,000 square miles of multi-storey car parks, great football teams, breathtaking mountain scenery, cooling towers and the best in English beat music. Charlton, Sugden, Curtis, Barlow, Ryder, Formby, Rutherford, Hook, Sidebottom, Fields, Lawton, Lofthouse, Laurel, Hanley, Shelley, Morrissey, Marr, Bragg (Melvyn not Billy) and The Bee Gees. The roll call rings down the ages. And what has London given us ... Chas & Dave. Thanks. I’m on the roof of the

PILLARS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT • THE HACIENDA - New Order-owned, endlessly filmed and world renowned - is Britain's most famous club. Now the local police want it closed, claiming it to be the focus of Manchester drug culture. Here, JAMES BROWN talks to PETER HOOK, TONY WILSON, club manager PAUL  MASON and James' TIM BOOTH  about the crucible of Manc's musical might.  Pics: KEVIN CUMMINS It would make a cracking pulp best-seller. A nightclub owned by pop stars and a television celebrity fights for its licence and reputation against a police force who've fingered it as a drugs den. Whilst the pop group record with World Cup heroes, an under-age girl takes Ecstasy at the club and later dies. Meantime the culture is leapt upon by Corporate America keen to exploit it. Against them they have the most God-fearing and hard-hitting Chief Constable in the land, On their side they have Ken Dodd's lawyer! It's hot. It's young. It's controversial. It's

THE FACS OF LIFE With the new Factory Records compilation, Palatine , providing a lavish retrospective, Martin Townsend speaks to ANTHONY WILSON and NEW ORDER about the label's enduring (if erratic) success Factory Records' chairman Tony Wilson has an enthusiast's obsession with minute detail. Mention OMD, for instance, and he can take you to the exact bend in the road, just outside Manchester. where his wife first played him the band's demo cassette. As with most enthusiasts, however. 41-year-old Wilson lets his heart rule his head - the history of Factory Records is a bizarre and often shambolic catalogue of triumphs and misadventures. The new four-record retrospective, Palatine (named after the road in which the label's first HQ was located), fails to tell even half the story. " Palatine , interestingly, is not a history," says Wilson, lounging in the company's enormous loft-cum-board-room in central Manchester, It's four very good al