What with our feature on Scanner’s Joy Division-inspired Live_Transmission project and tidings of Morrissey’s Autobiography, there’s been a big focus on the classic 1980s Manchester axis this week. To ring in the weekend, we’ve delved into the archives and dug out one of our all-time favourite FACT interviews – a chat with the redoubtable, much-missed Factory Records boss Tony Wilson, dating back to 2003.
The British music industry would have been dramatically different had it not been for one Tony Wilson.
Factory Records not only bore Joy Division/New Order and the Happy Mondays, but – thanks to Peter Saville’s design aesthetic – set a template for numerous UK independent labels to ape. In 1982, Wilson and friends opened The Haçienda. The rest, as they say, is history – one chartered most memorably in Michael Winterbottom’s 2002 film, 24 Hour Party People.
This October, Wilson will be curating a “fantasy” night showcasing his favourite new bands [ed note: Tim Booth of James, Crank and The Music] at London’s ICA called DJ Saved My Life, part of Amnesty’s campaign to force proper control of the arms trade right to the top of the political agenda.
Here FACT interviews him via the Internet. Want to know the bands he wished he’d signed, but didn’t? What’s his favourite record of 2003? How much money would make him stop working? His biggest fashion faux pas and the last time he went out and wasn’t on the guest list? Then read on…
What can you expect from your night at the ICA? Sell it to us…
My theme is ‘the one who got away’. It seemed like a nice idea to put on a few bands I have fallen in love with in the last few years and failed to sign – a way of being contemporary and also self-depreciating. Maybe it would be nicer to offer people a slice of what it feels like to be me going to a gig… every time I descend the grimy stairs of some hip basement, it is the same as doing an examination, except that my life depends on it. It’s an exam ‘cause it’s an exercise in art criticism; “Is this band good or bad?”. And life or death, ‘cause if I ever saw a band and thought they were poor and they turned out to be life-enhancing geniuses, I would have to slit my fucking throat. So that’s what it feels like every time I do this. And for my night for the ICA, here are two bands that I adore and one young bunch I respect enormously but I wouldn’t sign ‘cause they don’t fulfil my criteria of being unable to play their instruments.
You’ve experienced armed violence at clubs and scenes you’ve been integral over the years. How important to you is it to be involved in this campaign?
I hate bullies and in the end that’s all gangs are. The glorification of self-assertive violence is in fact the glorification of those people in the school playground who deal with their inadequacies by terrorising children who are weaker than themselves.
Any effort to disengage from the bling quotient of firearms is to be cheered. It’s not cool to threaten violence or indulge in it. It’s great to be doing some little thing like curating a gig even (oh so fucking arty) to add even a little to this message.
How optimistic are you about a time when clubs can prevent such violence?
Not very. The club problem is, in my experience, an ego problem. The better your club – and you want it to be the greatest – the more the heads and their minions will want to come in and show off and preen themselves by getting free drinks and hitting your staff if they don’t give them free drinks. Always found the sheer helplessness of being unable to defend one’s bar staff from violence, the most unbearable aspect of it all. The decision taken on a Thursday afternoon to bar some tossers, becomes a potential death sentence to your door staff who will have to implement those exclusions. Fucking nightmare. If there is a solution somewhere, it is for schools to become more aware of bullying and more open to dealing with it instead of sweeping it under the carpet. Stop it early. Explain the sad weakness of glorifying that kind of physical strength.
What’s the most exciting thing about music right now?
The bands playing my night at the ICA of course…no. Not fair. But slightly true. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked them…
What CD is in your car stereo at the moment?
Evanescence. I know, it’s just Meatloaf for kids, but it’s such good Meatloaf and I love the girl’s lyrics… I carry the CD liner notes in my car to follow the text… The best thing about music in a period when the industry is in self-pity mode is the kids. Our kids. My kids. We should be worried if the present generation were slightly less absorbed in music than the children of the 60s and 70s and 80s. Considering the garbage on offer from successful UK TV formats, they would be forgiven. But they don’t need to be. UK kids are obsessed with music as ever and that’s all that matters.
What do you think is the best record of 2003 so far?
That one… Evanescence.
You’re in charge of your own radio station for a day. What DJs would you book to play-and why?
I would book any gold station DJ from the US. Why the fuck can America do gold and we can’t? US gold means classic rock and pop songs from 1956 to yesterday. In the UK, gold means middle-of-the-road shite. Wake up for heaven’s sake… gimme a good gold DJ. Now.
If you could spend a day with anyone in the world, who would it be, and why?
The late Cardinal Arns, Archbishop of Sao Paolo. Mr. Liberation theology. I need to understand my Catholicism better. Plus I blame him for my bad business sense. “But Cardinal, are you saying that… just to be rich… of itself… is a sin”? “Exactly my boy”…arms opening wide, big grin on his face.
What would make you stop working?
A guaranteed income of £100,000 per year. Death.
When was the last time you cried?
Recently. Probably a chick flick. Normally cry for dead friends five years after they die…delayed reaction stuff.
What’s your favourite smell?
Grey flannel – me. Cassini – her
Which item have you lost that you most want back?
A Musst de Cartier travel clock given me as a present by my beloved many years ago. Much missed. And now a palm tree which I got in 1975. My fucking cat, Madison, has pissed on it so often, it’s dying and I want it back…should be repotting it if I didn’t have to do this fucking interview with you lot, expect your mag looks cool. My colleague Saville thinks it’s great so there. Fuck the palm tree.
What do you consider your biggest fashion faux pas?
Wearing sarongs throughout the ‘90’s. Pre-Beckham even. Actually my kids think it’s a faux pas. I love them. Particularly in South East Asia.
When was the last time you went out and weren’t on the guest list?
I only go out in Manchester and as a minor local celebrity I’m always on the guest list. But as soon as there’s a pause in entry, as in someone checking invites or something, I just walk away and go home. Can’t stand queuing and can’t stand using my minor celebrity to get in. Either straight in or fuck off is my motto.
It’s your 100th birthday. You’re in dreamland. What five bands/DJs/artists are playing at your party?
Stockholm Monsters, Happy Mondays, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, The Hollies (well it is a party)
What animal do you identify most with?
A rhino coming out of a thicket (how legendary drummer Bruce Mitchell describes my dominant behavioural mode)
What was the first record you bought? And when was the last time you listened to it?
Peter Paul and Mary’s In Concert Volume One 1964, probably. But I think about it. Did you know that Warner Brothers Records (whom I later spent a great part of the ‘80s and early ‘90s working for – God Bless Mo Ostin and all the rest of the greatest label in history) was about to fold and cease in 1961-62, until the success of that very record? Not such a joke after all.
Do you think you’ve already had the ‘best sex of your life’?
No, there’s always something new, another shore to reach… and Pfizer science helps me say that. And isn’t Pele brave?
What band do you wish you had signed to your record label?
The Music and Cat on Form. Thank God I missed The Smiths ‘cause Gretton, my late partner who hailed them as the new Beatles, told Johnny the demo was shit and he wouldn’t sign them till they gave him a good demo. Fuck Morrissey. Great talent, but treats other human beings like shit, which isn’t right.
What’s in your pocket right now?
Antacid tablets. (Is it age or the drugs?) and ten pounds.
What would you come back as in your next life?
Me. Kinda enjoyed it so far…
