This song is thirty years old today

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Bookmarks: The Durutti Column

Hardformat lovingly unpacks the packaging of the first Durutti Column album:

For some of us this album approaches the status of a secular holy relic because, in addition to the beauty of the object and the music, Vini Reilly states that Joy Division were paid by Tony Wilson to assemble the sandpaper sleeves to earn some extra money. In another report, Ian Curtis allegedly did most of the work while the other three sat watching television in the next room.

Factory offices reopend

Because there's no end to the ways to lose money in Manchester, the old Factory offices are being reopened as a nightclub.

The club is being named FAC251 - or renamed - and has Factory-related backers including Ben Kelly and Peter Hook. Hopefully one tradition of the old company - that of spunking cash up the wall - won't be getting carried forward into the new one.

Tony Wilson's world: Northside

We liked Northside - we saw them, on that slightly mismatched package tour they did with the Pale Saints, the night they actually signed for Factory, and they were alight. They were never going to change the world, but neither were they Flowered Up. And for that we should be offering a silent prayer.

Tony Wilson's world: The Railway Children

Their very early stuff - including Brighter - came out on Factory; before they were tempted to head off to Virgin. Virgin, it's fair to say, were never quite sure what to do with the band, hoping that their poppy sound and Gary Newby's cheekbones would be enough for them to carve out a kind of Haircut One Hundred style niche for themselves - certainly, Newby would pop up in Jackie magazine from time to time. Had they stayed on Factory, of course, the lurching crises in the label's finances might have sunk them just as surely as a marketing team which didn't understand them, but better, surely, to die on your feet as a British Go-Betweens than fade away as Modern Romance with A-Levels?

Tony Wilson's world: The Wendys

Some saw The Wendys as being the vital bridge between the Thames Valley Scene and Madchester. Others, as a band which couldn't decide quite what bandwagon they were trying to jump.

Impressobit: Tony Wilson

There will be, of course, much written about Tony Wilson elsewhere today, focusing - we guess - heavily on Factory, New Order and Joy Division, Granada Reports; perhaps In The City.

Here's some of them:
BBC News Online
Wired
Manchester Evening News
Associated Press
This Is Cheshire manages to get his name wrong. Three times. But they were working at 1.11am
The Independent
NME

Paul Morley writes in The Guardian:

We used to make fun of Wilson and the mantle of grandeur he often assumed, but we knew that in his idiosyncratic and subversive way he was a great and important figure. Good things happened because he was around. This flamboyant, infuriating, pushy hybrid of light entertainer and anarchic Situationist was so in love with life, with music, with ideas, that he infected you with his passion.

It's not often when we're writing one of these where we have much in the way of a personal angle to add, but we did - just the once - break bread with Tony Wilson. He sat himself down at a table where a few of us were fortifying ourselves before a day talking about the digital future of music, and it was immediately apparent how he was able to carry so many people with him on the most hare-brained of schemes. He didn't just sit down, he held court, making a (seemingly) convincing case that to stay in business, record companies would need to embrace the obsessive fan - he used an example of somebody who wanted to be sure the resins used on reproduction covers were the same as the ones used on the original. And then he was off again. Working the room. Running the show.

In a way, he was the Isambard Kingdom Brunel of the music industry, in that his spectacular victories were made possible by the same sense of experimentation that created terrible failures. And like Brunel, it was those flops which meant that he never got to enjoy the fruits of his successes.

So while the American press raises its toast to "the man they based 24 Hour Party People on", let's remember some of Wilson's other work:

Factory Too: 1994's attempt to revive Factory, using money from London Records. Curiously, it was London who almost saved Factory when it had gone into receivership with debts of two and a half million. That deal had foundered at the last minute when it discovered buying the label didn't bring rights to the New Order catalogue with it - although they would have got a lovely table.

Factory Once: The third coming of Factory, in a form dedicated to releasing material from the original Factory records.

F4: Never being afraid to tread over old ground, Wilson revived Factory again in 2005 - the main fruits of this short-lived effort being a Durutti Column album and some compliment slips.

Remote Control: Channel 4's reworking of MTV's game show. It does make you wonder what Wilson could have done with a more mainstream game show - it's surely not inconceivable the man who happily voicedover The Richard Hillman Story could have found a niche as a twenty-first century Countdown helmsman.

What Now?: We're not entirely sure this was called What Now, but it probably was. Back in the 1980s, when exam results were generally a private affair and not merely an excuse for the Telegraph to print pictures of blonde teenagers jumping in the air alongside thinkpieces decrying the slump in standards, Granada would contribute a daytime phone-in to the ITV network. The idea would be young people who had suddenly discovered their lives had collapsed could call-in, Swap Shop style, and discover there was still a chance they could go to Loughborough University or get a career in the twine-manufacturing industry. We imagine that Wilson's contract with Granada and his role presenting pop programmes put him in the frame for talking to Britain's youth, rather than an executive enjoying the irony of Tony giving careers advice.

Northside: But at least he stood by them.

Anthony H Wilson is dead

Tony Wilson, cantankerous anchorman, unsuccessful businessman, inspired A&R talent, tireless enthusiast, died this evening at 6.05pm. He'd been diagnosed with kidney cancer and had one kidney removed back in January.

A spokesperson for Christie Hospital, where Wilson died, said:

"Tony Wilson died peacefully at the Christie Hospital at 6.05pm this evening with his family by his bedside.

"Tony was a very great supporter of the Christie and this is extremely sad news.

"We would like to extend our sympathy to Tony's family."

Joy Division Oven Gloves

We've stumbled about the web, really hoping that the Joy Division trainer would turn out to be an April Fool's joke.

It isn't. They're not on general sale, it looks more like a promo-special thing on the part of New Balance. But, oh god, is there no point where people go "maybe this is, you know, pissing all over the memory of music that means something to people?"

At least the Factory shoe seems like the sort of godawful idea Tony Wilson would have pursued to its bitter end.

A Factory plimsole - it'd come in a lovely box, but fall apart as soon as you slipped a foot into it, and you'd not be able to return them to the shop because you'd have messed up the artfully-scrunched tissue paper they were originally protected by.

[Many thanks to FeatherBoa for the link]

Reclaim Northside

Unlikely reunions keep coming thick and fast: now, Northside are prepared to face down the blame again. They've got a tour lined-up and everything, though sadly without the Pale Saints.