Tony Wilson, RIP.

Why are the scripts on pop docs always quite so dumb? It wasn't the case on eg the Folk Britannia series.

my guess is they know and accept that only a tiny minority audience will listen to something about UK folk and there isn't much you can do with that. (also -- i don't know, but maybe you are less up on folk than on this topic?) but if there's a hint that a nonspecialist viewer might be drawn into the programme, they have to make it dumb.

same with the recent 'summer of british film'. and also imo those seven ages of rock docs.

I suppose there is a sense when BBC4 produce a doc like this that they see it as a potential crossover hit, and a way of opening up the channel to people who wouldn't normally watch. But it seems self-defeating to pitch it at such a basic level, much lower than some of their other shows. The FB series presumed you might want to know about the contexts of the folk revivals of the 50s and 60s, and it did this in a more interesting and thoughtful way than this Factory show, which was often simply "70/80s Britain: LOL" (Thatcher holding a creme egg!). It was more interested in wheeling out all the old Gloomchester/Madchester cliches and gossip than attempting any novel investigations. Even Ross's Steve Dikto doc felt like a more intrigued piece of programming!

Also, apparently there were no women in Manchester in the 1980s!

Perhaps surprisingly, Hook makes the point in one of the extras on 24hrpp, that they seem to ignore the women who worked for Factory. Even Gillian barely gets a mention (let alone Gonnie from Quango Quango.

Also, check out the extras on the website - some interesting unused Tony Wilson footage.

"We thought it was very clever to buy a half share in a pressing plant to protect the quality of our pressings - fucking stupid..."

gonnie from QQ gets quite a good showing in the barney sumner book (qv new order/sirens call thread on ILM) but she does have a tendency to talk a lot of pseudo-sociological shit about dance music :/

Oh, and that old "Blue Monday 12" single lost money on every copy:

IT IS NOT TRUE!!

i know! i've always known! hasn't everyone? that's the whole point: factory might have made a lot of mistakes, but EVEN THEY realised rather quickly that, y'know, a quick redesign job might save them a lot of fucking cash. HOWEVER: wilson was obviously happy to let it run, and between the truth and the legend etc :)

that was what i tried to get across in my obit: that these were stories that you could, if you so desired, choose to believe -- although you might want to think about why you were doing that. and when wilson was around, at least there was a sense that he was the ultimate keeper of the truth; that, with a nod and a wink, he knew. as soon as the fucker dies, however, all these crazy stories suddenly become enshrined in obits and features and so on as absolute fact ...

... which, i guess, is the way he'd have wanted it, isn't it? so maybe not such a bad thing after all.

curious as to why Alan Erasmus remains such an elusive figure tho - not much info about him online even now from what i can tell

OTMFM. I was just commenting about this after watching 24PP with a friend. It's really weird isn't it? The Hannett book mentions him a little bit, though. Says he just quietly went about getting things done, was usually the one to give rides when people needed them, etc.

Yeah, and when he goes (many years from now, etc.), there'll be a footnote for him I guess.

Still, IWANTMORETRIBUTES!!

OK, I just want to see more of thiss tuff, but hey!

(Bimb! Hav found WDE CD too!)

I could have watched Steve Morris all night

Haha, he's great, in't he?

also: madchen, i'm thinking about hoying back to MCR/the north-west for a weekend of japery at some point (including a visit to club clique). we should organise this PROPERLY. a convoy, or something.

This is an insane idea. And it might just work.

nice one! easy!

as mr ryder would have put it, nasally.

bangin

Mark G, thanks so very much for sharing this with me. I am indeed forever in your debt. One of my favourite bits so far is the shot of all those Factory cassette releases! I only ever had ACR's "Graveyard & Ballroom" and Durutti's "Another Setting" on cassette and I had no idea there was a whole gorgeous colour scheme of other cassette releases in the same vein as the design of those...I had to rewind a couple of times to make sure I read them all...Unknown Pleasures, Graveyard & Ballroom, Quando Quango, Happy Mondays first album (!! what was *that* doing on cassette???) Section 25's From the Hip and the most amazing thing was it was a whole colour scheme, no colour was chosen twice, you can even see the subtle difference between the blue of the Quando Quango sleeve and the blue of the ACR one. Fucking amazing. A Saville triumph, to be sure.

And Martin Hannett actually TALKING ON CAMERA will live with me to the day I die. Gosh, I was just amazed at the photos too of him here that I've never seen before. Thanks again, shoutout to Grout, etc.

I also very much like the coverage of the Hacienda...it brought it all back for me in a way 24HPP didn't quite do. I started having Deja Vu and stuff, remembering some of my own experiences of the Hac that I'd forgotten.

I agree Stephen Morris is great in this.

I haven't a clue who John Robb is, but his hairstyle is dire.

Also was amazed to see the actual, original Factory Sampler record sleeve. You know the one I mean. That was fucking amazing. Especially the back, that wavy line and the quote above Joy Division. I never even owned that record ever, and passed up on buying it later when it was expensive too. To see the design, the actual article, was top.

I may have more to say later, I had to stop it in the middle of the Happy Mondays bit as I quite simply felt overwhelmed.

Also that bit where Larry from Sec 25 is so young and talking to Wilson wigs me out.

i still haven't had a chance to watch this yet; bimble, i'm glad you have! it's sitting happily on my tivo thingy waiting for me to have SPARE TIME.

Aww, that's sweet, dude. Sweet.

Another big deal to me was to see footage of Vini circa first Durutti Column album with Martin in studio. Good lord. Vini was so young!

And yes he calls Hooky a "cheeky bastard" that was good, too.

this documentary sounds right up my alley.. does anyone know if a dvd issue is planned?

It would make a good bonus feature on the Control DVD

I haven't a clue who John Robb is, but his hairstyle is dire.

He was a music journalist for Melody Maker (or maybe Sounds or NME) circa 1990.

John Robb was in a post-punk band in the 1980s

The Membranes
http://www.myspace.com/themembranesuk

he was also in ... eh ... gold blade, were they called? he said they were the future of music. everyone else said: "who's the dick with the hair?"

er. is also in …

Goldblade are still going? Mein Gott.

£15 to see them at the Liquid Rooms in November.

Haha! Oh okay Membranes, yeah I know them. Never took a liking to them, though. I fear this Goldblade, but of course I'll have to listen to it out of sheer curiosity, which is likely to kill my cat, methinks.

Also I just want to add...and this never before came to my attention for some reason...isn't it a PAPER CLIP in Johnny Rotten's ear on So It Goes? Tell me I'm wrong if you will but I thought that was brilliant. I've got The Filth & the Fury and all, but I never noticed anything in his ear like that before.

Wow, I had no idea he'd died until I saw this thread today! I guess I've been kind of busy...

john robb = dreadful talking head, worse writer, even worser musician. and an awful human being by all accounts.

The Membranes were good tho...

John Robb wrote for Sounds, mostly about noisy US indie stuff, but he also covered the Northwest music scene too. I was living in Manchester in the late 80s and he was one of those blokes that you saw at virtually every single gig you went to (but maybe I just always noticed him cos he did tend to stand out from the crowd). Anyhow, you'd say hello to him and he always seemed like a decent bloke, dunno what all the hostility is about here.

'Cos he's crap and shouldn't be on television? The Membranes were a pretty good band however. So doff of the cap to him there.

john robb used to be a guest on mary anne hobbs show years ago, and he would laugh after every comment he made, whether it was funny or not.

he's more than crap, the guy is a moron and shouldn't be a spokesman for the northwest. we lose morley and this cunt replaces him, is there no justice in the world ;_;

Another reason JRobb might have been on this show of course was that terrible programme, he, Tony Wilson and Terry Christian did which consisted of them sitting around bitching about "that London" like a trio of embittered old hasbeens (what do I mean like?!??!)

I stumbled upon XFM Manchester's tribute podcasts presented by Clint Boon with excerpts from AHW's Sunday afternoon programme and tributes from various Manc luminaries. It's actually pretty touching in places, especially Hooky's segment. It should be fairly easy to find on itunes.

the idea of gold blade still existing is fucking with my head.

lol, gold blade played at some alerna-club night in liverpool a couple of years ago and a crowd of about 150 people dwindled to about ten as most people drifted off to the bar after the first two songs.

o god clint boon too, it's almost unfair to dredge this thread into the mire by mentioning these fuckwits

what's wrong with booney? he's a top keys player

Enough about John Robb and Clint Booney.

Indeed. Back to Tony!

if you lived in manchester you'd know. cunt boon bills himself as 'man of the ppl' but truth is no one gave a flying fuck about the carpets, let alone him. he's done a john robb in that he's not very good but has somehow managed a virulent and damaging backwards-looking career that is slowly killing manchester. boon must wake up each and every day and thank the lord for lazy journalists.

someone recently said, going to clint boon's clubnight is the equivalent of someone at the height of acid house saying "hey, the drummer from mott the hoople has a clubnight round the corner, lets go there!"

"hey, the drummer from mott the hoople has a clubnight round the corner, lets go there!"

Sounds good to me! Clubbin' With Buffin!

or "Hey, we got an ex-Bassplayer of Sad Cafe to produce!"

perspectives.

yeah, but the kids now love old crap don't they? loads of people probably would go to a club run by the drummer from mott the hoople, if he played "eclectic freakbeat classics" or something.

I would. Freakbeat's great!

most dj's were in a shit indie band at some point weren't they?

exactly.

xxxxpost. pls put more research into 'the kids now'. (btw hoople man would be playing aor only in this mythical late 80s club)

xxpost. uh no and that's missing the point anyway. boon's carpets past runs through everything he does like mud through a worm

the kids now use all kinds of hip slang like "totally tubular" and "gnarly". their fave bands are london boys and big fun.