Shadowplayers: The Rise And Fall Of Factory Records by James Nice
Re-reading of Nice’s 2010 massive tome chronicling the world’s greatest record label for me. Originally published in 2010. It’s incredibly well researched, and Nice certainly doesn't hold back when the situationist business as an art ideal begins to crumble. Factory went bust owing millions, with the most telling utter stupidity being that right up until the day they went under, they were still having fresh flowers delivered to their HQ everyday. Obviously they didn’t pay the florist, but as chairman Anthony H Wilson says, that wasn’t the point.
I loved Wilson. I adored him, and by extension I utterly adore Factory. It was far more than just a record label. The giving absolutely everything a catalog number being my favorite. One of the directors went on holiday, they gave the holiday it’s own number. Even The Haçienda cat had it’s own number. It’s a way of life. Make an effort. Don’t accept mediocrity.
Obviously the music they released is sublime, but that wasn’t everything. The aforementioned Haçienda superclub, the re-generation of Manchester with Dry bar, and there’s little argument that Wilson single handedly was the force behind the northern hub that now strides the north of England, and a multitude of other mad ideas.
Wilson was somewhat of an enigma. A presenter on Granada TV. If you lived in that area, you’d see him every dinnertime presenting the evening news. Then if you went out in Manchester of an evening, you’d see him out and about living large. When things were going well at Factory, his espousing of the Situationist Manifesto as a way of living sounded like a right old laugh. Not quite so funny when New Order were single handedly bankrolling the whole Factory operation. Peter Hook tells a story of his band being told that if they didn’t put £70,000 into The Haçienda by the next day it’d go bust. Then being paid a tenner to work as a roadie at the club on that very same weekend because he was broke due to the fact that Factory weren’t paying royalties. It’s full of stories like that.
But however many tales of financial woe, there’s the music, some of which is the most sublime you’ll ever hear. Joy Division, New Order, The Mondays, Section 25, James, The Durutti Column, the list goes on and on. There are some records that they released that I’m still listening to well over 40 years later. I’ll bet that I listen to a Factory release at least once or twice a week to this very here day. When I lived in Scotland and played in bands, me and a couple of friends started our own label, which we called Primary Recordings. I say record label, but the only things we released were home recorded cassettes. But we gave everything its own catalog number, PR1 etc’. Safe to say that I’m obsessed with Factory, and especially Wilson.
I bought this when it came out in hardback and have just discovered that if I wanted to buy it today it’d cost me £100 on Ebay. Which just goes to show that the financial madness that surrounded Factory continues to this day.
_________________ For those that like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.
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