Kiss me goodnight.
The one problem with doing a blog that I (usually) only update Mondays through Fridays is that when big stuff happens on the weekends, I look like I'm a little behind in the game.
When I learned Friday evening that Tony Wilson had passed away, I was a bit bummed (no pun intended) by the news, and sure enough, a quick perusal of the Hype Machine over the weekend's posts will show that a number of blogs came out with tributes to Wilson and enough Joy Division, New Order and Happy Mondays (in addition to the odd A Certain Ratio track) to make yourself a decent little Factory mixtape.
I spent the weekend debating whether or not I'd make a big to do here about Wilson's passing, and on Sunday I put on the Mondays' 1992 album ...Yes Please! -- essentially the album that finally sank Factory Records -- and found all the inspiration I needed.
The thing about Tony Wilson is that he used his means to do something he felt was important to benefit his own city. Starting a record label is something every kid in high school with even half an interest in music considers. Carrying it through to fruition usually falls short when people get half an inkling of how much it really costs. Sure, Tony felt that a band like Joy Division was important and needed to be heard. Could he have anticipated back in 1977 that 30 years later the world would be awaiting an Anton Corbijn-directed biopic of its lead singer's life? I'm sure a rather large slice of the Manchester ego would've quickly said "of course," but I also think that even he, who at the time just wanted to expose a bit of punk music properly to northern England, would've thought literally affecting the world at large might have been a tad presumptuous.
It says a lot about the quality of karma to look at what happened with Factory Records. Joy Division is about to go to America, Ian Curtis kills himself. No band survives the death of a lead singer, but they try it anyway. New Order become huge. Wilson doesn't think New Order will be huge, so he allows a ridiculously expensive tri-cut sleeve to be produced for their single "Blue Monday," meaning they'll lose money on every copy they sell. It goes on to become the largest selling 12" in history. On the strength of that popularity and recognizing Manchester needs a place for congregation, Wilson opens the Hacienda. Ultimately it gives birth to the Rave scene. Unfortunately the rising drug culture in the city kills it from within. Since pretty much everything's been run on the assumption that "this will pay off in the end," the company now finds itself in huge amounts of debt. And who do they look to to save the franchise?
The Happy Mondays, who want to do their new album in Barbados.
Well, come on now. A sheep farmer in Tibet could've told you that wasn't a safe bet.
And it wasn't. The band wasted their recording advances on drugs and booze, all the members of the band wanted to go different directions musically, Bez got into a near-crippling car accident, but of course the cherry on top was that Shaun Ryder ultimately didn't record any vocals.
It wasn't really the right time to f*ck things up -- not just for Factory, but also for the Mondays themselves who had brought the Madchester empire crashing down with an NME interview in which, spurred mainly by comments from Mssr. Bez, they all came off like a bunch of gay-bashing thugs. The backlash was thunderous and if the Mondays were to stay afloat, they needed to make a great statement.
Factory had to shell out the last of what it had to get Ryder to record vocals for the album and when it was eventually released, it was viewed as a complete flop.
...Yes Please! wasn't half as exciting as their first three albums, and it certainly wasn't an album to bank both a career and a record label on, but therein lies what made Tony Wilson special. He did. No one else would've taken a chance on the Happy Mondays to begin with. He believed in them in enough to put his company in their careless hands. They f*cked him over, but he bore no regrets. In posterity, after all, it's an amazing story.
There are very few people like Tony Wilson in the music industry. There are even less now.
Happy Mondays - Stinkin' Thinkin'
This is the track that made me want to do a post on Tony. This isn't the Mondays' best track, and it's certainly a terrible choice for an album opener, but it's easily their most beautiful, and the only moment of pristine lucidity on ...Yes Please! Herewithin, Shaun Ryder, arguably one of the most boorish, unapologetic frontmen of all time... apologizes. Apologizes for everything. Is it to the NME readers that were offended by the gay-bashing interview? Is it to Tony Wilson for torpedoing Factory Records? Is it to his girlfriend? Is it to his bandmates? It's not ever really specified. And at the same time he's apologizing for his actions, he's also justifying them, implying that if he had to do it all over again just as is/was, he would. I think Tony would too.
And so would Icarus.
When I learned Friday evening that Tony Wilson had passed away, I was a bit bummed (no pun intended) by the news, and sure enough, a quick perusal of the Hype Machine over the weekend's posts will show that a number of blogs came out with tributes to Wilson and enough Joy Division, New Order and Happy Mondays (in addition to the odd A Certain Ratio track) to make yourself a decent little Factory mixtape.
I spent the weekend debating whether or not I'd make a big to do here about Wilson's passing, and on Sunday I put on the Mondays' 1992 album ...Yes Please! -- essentially the album that finally sank Factory Records -- and found all the inspiration I needed.
The thing about Tony Wilson is that he used his means to do something he felt was important to benefit his own city. Starting a record label is something every kid in high school with even half an interest in music considers. Carrying it through to fruition usually falls short when people get half an inkling of how much it really costs. Sure, Tony felt that a band like Joy Division was important and needed to be heard. Could he have anticipated back in 1977 that 30 years later the world would be awaiting an Anton Corbijn-directed biopic of its lead singer's life? I'm sure a rather large slice of the Manchester ego would've quickly said "of course," but I also think that even he, who at the time just wanted to expose a bit of punk music properly to northern England, would've thought literally affecting the world at large might have been a tad presumptuous.
It says a lot about the quality of karma to look at what happened with Factory Records. Joy Division is about to go to America, Ian Curtis kills himself. No band survives the death of a lead singer, but they try it anyway. New Order become huge. Wilson doesn't think New Order will be huge, so he allows a ridiculously expensive tri-cut sleeve to be produced for their single "Blue Monday," meaning they'll lose money on every copy they sell. It goes on to become the largest selling 12" in history. On the strength of that popularity and recognizing Manchester needs a place for congregation, Wilson opens the Hacienda. Ultimately it gives birth to the Rave scene. Unfortunately the rising drug culture in the city kills it from within. Since pretty much everything's been run on the assumption that "this will pay off in the end," the company now finds itself in huge amounts of debt. And who do they look to to save the franchise?
The Happy Mondays, who want to do their new album in Barbados.
Well, come on now. A sheep farmer in Tibet could've told you that wasn't a safe bet.
And it wasn't. The band wasted their recording advances on drugs and booze, all the members of the band wanted to go different directions musically, Bez got into a near-crippling car accident, but of course the cherry on top was that Shaun Ryder ultimately didn't record any vocals.
It wasn't really the right time to f*ck things up -- not just for Factory, but also for the Mondays themselves who had brought the Madchester empire crashing down with an NME interview in which, spurred mainly by comments from Mssr. Bez, they all came off like a bunch of gay-bashing thugs. The backlash was thunderous and if the Mondays were to stay afloat, they needed to make a great statement.
Factory had to shell out the last of what it had to get Ryder to record vocals for the album and when it was eventually released, it was viewed as a complete flop.
...Yes Please! wasn't half as exciting as their first three albums, and it certainly wasn't an album to bank both a career and a record label on, but therein lies what made Tony Wilson special. He did. No one else would've taken a chance on the Happy Mondays to begin with. He believed in them in enough to put his company in their careless hands. They f*cked him over, but he bore no regrets. In posterity, after all, it's an amazing story.
There are very few people like Tony Wilson in the music industry. There are even less now.
Happy Mondays - Stinkin' Thinkin'
This is the track that made me want to do a post on Tony. This isn't the Mondays' best track, and it's certainly a terrible choice for an album opener, but it's easily their most beautiful, and the only moment of pristine lucidity on ...Yes Please! Herewithin, Shaun Ryder, arguably one of the most boorish, unapologetic frontmen of all time... apologizes. Apologizes for everything. Is it to the NME readers that were offended by the gay-bashing interview? Is it to Tony Wilson for torpedoing Factory Records? Is it to his girlfriend? Is it to his bandmates? It's not ever really specified. And at the same time he's apologizing for his actions, he's also justifying them, implying that if he had to do it all over again just as is/was, he would. I think Tony would too.
And so would Icarus.
Belief is all.
Tony Wilson, 1950-2007
Labels: Happy Mondays
posted by Paul at 13.8.07
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