| Author | Message | ||
     spence Member Username: Spence Post Number: 1713 Registered: 05-2005 |
Tony Wilson died today. The founder of Factory Records. Its funny, but you don't usually hear much said about record label managers, unless, they have really good labels, and moreover, really good acts. I guess, he had both. Tony Wilson meant a lot to me. First of all, unbeknown to me, he helped shape my life. My life was shaped around music. Around the music that today, I still hold very close to my heart. Music that was created by bands like Acertain Ratio, Joy Division, New Order, Duritti Column, and on. He stumbled across these bands in his quest to be fair and honest. All the artists he adored and wanted on his label, never had to sign a contract, whatever they wrote or published was theirs. Unlike his counterparts at the time, Ivo from 4AD and Alan Horne from Postcard, yeas, Tony was pretentious moi, but in a funny, self mocking way, whereas Aln Horne always came over like a genius with the head of an asshole. Tony was Mancunian through and through, I guess he was proud to be English. His music was English, and seminal through and through. Joy Division must be the most original group of all time, surely. For that reason alone, Wilson should have been honoured with an OBE. He also gave me Les Disques Du Creouscule. the label that was light years ahead of its time. That celebrated real art, real music from real players, who gave a shit if it lost money as long as the music got out. Crepuscule along with El records is now looked upon respectiveley as one of the mmost influential labels across mainland Europe, period. . Wilson also did alot for the community of Manchetsre, he was their spokesman, he also started one of the most influenial music programmes, So it goes. That programme brought The Sex Pistols and the Jam amongst many others into the homes of the normal, at tea time. He used to make me laugh, I could listen to him talk for hours. (he was interviwed on a recent DVD on LTM called Shadowplayers) He used to come over all posh, then he'd swear, quite often during interviews, and he'd come acorss a real Manc, but when sometimes reading the news, he sounded like Lord Lucan. In short, although this is long, I liked the man Wilson, he was a maverick, where are the likes of him now? where are the music visionaries now? they don't exist, albeit in a total superficial way, that means fuc*in jack shit, he was part of what means a lot to me, growing up as a kid, and even now, in fact, i even posted a fave web site called cerysmatic, dedocated to Factory and things, only the the other evening. And just undr a week ago, I wrote a tune, influenced by one of his finds, Acertain Ratio, God love him, RIP Tony, Thanks for evrything. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 693 Registered: 08-2004 |
Respect due Spence. You put it so much better than I could. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Member Username: Jeff_whiteaker Post Number: 651 Registered: 10-2004 |
Wow, this is a sad loss. He was instrumental in shaping and bringing to the public an awful lot of music that I truly love. Music that most other people wouldn't have given two shits about. I mean, how many labels out there would've been willing to lose money on Kalima? Or Durutti Column? Brilliant music that most people can't even begin to understand, and yet Wilson saw something in these artists, which in turn made the lives of geeks like me that much richer. | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 597 Registered: 09-2006 |
Respects paid, definitely...and few people got a better film bio than he did, either... | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 1646 Registered: 05-2005 |
Beautifully said and written Spence. A worthy epithet. | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 599 Registered: 09-2006 |
Think you mighta meant a slightly different word there, Padraig... | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 1649 Registered: 05-2005 |
Oops. I meant epitaph of course! Me and my classical education. | ||
| TROU Member Username: Trou Post Number: 110 Registered: 05-2005 |
Respect to this man... | ||
| Catherine Vaughan Member Username: Catherine Post Number: 115 Registered: 05-2005 |
Heard the news last night, and honestly, I just thought, ah that's a pity. But you really got it, Spence. I didn't realise how important he was to me until I read your words. I've been a NO/JD fan for a long time, but I was never a one for being clued in about the guys behind the scenes, but he had made an impression on me despite that. | ||
| Rob Brookman Member Username: Rob_b Post Number: 837 Registered: 08-2006 |
I like "a worthy epithet," Padraig! I'm guessing Wilson would have, too... | ||
| Peter_d Member Username: Peter_d Post Number: 32 Registered: 05-2005 |
Sad news indeed. Check out Newsnight from Friday: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_qu ery=newsnight+wilson Part1 has a bit of Mark E Smith and a clip of AW getting knocked over by a wrestler..Part2 has Richard Madeley reminiscing about an argument himsef and Judy (I thought I was imagining this at the time !) had with AW about Joy Division's name.. I was reading tributes on the Guardian site and someone was saying that in a joint AW / Vini Reilly NME interview from around 1988, the NME managed to mix up the responses of the two with very funny consequences - can anyone remember this ? |