FAC 151 The Book

Factory Records had begun as a series of club nights at the Russell Club in Hulme, Manchester. Tony Wilson one of the founders saw Factory as an engine for cultural change rather than a business. He and Alan Erasmus had started the Factory label in 1978 running it from office set up in the home of Alan situated on Palatine Road, whilst Tony was still a reporter working for Granada Television in Manchester.

Early success with releases by A Certain Ratio and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark were soon added to by other bands. Tony Wilson’s interest in allowing the artists freedom to create and perform how they wanted to at the time, soon meant other bands were interested in joining the label.

It became apparent that a more formal structure was needed to run the music business and Factory (Communications) Ltd was formed from a shelf company called Canehand [Kanehand], as there was an urgent need to have a company established to satisfy several deals that were being agreed in 1980. The goodwill of the Factory label, which until then had been under the control of Tony Wilson were to be transferred across to Kanehand which would still initially be controlled by Tony Wilson until the company had been correctly set up in order not to be financially disadvantaged to be later joined by Alan Erasmus, Robert Gretton, Martin Hannett and Peter Saville.

The shelf company, incorporated on the 24th October 1980 held an Extraordinary General Meeting held where it had been agreed to replace an existing clause to the Memorandum of Association which then allowed the business to carry on as manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers gramophone records, television recording equipment and also to carry on the business of music publishers and in this connection to enter into agreements and other arrangements and to employ authors and composers of and to purchase copyrights and other rights in musical and dramatic compositions of all kinds.

The change of name was certified by the Registrar of Companies on the 13th November 1980 It had been hoped to have named the company Factory Records Limited but a search of records at Companies House revealed that the name The Factory Records had already been created by Micky Most, a music producer and entrepreneur, in September 1977. Tony Wilson was advised against acquiring the company as there might be skeletons in the cupboard, since it had not filed any annual returns since it had been formed.

An earlier application for name of business registration suggests that Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus wanted the company to be known as Movement of the 24 January Publishing Music however, the Registry of Business Names returned the forms with a handwritten note, please chose another business name, the above not acceptable for our files.

Factory, as it became known, became an established part of the Manchester music scene and attracted more artists to the label, who were attracted to the hands-off approach Tony Wilson believed in. As well as promoting artists Factory also became involved in the club scene with the opening of the Hacienda nightclub and a cafe-bar called the Dry Bar in 1989, both based in central Manchester. Shortly after this Factor acquired new premises on Princess Street, Manchester as its headquarters in 1990. The group by now was enjoying a great deal of success both in nationally and internationally.

However, by the end of 1990 its financial position began to deteriorate seriously as the result of the new projects which required additional funding and the enforced closure of the Hacienda, during 1991, for three months resulting in the loss of much needed income. A restructuring of Factory was required to satisfy a number of creditors, owed money by Factory, for Factory this was a serious situation as it was on the brink of closure if no viable solution to find further funding could not be found. The implications would have a profound effect on Tony Wilson’s original desire to be an engine for cultural change rather than a business driven by money was in peril.

The Nineties continued to be a bad period for Factory, it was still in a serious financial position, added to by heavy demands on financing the recording and production of albums. Factory eventually declared bankruptcy in 1992, the Hacienda continued as a nightclub until 1997 when it too closed ending the labels contribution to an earlier hoped for cultural shift by those involved in the original Factory.

Paul Robert Morley was born in Farnham, Surrey, in 1957 and moved with his family to Reddish, Stockport prior to starting school. He attended Stockport Grammar School, Stockport College of Technology and later, for the BBC 2 programme How to be a Composer, the Royal Academy of Music.

He began his writing career in the late 1970s on music fanzines, including the Manchester fanzines City Fun, Penetration, Out There and Girl Trouble. He joined the New Musical Express (NME) as a writer in 1977, working there until 1983. With his NME colleagues, Morley established an innovative style of music criticism that drew on critical theory and other non-musical writing styles. From 1984 to 1987, he wrote for BLITZ magazine, including a monthly television column. He also worked as a TV critic for New Statesman from 1987 to 1989. He has contributed work to Esquire Magazine, The Guardian and GQ Magazine.

Morley has been a band manager, including a period managing Manchester punk band The Drones, music promoter and television presenter.

In 1983, he co-founded the record label Zang Tuum Tum (ZTT) Records, with Trevor Horn and Jill Sinclair. Morley was responsible for the marketing and promotion of ZTT’s biggest act, Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

During the 1980s, he was a member of the synthpop group Art of Noise. In 2005, he released an album as part of the band Infantjoy with James Banbury of the Auteurs.

From 1985 to around 1996, Morley was married to the German singer Claudia Brücken, with whom he has two children.

Between 1990 and 1992, he worked with Island Records as a consultant.

Morley was the first presenter of BBC Two's The Late Show, from 1989 to 1991, and has appeared as a panellist on a number of other programmes, including Without Walls for Channel 4 and Newsnight Review and the Review Show for the BBC. Between 1989 and 1992, he was writer and presenter of Channel 4’s The Thing Is... He has directed arts documentaries for the BBC, including an episode of Omnibus on Reeves and Mortimer, and for ITV and Channel 4.

Morley is the author of ten books, mostly focused on music, including collections of his music journalism.

Liz Naylor is a journalist who was active on the Manchester music scene from 1979. She began writing for volume one of Manchester fanzine City Fun in 1979, publishing an article titled “No City Fun” which became the premise for a short film of the same name, featured in Factory Records’ The Factory Flick.

Naylor became a co-editor for volume two of City Fun in the early 1980s, along with Cath Carroll, Bob Dickenson and original founder Andy Zero. From 1982, Naylor and Carroll were the co-editors.

In 1984, Naylor moved to London to work for Rough Trade Records as a Press Officer. She also worked on the Rough Trade Distribution magazine The Catalogue. In 1985, with her sister Pat, Naylor helped to run the record label Blast First.

Naylor started the punk record label Catcall in 1992, releasing albums by feminist punk band Bikini Kill.

Linder Sterling, known as Linder, was born in Liverpool in 1954. She is a British artist known for her photography, radical feminist photomontage, and confrontational performance art. Linder worked with bands and record labels in the Manchester punk and post-punk scenes during the 1970s. Her work focuses on questions of gender, commodity and display.

Richard Boon is the former manager of punk band Buzzcocks and ran the independent record label New Hormones. He grew up in Leeds and was friends with original Buzzcocks singer Howard Devoto, then Howard Trafford, at Leeds Grammar School.

Boon studied at Reading University, graduating in 1976. At Reading, he booked bands to play in the Art Department studio, including Sex Pistols in spring 1976. He moved to Manchester after graduation to help Devoto and Buzzcocks guitarist Pete Shelley organise gigs.

Boon became the manager of Buzzcocks, starting the New Hormones label in 1977 to release the band's music. Their "Spiral Scratch" 7-inch EP is widely regarded as a founding milestone of UK Independent music. His involvement with the band included using the pen name Alan Dial to co-write some of the Buzzcocks’ songs. Boon ran the label from 1977 to 1983, releasing music by Diagram Brothers, Dislocation Dance and Ludus, among other acts.

Boon was involved in The Smiths signing to the independent label Rough Trade Records in 1983, having advised the band’s singer Morrissey to approach the label for a distribution deal. Shortly afterwards, Boon joined Rough Trade Records as Production Manager and worked with The Smiths throughout their career. He moved to Rough Trade Distribution in 1988 where he edited its magazine “The Catalogue” and introduced flexidisc giveaways.

After Rough Trade collapsed in 1991, Boon became a librarian with Hackney council in London. He retired in 2018 after 21 years with the library service.

Boon was a columnist with the Stoke Newington free quarterly magazine N16. He is part of the Stoke Newington Literary Festival, where he hosts the Juke Box Fury event and regularly chairs panels at the annual festival.

Manager of Joy Division and later New Order, he was also involved with Tony Wilson and others in the running of Factory Records. Rob Gretton became involved in the Manchester music scene and especially the Punk music scene. Previously a DJ at Rafters, a local night club he eventually got a newly configured and named band Joy Division to appear there in 1978 in a battle of the bands competition.

Shortly after this he took over the management of Joy Division and having met Tony Wilson who was managing the Durutti Column at the time. Tony Wilson also organised a
club night, at the Russell Club in Hulme, called the Factory. Joy Division played there in 1978 and a little later featured on an EP released by Factory in 1979.

Rob Gretton suggested to Tony Wilson that Factory should produce the first album for Joy Division, rather than one of the larger London based labels. This fitted in with Tony Wilsons vision of breaking up the monopoly which the larger record labels had and give the artists a greater say during the production of their music. Eventually Joy Division left Factory Records, their success had financed various projects at Factory.

As well as managing Joy Division he also one of the Directors of the newly formed Factory (Communications) Ltd and was a driving force behind the Hacienda nightclub when it was opened by them in 1982. He had visited New York where he had seen the impact of the newly emerging dance and rave scene which were held in warehouse size dance clubs. It was these clubs which influenced how he wanted to see the Hacienda develop.

By 1992 Joy Division had left the Factory label and had joined the London label, shortly after this Factory (Communications) Ltd went into receivership. The Hacienda continued until 1997 under the management of Rob Gretton until it too closed in 1997.

Anthony Howard Wilson, also known as Tony Wilson, was born at Hope Hospital, Salford, on 20 February 1950. He was the only child of Sydney Wilson (1917–1997), tobacconist, and his wife, Doris Emily, née Knupfer (1904–1975). His parents ran a chain of tobacconist shops, including the original shop in Salford, and moved to live in Marple, Cheshire, in 1955.

Wilson attended De La Salle Catholic boys’ grammar school in Salford from 1961 to 1968. He read English at Jesus College, Cambridge, from 1968 to 1971. At Cambridge he was involved in student journalism and left-wing politics, including becoming the editor of Varsity, and participating in the Cambridge Union Society and in the Cambridge Sit Ins of 1968. On graduating from Jesus College, Wilson joined Independent Television News (ITN) as a trainee journalist. He left ITN in 1978 to join Granada Television in Manchester, where he became a reporter for the early evening magazine programme, Granada Reports. He worked for Granada Reports until the mid-1980s, returning for a second stint as a presenter in the early-2000s before being dismissed for swearing on air.

On Granada Reports, Wilson was known for his active reports into activities including hang-gliding, abseiling and parachuting but, more significantly for his second career as a music entrepreneur, also for his presentation of a 10-minute arts and entertainment slot at the end of the Friday edition of Granada Reports. The popularity of the slot, What’s On, led to a 30-minute late night programme, So It Goes, in July 1976. The first series of So It Goes featured the Sex Pistols performing Anarchy in the UK in their television debut. Wilson had seen the band perform live at one of two gigs at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in June 1976 and had pushed for them to be on the show. The second series of So It Goes included performances by the Clash, the Jam, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. The performance by Iggy Pop during the third series of So It Goes caused it to be cancelled by Granada Television. Wilson continued to work as a presenter on Granada Reports, and went on to front other programmes for Granada, including The Other Side of Midnight, Flying Start, Fast Forward and Job Watch. Furthering his television career, in 1987, Wilson joined Channel 4 as the presenter of the late night discussion programme After Dark. Wilson was known up until this point as Tony Wilson, but the critical acclaim garnered by After Dark and its national profile encouraged him to adopt the name Anthony H Wilson professionally.

Around the time that So It Goes was cancelled at the end of the 1970s, Wilson’s friend, the actor Alan Erasmus, suggested that Wilson joined him in co-managing a new band led by the guitarist Vini Reilly. The band eventually became known as Durutti Column. For Wilson, this was an opportunity to become more involved in the punk-inspired creative scene that was developing in Manchester. In April 1978, Wilson and Erasmus attended a battle of the bands style contest at the Manchester night club Rafters on Oxford Road. Here they encountered Joy Division and their manager Rob Gretton. It is widely acknowledged that Wilson’s support for Joy Division helped them to become the defining band of the post-punk era.

From May to June 1978, Wilson and Erasmus hired a social club in Hulme, Manchester, known variously as The Russell Club and the Public Service Vehicle Club. Here they put on four gigs under the name The Factory, featuring bands they were either managing or interested in supporting. Around the time of the first gig, graphic design student Peter Saville approached Wilson about designing a poster for the gig. Wilson, Erasmus and Saville eventually became the first directors of Factory Records, later joined by Joy Division manager Rob Gretton and music producer Martin Hannett. Factory Records was established to enable the bands that Wilson was working with to release records without needing to sign to a major label. The first release, A Factory Sample, released in January 1979, featured four artists who had performed at The Factory: Cabaret Voltaire, the comedian John Dowie, Durutti Column, and Joy Division. Wilson paid for the pressing of the double 7 inch EP using money he inherited from his mother. Wilson’s position as a local news reported and television presenter, as well as his financial stability, set his position within Factory as the strategist and publicist. Erasmus carried out day-to-day management of the company from his flat on 86 Palatine Road (the original business address of Factory Records), and Saville developed the modernist aesthetic for the company.

Wilson saw Factory as the basis for the creative regeneration of post-industrial Manchester. In 1981, Wilson began developing an idea to establish in Manchester a New York style night club. The Haçienda opened in a former yacht showroom on Whitworth Street, Manchester, on 21 May 1982. Costing almost five times the projected £70,000 conversion costs, the club operated at a loss throughout its existence, bolstered only by New Order’s commercial success. Despite this, Wilson and the Haçienda are recognised as having kick-started the regeneration of the Castlefield area of Manchester.

Wilson became known as Mr Manchester during the 1980s, due to the success of New Order as the foremost act on Factory Records and Wilson’s ambitions for the cultural reinvention of Manchester. By the end of the 1980s, New Order were joined by the Happy Mondays as the biggest successes on Factory Records, ushering in Manchester’s Baggy era. Factory continued to expand its reach in Manchester with the establishment of Dry bar, co-owned with New Order, on Oldham Street, Manchester. As with his vision for the Haçienda, Wilson and Dry are credited with sparking the regeneration of what is now known as Manchester’s Northern Quarter.

Wilson can be seen as being responsible for the collapse of Factory. He indulged the Happy Mondays in their excesses, allowing the recording of their fourth album to run massively over budget. He resisted, for as long as he could, the closure of the Haçienda despite its troubles with gang-related violence. He also pushed ahead with a new headquarters for Factory, located on Charles Street, Manchester, at a cost of £750,000. In November 1992, Factory declared bankruptcy with debts of £2.5 million. Wilson’s commitment to the radical policy of allowing artists on the Factory Records label to retain the intellectual property rights in their own recordings meant that potential investors in the company rapidly withdrew from negotiations. Factory only introduced formal contracts for artists in late 1988.

Wilson set up a new label, Factory Too, as a subsidiary of Polygram/London Records, the label that acquired the New Order and Joy Division catalogue from Factory. This was a short-lived enterprise.

Wilson was married to Lindsay Reade from 1977 to 1983, to Hilary Sherlock, with whom he had two children, Oliver and Isabel, from 1984 to 1987, and was in a long term relationship with Yvette Livesey from 1987 until his death in 2007.

Wilson was diagnosed with kidney cancer in December 2006 and succumbed to the illness at the Christie Hospital, Withington, Manchester, on 10 August 2007. He was buried in the Southern cemetery, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, following a funeral service at St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Manchester, on 20 August. His coffin was given the Factory catalogue number FAC 501.

Jon Savage is a writer, broadcaster and music journalist known for his cultural commentary on British social history. Born in Paddington, London, on 2 September 1953, Savage graduated from Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1975, where he read Classics. He started his journalism career writing fanzine articles about British punk and joined Sounds in 1977. At Sounds, Savage interviewed punk, new wave and electronic music artists. Savage left Sounds for Melody Maker in 1979 where he continued to interview artists recording and performing in the punk, new wave and electronic music genres. In 1980, Savage joined the staff of the new pop culture magazine The Face. He developed his writing on pop culture with articles for The Observer and the New Statesman over the next decade.

Savage’s journalism, beginning with his appointment at Sounds in 1977, is strongly connected to the Factory Records story. Savage was the first journalist to review Joy Division both live and as recording artists. Since those first reviews, Savage has been involved in documenting the Joy Division and Factory stories through articles in Sounds, Melody Maker, Mojo, and The Observer Music Monthly. He has acted as a consultant on the Matt Greenhalgh documentary film about Joy Division and on the Anton Corbijn dramatisation Control, as well as working with Deborah Curtis on her book Touching From a Distance. In 2019, Savage wrote This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else, an oral history of Joy Division.

In 1991, Savage wrote England’s Dreaming, charting the rise of punk in the UK and US during the 1970s. The book became the basis for the BBC2 documentary Punk and the Pistols, broadcast in 1995 and subsequently updated with a new introduction in 2001.

Savage produced Teenage: The pre-history of youth culture in 2007. This work of cultural commentary provides a history of the concept of teenagers from the 1870s to the 1940s. In the book, Savage dates the beginning of the concept of teenagers to 1945.

In 2015, Savage published 1966, a commentary on and social history of the popular music and cultural turmoil of that year.

Savage is also known for curating compilations of pop songs, some based on track lists from his publications.