Tony Wilson interview

Well...

Tony Wilson Interview. Tony Wilson needs no introduction, but we'll still give him one. A man who has always been passionate about music and the city he was born in, it is hard to imagine Tony Wilson without Manchester and vice versa. With an illustrious career spanning TV, founder of the seminal Factory Records and Hacienda and co founder of In The City and Interactive City, there was plenty for Vitaminic to ask Tony his opinion on. Shooting as ever from the hip…Tony Wilson.

Why did you set up “In The City” and “Interactive City” and have you achieved all you set out to do with them?

It was my partner Yvette Livesey, then a successful Beauty Queen (heyho?) that had the idea in 1990. Why Cannes and New York. Why not UK and why not Manchester? Our question; would the UK industry and it’s international partners like their own annual event. Answer turns out to be YES. Certainly we have achieved the status of being the UK’s annual event. An interloper tried to steal in in the late 90’s with “London Music Week”. It failed and further proved the point that it is best to get the industry (largely London based) out of town and into one of the UK’s music cities for a serious 3/4/5 days of mental, intellectual and physical pleasure. IC is part of our tech obsession, beginning as part of ITC in 1994. Now in its third year it IS the coolest e-commerce get together and like In The City, reflects Yvette’s and my enthusiasm for ch-ch-ch changes. In a way tech stuff for music applies to all new economy questions and we would like to develop IC into an even bigger, tho still cool event.

In The City has been located in different cities through the UK, yet Manchester is where it seems to work best. Is this due to Manchester’s unique musical history, the city itself or In The City ?

Partly it’s the city. We are the UK’s immigrant town and have been for 1,000 years. Strangely and utterly hospitable to outsiders and outside influences. From the fastest growing Chinatown outside the Pacific North West, to, of course, the first DJ’s to play some weird shit that arrived from Detroit in 1985 (House, yes?). Being this friendly town, then we are a natural convention city. But the heart of ITC and why it works best in Manc, is simple the physical lay-out of the conference base in the Midland Crowne Plaza. Great conference rooms that can take up to 1,200 people for the keynotes and celebrity interviews and a monster bar (in the fashion of the Marriot Marquis in Times Square, for those who remember NMS) which allows the delegates the central experience of major networking. That’s the secret and whether it’s been Dublin, Glasgow or Liverpool, we have never replaced that. We’re doing IC in Cardiff this year, cause for a boutique convention like IC, again the physical dynamics of the Cardiff Hilton are just perfect for us. Oh and yes, the rise of the Taffia, my fondness for Terris and the skills and aplomb of the Welsh Music Foundation are in there too. And Manchester’s music heritage. Vital to ITC, of course.

In The City is at the forefront of 'new' music, but do you ever feel a bit 'past it' when it comes to the new bands, and if not when does you think you will be...

The first time I stand in a dirty basement, watch a band, don’t get them, and they turn out to be important; I’ll slit my fucking throat. Or at least retire. I am on the watch for the onset of age but haven’t noticed it yet. The enthusiasm merely grows, the dedication to the future merely grows. No idea why. It’s what I do and when I can’t do it anymore, I’ll know and will pass on. So sorry, never feel past it. My partner Warren and I were first on the scene for a Leeds band called Themusic, last September. We struggled to sign them and in the end got fucked by managers who we thought were our friends but who seemed to have used us, and our reputation, just to get a bidding war going. I would like to say that I am still (seven weeks later) totally fucking angry. And although they were the “best new band in the world”, and they were, I am so fucking angry that I’m going to find the next lot ASAP. And rest my confidence in the fact that no history-making band (and Adam and Rob of TM had the soul and the talent to be a history making band) has ever been managed at the start by “professional” managers. Nor have they let their management choose idiotic artwork for them. I’ll stop now, but if my ranting answers the question about “past it” fair enough. I find that most mid twenties A&R kids in London are past it. Well fucking past it.

You have many careers in your life - TV presenter / label boss / club owner / founder of In The City - which has/does give you the most pleasure and why?

Greatest professional pleasure is in the cutting room or studio making a TV show. But I don’t like the TV lifestyle. Central pleasure is working with a bunch of people who are significantly cleverer than I am; Factory….. being the thing….. Steve Coogan said to me the other week how sad he was that the movie shoot for 24 Hour Party People was about to end; “I’ve really enjoyed being you for 8 weeks” And, disgracefully, I thought, yeah, I can understand that; cause I enjoy it too. Mostly being surrounded by crazies and partners and geniuses which is the part Steve was acting. Mostly get pleasure from being right. Last music thing I got wrong (in music) (in business I get shit wrong every day) was giving Harvest a bad review in my university newspaper. Still feel bad about that 32 years later. (And I was late into Dylan cause he slagged off Joan Baez when I was a folkie in 1963.) Enjoy being right about downloading of music and disintermediation. That’s my website and not fair to mention it on my colleagues web-site. But hey, music isn’t free, it will be copyright protected and will be a little cheaper, song by song. (Thank you Lehmann Bros)

Was the Hacienda worth all the effort, and who made more money - you or the drug dealers?

Abso-fucking-lutely. We were uniquely privileged to have what happened on our dance floor happen on OUR dance floor. We made nowt, except Rob and Hooky got their 90’s money back and we spent everything we earned in the 80’s and then some. It allows us to be snotty with Mr Barton and Mr Palumbo; “You guys make money; we made history”. And I like that line and it’s all worth it. On the other question; annual expenditure on doormen (paying the bouncers) in early to mid 90’s - £360,000. Like one of our mates from Sankey’s says; “I wouldn’t mind paying protection if I got fucking protected”. But they risked their lives for us and the clientele and it was what it was. Ne Regrette Rien etc….

New Order’s performances improved dramatically post “Technique”. Was this due to technological advances, or did they really get better?

Bollocks; did you see any of the last US tour. They were so shite at Meadowlands I turned to my partner, Atencio, NO US manager, and said “God that was shite” and he got hold of me by the collar, backed me against a wall and started screaming “Waddya mean shite, he stood up didn’t he, he bloody stood up.” I had missed the Florida leg of said tour where Bernard had sat on the drum riser for the entire set.

That’s the back of the drum riser.

New Order play live brilliantly when they have to or want to.

That fuck up in New Jersey was followed by Reading which I avoided and which was utterly stunning. Bastards.

Best gig ever maybe was Militant benefit at Liverpool playhouse in mid 80’s. The Fall, The Smiths and NO. Who’s going on last?????? That’s cool, we’ll go on first. They did. Stunning. And Mark E and Stephen were forced to be pure anticlimax. And as for recent stuff. First gig of new era at Apollo; they were Joy Division and they were fantastic; Nynex Arena gig shite. It’s why we love them isn’t it????

How much of an input have you had in the current filming of the film on Factory Records/Manchester and are you happy to be immortalised in celluloid by Steve Coogan ?

Lots; I complain that they have my character say “I’ve been to Cambridge” on every bleeding page. But when Frank wants to keep it in I say OK, it’s your film. Take the piss. But when they have SR “shooting up” I point out that he never shot up (Chased the D, rather) and then I insist on the change and they make it.

I also adore working with the triumvirate who are making the film, Winterbottom, director, Eaton, producer and Frank Cottrell Boyce, writer. Their attempt to make “Boogie Nights” for Manchester music, 1976-1992 is brave and who knows may even come off (very tough to get youth culture on film; look at the shit that was Absolute Beginners and Human Traffic.)

As for Steve; I am very very flattered and very very embarrassed by being done by Steve (who plays me as a pretentious git) but who everyone says does it great. It’s weird. People get weird about it. There’s some real arseholes in Manchester who point out there is more to Manchester Music than Tony Wilson. Fucking Right. I’m just the regular interviewee who couldn’t write a song or design a club to save his life. But they wanted a Rover’s Return, a central reference point, and I will now endure the antipathy of those who think they should have been the reference point.

Important point: “My public image is none of my business”

Good band by the way. PIL; great band…

If you could have signed any band to Factory Records whom would it have been and why?

Great question; The Velvet Underground, Eminem, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Limp Bizkit, Neil Young, and Themusic but fuck them cause they’ve signed to Hut, or Hutch or something. That’s about it. I love bands who change music; hence my absolute pride in being associated with JD/NO and HM. The ones above are the full list of regrettable misses on our behalf.

"In classical music circles there are some people who speak of a 'crisis' in the music; that it is no longer relevant to our society in general. We know that composers such as Stockhasen have influenced musicians of all styles. What is your view on the place of classical music today and in the future? Is the term redundant?"

Love Mozart, Martland, Adams etc, but it doesn’t do what pop does, doesn’t do what R&R does and that supreme expression of popular culture is where my heart lies so I don’t have anything much to say about “classical” except when I’ve finished this bloody e-mail I’m taking a copy of “Atmosphere” to Russel Watson to talk about an acapella version for the movie.

With all the associations you has made over the years with the greats of the recording industry (Eno, Arthur Baker etc), have you ever been tempted into the studio yourself, and if so what were the results and can we put them on the site, please!

One credit; Shack Up by ACR cause the studio only had one set of headphones for mixing and I comandeered them. Great track…. And I did “Without Mercy” with Vini Reilly. Bruce Mitchell, Mr Manchester always says watching me and Vini is like watching some guy standing over Van Gogh’s shoulder and shouting “No, not that blue, THAT blue” Hence the pretentious arrogant git crap.

And by the way the movie is all lies. You heard it here first.

Love,

Wilson.