Anthony (Tony) Wilson passed away from cancer today. He was 57.
Wilson was a reporter for Britain’s Granada Television in the early 1970s. Hearing that the Sex Pistols were going to play Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall, Wilson decided to attend the show. The concert inspired him to start his own record label, Factory Records. Factory would be the driving force that created the “Madchester” scene in the late 1980s; the label would put out records from such iconic British bands as Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio, The Durutti Column, Happy Mondays, James and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Factory also opened The Haçienda, the famous Manchester nightclub that became ground-zero for the Madchester scene, just as Studio 54 was the capital of the disco “movement”.
Sadly, even though Factory artists were extremely successful, and although The Haçienda was one of the most popular clubs in British history, Wilson didn’t make a lot of money from the ventures. New Order’s “Blue Monday” was the most successful 12″ single in history, but the record’s complex packaging led Factory to sell each copy at a loss. The Haçienda was popular initially because of its cheap cover charges and drinks; once Wilson increased The Haçienda’s prices, the drug ecstasy took off… and people stopped drinking alcohol.
Much of the Madchester scene was documented in the popular 2002 film, 24 Hour Party People, of which Wilson is a main character. Much of the film is filled with anecdotes and rumor, so don’t take everything in the movie as gospel.
An interesting tidbit about the Sex Pistols show Wilson attended: only around 40 people showed up for the show… however, the crowd was perhaps the most influential audience in history. People known to have been there include Wilson, Howard Devoto, Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle (all of The Buzzcocks), Morrissey, Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook (of Joy Division and New Order), Martin Hannett (famous record producer), Mark E. Smith (of The Fall), Paul Morley (a music journalist with New Musical Express) and Mick Hucknall (of Simply Red). The audience was so amazing that a book – I Swear I Was There: The Gig That Changed The World – was written about it.