Tony Wilson, Factory Founder
August 15, 2007
Tony Wilson, Impresario and a Founder of Postpunk Label, Dies at 57
By BEN SISARIO
Tony Wilson, a British television reporter who became one of the most
influential figures in postpunk music with his Factory Records label, died
on Friday in Manchester, England. He was 57.
The cause was a heart attack, said his publicist, Andy Saunders. Mr. Wilson
learned he had kidney cancer a year ago.
Mr. Wilson was a 26-year-old reporter for Granada Television in Manchester
when he had an epiphany at a sparsely attended Sex Pistols show. Attracted
by the anarchic spirit of the band, he became a passionate advocate for the
music scene that was starting to sprout up in the city. According to popular
accounts, the bands Joy Division, the Fall, the Smiths and the Buzzcocks
were all formed by people who had attended that same Sex Pistols concert.
Mr. Wilson featured musicians on his television program and, in 1978, helped
found the independent Factory label.
As a record company, Factory was both a trendsetter and a farce. Releasing
music by Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio and Happy Mondays, it
helped define the minimal aesthetic of postpunk and followed the music??s
transition into the hedonistic rave style known as Madchester. In its
graphic design Factory was crisp and experimental.
But Mr. Wilson, an intellectual prankster who was portrayed by the comedian
Steve Coogan in the 2002 mock documentary ??24 Hour Party People,? gave his
artists unusually generous contracts, and seemed to view Factory as more of
a whimsical Conceptual-art project than a business. Catalog numbers were
assigned not only to musical releases but also to stationery, parties and
even the dental work of one of the label??s founders. In 1983 New Order??s
12-inch single ??Blue Monday? became a best seller, but because of its
elaborate packaging ?? it was designed to look like a floppy disk ?? Factory
lost money on every copy.
??You either make money,? Mr. Wilson once said, ??or you make history.? The
label went bankrupt in 1992.
Factory No. 51 was the Hacienda, a Manchester nightclub that opened in 1982
and became the center of dance culture in Britain. Madonna made her British
stage debut there in 1984; that year Mr. Wilson also signed one of Factory??s
biggest bands, Happy Mondays, after it came in last place in a battle of the
bands contest at the Hacienda. The club became a notorious drug den, and it
was shut down by the authorities in 1997.
Anthony Howard Wilson was born in Salford, near Manchester, and graduated
from Cambridge University. He was hired as a reporter at Granada, where he
became a local celebrity for his flamboyant style and his music coverage.
His program ??So It Goes? featured the first television appearances of Elvis
Costello and the Jam.
Mr. Wilson, who was married and divorced twice, is survived by his
companion, Yvette Livesey, as well as by a son, Oliver, and a daughter,
Isabel.
Mr. Wilson, who held onto his job at Granada while he ran Factory, started
several labels after Factory shut down, most recently F4, but none lasted
long. For the last 15 years his consuming project was In the City, a
music-business conference in Manchester, which he founded with Ms. Livesey.
