1950 - 2007
Broadcaster, mogul, nightclub owner, record label founder, example to us all.
So there we were on Friday enjoying a nice drink at Keys Money Lipstick, when Ian, the ever-genial co-promoter of the night, turned to us and said, “Tony Wilson died today… oh, and there was an earthquake in town”. Yes, Manchester was rocked in more ways than one last week when some buildings shook, and more notably, one of her favourite sons was taken away.
Wilson died of a heart attack at Christie’s hospital after battling with Cancer since last year. It was a shock to many as the full extent of his illness had been kept largely secret: it was only six months ago that the former boss of Factory Records revealed his battle in the Manchester Evening News and wrote about his “love for the NHS“.
Our first memory of Tony Wilson is of him presenting entrepreneurial business show Flying Start, which was a forerunner to the shoddy shit like Tycoon now being pedalled on the third channel, and being impressed by his style but also slightly bored by his seriousness.
It was only years later, during hip young gunslinger’s ‘cultural awakening’ (which is the bit where you borrow Never Mind The Bollocks and realise that, actually, things existed before you were born) that we discovered an alternative music legacy going back decades and a tireless devotion to the heart of Manchester were actually Wilson’s best features.
Wilson was, is and always will be an inspiration to anyone who cares about music. He set the template for independent record labels (or at least showed them what not to do), he banged on constantly about new Manchester music, worked harder than the council to put the city on the map and - lest we forget - BUILT THE FUCKING HACIENDA FOR CHRIST’S SAKE. Not with his bare hands, or course, but for the amount of love and effort he put in he might as well have shifted the bricks and mortar himself.
People say of Wilson that he could be infuriating and a bit of wanker, but what this stance fails to point out is that, actually, all the best people have a tendency to be infuriating and a bit of a wanker. If you manage to please everyone all the time you’re obviously doing something wrong.
Anyway, his closest friends point out that he was actually a very sweet man, who became increasingly perturbed by the public’s perception of him as some sort of self-loving swaggercock as the years went on. If he was so awful, would those same friends have shelled out for drugs to keep him alive? Drugs that the National But Only In Certain Areas Health Service wouldn’t stump up for. Not a chance.
The death of Tony Wilson finally sees the curtain fall on Manchester music’s glorious Act One. Talk is of a memorial statue, but far better would be an academy, scheme or bursary - set up in his honour - to give the new music in Manchester a chance to flourish and allow Act Two a chance to find its own Joy Division, its own Hacienda. It’s what he would have wanted.
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