Factory closure
So Tony Wilson died Friday evening, just as I was embarking on what would turn out to be quite a drunken night, wearing my Factory T-shirt. In my own way, then, unwittingly, I sent him off in style. I didn’t know Tony Wilson, but when I was in Manchester in the late ’80s/early ’90s, I’d see him around occasionally: at the Hacienda once in a blue moon; at a recording of some daft gameshow he hosted (with Frank Sidebottom no less). But I lurked in the landscape he’d helped create – the Hac, of course, and the PSV club, a shabby shack in Hulme that had once been Factory’s headquarters – and was steeped in the music he helped shepherd to existence: Joy Division, New Order, the Mondays. So, RIP.
