On this day in 1992, Factory Records was finally declared bankrupt, ending one of the most fascinating stories in British music. Here we take a run through the rise and fall of the legendary label and the people behind it.
In 1973 Tony Wilson, a Manchester born Cambridge graduate, returned to his home city to persue a career in journalism. He took a job as a reporter with Manchester’s independent station Granada Television, and became known for his ‘Kamikaze Corner’, in which he would undertake various stunts including a stab at Hang-gliding which was later recreated in the 2002 film ‘24 Hour Party People‘. In July 1976, Wilson was given the chance to combine his burning passion for music with his television career when he landed the presenters job for a new Granada music and culture programme called ‘So It Goes‘. Brought in to rival the BBC’s established music shows ‘Top Of The Pops‘ and ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test‘, the programme gave Wilson the platform to premiere a clutch of new bands who were emerging from the burgeoning punk scene, a scene which Wilson had fallen in love with.
Just a month before ‘So It Goes‘ hit the airwaves for the first time, Wilson had been present at the Sex Pistols‘ now legendary gig at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall, and Wilson subsequently gave the band their television debut on his show which also introduced the likes of Iggy Pop, Blondie, Patti Smith and The Jam to the north of England.
Not content with merely giving bands their break on his TV show, Wilson took his musical interest one step further when he began managing a small group of local bands including A Certain Ratio with his friend Alan Erasmus, who at the time was an actor who had landed a few small roles in programmes such as the long-running soap Coronation Street. It was in his new found status as a Manager that Tony Wilson visited the Stiff-Chiswick challenge at a local club called ‘Rafter’s‘ in April 1978. Amongst the acts playing that night were Joy Division, a four-piece who were led by enigmatic frontman Ian Curtis. Said to be angered at having to go on stage last, the band delivered a blistering performance which captivated Wilson. Rob Gretton, a DJ at the club that night, immediately approached Joy Division and became their manager. Gretton would soon become a partner and leading player in Factory.
The next step for Tony Wilson was to find a venue to showcase his own bands as well as other groups which were emerging from the North West of England. Eventually, Wilson and Erasmus settled on a venue called The Russel Club in the Moss Side area of Manchester. They were given a Friday night spot and the club, on the suggestion of Erasmus, became known as The Factory on those Fridays. It was to promote this new club night that Wilson and Erasmus first enlisted the talents of Peter Saville, an art student, who’s subsequent art designs for Factory would become almost as legendary as the bands themselves.
The Original Factory Music Partners
Further strides were made by Wilson and Erasmus when they began to release independent recordings of their bands on vinyl. They approached Joy Division with an opportunity to record tracks with producer Martin Hannett (who would go on to produce most of Factory’s bands) and a deal was famously signed in Wilson’s blood, a deal which stipulated that Wilson would not own any of the group’s work and would split all profits 50/50. It was a deal which would become the template for all of their future signings and made Factory unique in the music industry. In December 1978 Joy Division were included along with The Duritti Column, John Dowie and Cabaret Voltaire on an EP called ‘A Factory Sample‘ - the first recording released by Wilson’s new label Factory Records. The EP was labelled ‘FAC2‘ - Peter Saville’s poster for their first club night at The Russel Club was ‘FAC1′ and Factory continued this trend of labelling each release throughout the coming years.
In April 1979, Joy Division turned down offers from major labels to record their debut album with Factory. ‘Unknown Pleasures‘ (FAC10) was Factory’s first album issue, and was released in June 1979. The album was hailed by critics, and although only enjoying limited commercial success, it gained both Joy Division and Factory Records a dedicated following. After the album’s release, the band enjoyed a steady rise in popularity and released their seminal hit ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart‘ in April 1980. Shortly after however, Factory’s care-free, hedonistic lifestyle was hit by tragedy.
After finishing sessions for their second album ‘Closer‘, Joy Division were celebrating the news that they were to tour the US for the first time - it was a tour that they would never begin. On the morning of 18th May 1980, the night before they were due to fly to the US, Ian Curtis, who had been battling severe epilepsy and was said to be having problems with his marriage, was found hanged in the kitchen of his home in Macclesfield. He was 23 years old.
After much soul-searching following Ian Curtis’ death, the remaining members of Joy Division, as well as Factory, would emerge stronger and go on to enjoy increased popularity in the following years. Out of the ashes of Joy Division, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris, along with Gillian Gilbert, re-emerged as New Order. After several trips to New York the band began to combine their guitar roots with the new dance scene which was growing in the city, and soon New Order was taking a markedly different approach to it’s predecessor. After releasing their debut album ‘Movement‘ in November 1981, they handed Factory their biggest hit to date when ‘Blue Monday‘ hit the shelves in March 1983. It went on to become the biggest selling 12″ single of all time, but as ever, Factory managed to make a huge loss on the track - the brilliant but hugely expensive sleeve, designed to look like a floppy disk, was so costly to make that the label made a loss on every copy they sold.
the legendary, but hugely expensive, sleeve for 'blue monday'
With the Factory partners looking for a new money making venture, and a with a desire to move on from the tragedy of Ian Curtis’ suicide, the idea was mooted by Rob Gretton to open a new nightclub in Manchester. Inspired by the clubs Wilson had visited with New Order on their trips to New York, on 21st May 1982, The Hacienda (FAC51), a converted sales room in the city centre, opened it’s doors for the first time, but was initially met by a lukewarm response. The radical new design was a world away from what anyone in Britain had seen before, and the club was making losses of up to £50,000 a month in it’s early years. Eventually, as the new dance and rave music championed by The Hacienda grew in popularity, the club became a mecca for the new movement, and it’s significance to an entire generation helped to cement the legacy of Factory.
Many of the best emerging bands of the time, including The Smiths, were booked to play at The Hacienda, and in 1985 the club staged a ‘Battle of the Bands’ contest in a bid to discover the best new acts in the region. Playing that night were a young group called the Happy Mondays who, despite a fairly shambolic performance, won the competition, allegedly at the behest of Tony Wilson. They were soon signed to Factory, and were seen as a departure from the traditional style of bands the label had signed in the past. The Happy Mondays became more a symbol and driving force for The Hacienda-era of Factory, and were far removed from the earlier, New Wave bands such as Joy Division. Again, Factory threw seemingly endless amounts of money at their new venture, and the Happy Mondays were enjoying a level of success only rivalled by New Order on Factory. They were the heroes of the revellers at The Hacienda and married their rock roots with the new dance scene to become the soundtrack to what was now the most talked about nightclub in Britain. In 1988 The Hacienda became the centre of the so-called ‘Second Summer Of Love’ and Manchester had a new name - ‘Madchester‘.
With the popularity of New Order, Happy Mondays and The Hacienda, Factory was finally making profit, it wouldn’t last long however, and soon the habit of leaking money returned. In the case of New Order, who had released another classic single ‘True Faith‘ in 1987, they were still finding much of their royalties being pumped back into The Hacienda and as partners in the club, they found their profits largely reliant on the fluctuating fortunes of The Hacienda. As for The Happy Mondays, they lost any degree of musical focus when they began to be engulfed with drug addiction. Desperate for a new album from the band, Factory payed for the Happy Mondays to record new material in Barbados. It was a flawed plan, and the band blew almost their entire budget on drugs, and returned home with just a handful of scratchy recordings. By the time the resultant album ‘Yes, Please‘ was released in 1992, Grunge had arrived, interest had shifted from Manchester to Seattle, and Factory failed to get the hit album they desperately needed.
Alongside the huge losses being made by it’s principal two bands, Factory also began to hemorrhage money from The Hacienda once again. After hitting the peak of it’s powers in the summer of ‘88, the club began to be infiltrated by gang members, and after a series of robberies and gun crimes in and around the premises, the club was forced to shut for the first time in January 1991. It reopened a few months later with increased security measures, but when trouble erupted inside not long after, the police moved in once more; the spirit and popularity of the club had been lost forever.
With their three most profitable assets all losing huge amounts of money by the end of 1992, it was of no surprise that Factory went in to receivership in the November of that year. The record label was sold to London Records for a tiny amount when the terms of Wilson’s original agreement with Joy Division over a decade earlier were discovered. The Hacienda struggled on for another five years, but eventually closed it’s doors for the last time in the summer of 1997, bringing to an end the amazing ’social experiment’ that was Factory. In the current climate of major record labels with huge budgets, it’s hard to imagine a record label that had no accountants, no press, and wouldn’t concern itself with anything as tedious as promoting records. Ultimately, the business was inevitably going to end in financial ruin - little wonder that the recent biography released by Joy Division/New Order bassist Peter Hook is called ‘The Hacienda - How Not To Run a Club‘.
To dwell on the business failures is to entirely miss the point of Factory however. They combined music, art and culture to create the last significant youth movement of the 20th century, and brought inspiration to countless new bands. In an age when any guitar band can be labelled ‘indie’, Factory Records remain a symbol of real musical independence, and of what can be achieved by remaining true to those ideals. As Tony Wilson said: “All that was valuable was the history we made, not the money we made.”
(Dave Smith)
Read also
