by Dave Haslam
However, two men in the audience were impressed. One of them was a DJ at Rafters, Rob Gretton, who’d seen them before, hanging out at the venue, and occasionally bothering him with music requests. He later recalled that ‘they were smart, punky, but not scruffy; it was unusual. And the music was absolutely wonderful.’ The other was Tony Wilson, who’d never met them previously but had been harassed earlier in the evening by Ian Curtis, who handed him a note requesting a slot on Granada TV. Wilson’s show So It Goes had come to an end in December 1977, but there were still opportunities to show bands during the nightly news show Granada Reports.
Wilson had booked the Sex Pistols for their TV debut and had an abiding interest in the cultural power of music. Locally he was best known for his role as a TV presenter – the man off the telly. He’d go on, of course, to be a founder of Factory Records and co-owner of the Haçienda, but his first step into the music industry was becoming the manager of low-fi guitar virtuoso Vini Reilly aka the Durutti Column (a task he shared with local actor Alan Erasmus, who would go on to Factory and the Haçienda with Wilson). The Electric Circus had closed the previous October and Wilson and Erasmus were aware there were rumours that Rafters was closing too, and the two men decided to find a new venue and host a series of four gigs. If nothing else, the plan would give them the chance to provide the Durutti Column with a couple of gigs.
Following the Rafters show, Rob Gretton became Joy Division’s manager and Tony Wilson got in touch to arrange for them to play at the new venue, which was on Royce Road in Hulme, just south of Manchester city centre. Wilson and Erasmus had booked Friday nights at the Russell Club, which was more usually a Caribbean club presenting sound systems like Blacka. They linked up with Roger Eagle, who of course had significant history in Manchester at the Twisted Wheel and the Magic Village, and had successfully established Eric’s in Liverpool. There was talk of opportunities to bring artists to both the Factory and Eric’s, potentially cutting costs. The local press announced that the Factory would present ‘wayward sounds and noises inspired by the ideals of Tony Wilson and Roger Eagle’.
Erasmus later explained the choice of name for the venture. ‘I was driving down a road and there was a big sign saying “Factory For Sale” standing out in neon. And I thought, Factory, that’s the name, because a factory was a place where people work and create things, and I thought to myself, these are workers who are also musicians and they’ll be creative. Factory was nothing to do with Andy Warhol because I didn’t know at that time that Warhol had this building in New York called the Factory.’
The opening night, 19 May 1978, predictably featured the Durutti Column, with Jilted John also on the bill and, reflecting the Eric’s connection, Margox & the Zinc (from Liverpool). A week later, the second Factory event offered Big in Japan, Manicured Noise and the Germs. Big in Japan were Roger Eagle’s darlings; group members including Jayne Casey, Ian Broudie, Holly Johnson and also Bill Drummond all went on to all kinds of fame and infamy (this gig was possibly Holly Johnson’s last in the band before he was sacked).
It wasn’t just what happened next to Big in Japan that’s of interest. It’s noticeable too how a snapshot of people onstage at those first two nights at the Factory reveals a number of people with artistic careers ahead of them, even if their long-term artistic vocation turned out not to be in music. For example, the bass player in Manicured Noise – who took their name from a Buzzcocks flyer designed by Linder (Sterling) from Ludus – was Jeff Noon, who has become an acclaimed writer, responsible for novels including Vurt (which had scenes set in Hulme), Pollen and Needle in the Groove. Linder became a celebrated artist, feted with a retrospective at the Paris Museum of Modern Art in 2013. Jilted John two months later released a hit single on Manchester record label Rabid (‘Gordon Is a Moron’). Jilted John, in real life, was the Sheffield-born aspiring actor Graham Fellows, who later went on to invent John Shuttleworth, a quaint, nerdy northern comic character. Margox was taken under Tony Wilson’s wing and under her real name, Margi Clarke, became a Granada TV presenter before going on to act in films (including Letter to Brezhnev) as well as Brookside and Coronation Street. In 1985 Morrissey and Margi Clarke were filmed in conversation on The Tube. Morrissey afterwards described her as ‘a wonderful creature’.
The third Factory night featured the Durutti Column and Cabaret Voltaire. Although the Cabs were yet to release a record they had maintained contact with Richard Boon and were being championed in the music press by the (then) Manchester-based journalist Jon Savage, who placed a feature on the band in Sounds following their support slot with Buzzcocks at the Lyceum. Chris Watson later recalled the Factory: ‘It just had a brilliant atmosphere, and because it was a West Indian club they also had a great sound system.’
The fourth and last Factory night of the initial series featured Joy Division and the Tiller Boys. Apparently there were more people in the audience than on the stage, but not many more. The Tiller Boys included Pete Shelley in their line-up, on loan from the Buzzcocks and pursuing some sonic experimentation alongside Eric Random and Francis Cookson. The Tiller Boys not only provided more glorious moments featuring tape machines but also delivered a challenging mode of performance by stacking chairs across the front of the stage and going to the bar for a drink while the tape loops looped. Paul Morley was ecstatic, declaring the Tiller Boys ‘a visionary alternative to support groups and DJs’.
By the middle of 1978 a generation of post-punk bands were gigging regularly, moving between key venues in various cities, building interest. Joy Division, the Durutti Column and Cabaret Voltaire made visits to Eric’s in Liverpool, and to Leeds, where John Keenan was promoting his F-Club at the Cosmo club in Chapeltown from February 1978 (Howard Devoto’s Magazine were the first band at his new venue). There was just about enough life in the scene for Factory to decide to return to the Russell after the initial series of gigs. Looking back at what was being booked in the key post-punk venues through the autumn of 1978, a number of names recur, including Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Penetration. On 20 October Cabaret Voltaire supported Joy Division at the Factory (four days later the same two shared the bill at the F-Club). On 17 November, Factory presented an almighty bill of the Human League, the Mekons and the Gang of Four.
Cabaret Voltaire had spent most of 1978 preparing to release a record, which included discussions with Richard Boon at New Hormones. Richard wanted to finance a Cabaret Voltaire record (and a Fall record), but didn’t have the money or the time (Buzzcocks hits were in full flow), and the New Hormones label lapsed into temporary inactivity. The Cabs went to Rough Trade Records, who sealed the deal by buying the band a four-track Revox. Their ‘Extended Play’ single was released in October 1978, with a front-cover photo taken by Rod Siddall at the Crucible gig promoted by Gun Rubber.
The Factory nights at the Russell Club would come to an end in the middle of 1979, by which time Tony and Alan had founded Factory Records too, with designer Peter Saville and record producer Martin Hannett joining as the other directors. The Russell and the Factory name would, however, continue to be used by other promoters, including Alan Wise (he also booked bands into the New Osborne club on Oldham Road, a ramshackle venue; the Cure played there in April 1980).
When it began, Factory Records didn’t have much of a long- or even mid-term plan. There had originally been discussions with Roger Eagle about collaborating on a release with him, featuring Liverpool and Manchester bands, but in the end Roger wasn’t part of the set-up and the first release was a sampler containing nine songs by four different artists. Two tracks by the Durutti Column were included and two from Joy Division. Wilson was turning out to be a committed Joy Division fan, and had answered the pleas made by Ian Curtis at Rafters by putting the band on TV; Joy Division performing ‘Shadowplay’ was broadcast on Granada Reports on 20 September 1978, the band’s TV debut.
Factory wasn’t conceived as being a local label: two Cabaret Voltaire tracks were included on the first sampler releas
e, and ‘Electricity’ by the Liverpool band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark was one of the first singles on the label. Other acts in the label’s early catalogue of releases would include ESG from the South Bronx and Minny Pops from the Netherlands, but Factory made a tentative start. Joy Division spoke to a major label or two. No one quite knew the way forward; Buzzcocks had signed to United Artists but there was also talk of trying a different, independent route. It was part of a belief in the value of alternative ways of operating, being. In an interview in NME in January 1979, Ian Curtis expressed his hopes for Joy Division: ‘We’d like to stay on the outside. We’d love it if Tony Wilson said he’d pay us to do an album on Factory. That would be great. We can’t afford to do it ourselves, which we’d want. But you either stay outside the system or go in totally and try and change it.’
Factory did indeed pay for Joy Division to go into the studio with Martin Hannett; the result was Unknown Pleasures, released in June 1979. A few weeks later they travelled to Birmingham to support Dexys Midnight Runners at the Romulus Club on Hagley Road. On 8 September they appeared on the opening day of John Keenan’s ‘World’s First Science Fiction Music Festival’ (better known as ‘Futurama’), staged at the Queen’s Hall in Leeds, along with sixteen other bands, including Cabaret Voltaire, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Public Image Limited and A Certain Ratio. Other Futurama festivals followed; the line-up in 1980 included Soft Cell, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Echo & the Bunnymen, and a number of Sheffield-based acts, including Clock DVA, I’m So Hollow, Artery and Vice Versa.
Vice Versa, with Martin Fry on keyboards, had founded their own independent record label called Neutron Records and released their first single, ‘New Girls’. In the spirit of the times, it was very DIY, up to and including distribution of the record, as Stephen Singleton later explained: ‘I remember going to the Limit nightclub and going up to people saying, “Pssst, do you want to buy one of these records?”’
After the release of the single and in the aftermath of more gigs playing alongside the likes of Clock DVA, Vice Versa were still having trouble with being written off as just another bunch of Human League impersonators, and felt the need to make some changes. Taking a swerve musically, and with Martin Fry moving to the centre of the stage on vocals, their songs started to embrace more soulful elements inspired by Chic, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Bowie’s Young Americans album. They renamed themselves ABC. Their first gig as ABC was at Psalter Lane Art College in September 1980, their second at Penny’s.
September 1980 was the month U2 first played at the Limit (they returned two months later). Six weeks before their first Limit date, eyewitnesses claim Bono ripped his trousers jumping off the PA stack at London’s Lyceum. His onstage antics were more than occasionally problematic. In May 1980, supporting the band Fashion at the Cedar Club in Birmingham where the audience numbered around 150, Bono jumped offstage and went into the audience. Caught up in the moment, the Edge and Adam Clayton followed him, inadvertently unplugging their guitar leads from out of the amps, leaving, for a tranquil minute or two, only Bono’s microphone and Larry’s drums audible.
On 5 June 1980, U2 played for John Keenan at the F-Club. The night before they’d been in Manchester at ‘The Beach Club’, an almost regular Tuesday night at Oozits, formerly known as the Picador (the first club owned by Manchester drag act Frank ‘Foo Foo’ Lammar). The Beach Club had been launched in April by a group of friends around the New Hormones label, and the City Fun fanzine, including, among many others, Richard Boon, Eric Random, Lindsay Wilson (Tony’s wife) and Sue Cooper. It was a decrepit venue in a seedy area of Manchester, between Shudehill and Victoria Station, but it wasn’t far from Pips. With the Factory having closed, Richard Boon hoped that creative, maverick types would gather there and a community would be created.
In Hulme there was an old cinema called the Aaben that programmed art-house and underground films, but in general it was difficult for adventurous Mancunians to access the likes of Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising, Orphée, Eraserhead or Kubrick’s banned movie A Clockwork Orange, but Sue Cooper’s father had good contacts in the film distribution industry and the Beach Club presented all these, and others, in a room on the floor below where the bands performed (it was usual for the band playing to choose the film for the evening). CP Lee had been around in the late 1960s, and the activities at the Beach Club sparked a degree of déjà vu. ‘I remember thinking, Richard’s doing what we used to do in the 1960s – put a band on with a film showing at the same time; dancers; just weird shit. It was great!’
Following the death of Ian Curtis in May 1980, the surviving members of Joy Division regrouped as New Order and played a number of low-key gigs; none of the band was even certain who should be the singer. Their first gig, on 30 July 1980, was at the Beach Club, billed as ‘the No-Names’. In October, still unsure of their future direction, they played their first show with newly recruited keyboard player Gillian Gilbert at the Squat on Devas Street out near the University of Manchester.
In the wake of the Factory nights ending and the closure of the Beach Club, attention switched back to Rafters. In addition to hosting Friday and Saturday soul and funk nights, the club also hosted a number of gigs presented by various promoters. In August 1981, Ludus supported Depeche Mode, and Steven Morrissey attended, reporting for Record Mirror. In Morrissey’s review he dismisses Depeche Mode as ‘remarkably boring’ and ‘nonsense’, an unimaginative boy band with nice hair attracting an audience ‘possibly hand-picked for their tone deafness’. Ludus, he writes, were ‘plainly wishing they were elsewhere . . . Linder was born singing and has more imagination than Depeche Mode could ever hope for.’
Elsewhere, Birmingham venues like Barbarella’s, the Golden Eagle and the Fighting Cocks helped breed a scene that ranged from UB40 to Duran Duran and from Dexys Midnight Runners to the Au Pairs. In Nottingham, the Boat Club caught up with new sounds and styles, and bands featured there in the first few months of 1980 included Young Marble Giants, the Associates, the Fall, Killing Joke and Bow Wow Wow. And at the end of the year a new venue opened in Nottingham: Rock City.
Also in 1980, the Leadmill opened in Sheffield, on the ground floor of the building the Esquire had operated from in the 1960s. There was a political edge to it, as its official history makes clear: ‘The opening of the Leadmill in 1980 was a response to the lack of cultural facilities in Sheffield and was set against the backdrop of a political and economic environment characterised by the beginning of Thatcherism.’
Sheffield’s ABC released their first single, ‘Tears Are Not Enough’, in the autumn of 1981; it ended up going Top Twenty, as did all three other singles taken from their debut album Lexicon of Love. The Human League were also hit-making, with ‘Don’t You Want Me’ topping the charts during Christmas 1981 and selling over 1.5m copies in the UK alone. But the line-up had undergone a radical transformation. Founder members Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware had left the Human League in October 1980 but Phil Oakey retained the name and set out to put a band together in order to honour scheduled dates in Europe. Oakey was at the Crazy Daisy one Wednesday night when he spotted two teenage girls on the dancefloor, liked their look and their moves and signed them up. Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley have been in the Human League ever since. The Crazy Daisy became the Geisha Bar and then Legends nightclub, but closed in the mid-1990s. The building is still standing, however, and occasionally Susan Ann and Joanne meet camera crews there to tell the story of their historic encounter with Oakey.
In 1981 Rob Gretton and Tony Wilson went looking for a building to house a new venue. Not a borrowed venue like Factory at the Russell, but a new one, purpose-built, which the members of New Order and the directors of Factory Records would own. Martin Hannett was a dissenting voice; he thought that the monies coming in from record sales from New Order and the Joy Division back catalogue would be better spent buying state-of-the-art equipment to give the label an in-house studio. When it became clear the nightclub proj
ect would be pursued, Hannett left Factory.
The would-be club owners had a serious look at an old cinema on the corner of Oxford Road and Grosvenor Street, and a carpet warehouse just down the slope from Oxford Road Station. Eventually they settled on an old yacht showroom, a cavernous warehouse across the road from disused railway arches and a rusting gasworks. They’d paint it mostly grey and call it the Haçienda.
The Beach Club had closed in a matter of a few months. It had made a contribution, for sure. If CP Lee was able to identify some antecedents in the late 1960s, the Beach Club also had some influence on clubs that followed, particularly the Haçienda, launched eighteen months later. When the Haçienda opened – with two big video screens and, in the early years, occasional film screenings – it described itself as a ‘Club Disco Videotek Venue’.
With a capacity of 1,650, Factory were being ambitious on many levels, not least in the intention, laid out in the first flyer the Haçienda issued: as well as giving basic information on how to obtain membership (£5.25 per annum), the flyer declared the aim of the club was ‘To restore a sense of place’. City Fun had been part of the collective who’d experienced the exciting but uphill struggles of running the Beach Club, and various writers in the fanzine were sceptical, even scornful of the idea that Factory could run, or fill, a big club.
