Estimable Mancunian tastemaker, entrepreneur and one-time Factory Records impresario, Tony Wilson has died. The 57-year-old died of a heart attack while undergoing treatment for kidney cancer. Wilson had been diagnosed with cancer during Christmas of 2006 and had been struggling with the disease ever since.
Wilson’s risk-taking and visionary mid-70s TV program “So It Goes” (he was one of, it not the first person to ever put the Sex Pistols on TV) helped set the stage for Manchester’s post-punk scene and his Factory Records aided and abetted the likes of Joy Division, New Order, the Happy Mondays, A Certain Ratio and the skeletal and underappreciated, Vini Reilly, aka, the Durutti Column.
The very excellent 2002 pomo, 4th-wall-breaking meta-film, “24 Hour Party People,” (directed by Michael Winterbottom), centered on the Manchester scene as seen through Wilson (played by comedian Steve Coogan who had reportedly based his popular Alan Partridge character after Wilson’s smarmy, unctuous and charming personality). As music scenes changed in the ’80s and the acid-scene emerged, Factory records and his culturally significant club, “La Hacienda,” became a focal point for what became known as the “Madchester” movement.
Earlier this year the Factory Records-draining dance buffoons in the Happy Mondays fnally did right by Wilson by helping him pay his medical bills after the British NHS denied to fund his semi-experimental £3,500 monthly cancer treatment.
He was known initially as a twat and was later heralded as a cultural arbiter and genius. Wilson will be missed.
Download: Joy Division – “Atmosphere”
Download: New Order – “Temptation”
Download: The Durtti Column – “Otis”
