this is most upsetting for me...

...i don't usually "do" upset when it comes to dead music people...

Do you mind me asking why, Ally? Not being snotty or anything. Just wondering why his death has affected you so much.

only relatively speaking, peejay... factory records got me into good music... i was an obsessive between about '86 and '92 when they closed their doors... tony wilson made manchester a musical force and was a true character and source of energy... he absolutely deserves to be remembered in the same way as john peel...

...i'm not crying in to my corn flakes or anything... i certainly don't like the mindless canonisation of a load of musicians once they die young...

...but wilson was the primary musical inspiration of my late teenage years...

I loved Tony Wilson's line (if he did indeed say it) about Shaun Ryder being the greatest poet since W.B. Yeats.

Poor bloke, died of cancer, heard that some of the bands he helped succeed paid for his care and med expenses....

he seemed to always be in the company of cool, but never money......

remember a famous quote that epitomised his obnoxious demeanor to some people...on steve coogan playing him in the movie..."the cockiest prick in manchester..playing the cockiest prick in manchester"..quality...

Yeah, I’d absolutely agree with that. Him and John Peel are probably the most important non-musicians to be involved with British music of the last fifty years.
I watched the film again over the weekend. Coogan really plays him up as a bumbling Alan Partridge type, but his uncompromising love of music really comes through, that’s the important thing. On top of that its really good music film, a rarity. No dodgy wigs and contrived live settings. The actors look like they know what they’re doing onstage and (by all accounts…I was never there) the Hacienda scenes were brilliant. I assume they just re-opened the club and asked a few hundred people to show up one night. I love the scene with Vini Reilly, playing to a crowd of one (Tony) during the shakey formative years of the Hacienda. Vini finishes his set and walks over the bar where Tony was grooving along to his set in his big trench coat, Vini looks at him and says “Tuesday nights, eh?”

It was Hooky, I think the quote was "the second biggest c*nt in Manchester playing the biggest c*nt in Manchester."

He was like a hip geography teacher. And he gave the world Blue Monday. RIP.

It's sad to see someone of his stature go, it was through him that a lot of great talent came to the fore. Regardless of his legendary obnoxiousness it's clear how genuine his love of music was, which is something we can all identify with.

I have to question this. I mean for all the good he did for the British music scene, should he really get this much credit? New Order created Blue Monday. Tony did encourage them and he put out the record, but if he didn't, its debatable that someone else probably would have...eventually

Tony gave the world New Order, they gave the world Blue Monday.

Well if you're going to be pernickety about it, it was Arthur Baker who really gave us Blue Monday - New Order gave us 'The Beach' which features as the B-Side of the 12", it was Baker who gave us the mix we know and love. Though he denies it now apparently.

The whole Madchester/Hacienda/Joy Division thing might have happened anyway without Wilson. It just wouldn't have been as good. He didn't 'create' it, he was more like a ringmaster, and a brilliant one at that.

I remember 'Hooky' talking about Blue Monday and he said it just happened accidentally in the studio, when they were messing around with synths and drum machines etc, nothing about it was premeditated-they never consciously set out to change the face of music, etc-it was just a total fluke with no real musical genius was involved! I remember hearing it for the first time as a kid and that weird, sequencer drum beat intro really messed with my head: I never heard anything like it before. Or since, come to think of it.

i'm not sure this is entirely true... baker had much more to do with follow up single 'confusion'... i don't think you can just say the difference between 'the beach' and 'blue monday' was baker...





i think it's impossible to say what would have happened without him... joy division may hardly have existed at all... six great live performances in amongst a whole host of dodgy ones was all they ever performed... who would have released their records?...

moving on through the 80's (this by the way was when factory made its name as an innovative, arty record label) we might not have heard from the durutti column, ESG, section 25, the stockholm monsters, quando quango, the names and a whole host of other great bands... this includes happy mondays who really were something different for the first two albums... by the time the term 'madchester' was coined, the music was pretty much dead... what is certain is that the hacienda was a catalyst, happy mondays kicked it off and the stone roses made it the massive commercial success it was... who knows if that would have happened without wilson's energy right through the previous decade... probably not is my guess...

Was also saddened to hear about this.. He may have been a bit of a prick sometimes but even if all he did was allow the Joy Division \ New Order guys to make music and hook them up with Martin Hannett & Peter Saville that's enough to make him a legend in my book.

anyone see the new factory documentary on bbc 4 then?.... was a little bit disappointing i thought in that it focused almost wholly on the joy division - new order - happy mondays line again paying little regard to the other bands on the label... some good new footage and interviews though...

I don't have digital (surprise, surprise!).. Looking forward to seeing "Control" though - from what the band say, it sounds like a class film.