august 20th excerpt

A Certain Ratio-Lucinda

Apart from a couple of Durutti Column albums, a lot of New Order records and both Joy Division albums, this was the only other record I had on the Factory Records label. Half Man Half Biscuit wrote a song wherein they referred quite disparagingly about “Factory completists” and I whole heartedly agreed with them on that. There was, and probably still is, a trainspottery tendency amongst some record collectors in wanting to own every single Factory release; every single artefact that had a Factory catalogue serial number. It’s that weird, creepy obsessive behaviour that in relation to most other “hobbies” (and that is all it is, collecting Factory records) would have you marked down as more than a bit odd but it seems acceptable in regards to music. It’s akin to philately. It cannot be a love of the music or the quality or originality of the music that Factory released-because, all things being considered and with the benefit of considerable hindsight-overall, Factory Records just weren’t very good. If a record label could ever be described as putting style ahead of substance, then Factory is the prime example. Sadly for them, the substance wasn’t that good to start with and style, well, that’s all it was- style. And that’s something that not only fades but can become ridiculous given enough time. Maybe, just maybe, it’ll start to look a bit quaint and kitsch a few years hence. Now that would be ridiculous and would be the one thing that the massed po-faces of Factory would not have wished for. Oh-the irony.

Factory are still revered as the hippest of hip labels; the record company that virtually single-handedly pulled Manchester (and there by extension, the whole of the North) out of the mire. Factory are seen as mavericks, revolutionary and a bunch of crazy Situationalists thumbing their noses at the establishment. One of the things that is always held up as how much they’d ripped up the rule book is that fact that they wouldn’t ever sign their acts to a normal contract; this didn’t turn out too well when Factory were going bust and a deal for London Records to buy them out fell through when it was realised that Factory didn’t have any financial interest at all in New Order’s or Joy Division’s back catalogue. Smart business. This was almost as good as running their club, the Hacienda, at such a loss that it cost the members of New Order at least £10,000 per month to keep it afloat. But that’s only because they were selling all the drinks at a lower price than the nearby pubs. Another good financial move was ensuring that their best selling single, Blue Monday, by New Order, although selling millions of copies, made a loss because the sleeve itself cost more to make than the record would make in profit. Whilst I’m not a mad capitalist, can you imagine how far Tony Wilson would have lasted on Dragons Den with these crackpot schemes? Maybe he didn’t want to come across as a businessman, Alan Sugar style, but he did have the sharp suits and drove a big fuck-off Mercedes. Maybe he saw himself as an impresario, a visionary who could spot talent and bring it to fruition. Let’s give this a go-on Factory Records there were: The Royal Family and the Poor, Crispy Ambulance, The Wake, Thick Pigeon and Northside just to name a few. Manchester bands that Factory didn’t sign-The Fall, The Passage, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Oasis. Go figure. But wasn’t all the sleeve art of Factory Records really really good?

(As a footnote, there was freebie giveaway in the Observer a few weeks ago of Happy Mondays acclaimed “Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches” CD. I remembered it was being quite good back in 1990. The CD is  now being used as a coaster for the cup of coffee I’m drinking while I’m writing this.)