So I'm sitting in the bar at Casa Del Mar, with Tony and Yvette, and Tony starts telling me about this drug he took in the mountains of Peru.
I'm sitting in a first class hotel. Overlooking the roiling Pacific Ocean. Thinking how I've finally adjusted to the 21st century. And this MADMAN, with a gleam in his eye, starts waxing rhapsodic about a bygone era, the sixties, the seventies, MAYBE the eighties. But everybody I know in L.A. has SWORN OFF DRUGS!
Oh, Tony gave up on LSD in the early nineties he told me. But for this documentary, some television crew sent him to South America. To look for INSIGHT!
And the mental heavens opened for Tony. He finally had ANSWERS!
A four hour trip. And then you're fine.
God, you'd think he was Timothy Leary reincarnated. But Timothy Leary was relatively passive, Tony Wilson is EXUBERANT! Fully ALIVE! He's like the mad hatter, or the pied piper. You almost want to throw off your trappings and follow him. Then again, is he leading you anywhere, or is it a solo trip. IS HIS LIFE HIS ART??
I mean sitting there listening, I realized why they made "24 Hour Party People". Sure, the music was good, sure the scene was interesting, but not only was Tony the glue that held it together, HE was the star. HE was the most fascinating ELEMENT! I mean how do you get some Oxbridge graduate delving into the nightclub scene, and the recorded music scene, after working in TELEVISION??
So Tony gets back to Manchester, and he's got to tell EVERYBODY about this new drug. One so out of my purview that I can't even remember the NAME!
So he comes across Shaun Ryder, and, of course, Shaun agrees with him. No, no, NO, Shaun can't know of what Tony speaks. This is something NEW! But Shaun did it AGES ago. But you can only get it in SOUTH AMERICA! Well, Shaun had a CONNECTION! And there you've got it, a first class rock and roll druggie on parade.
Oh, I got a word or two in edgewise. Had to explain Grokster. How it wasn't about free music, but control of DISTRIBUTION! But then Tony started filling in more details of a life so much more INTERESTING, so much more FASCINATING than the rest of ours. Not that you begrudge him. Mixed in with the airs is self-deprecation, and the eagerness to turn you on TOO!
And then Tony went sotto voce. He had to tell me about his plans for marketing the Factory Records catalogue.
And, after listening for the better part of ten minutes, I had to ASK HIM! "Tony, what's in this for YOU?"
NOTHING!
Tony lost everything. All the Factory Records masters. He wasn't gonna make a CENT on a new campaign.
But he had to do it. Because it's about the PROJECT, not the MONEY!
And that's what sets Tony Wilson apart. That's why I'll interrupt my day to hang with him. Because not only is he a fascinating storyteller, I like where he's COMING FROM!
And, before we got together, he kept imploring me to read an article he'd written for the Manchester publication "City Life". He said he read every line of my stuff, it was time for a quid pro quo.
Turns out he's got a regular column. But this week was special. It was Q&A style. And the questions were asked by New Order, on the eve of their new release.
Reading through, I found the following. I thought of you. I wanted you to know that it's not only me. That there are other people who still believe, who've got their own philosophies, who think about the MUSIC before the money, who are into the TRUTH more than the GAME!
The following was written tongue-in-cheek, but the essence rings true:
3) I am thinking of starting a record label, but I suffer from a severe case of "woollen ears". Do you have any experience of this yourself, and how do I get around it?
Yes, indeed. But don't worry. Woollen ears don't really matter. You may find this hard to believe, but I wouldn't know a hit single from a hole in the ground. Honestly. The thing is your eyes. It's what you see not what you hear. When I'm standing at some gig in a carpet-stick-to-your-shoe shithole watching a new band and some A&R man says to me; "Good, but I don't hear the hit single" I have difficulty in a) not punching him/her and b) not screaming, "Because they haven't written it yet you dumb fuck". Truly great bands write their defining (and inevitably catchy) song somewhere around their second or third album, if given the right environment. And if you're going to start a record label, you need to ask yourself, would you know the right environment from a hole in road or is the right environment a hole in the road. But do what me and George Martin do (did, Sir), use your eyes not your woollen ears. Look for a band that really means it (maaaan), who perform on stage like there is no choice for them to be anywhere but on that stage, and who stand in a room with a kind of posture and look and attitude that led Sir George to sign a band whose demos he and the rest of the London Music establishment hated. The other talent you need if you are thinking of starting your own record label are the two p's, no not the ones you pay in royalties, although that would be wiser than giving your bands the most generous record deal in the history of the global record industry, 'cause they'll never understand that and certainly never say thank you. As your late manager said so succinctly; "Appreciation, appreciation, this is bloody Manchester, if you want appreciation go and do something somewhere else, we don't do appreciation here." No the two p's are patience and perseverance. With musicians; you see when God gives them that special talent, apparently he also takes something away. So when they won't take advice on things like producers for example, don't give up keep battering away till they break. Have True Faith.
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