From Manchester with Love: The Life and Opinions of Tony Wilson

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From Manchester with Love is the biography of a man who changed the world around him through sheerforce of personality. In the cultural theatre of Manchester, Tony Wilson broke in and took centre stage. For me, that plays into how I want to write anyway. I always think that everyone and every piece of music you listen to is filled with all sorts of options and contradictions. Every person has a different view of it. For me, I can play with that idea of how difficult it is to pin anyone down anyway – let alone with a Wilson. And Wilson is such a visible, public, self-confessed example of that level of how much a person can be contradictory. This pressure to conform, to be one thing, one image, something that people can deal with in a tiny way. As much as people really appear to want to like that, when it comes to art or entertainment, when it comes to a person it can become very difficult. People don’t like it so much, they want people to conform to their own comfortable image of what a person can be. I like the idea that Wilson was constantly exploding, all the time, with his contradictions. And then there’s the part of him that’s lonely and difficult to know. To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book. Alan Moore’s first short story collection covers 35 years of what The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen’s author calls his “ludicrous imaginings”. Across these nine stories, some of which can barely be called short, there’s a wonderful commitment to fantastical events in mundane towns. His old comic fans might enjoy What We Can Know About Thunderman the most, a spectacular tirade against a superhero industry corrupted from such lofty, inventive beginnings. The World: A Family History There was never a moment where he said, oh, write my book. It would be more… rumours. I knew he desperately didn’t want him writing my book, or him writing my book, so it was through a process of elimination that I was the last man standing, and the only one prepared to take him on.

Needless to say, having Paul Morley, a respected veteran music writer and contemporary of Wilson, at the helm of putting the story together, paired with the fact that he meticulously researched the subject for over a decade, results in a comprehensive coverage of Wilson’s life and how it was influenced by the emergence of punk, which subsequently fundamentally changed the course of his career and outlook on life. Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Hacienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester's legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North. To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book.According to Paul Morley he was the only person authorised by "cultural catalyst" Tony Wilson to write his biography. It took Paul Morley over ten years. As circumstances changed he felt compelled to revise it. Eventually he realised he had to finish it. The result is spectacular, and really does Tony Wilson justice, capturing his intelligence, charm, personal history, the social history of his era, loyalty to Manchester, complexity and energy - along with some of his less attractive traits. It's dazzling and inspiring. Funds raised by this compilation will go directly to We Love Manchester emergency fund, run by the British Red Cross in tandem with Manchester City Council.

In the way that sometimes happens when reading books, I found that during the weekend I was reading the section about the zenith years of the late 1970s and early 1980s, I began behaving slightly more iconoclastic or bloody minded in situations. Thankfully this wore off after a few days, but I started to think that this was probably Wilson’s biggest talent. The ability to – and I don’t mean this in a sentimental way – inspire people into action. To draw things out in people. That’s an underrated, and potentially harmful, gift for a person to have. I thought it was revealing when Vini Reilly described the Durutti Column as just music he made for Tony to drive around and listen to. Just because couples need to spend the most romantic night of the year at home in 2021, doesn’t mean they need to cancel Valentine’s Day all together.

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The entire Factory history is based on the capital that is Ian’s life,” Saville tells Morley at one point in From Manchester with Love. “I once said to Howard Bernstein, the chief executive of Manchester City Council, that I believe modern Manchester stands on the investment of Ian Curtis’s life. I feel that very strongly.” Not just a "biog" but the story of a city's history and culture and a unique and disappearing figure.' Yes, the contradictions of Tony Wilson are now Manchester’s contradictions. Here’s one: the city that beats its chest loudly about its cultural dominance, but who missed the boat on all significant pop music innovations this side of the city’s IRA bombing. As Owen Hatherley wrote of modern Manchester, “regenerated cities produce no more great pop music, great films or great art than they do industrial product. What they do produce is property developers.” This has been brought under closer inspection by recent debates about who does and who doesn’t get to benefit from Manchester’s largest funded arts institutions. But what did he actually do? Cut Magazine (another dead music paper – this time Scottish) once described him as a “TV talking head, pop culture conceptualist, entrepreneur and bullshitter”. Paul Morley – From Manchester with Love: The Life and Opinions of Tony Wilson — Allen & Unwin Publishing, 2021

force of personality. In the cultural theatre of Manchester, Tony Wilson broke in and took centre stage. When he had an audience he talked about the possibility of pop music, the idea of a new club, a new idea of a new public space in the city that was his home, and he talked about how the city itself could be reinvented. In time his visions somehow became real. Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Haçienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester's legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North. To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book. From Manchester With Love, then, is the biography of a man who became eponymous with his city, of the music he championed and the myths he made, of love and hate, of life and death. In the cultural theatre of Manchester, Tony Wilson broke in and took centre-stage. Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Haçienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester’s legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North. To Paul Morley, he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, inventive broadcaster, self-deprecating chancer, publicity seeker, loyal friend. It was Morley to whom Wilson left a daunting final request: to write this book.It took ten years for you to complete this book, but really its genesis is about thirty years prior to that, with you being to some extent groomed by Tony Wilson over the years to write about his life. Critically-acclaimed and bestselling author Paul Morley’s long-awaited biography of Factory Records co-founder and Manchester icon Tony Wilson. I've reached p.100. Still no sign of Tony Wilson. This feels like it's been researched on the internet, rather than through interviews with the key players. You toyed with the idea of ‘Self Division’ as a title until an intervention from Richard Madeley – who emerges as one of the heroes of the book – and I like that as a title because there is this huge, almost collapsing weight of contradictions. The Catholic Buddhist, the socialist entrepreneur – what do you do with that as a writer?

As well as raising money for this fund, the secondary aim of Manchester With Love is to demonstrate, celebrate and share the diversity and unity which continues to permeate from the city’s streets via its music. In our opinion, there’s no better metaphor and Hammo’s unique artwork sums this up perfectly. There’s probably no better person to write a biography of “TV talking head, pop culture conceptualist, entrepreneur and bullshitter” Tony Wilson than Paul Morley, a man who formed an esoteric writing career in his Manchester orbit. Still, Morley immediately understands the pitfalls of this enterprise: he calls Wilson “beautiful, foolish, dogmatic, charming. Impossible.” This moving portrait of Manchester from the late 1970s onwards is richer, more complicated and thoughtful than mere biography; a history, of sorts, of a city long since passed into memory. In terms of my generation, I’m a fan of that disruptor, rather than the Happy Mondays associate and the guy who set up the In The City conference. In the 1990s, he had this moment where he went for power, in a more conventional sense. That’s interesting in the overall structure of his life, yes, but I was more interested in him creating himself as a kind of work of art. The guy who had Factory Records but also worked on the telly, and in both of those ways was smuggling ideas, content, and connections to people. People like Alan Erasmus came forward to speak to you, who haven’t been forthcoming at all since Wilson died.Not just a “biog” but the story of a city’s history and culture and a unique and disappearing figure.’ Wilson himself admitted that was very accurate but was a bit miffed it missed out his academic side. Tony Wilson was a man who became synonymous with his beloved city. As the co-founder of the legendary Factory Records and the Haçienda, he appointed himself a custodian of Manchester's legacy of innovation and change, becoming a cultural pioneer for the North.