Tony Wilson a great man RIP

[vqdave]

I forgot to postthis at the weekend but was just listeningto some New Order and thought i ought to post now.

Anthony H Wilson - Entertainment Genius died at the weekend aged 57.

The man was behind much of what made british music great in the past 30 years and will be remebered fondly in the VQDave household.

From the beeb 5 things which made Tony Wilson great:

BRINGING PUNK TO THE MAINSTREAM
SETTING UP FACTORY RECORDS
ESTABLISHING THE HACIENDA NIGHTCLUB
RUNNING THE "IN THE CITY" CONFERENCE
PIONEERING LEGAL MUSIC DOWNLOADS

See teh full article here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6941846.stm

[Lazy B'stard]

sh*t- thats terrible news. As a child of Madchester and a regular at the Hac I am truly gutted. Without Tony, Manchester would not be what it is today- he did more for that place than 2 footie teams could ever do. The soundtrack  of my generation would not have existed without him. No Happy Mondays for god's sake!
 I hope that wonderfull city has an official day of mourning in his memory.
 A true great- I shall dig out the Monday's 24hr Party People tonight and weep into my Boddington's.
 'Nice one Tony'

[vqdave]

i just caught the news when humbering on at the weekend on radio 4 and had to pull over for a mournful ciggie in the countryside.
I can't believe that the death of one of our countries true GREATS is so unheard of.

I was supposed to be be going to the Ace Cafe classic night tonight in the Humber in convoy with a chums Sunbeam Rapist, but he has rained off so instead i will sit down with too much booze and watch 24hourpartypeople the film, if you haven't seen it, watch it and you will see what the man had done.

As the Doc says 'Nice one Tony'

And from another great Manc:

Paul Ryder, brother of Sean and the bassist of the Happy Mondays, shared his memories of Wilson.

"I was seventeen years old and I first met him, and I was a bit nervous.

"This was before we signed to Factory, his words to me were, you might not make any money on Factory, but I can guarantee you, you will see the world.

"And I thought that will do for me."

[Fran]

and weep into my Boddington's

Are you aware that the Boddies Brewery next to Strangeways closed down some time ago?   (Thanks to Inbev  ) Not sure where its made now (possibly South Wales), but certainly there are no gondolas on the Manc Ship Canal these days! 

F

P.S.  Check out the Manchester Evening News website for loads of lovely tribute messages - or to add your own.  The Town Hall also has its flag at half mast out of respect and flowery tributes are popping up all over town at significant venues (not least the site of the old Hacienda - now turned into flats).

[Lazy B'stard]

Cheers Fran. Wish I could be 'home' tonight. Just been sat thinking about how that place and people like Wilson shaped my life. Probably wouldn't have spent hours listening to The Smiths and The Fall. Wouldn't have moved there as soon as I could muster a deposit for a flat in Withington. Wouldn't have been in a bar when I met my wife. Even my job would be different.
 I once had a T.shirt that said- On the 7th Day god created Madchester' it should be changed to Tony.
 RIP and Thanks mate.

[Andy Zarse]

Sad, obviously, that he died so young. It seems like he had an interesting life, but I'm sorry to say Mr Wilson never really entered my conciousness when he was alive other than a few news reports when they closed the Hacienda.

Clearly he was a Manc phenomenom but a bit more unknown outside the area and I could personally live without the Happy Mondays. Not being picky but I would argue with the statement that he was responsible for bringing punk to the mainstream, many others were far more influential. There's nothing about him on the Stiff Little Fingers website. It's probably fair to say he was influenced by punk rather than the other way around.

[vqdave]

Andy loathe as i am to disagree with you, especially after a lunch with my accountant but Mr Wilson was far more influencial than you give credit for. I am a southerner born and bred and still know of him and his influence.

The programmes he aired for granada made national coverage and did show to the mainstream punk at its earliest state. He made posssible such bands as joyDivision which were born of punk, and the after math including New Order and 'the mondays' and i think it can be argued that the Stone Roses may not have been where they were had it not been for Tony Wilson and the legacy he created.

You have to move away from the manchester scene to truely apprecaite what he and Factory Records did. it is far more than the music itself, it moves into every art movement much like the bauhaus, you see producers like martin hanet (SP), designers like Saville, muscians like Sumner, clubs like the hacienda, music such as house moving into the public concious(SP), everything around Wilson bred art and its extension for arts sake much in the way of warhol or if you like benefactors in the guise of the Guggenheims.

You need to look way beyond Madchester to truely appreciate the influence and reach of anthony h wislon.

[Andy Zarse]

The likes of John Peel were far more important to promoting punk in a public domain. My own feeling is that Wilson kind of jumped on the punk bandwagon by getting it on his otherwise unremarkable TV shows. The Pistols would still have been on TV with Bill Grundy. If it hadn't been Wilson it would have been someone else getting punk on the telly such was it's rise by the time 1976 came along. Don't forget The Clash were already White Riotting by that point.

I'm not saying he wasn't heavily influenced by punk, it's just that I can't ascribe it's popularity to him simply because to do so does a gross disservice to others.

[enzo]

Gutted when I heard this news, as he had a major hand in some of my favourite bands.

Never mind the Punk aspect of Tony Wilson he also helped move music on from that point by bringing on extremely influential bands like Joy Division (New Order) and the Happy mondays whether you like them or not they probably influenced at least some of the bands that you do like. Also he was a true gent and a legend for a certain generation, also very sad to here he couldn't get the drugs he needed from the NHS and couldn't afford them so some of his ex bands helped put together a fund for him. But in his own words "Some people make money, some people make history".

RIP.