Factory Records

Watched an interesting documentary the other night about Factory Records (independent label that was home to Joy Division, New Order and Happy Mondays to name but three). The people behind it had no experience in the record “industry” nor in business, on the plus side they had ears for good music and also an appreciation of fine art.

There was some great archive footage of Joy Division whose lead singer Ian Curtis committed suicide the day before they were due to leave for their first US tour and before the release of their second album.

What was really intriguing was the revelation that his fellow band members had never read any of the lyrics that he had written on the grounds that they were personal and none of their business.

Despite/because of this set back the label was soon generating large amounts of revenue, so they opened a New York styled night club in Manchester called the Hacienda. This was losing money at the rate of £10,000 per week – paid for by the Joy Division royalties rolling in.

Obsessed with the art work for their releases their most infamous moment came with the 12” single release of New Order's Blue Monday (largest selling 12” over), the packaging was so expensive to manufacture that they lost money with every copy sold.

Tony Wilson (one of the founders who died last year) was immensely proud of the fact that the label had failed to sign up some of Manchester's most successful groups such as Oasis, The Stone Roses, The Smiths for varying reasons. For him I think that is was always about the journey and never the destination.

Unsurprisingly the label went bankrupt in 1992 and the night club closed a few years later.

Here are New Order performing Love Will Tear Us Apart – written by Curtis for Joy Division and released as a single a month before his death.