the late mr W

He wanted to work out how the 19th century visit to the city by Friedrich Engels led to the 1976 visits of the Sex Pistols. And his absurd, splendid solution, Factory Records, including the Hacienda nightclub, became an emblem of the city's belief in progress.

Tony Wilson never mentioned that to me the time he bought me and a colleague lunch in the Granada canteen. This isn’t a claim to fame, by the way: meeting people to see if they were interesting and in what way was basically what he did. Hang around here long enough and the chances were you’d run into him somewhere.

This was in 1990. What we wanted was to borrow a bunch of Hacienda DJs for an open air benefit in the car park in Manchester Chinatown for the overseas Chinese democratic movement: avin’ it for Chinese democracy. And why not? The hacienda must be built, and a heaving crowd of scallies in a Chinatown car park are as good a labour force as any. So the deal was done.

Latterly, I thought he got a bit too close to the Regeneration Junta that governs Manchester. He became a man of baggy suits at the periphery of the cult of wavy buildings. It seemed a shame, because he was instrumental in the reasons why large numbers of people are interested in the city in the first place; and none of those reasons has much to do with Loft Living and banal architectural events.

But then again, if you look at a building like Urbis, it’s half ski jump, half white elephant and nobody knows exactly what it’s for. If the spectacle wishes to subvert itself so spectacularly, why not give it a hand?

When I first heard that Tony Wilson had died, an odd connection established itself: bugger, and in the same week the old Wong Chu shut down. No connection, really, just the sudden absence of two good things from my city.

And you, forgotten, your memories ravaged by all the consternations of two hemispheres, stranded in the Red Cellars of Pali-Kao, without music and without geography, no longer setting out for the hacienda where the roots think of the child and where the wine is finished off with fables from an old almanac. That’s all over. You’ll never see the hacienda. It doesn’t exist.

Comments

[Urbis]

Half-ski slope, half-white elephant, eh? Sounds like something pretty difficult to recuperate to me...

[Phil]

Odd, though, given his pro-CCP (pro-PLA, even) comments after June 4th.

[jamie]

AFAIR - and not too reliably - what he told us was that it was pretty much inevitable and what did everyone expect, etc, but that he was quite happy to help organise a benefit.

He also said Northside would show up, which they didn't.