Now this, THIS, is interesting...

Just imagine: the year is 1983, Blue Monday is storming the charts, and the band that recorded it are called ... the Radical Jesuits?

A forthcoming book of previously unpublished notes by the late Rob Gretton, former manager of Joy Division and New Order, reveals that New Order almost didn't become New Order. After the suicide of Ian Curtis, Joy Division compiled a list of potential new names. Alongside New Order, Gretton and the band considered monikers including Arab Legion, Voices Crying, Dharma Bums, the Radical Jesuits and Man Ray. They liked Man Ray so much they even highlighted it on the list.

The list of What Might Have Been appears as part of 1 Top Class Manager, to be released on October 7. The full-colour, 220-page paperback compiles diary entries, letters, to-do lists, posters and excerpts from 20 notebooks kept by Rob Gretton between 1978 and 1980.

Gretton died of a heart attack in 1999, but the collection was compiled by his widow Lesley Gilbert.

OOO!

Magazine to reunite!

In 2006, Paul Morley wrote in the Observer that Devoto "... was the man who changed Manchester". When Devoto invited the Sex Pistols to play in the city, it was "before the rest of the country had caught up with the idea that there was any such thing as a Sex Pistol. In the audience for the shows were Mark E Smith, Ian Curtis, Morrissey and Devoto himself".

Sounds about right

MUSIC legends from the Hollies to Morrissey to Oasis have already put Manchester on the map.

Now the city has been ranked rock 'n' roll capital of Britain, according to a new survey.

It revealed that Manchester has produced more rock stars per head than any other British city.

The survey, by guitar website guitarrockstar.co.uk, checked where 500 of the most successful rock stars and bands from the 1950s to the modern day were born and brought up.

Manchester finished top at producing rock stars, above Liverpool, Sheffield, Glasgow, Coventry and Oxford.

West London suburb Shepherd's Bush was named the rock 'n' roll hotspot with one rock star to every 1,222 people.

Manchester has one rock star per 17,855, followed by Oxford, with one in 24,100, and north west rival Liverpool, with just one per 29,073.

I'm so happy

So very happy.

Oasis will release their next studio album, 'Dig Out Your Soul', on October 6 on their Big Brother label. The album will be preceded by a single, 'The Shock Of The Lightning', on September 29.

I see the long line of rubbish song titles continues...

And J- Gem is looking FIT. And frankly, so is Andy. This disturbs me. Our Kid looks good- love the jacket. My Beloved Noel just looks, er, shorter than everyone else. His hair wasn't floofed enough in this picture.

So cool

The Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess, cult author Irvine Welsh, comedian Steve Coogan and members of New Order were amongst the figures who today (June 22) completed a 24-hour "conversation" in memory of the late Manchester impresario, Tony Wilson.

Broadcasters Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie - the former NME writer - were amongst the 24 key speakers over the 24 hours shared their creative expertise and experience with the hand-picked audience.

Great shot

Oh God, I was actually rooting for United today. What's next? The Yankees? The Patriots?

I'm so ashamed.

And I swear, I've not spent the past hour ogling Cristiano Ronaldo's thighs admiring the team's athletic prowess.

I'm so happy

On IFC right now- 'Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story'


Immediately following- '24 Hour Party People'

Roses

Live at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool.

"Manchester in the area!"

And some of my favorite Mani-dancing-whilst-playing-his-bass moments ever...

Mersey Paradise...

Mersey Paradise..., originally uploaded by Anjali Knebworth.

'Mersey Paradise'

Just because I don't think I've posted this in the last 6 weeks...gorgeous.

AmEx Agyness

makes an appearance in Rolling Stone.

you probably first recognized her cropped platinum coif, but it's the sexy rock-chick slouch and effortless personal style that have some folks calling Manchester-born model Agyness Deyn "the next Kate Moss." The Catholic schoolgirl, née Agnes Hollins, cut off all her hair at ten, dyed it pink at fifteen and later sported a blond mohawk.

Discovered while shopping in London two years ago, Deyn, 21, has done ads for Galliano, Armani and Burberry, and quickly became a photographers' darling thanks to her distinctly un-Moss-y joie de vivre.

Deyn, who concocted her name out of two family names, spelled with a numerology twist, found fashion through rock & roll rather than the other way around. She started frequenting Manchester's hipster emporium Afflecks Palace after her older brother, Greg, introduced her to Brit pop. ("I had Oasis pictures all over my bedroom walls," she says. "But I also luuurved Take That.")

Her on-again/off-again musician boyfriend, Josh Hubbard of the Paddingtons, has been teaching her guitar via video chat, and she's started a not-quite-gig-ready band called Lucky Knitwear. Deyn's still refreshingly unaffected by her rising celebrity: "You've just got to take it for what it is. In life, you're going to run into some cunts, aren't ya?"

'Control'

What's mysterious is how the band found a match for his words in their music. Early on we see Peter Hook (Joe Anderson), Stephen Morris (Harry Treadaway) and Bernard Sumner (James Anthony Pearson) decide to form a band after watching the Sex Pistols in Manchester, but once their brief tuneless phase as Warsaw is over, the magnificently strange Gothic of Joy Division seems to derive not from punk – or even from Iggy Pop, David Bowie or Lou Reed – but from the very clangour of the post-industrial North itself. It was surely destiny that the Mancunian impresario Tony Wilson (Craig Parkinson) should have signed them to a label called Factory.

"It's probably the same for all of those left behind"

Interview with Natalie Curtis about 'Control'-



I was about three when my mum first told me that my father, Ian Curtis - who died when I was one - was a singer, but it just seemed normal, like having an uncle who was a tradesman or whatever. I remember hearing Love Will Tear Us Apart on the radio and realising he was known in some way, but I never thought of him as famous.

'Northern Lights'

This is excellent- a rolling interview of sorts with all the parties involved with 'Control.'

Steven Morris cannot believe it. When he talks about what he's lived through as a simple, dedicated drummer, first for Joy Division, then for New Order, he can start to sound like a post-punk Victor Meldew, increasingly indignant at the chaos that unfolded all around him mainly because he found himself, through no real fault of his own, a Factory Records recording star.

Don't get him started on the Hacienda, the Manchester nightclub his two groups helped finance, early in the Eighties, for up to £10,000 a month, where he never got a free drink in eight years. He still hasn't really recovered from the time 27 years ago when Ian Curtis, his 23-year-old Macclesfield friend, and the singer in his band, killed himself the day before Joy Division were due to start their first American tour.

Both his producer, Martin Hannett, and his manager, Rob Gretton, died in the Nineties, and now, would you credit it, the immortal-seeming Tony Wilson, boss of his record company, the crusading mouth of Manchester, has joined his comrades in the great Factory in the sky.

Lazyitis- Happy Mondays

Well, I'm a mess now

and not a hot one. These shots from Tony's funeral made me cry, especially the one of Oliver Wilson and Hooky. And for some reason, the one of Vini Reilly. And Rowetta.

Shaun looks positively dapper in his suit. Well done, Reverend Ryder.....

Too cool

Manchester never knew how much it would miss Tony Wilson. Yesterday, beneath a grey northern sky, the city's sense of loss for the man who had been the life and soul of its party for so many years was clear.

Family and friends of the man known as "Mr Manchester" attended a private funeral ceremony at St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, known as the Hidden Gem, in the city centre.

Fans gathered outside the church to pay their final respects to the founder of Factory Records and the Haçienda nightclub.

A roll call of famous Mancunians turned out to remember Wilson, a champion of the city, who died earlier this month, aged 57, after a prolonged battle with kidney cancer. They included the Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder and New Order and Joy Division bassist Peter Hook, whose bands were key to the Factory Records success story.

Peter Saville, who co-founded the iconic record label with Wilson, gave a reading during the mass. So too did Richard Madeley, who worked alongside Wilson at Granada Television, and arrived at the service with his wife Judy Finnigan.

After the service, which included the hymns "Hail Queen of Heaven" and "To Be A Pilgrim", six pallbearers, including Wilson's son, carried the coffin out of the church to the sound of the Happy Monday's track "Bob's Your Uncle".

Well said

from Steve Coogan's tribute to Tony Wilson-

"In the late 70s there were quite a lot of arty, lower middle class, catholic Manchester grammar school boys. Some of them tried to form bands; others (me) just bought records and listened to them. Tony was the apotheosis of those baby boomers who wanted to reach beyond their background and find the poetry in this post-industrial landscape. He gave confidence and legitimacy to an army of haltingly insecure men. Put simply, he showed it wasn't poofy to wear nice clothes and use long words. But above all he was a true civic champion, who found excitement and creativity on his own doorstep. Under his stewardship, Manchester became and still is an alternative metropolis. That is his legacy.

Dammit

Tony Wilson, co-founder of Factory Records, has died at the age of 57.

Born Anthony H. Wilson on February 20, 1950 in Salford, England, he went on to become a renowned broadcast journalist, band manager, record label executive and night club owner.

As the Factory Records boss, he was responsible for signing legendary bands including Joy Division and New Order to his label. Also, as owner of the renowned Hacienda nightclub in Manchester, he played a key role in the Madchester scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s that mixed indie rock and dance music and included artists such as Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses.

The Hacienda, which hosted Madonna's first UK television appearance in 1983, was forced to close in the late 1990s as it was losing money allegedly because its patrons were taking ecstasy rather than buying drinks at the club.

Wilson reportedly became involved in the Manchester music scene in the 1970s when hosting the culture and music programme 'So It Goes' on Granada
Television.

After covering a Sex Pistols performance at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall in June 1976, he described the experience as "nothing short of an epiphany" and booked the band for one of the first television broadcasts of British punk rock.

These aspects of Wilson's life were later chronicled in the semi-fictional 2002 feature film '24 Hour Party People', in which he was portrayed by British actor Steve Coogan.

More recently, Wilson was involved in In The City, a yearly music festival and conference that takes place in Manchester and New York City, which he co-founded with his partner Yvette Livesey.

In 2005 he launched F4, the fourth incarnation of the Factory Records label. Earlier this year, the music mogul was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery to have one of his kidneys removed.

via

No bitterness here

No sir, none at all...

A new documentary about The Smiths, as told by the band's former rhythm section; Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke, is to be released on DVD next month.

"InsideThe Smiths" tells the history of the band, and describes what it was like working with Morrissey and Johnny Marr. Mike Joyce says the reason he and Rourke have spoken for the first time on camera was that: “We wanted people to know what it was really like. It is more truthful than anything we have revealed in interviews before because we were relaxed with how it was done and who was doing it.”