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From Manchester with Love
Critically-acclaimed and bestselling author Paul Morley’s long-awaited biography of Factory Records co-founder and Manchester icon Tony Wilson.
'When forced to pick between truth and legend, print the legend.' Tony Wilson
To write about Tony Wilson, AKA Anthony H. Wilson, is to write about a number of public and private characters and personalities, a clique of unreliable narrators, constantly changing shape and form. At the helm of Factory Records and the Haçienda, Wilson unleashed landmark acts such as Joy Division and New Order into the world as he pursued myriad other creative endeavours, appointing himself a custodian of Manchester’s legacy of innovation and change.
To Paul Morley he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, aesthetic adventurer, mean factory boss, self-deprecating chancer, intellectual celebrity, loyal friend, shrewd mentor, insatiable publicity seeker. 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.
'When forced to pick between truth and legend, print the legend.' Tony Wilson
To write about Tony Wilson, AKA Anthony H. Wilson, is to write about a number of public and private characters and personalities, a clique of unreliable narrators, constantly changing shape and form. At the helm of Factory Records and the Haçienda, Wilson unleashed landmark acts such as Joy Division and New Order into the world as he pursued myriad other creative endeavours, appointing himself a custodian of Manchester’s legacy of innovation and change.
To Paul Morley he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, aesthetic adventurer, mean factory boss, self-deprecating chancer, intellectual celebrity, loyal friend, shrewd mentor, insatiable publicity seeker. 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.
624 pages, Hardcover
Published October 21, 2021
33 people are currently reading
363 people want to read
About the author
Paul Morley
33 books75 followersPaul Morley is an English journalist who wrote for the New Musical Express from 1977 to 1983, during one of its most successful periods, and has since written for a wide range of publications. He has also has been a band manager and promoter, as well as a television presenter.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
February 20, 2025
I've only got to page 50, so - hopefully - I can amend this review as I go on. But my first impressions are not good. For one thing I thought that this was a book about TV-presenter, Hacienda-owning, musical-impresario Tony Wilson? I've seen virtually nothing of him so far. I've read a lot about Colin Wilson and Harold Wilson and John Anthony Burgess Wilson. But Tony Wilson not very much at all. Perhaps he appears later on in the book. Then there's the writing. What is it with writers of pop culture? Why do they have to write in such hyphen-heavy, noun-numbing, alliterative sentences? And cram every paragraph with quotes from, and references to, weighty figures such as Marx and Foucault and Lenin? There's too much theorising and (pseudo) intellectualising and cultural cross-referencing. Too much posturing and pretentiousness. Which is odd. Because every time I've seen Morley being interviewed - which, to be fair, hasn't been that often - I've always found him to be down-to-earth and unaffected. I hope this book improves as I read on. Having given up on two other books recently, I can't give up on a third. But sentences like this don't help:
'The timeless, deeply melancholic viaduct, which drifting, collecting L.S. Lowry loved for the deep-set spirit of loneliness contained inside this carefully compiled deadweight mass of bricks...'
What does it mean?
Or how about this:
'Somehow, you can hear in their recordings that they'd arrived by bus, as though some of the songs were thought of on a local bus, the soon-to-be-legendary light speed of their songs thought of when the bus really accelerated between traffic lights and with rare freedom attacked one of the city's most hardworking main roads.'
Eh?
I'm beginning to think that Morley has gone, 'Right, how would Tony have written this?' and done it in that style. Either that or it's some kind of post-postmodern, post-punk, post-pun, pun.
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.
At last! P.119. A quote from one of Tony Wilson's schoolfriend's. And about Tony Wilson!
Discursive, rambling, scattergun - I see from the reviews of Morley's other books that this is his style. I guess that, like Tony Wilson, you either love it or hate it.
I'm up to p.190. The best things so far have been the direct quotes from Steve Coogan, Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan. At least they give you genuine insights into the personality of Tony Wilson. The disquisition on situationism that I'm halfway through tells me virtually nothing about the man. Except that he believed in some silly things which led him to do some silly - brilliantly silly, sometimes, it has to be admitted - things. Wilson's 2-year stint at ITN is covered in about half a dozen pages and includes no recollections from, or interviews with, anyone who worked alongside him.
p.221 and Tony Wilson is starting to come a bit more into it. But it is Tony Wilson the cultural force rather than Tony Wilson the person. To be fair, during the first 100 pages I'd have taken any Tony Wilson.
P.305. He's disappeared again, submerged beneath a history of punk. Why do I feel I'm reading a series of slogans rather than sentences? There's a two-page sentence that ends part 2. I read it, but it didn't tell me very much. I'm starting to think that the joke is on us, the reader. Or maybe the book's for the real cognoscenti, rather than for mere mortals like myself? And that people like me are not supposed to get it? Whatever, I'm 10 days in and still not quite halfway. That's slow going.
P.350. Listening to rock journalists talking about music is a bit like listening to oenophiles talking about wine. You can decide for yourself if that's a good or a bad thing. I'm still waiting for Morley to talk about Tony Wilson. If you search carefully among all the verbiage you can find traces. But - interviews with those who knew Wilson aside- that's about all.
P.400. It's starting to be more about Paul Morley than Tony Wilson. Perhaps it always was.
p.450. 'Factory record sleeves were as much descriptions of experience, of the experience of experience, as they were seductive designs and sophisticated visual codes transmitting elegiac or dynamic information, sleeves that often had at their heart a kind of high-Romantic yearning for wholeness, which sometimes reflected the music's own longing for something missing or unattainable, and sometimes didn't.'
Okay, it's too long as a sentence, but the syntax and grammar seem fine. But what does it mean?
P.485. Either you like this kind of thing or you don't. If you don't, but you've shelled out 15 quid, a quick tip: read the bits in italics - Latin quotes aside, which add nothing - and skip the rest. If you do like this kind of thing I have no tips for you. Except, maybe, to read Jonathan Bate, Michael Crick or Robert Caro.
P.524. One last push...
And done...I'd have given up after the first 50 pages had it not been for the fact that I'd already given up on two other books this year. The only way I could get through it was by writing this contemporaneous review. I stand by everything I've written, but just because this book - or, more accurately, this style - isn't for me, doesn't mean it won't appeal to some (the only other review posted at the present time is very complimentary). But it's the writing. Fragmentary. Article-like. Slogan-heavy. It's too journalistic. While the overabundance of classical and literary quotations suggest an intellectual insecurity masquerading as profundity. I found the ending moving, but mostly because of the direct quotes from family and friends. So, not for me, but because of its unorthodox structure and literary pretensions, I would still urge people to try it. Because as Paul Morley would say through Tony Wilson wearing the mask of American entrepreneur John Rohn, if you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.
So it goes.
'The timeless, deeply melancholic viaduct, which drifting, collecting L.S. Lowry loved for the deep-set spirit of loneliness contained inside this carefully compiled deadweight mass of bricks...'
What does it mean?
Or how about this:
'Somehow, you can hear in their recordings that they'd arrived by bus, as though some of the songs were thought of on a local bus, the soon-to-be-legendary light speed of their songs thought of when the bus really accelerated between traffic lights and with rare freedom attacked one of the city's most hardworking main roads.'
Eh?
I'm beginning to think that Morley has gone, 'Right, how would Tony have written this?' and done it in that style. Either that or it's some kind of post-postmodern, post-punk, post-pun, pun.
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.
At last! P.119. A quote from one of Tony Wilson's schoolfriend's. And about Tony Wilson!
Discursive, rambling, scattergun - I see from the reviews of Morley's other books that this is his style. I guess that, like Tony Wilson, you either love it or hate it.
I'm up to p.190. The best things so far have been the direct quotes from Steve Coogan, Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan. At least they give you genuine insights into the personality of Tony Wilson. The disquisition on situationism that I'm halfway through tells me virtually nothing about the man. Except that he believed in some silly things which led him to do some silly - brilliantly silly, sometimes, it has to be admitted - things. Wilson's 2-year stint at ITN is covered in about half a dozen pages and includes no recollections from, or interviews with, anyone who worked alongside him.
p.221 and Tony Wilson is starting to come a bit more into it. But it is Tony Wilson the cultural force rather than Tony Wilson the person. To be fair, during the first 100 pages I'd have taken any Tony Wilson.
P.305. He's disappeared again, submerged beneath a history of punk. Why do I feel I'm reading a series of slogans rather than sentences? There's a two-page sentence that ends part 2. I read it, but it didn't tell me very much. I'm starting to think that the joke is on us, the reader. Or maybe the book's for the real cognoscenti, rather than for mere mortals like myself? And that people like me are not supposed to get it? Whatever, I'm 10 days in and still not quite halfway. That's slow going.
P.350. Listening to rock journalists talking about music is a bit like listening to oenophiles talking about wine. You can decide for yourself if that's a good or a bad thing. I'm still waiting for Morley to talk about Tony Wilson. If you search carefully among all the verbiage you can find traces. But - interviews with those who knew Wilson aside- that's about all.
P.400. It's starting to be more about Paul Morley than Tony Wilson. Perhaps it always was.
p.450. 'Factory record sleeves were as much descriptions of experience, of the experience of experience, as they were seductive designs and sophisticated visual codes transmitting elegiac or dynamic information, sleeves that often had at their heart a kind of high-Romantic yearning for wholeness, which sometimes reflected the music's own longing for something missing or unattainable, and sometimes didn't.'
Okay, it's too long as a sentence, but the syntax and grammar seem fine. But what does it mean?
P.485. Either you like this kind of thing or you don't. If you don't, but you've shelled out 15 quid, a quick tip: read the bits in italics - Latin quotes aside, which add nothing - and skip the rest. If you do like this kind of thing I have no tips for you. Except, maybe, to read Jonathan Bate, Michael Crick or Robert Caro.
P.524. One last push...
And done...I'd have given up after the first 50 pages had it not been for the fact that I'd already given up on two other books this year. The only way I could get through it was by writing this contemporaneous review. I stand by everything I've written, but just because this book - or, more accurately, this style - isn't for me, doesn't mean it won't appeal to some (the only other review posted at the present time is very complimentary). But it's the writing. Fragmentary. Article-like. Slogan-heavy. It's too journalistic. While the overabundance of classical and literary quotations suggest an intellectual insecurity masquerading as profundity. I found the ending moving, but mostly because of the direct quotes from family and friends. So, not for me, but because of its unorthodox structure and literary pretensions, I would still urge people to try it. Because as Paul Morley would say through Tony Wilson wearing the mask of American entrepreneur John Rohn, if you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.
So it goes.
July 1, 2022
What a treat. I revelled in From Manchester with Love (2021). It's a 624 page behemoth which is, in the main, solid gold
Tony Wilson died in 2007 aged 57 of a heart attack (whilst undergoing treatment for kidney cancer). He was a Manchester star: a local Granada TV presenter, non profit orientated entrepreneur, music manager and more. He created Factory Records with a group of friends in the late 1970s. It brought out music by Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, the Durutti Column, A Certain Ratio, and many lesser lights. Needless to say this pen picture hardly does him justice. Paul Morley argues he was responsible to Manchester's late 20th century rebirth. He was, in short, Mr Manchester.
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.
I am an unapologetic Paul Morley fan, having loved the NME during the golden era he wrote for them. Ever since I will happily read anything he has written. Not everyone shares my enthusiasm. Whilst I find his meandering style a source of fascination, full of ideas and people to follow up on, others seem to prefer writing that strictly sticks to the matter in hand.
Like the man, From Manchester with Love is astute, discursive, unconventional, passionate, intelligent, wide ranging, interesting, questioning, insightful, and fun.... and ten years well spent.
4/5
Critically-acclaimed and bestselling author Paul Morley’s long-awaited biography of Factory Records co-founder and Manchester icon Tony Wilson.
'When forced to pick between truth and legend, print the legend.' Tony Wilson
To write about Tony Wilson, AKA Anthony H. Wilson, is to write about a number of public and private characters and personalities, a clique of unreliable narrators, constantly changing shape and form. At the helm of Factory Records and the Haçienda, Wilson unleashed landmark acts such as Joy Division and New Order into the world as he pursued myriad other creative endeavours, appointing himself a custodian of Manchester’s legacy of innovation and change.
To Paul Morley he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, aesthetic adventurer, mean factory boss, self-deprecating chancer, intellectual celebrity, loyal friend, shrewd mentor, insatiable publicity seeker. 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 died in 2007 aged 57 of a heart attack (whilst undergoing treatment for kidney cancer). He was a Manchester star: a local Granada TV presenter, non profit orientated entrepreneur, music manager and more. He created Factory Records with a group of friends in the late 1970s. It brought out music by Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, the Durutti Column, A Certain Ratio, and many lesser lights. Needless to say this pen picture hardly does him justice. Paul Morley argues he was responsible to Manchester's late 20th century rebirth. He was, in short, Mr Manchester.
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.
I am an unapologetic Paul Morley fan, having loved the NME during the golden era he wrote for them. Ever since I will happily read anything he has written. Not everyone shares my enthusiasm. Whilst I find his meandering style a source of fascination, full of ideas and people to follow up on, others seem to prefer writing that strictly sticks to the matter in hand.
Like the man, From Manchester with Love is astute, discursive, unconventional, passionate, intelligent, wide ranging, interesting, questioning, insightful, and fun.... and ten years well spent.
4/5
Critically-acclaimed and bestselling author Paul Morley’s long-awaited biography of Factory Records co-founder and Manchester icon Tony Wilson.
'When forced to pick between truth and legend, print the legend.' Tony Wilson
To write about Tony Wilson, AKA Anthony H. Wilson, is to write about a number of public and private characters and personalities, a clique of unreliable narrators, constantly changing shape and form. At the helm of Factory Records and the Haçienda, Wilson unleashed landmark acts such as Joy Division and New Order into the world as he pursued myriad other creative endeavours, appointing himself a custodian of Manchester’s legacy of innovation and change.
To Paul Morley he was this and much more: bullshitting hustler, flashy showman, aesthetic adventurer, mean factory boss, self-deprecating chancer, intellectual celebrity, loyal friend, shrewd mentor, insatiable publicity seeker. 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.
Read
June 23, 2023An authorised (for a given value of the word) biography (among other things) of the TV presenter and record company boss (though that doesn't really describe the sheer ludicrous Tony Wilson-ness of the man's career/s). By another Northern bullshitter and impresario, because why wouldn't it be, and one who brings his own complicated relationship with the subject to the project. Sometimes openly so, but it runs deeper than the times it's acknowledged: structuring the book so that Wilson's life is divided into before, during and after the Sex Pistols playing Manchester makes sense in various ways, yet also feels like an Oedipal gesture by Morley, who was at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, whereas Wilson spent years insisting he was and convincing nobody. And when Morley interviews his sister about her one night with Wilson, well. But wouldn't a dispassionate book about Wilson by someone who had an uncomplicated relationship with him be the least Tony Wilson thing imaginable?
So if this book is undoubtedly too long, well, partly that's because nobody ever hired Paul Morley for his hurry to get to the point, but also it's because after having had this chance to get back together with his old sparring partner, he didn't want to let him go again, and ultimately nor did I. Obviously all biographies end badly, but I was surprised how much space Morley devoted to the last days; do we really want to read that much about cancer and decline? Well, apparently so, not just for the various touching farewells but for the Oedipus At Colonus sense of a man being transfigured into something else, Wilson finally facing a tangle he couldn't talk his way out of, a deadline he couldn't dodge, and still somehow coming out of it a more admirable figure than not.
There is still plenty of 'not', though, because let's be clear, this is a long way from a hagiography. The kids and the ex-wives and the people left out of pocket get their say, and just the general Mancunians who'd swear at Wilson in the street. The dark side of his certainty that everything would work out, even as for various people around him it didn't, can't be denied, and for all that Morley fondly remembers Factory's sense of brotherhood, nowadays he's ruefully aware that it was exactly that, brotherhood, with women very much on the outside. And while obviously there's plenty on Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays, there's no attempt to cover for the many signings who were not just shit but not even shit in particularly interesting ways, Crispy Ambulance and Northside and the Space Monkeys.
Of course, being a Paul Morley book about a man who (mis)managed an indie label, it has far more sense than to just doggedly go through the acts and talk about indie music. After all, isn't it much more fun to digress into the history of Granada TV (the reason for whose non-geographical name had been an unknown unknown to me), Situationism and sixties radicalism in Cambridge, the comics of Kieron Gillen? This last being part of my initial interest in the book, because I know Kieron, so seeing Morley compare him favourably to Wilson felt like being a little closer than usual to the heart of creation. Although Morley does appear to think that Singles Club was the only volume of Phonogram, one of a few times the facts get away from him: describing the first Sixths album as the work of "a pre-Magnetic Fields Stephen Merritt" presumably means "pre-69 Love Songs" (and let's not get into the spelling); I can buy the idea that Wilson's championing of devolution helped pave the way for Andy Burnham with his sad cow eyes, but to say that he "would be nicknamed 'the king of the North', but even the idea there could be such a character was based on Wilson's campaigning separatist energy", well, he's fucked up both the title and the derivation. Beyond that, I thought that while his attempt to position Wilson as the harbinger and architect of modern Manchester mostly worked, the gestures toward incorporating the Arena bombing into that narrative were all sufficiently and uncharacteristically unsure that it might have been better just to quietly omit them. And as in the last Morley I read, his classical book, there's an unbecoming undercurrent of fogeyish grumbling about these young people they have nowadays, with their internet and their identities. Sure, hashtags almost certainly won't overthrow capitalism and save the world - but that 'almost' still puts them a little ahead of the sixties revolutionaries Morley romanticises, who have already definitely failed, or the various ghastly dictators Wilson's radical chic could sometimes see him praising.
Still, with the book as with the man, there's enough information, energy and wit here that mostly one inclines to forgive. It's particularly good on that central tension of Wilson as both local TV presenter and counterculture figure; I think this is likely the only book I'll ever read to feature substantial contributions from Vini Reilly, but also Richard & Judy. The former almost comically Eeyore-ish, even in a story also featuring Ian Curtis; the latter providing me with one of the biggest laughs I've had in ages. Throughout, there are people saying Wilson should have ditched Granada to focus on Factory, others reported as saying he should have ditched Factory to concentrate on Granada* - but there's a reason nobody ever made a Geoff Travis biopic. Or a Bill Grundy one, come to that. Sure, part of it was simply a case of always needing to have a back-up, something which could feed into the infuriating unexamined privilege whereby Wilson was ultimately expecting his acts, peers and co-conspirators to risk more than he was. But there's a grander sense in which you get the impression that no society has yet existed where a single role would have been enough for Tony Wilson. And even if one day somewhere did, some loopy dream of utopian urbanism which survived contact with reality more successfully than the Hacienda, then a week after his inauguration shaman-king Wilson would still be chafing at the confines, itching for some further new way to make things happen. So it goes.
The last word, though, should go to Alan Erasmus, there at the beginning and then, after a long falling-out, returning for the end: "You were a very, very difficult bastard at times, Tony. Your pyrrhic stubbornness cost us dear, but what the fuck, it was all part of the leaving-the-twentieth-century spectacle."
*Hell, his parents thought he should have become a priest instead, "something useful to society rather than being a TV presenter, which is just being a parasite" - surely the most arse-about-tit assessment ever made of the relative merits of reshaping a decade and a city, versus professional child abusers.
So if this book is undoubtedly too long, well, partly that's because nobody ever hired Paul Morley for his hurry to get to the point, but also it's because after having had this chance to get back together with his old sparring partner, he didn't want to let him go again, and ultimately nor did I. Obviously all biographies end badly, but I was surprised how much space Morley devoted to the last days; do we really want to read that much about cancer and decline? Well, apparently so, not just for the various touching farewells but for the Oedipus At Colonus sense of a man being transfigured into something else, Wilson finally facing a tangle he couldn't talk his way out of, a deadline he couldn't dodge, and still somehow coming out of it a more admirable figure than not.
There is still plenty of 'not', though, because let's be clear, this is a long way from a hagiography. The kids and the ex-wives and the people left out of pocket get their say, and just the general Mancunians who'd swear at Wilson in the street. The dark side of his certainty that everything would work out, even as for various people around him it didn't, can't be denied, and for all that Morley fondly remembers Factory's sense of brotherhood, nowadays he's ruefully aware that it was exactly that, brotherhood, with women very much on the outside. And while obviously there's plenty on Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays, there's no attempt to cover for the many signings who were not just shit but not even shit in particularly interesting ways, Crispy Ambulance and Northside and the Space Monkeys.
Of course, being a Paul Morley book about a man who (mis)managed an indie label, it has far more sense than to just doggedly go through the acts and talk about indie music. After all, isn't it much more fun to digress into the history of Granada TV (the reason for whose non-geographical name had been an unknown unknown to me), Situationism and sixties radicalism in Cambridge, the comics of Kieron Gillen? This last being part of my initial interest in the book, because I know Kieron, so seeing Morley compare him favourably to Wilson felt like being a little closer than usual to the heart of creation. Although Morley does appear to think that Singles Club was the only volume of Phonogram, one of a few times the facts get away from him: describing the first Sixths album as the work of "a pre-Magnetic Fields Stephen Merritt" presumably means "pre-69 Love Songs" (and let's not get into the spelling); I can buy the idea that Wilson's championing of devolution helped pave the way for Andy Burnham with his sad cow eyes, but to say that he "would be nicknamed 'the king of the North', but even the idea there could be such a character was based on Wilson's campaigning separatist energy", well, he's fucked up both the title and the derivation. Beyond that, I thought that while his attempt to position Wilson as the harbinger and architect of modern Manchester mostly worked, the gestures toward incorporating the Arena bombing into that narrative were all sufficiently and uncharacteristically unsure that it might have been better just to quietly omit them. And as in the last Morley I read, his classical book, there's an unbecoming undercurrent of fogeyish grumbling about these young people they have nowadays, with their internet and their identities. Sure, hashtags almost certainly won't overthrow capitalism and save the world - but that 'almost' still puts them a little ahead of the sixties revolutionaries Morley romanticises, who have already definitely failed, or the various ghastly dictators Wilson's radical chic could sometimes see him praising.
Still, with the book as with the man, there's enough information, energy and wit here that mostly one inclines to forgive. It's particularly good on that central tension of Wilson as both local TV presenter and counterculture figure; I think this is likely the only book I'll ever read to feature substantial contributions from Vini Reilly, but also Richard & Judy. The former almost comically Eeyore-ish, even in a story also featuring Ian Curtis; the latter providing me with one of the biggest laughs I've had in ages. Throughout, there are people saying Wilson should have ditched Granada to focus on Factory, others reported as saying he should have ditched Factory to concentrate on Granada* - but there's a reason nobody ever made a Geoff Travis biopic. Or a Bill Grundy one, come to that. Sure, part of it was simply a case of always needing to have a back-up, something which could feed into the infuriating unexamined privilege whereby Wilson was ultimately expecting his acts, peers and co-conspirators to risk more than he was. But there's a grander sense in which you get the impression that no society has yet existed where a single role would have been enough for Tony Wilson. And even if one day somewhere did, some loopy dream of utopian urbanism which survived contact with reality more successfully than the Hacienda, then a week after his inauguration shaman-king Wilson would still be chafing at the confines, itching for some further new way to make things happen. So it goes.
The last word, though, should go to Alan Erasmus, there at the beginning and then, after a long falling-out, returning for the end: "You were a very, very difficult bastard at times, Tony. Your pyrrhic stubbornness cost us dear, but what the fuck, it was all part of the leaving-the-twentieth-century spectacle."
*Hell, his parents thought he should have become a priest instead, "something useful to society rather than being a TV presenter, which is just being a parasite" - surely the most arse-about-tit assessment ever made of the relative merits of reshaping a decade and a city, versus professional child abusers.
September 3, 2024
Jesus, this was a hard book to read. Morley's style is dense, pretentious and just difficult to read.
I suppose I was expecting a biography not a treatise on the north.
To be honest I am glad I finished it but still don't have a truly full insight of Tony Wilson
I suppose I was expecting a biography not a treatise on the north.
To be honest I am glad I finished it but still don't have a truly full insight of Tony Wilson
December 28, 2021
Sometimes brilliant, sometimes infuriating. Much like the subject of the book I suppose.
January 24, 2023
What a wonderful book about Tony Wilson, you can't just call it a biography as it is so much more. Its the book that Paul Morley was destined to write and he does a magnificent job.
February 21, 2022
I mean, this is definitely a 500+ page Paul Morley book about Tony Wilson, which is tangentially about all sorts of other things and of course partly about Paul Morley, so if you don't like that sort of thing, '24 Hour Party People' is still available to watch and jolly good fun. However, I *do* like Paul Morley in all his wordy melancholy, and I enjoyed a lot of this book very much (in fact, I would say it dragged a bit in the sections where Paul Morley wasn't around, such as the chapter on Tony Wilson's university years where he just wrote a summary of Situationism for quite a while). His premise seems to be that Tony Wilson was annoying and complicated and great, and brought a new Manchester into being by force of will and talking a lot. Surprisingly, whenever Richard Madeley pops up to comment, he's brilliant. This book was far too heavy to read on the train though, so loses a star for inconvenience.
December 5, 2022
Wow. Paul Morley at his exuberant best, writing about a person, a place and a subject matter he knows well.
This isn’t really a book just about Tony Wilson. It certainly isn’t just another Factory anecdote collection like so many before it. It’s a book about the cultural history of a city spanning hundreds of years, and how Wilson influenced it during his lifetime, and was inspired by figures that came before him.
We all, of course, know how it ends. The final act of Wilson’s life hits you in this book with the kind of shock that it did in real time.
I found myself exhausted and in floods of tears by the end.
Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
Thank you, Mr. Morley.
With love, from Manchester.
This isn’t really a book just about Tony Wilson. It certainly isn’t just another Factory anecdote collection like so many before it. It’s a book about the cultural history of a city spanning hundreds of years, and how Wilson influenced it during his lifetime, and was inspired by figures that came before him.
We all, of course, know how it ends. The final act of Wilson’s life hits you in this book with the kind of shock that it did in real time.
I found myself exhausted and in floods of tears by the end.
Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
Thank you, Mr. Morley.
With love, from Manchester.
December 4, 2021
Fits and starts, sputters and loops. Too often the words are just thrown at the page, endless adjectives going backwards and forwards. Too much structure - parts, lists, direct quotes, stolen quotes - and too little direction. Paul Morley was there, and he’s got access to many of the people who were centre stage. And there are parts where something works, often a direct quote, but all too often the book doesn’t make anything of it, mostly getting stuck in a gear that’s strangely uninteresting and indirect, as if what happened hasn’t been processed. Richard and Judy come out of it well though, so there’s that.
February 13, 2025
Part biography, part sprawling love letter to Manchester music, art, politics, fashion, and somehow loads more. Found the writing quite insane at times, and I do wish it was a bit more focussed on Tony Wilson. But very enjoyable.
November 9, 2023
Excellent. So many memories
March 4, 2025
Paul Morley, take a bow. This is some book. All biographies deserve to be this good.
January 7, 2023
Rambles, makes you wait for moments of insight that capture the man and the times, but enjoyable nonetheless. In all honesty, which of us can say we remember this era with any real clarity?
Best bit, an outstanding cuss by Morrissey on page 381 and some interesting stuff on Joy Division.
What did I learn? How the death of Ian Curtis was ruthlessly exploited and Wilson was often more than a bit of a self-mythologising w⚓️.
Best bit, an outstanding cuss by Morrissey on page 381 and some interesting stuff on Joy Division.
What did I learn? How the death of Ian Curtis was ruthlessly exploited and Wilson was often more than a bit of a self-mythologising w⚓️.
December 31, 2021
If I was famous, or infamous, I'd want Paul Morley to write my obituary. You can't take Tony Wilson out of Manchester, so Morley's book is as much a biography as a history of a city.
October 16, 2023
Morley's book is endlessly fascinating … and ‘endlessly’ seems an appropriate word for this ‘epitaph’ on Manchester ‘entrepreneur’ Tony Wilson, since at 550+ pages From Manchester With Love does require a good deal of stamina! That said, for anyone who became absorbed in the late 70s-early 80s punk-postpunk music scene in the UK, Morley’s tome is essential reading. I remember reading Morley’s writing in the NME during this period and then subsequently seeing his appearances on the BBC’s arts review show and finding him a little up himself, but here we don’t doubt his passion for his subject (Wilson ‘touting’ Morley as his obvious biographer once Wilson was no more) and, although there is a degree of repetition here, mainly around how difficult it was to (in any sense) pin Wilson down, I certainly learned much about what comes across as a relatively unique ‘talent’, uncompromising in his attempts to put Manchester on the map (an ‘intellectual on popular culture’, if you like).
We get much on Joy Division, The Happy Mondays and other less well-known Manchester artists, such as Vini Reilly’s The Durutti Column, plus plenty on Wilson’s ‘brushes’ with situationism and fashion, as well as the man’s obsession with ambitious, frequently fanciful schemes to reinvent Manchester as the UK’s (and maybe the world’s?) cultural capital (most famously resulting in the establishment of Factory records and the short-lived Hacienda club). Morley’s book is clearly deeply researched (indeed, lived) with extensive quotes from many close to Wilson, including his three wives, two children and many from the ‘business’ (including, often memorably, Richard Madeley), though not much from New Order-Joy Division. Early on, Morley inventively sets up ‘artificial’ comparisons between Wilson and ‘namesakes’, the author Anthony Burgess, and a fictional film character named Tony Wilson played by Rock Hudson (with an hilarious side-anecdote involving The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson) – Morley is clearly having fun with his subject, one with which he had a love-hate relationship, but one for whom we detect the author (and many others) had much love.
We get much on Joy Division, The Happy Mondays and other less well-known Manchester artists, such as Vini Reilly’s The Durutti Column, plus plenty on Wilson’s ‘brushes’ with situationism and fashion, as well as the man’s obsession with ambitious, frequently fanciful schemes to reinvent Manchester as the UK’s (and maybe the world’s?) cultural capital (most famously resulting in the establishment of Factory records and the short-lived Hacienda club). Morley’s book is clearly deeply researched (indeed, lived) with extensive quotes from many close to Wilson, including his three wives, two children and many from the ‘business’ (including, often memorably, Richard Madeley), though not much from New Order-Joy Division. Early on, Morley inventively sets up ‘artificial’ comparisons between Wilson and ‘namesakes’, the author Anthony Burgess, and a fictional film character named Tony Wilson played by Rock Hudson (with an hilarious side-anecdote involving The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson) – Morley is clearly having fun with his subject, one with which he had a love-hate relationship, but one for whom we detect the author (and many others) had much love.
June 28, 2024
An absolutely epic biography of an unprecedented figure, which also contrives to be a capsule history of post-war Manchester. Tony Wilson was a visionary, a conman, a polymath, a trickster, an enabler of other people’s dreams, a betrayer of other people’s trust, a “bona fide genius” manque, and a wanker. It is not for nothing that Morley titled this tome “From Manchester with Love: the Life and Opinions of Tony Wilson (aka Anthony H. Wilson)”, a title which can only evoke The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman; the book itself is redolent of Sterne. Also, the fact that Steve Coogan played both Wilson and “Steve Coogan” playing Walter and Tristram Shandy caused Wilson’s voice in this book to sound quite a bit like Steve Coogan’s voice, which added an extra, meta layer of absurdity. According to Morley, Wilson cribbed a couple of Frank Cottrell Boyce’s lines from the screenplay of “24 Hour Party People”: “This is Manchester. We do things differently here” and “I protected myself from the dilemma of ever having to sell out, by having nothing to sell out”.
To me, Wilson is on a different plane from a self-aggrandizing shyster like Malcolm McLaren; with Wilson, no matter how dodgy his tactics, no matter how many people he fucked over en route to his nebulous goals, he always put the musicians first, championing the likes of Ian Curtis, Shaun Ryder, and especially Vini Reilly. His Factory bands were responsible for the cultural shift in Manchester, but so too were the bands that stood in opposition to those bands: the Smiths, the Stone Roses, and Oasis. At the center of all stood Tony Wilson.
To me, Wilson is on a different plane from a self-aggrandizing shyster like Malcolm McLaren; with Wilson, no matter how dodgy his tactics, no matter how many people he fucked over en route to his nebulous goals, he always put the musicians first, championing the likes of Ian Curtis, Shaun Ryder, and especially Vini Reilly. His Factory bands were responsible for the cultural shift in Manchester, but so too were the bands that stood in opposition to those bands: the Smiths, the Stone Roses, and Oasis. At the center of all stood Tony Wilson.
January 26, 2022
Book 3/? in my 2022 2021 Music Book Read: From Manchester with Love: The Life and Opinions of Tony Wilson by Paul Morley
A 5 star read pre-Sex Pistols which loses steam a little halfway through. Those early chapters are so rich and interesting, exploring Wilson's influences and interests more than the facts of his life, but once Factory starts up, Morley is far less forensic in his examination in not just what happened but also the forces at play behind it. Part of me was relieved, since the Facstory is something I've read countless times before, but I was a little disappointed, especially considering how strongly the book started. It makes it seem like Wilson starts running out of ideas in the 80s, as opposed to the perpetual maverick which we're told he is.
It does pick up again at the end, though, and I appreciate Morley focusing more on the less well known parts of Wilson's life than the Big Ticket Items i.e. The Hacienda. His writing is also great throughout, if a little comma-/clause-heavy... but now I'm just being a pedantic dick, aren't I? Coulda done with more pictures too!
A 5 star read pre-Sex Pistols which loses steam a little halfway through. Those early chapters are so rich and interesting, exploring Wilson's influences and interests more than the facts of his life, but once Factory starts up, Morley is far less forensic in his examination in not just what happened but also the forces at play behind it. Part of me was relieved, since the Facstory is something I've read countless times before, but I was a little disappointed, especially considering how strongly the book started. It makes it seem like Wilson starts running out of ideas in the 80s, as opposed to the perpetual maverick which we're told he is.
It does pick up again at the end, though, and I appreciate Morley focusing more on the less well known parts of Wilson's life than the Big Ticket Items i.e. The Hacienda. His writing is also great throughout, if a little comma-/clause-heavy... but now I'm just being a pedantic dick, aren't I? Coulda done with more pictures too!
November 28, 2021
Astonishing in it’s range of reference this is a huge book in every sense. The sort of book that creates it’s own world for the reader to live in for a while before re-emerging slightly dazed but uncannily refreshed. Written with genuine passion and rare empathetic imagination. A profoundly moving 600 page love letter to Wilson, Manchester and the romantic and maverick spirit.
July 3, 2025
What a great read. Much more that just a book about Tony Wilson. It covers the regeneration of Manchester into a modern music city and explains the pivotal role Wilson had in this transformation. The story of a remarkable, inspirational maverick of a guy told with genuine affection by someone who he influenced and who knew him well. 5/5 for me.
December 29, 2021
Hugely disappointing. More a hagiography than a biography. Wilson was a deeply flawed character but this book skimmed over the darker side of things. Morley merely added to the myth rather than tackle his subject with a forensic eye. I just wish Dave Haslam had written it.
February 3, 2022
Superb. Morley's style - a scree of words, ideas, commas, repetition, commas, words, tangents, conjecture, commas, words, extrapolation, ideas, supposition and more commas takes a few chapters to get into but the pay-off, intellectually, spiritually and emotionally is well worth the entrance fee.
August 11, 2022
I think he missed a few Wilsons Bob, Woodrow and Dennis, but apart from that this is an overlong book with some extremely good bits within it. The start reminds me of the HGTTG with Don't Panic on the front cover, except in this case it takes about 100 pages to settle down.
December 2, 2022
I liked the whole Manchester/Tony Wilson story, but I thought this book was in need of an editor. I’m more of a “just the facts” reader and this had too many detours where I felt I was excavating to get to the point.
December 30, 2021
I loved this quirky unconventional book. Always has a lot of admiration for TW. This book by PM increased that further.
February 1, 2022
Paul Morley’s pretentious autobiography. Best bits about Wilson written by other people.
August 2, 2022
Brilliant!
August 24, 2022
What a long winded pretentious twat. When he actually managed to get to some sort of point, it was enjoyable.
February 26, 2023
Deeply moving of a man and times in the city I love.
April 21, 2023
So much more than a biography of the man.
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