I’m not sure if I have anything particularly profound to add to all that’s been written about the passing of Tony Wilson… He was one of those figures who seemed to pop up all over the media when I was growing up in the North West in the 80s and 90s. Well, I guess I watched a lot of telly as a kid–he was the guy arguing the toss about something or other on a chaotic late night discussion show that you stumbled across after you came back from the pub; he was that bloke off World in Action and Granada Reports. I’m not sure if I ever really connected that Tony Wilson with the man behind Factory, the Mondays, New Order, Joy Division and The Haçienda until many years later. And of course, I certainly wasn’t anywhere near cool enough to have actually been to the The Haçienda (and I still remember the jealousy of talking to people at Sixth Form College who had, when I was still stuck at the Kingsway on a Friday night with their godawful cheesy chart music…)
I see that the NME have been continuing their recent run of quality journalism in their coverage. I was particularly amused by this piece, in which they’ve successfully managed to recycle some five year old quotes from Steve Coogan into a “Steve Coogan pays tribute” news story:
Steve Coogan, who played Tony Wilson in the 2002 film ’24 Hour Party People’, has spoken about his love of the Factory Records legend…
Speaking about the legend at the time of the film’s release, Coogan declared: “I’ve got a kind of respect for Tony Wilson.”
They don’t even bother to change the quote into the past tense after the first sentence…
Really very sloppy. And the Tony Wilson tribute coffee mug that they’ve linked to on ebay? Might give it a miss, thanks…