I can’t let the weekend pass without paying my own modest homage to the late great Anthony H Wilson. First sight of the Manchester Evening News front page in the local news agents, all black and with the headline Heart Attack Kills Mr Manchester came as something of a shock.. The principal founder of Factory Records, the Hacienda, In The City, and many other cultural ventures in Manchester was also the key protagonist for the cities dramatic cultural renaissance. And he was without doubt a significant figure in the cultural evolution of so many Mancunians of my generation, albeit indirectly.
Paul Morleys tribute in todays Observer conveys the quintessence of this highly complex man much more eloquently than I can. There were so many contradictory aspects to the Wilson character but as Morley suggests, those of us of a certain age will vividly recollect those strange contradictions that added to his charisma and created a certain fascination. The posh provincial newsreader that was simultaneously orchestrating the coolest underground music scene that has ever been devised in Britain, and it was happening right on our doorstep. Morley makes significant reference to the most important aspect of the Wilson phenomenon that most often misunderstood and sometimes mocked characteristic of intellectual indulgence. But who better to orchestrate a veritable movement in style and depth of meaning than a Cambridge educated aesthete from an old school working class background, this intellectualisation of the scene was ultimately egalitarian by default. Joy Division represented the last generation of bands aligned with that now defunct notion of the self improving working class, cultural and political revolutionaries cohered into the Factory ethos of avant-garde social theory and situationism as Wilson (and many fans) would have it. The idealistic notion of the life of the city built on art and ideas; .real cultural dynamism. This of course was the manifestation of the A Wilson plan for Manchester in action and it was all fabulously inspiring to anyone engaged in any form of creative discourse. Anthony H was instrumental in transforming Manchester from a bleak post-industrial cultural desert to a city that seemed to be more aligned with New York bohemia. He set in motion a chain of events and associations that transformed Manchester into the most cosmopolitan and international city outside of London and briefly transformed the city into the most innovative regeneration zone in the UK.
There are no more Anthony H Wilsons in contemporary popular culture, no more scenes just insipid and moribund commercially driven impresarios. The matrix of crime and shallowness on the one hand and the yuppification on the other that is such a significant factor in any city today has made it impossible to imagine anything like the Manchester of those heady days happening again.
Anthony H was also a significant protagonist in the fight against the setting up of a super casino and a string of lap dancing venues in Manchester. This really sums up his vision for a city that was built on a genuine cultural life and one that did also pay homage to the long tradition of egalitarian northern radicalism as Paul Morley describes it. If the pretentiousness that the Oasis brothers so frequently deride leads to the birth of Joy Division, the Hacienda and a generation that indulged in culturally literate musical aestheticism. A generation who appreciated the radical deign concepts of Ben Kelly or the artworks of Peter Saville within the context of a post industrial northern city then I am definitely on the side of pretentiousness.