Spike Magazine

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although I would never try and cross Bernard because
he’s extremely clever, (well New Order got the credit),
but if you look at Bernard’s production of Marcel King
at the same time, and the 52nd Street band, Section
25 then it’s obviously Bernard who was doing that.
But Bernard learnt it all by watching Martin. In fact
the most important track of all is ‘Everything’s Gone
Green’. If you listen to it, is the beginning of modern
music, and ‘Temptation’ takes it one stage further. And
then Martin and New Order break up and they go off to
do ‘Blue Monday’ as the next record, that’s the one that
quiet rightly is seen as this incredible break through,
but nevertheless the important song is ‘Everything’s
Gone Green’.
So Martin created that music and then were it not
for the utter stupidity of Alan Erasmus, Rob Gretton
and Tony Wilson he would have created the next music
because he was desperate to get a Fairlight. It was a
synthesiser computer keyboard, and basically what
Martin, Stephen and Bernard were doing with soldering
irons in 1980, suddenly by 1983 there was a machine
that did it called a Fairlight. We had no idea what one
was, what we knew was that it cost 30 fuckin’ grand
and we were running the Hacienda and you could fuck
off. So we used to row about this all the time. ‘I want a
Fairlight. You can’t have a Fairlight. What’s this piece
BUY Tony Wilson books online from and
of shit you’re building? Where’s my Fairlight?’ He
never got a Fairlight, Trevor Horn got a Fairlight and
the rest is Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the rest is
history. I’ve very recently begun to claim that we created
Trevor Horn, by stopping Martin getting a fucking
Fairlight. And then the big fight and they go and fall
out with each other and it’s the lawsuit and stuff, and
suddenly the genius of Erasmus and Nathan, the Mondays
manager, getting him to produce the Mondays’
Bummed album which was fantastic.”
And yes, Bummed is a fucking fantastic album. Along
with Unknown Pleasures, Technique, the first singles
from New York’s early 1980s all sister rap band ESG
and other great works of A.H. Wilson Associated. It
could be said that Mr Wilson likes the sound of his own
voice. It could be said he’s arrogant. It has been said
he’s a twat. And he probably is. Who gives a fuck? The
point to Wilson apart from the usual record mogul/twat
tag is that he’s added spice and swaggering art to the
British music scene, he’s that way because of that drive
to spread his gospel on what he likes about music and
culture. A question I forgot to ask him was: has it all
been down to luck? What has been his secret, if there
has been any? It will be interesting to see where Raw-T
and his record label F4 end up in the grand scheme of
musical things. �
565
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