The Real Don Tonay, a Follow Up Post

A couple of weeks ago I received an email relating to a post I made in January about Manchester's Don Tonay. The email was from his daughter Donna and, after some back and forth, I got some answers to the questions, opinions and myths that were evident in that original post about one of Manchester's most intriguing businessmen and a key figure in the early days of Factory Records. With Donna's permission, here is the answers she provided me that shed some light on her late father.Included in this post are photographs she kindly shared with me of Don. I hope you enjoy...

I started by asking Donna just what her father's ethnic background was, given that it was the source of much confusion and conflicting opinions among the Factory set;

"My Dad always said he was from Dublin. But we are not really sure" she replied. "We know he changed his name but we don't know what it was before. My Mum has a lot of theories about that. It was either during the war to avoid going back or to get away from his family. Who knows. He would never tell you"

"He definitely was Irish. He knew Dublin like the back of his hand. I have had a DNA test and I have come back as 70% Irish so I think that was true. His friend, Phyllis, Phil Lynott's (Thin Lizzy) mum said they were neighbours when they were children in Dublin"

I asked her about Don's life prior to owning the Russell Club, home of the Factory nights;

"He opened the first blues in Moss Side called the Monton house. Engelbert Humperdinck used to try and get in every night, but he was too young so my Dad said he was throw him out most nights" 

"He owned property all over Moss Side and rented it out. If they didn't pay their rent he would smash the toilet so they had to move out. He said it was cheaper to buy a new toilet"

"When he met my mum they travelled around the country opening illegal gambling dens, as gambling was illegal in the '60s. In their place in Bristol, Cary Grant used to come in"

"It was my stepdad, who was one of the Quality Street Gang, that allegedly put the Krays back on the train (when they arrived in Manchester with an eye on taking over the city). The Thin Lizzy song, 'The Boys are Back in Town', is about them"

One thing that everyone seemed to agree upon, I said, was that Don Tonay was a handsome, tall and well-dressed gentleman. A cool man who was a world away from the blunt northern club owner stereotype played by Peter Kay in 24 Hour Party People. Donna agreed and confirmed this;

"My Dad was always well-dressed and well-spoken. He wore silk socks and handmade shoes. He was also 6ft 4". Saying that, he could always scruff it and get cracking with whatever needed doing in the clubs or many shops that he owned"

Returning to 24 Hour Party People, I asked if the family were consulted at all on the production;

"We were not consulted. A friend of mine was friend with one of the cameramen who got me onto the set where I had an argument with Tony Wilson, as my dad had only just died of a massive heart attack on the 19th September 2000 and this was November of that year when they were filming. He (Wilson) had the good grace to apologise. You see, there would be no Factory without my dad, he bankrolled it all."

Donna concluded with her belief that her mother should write a book. It's one I emphatically agree with. Hollywood film stars, music legends and gangsters, it would make for great reading!

The Real Don Tonay

It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog how keen I am on the Madchester scene. When Michael Winterbottom's film 24 Hour Party People came out in 2002, I went to see it at the cinemas twice and it fast became one of my favourite films. I loved the way that the film recreated the whole scene and the immersive, bewildering world of Factory Records, populated by so many eccentric creatives and larger than life characters. However, there was one particular character who intrigued me and that was Don Tonay, the owner of the Russell Club in Moss Side.

The Real Don Tonay - photo taken from the Excavating the Reno site, 

a site dedicated to the Moss Side cellar club that Don owned in the 1970s.

In the film, Tonay is played by Peter Kay as your stereotypical northern club owner, not too dissimilar to the type of comic creations Kay is known for. But I quickly learned that this was not a truthful account of Don Tonay, a man with Irish, Italian and Jamaican heritage (a Jamaican father and Italian mother I believe, though I may be wrong) who was a much suaver and more imposing figure than the film depicts.

In Tony Wilson's suitably eccentric novelisation of the film (only Wilson would approach his own life story in such an irreverent fashion; as he says in the film "I agree with John Ford. When you have to choose between the truth and the legend - print the legend" and that's literally what he does in this book) he depicts the real Tonay thus; 

"The front door was open. They walked straight in. At the bar, cashing up, a tall, striking, late-middle-aged man in a fine cashmere overcoat. Imposing wasn't the word. Self-assured as only someone who took on the Krays and lived can be. Story was, he came from the tenements of Dublin's North Side, tough as those streets. After a slight altercation with London's premier family, he has come north"

This then, is corroboration for a bit of mythologising I had once heard in a Manchester boozer when raising the subject of Don Tonay. Rumour has it, a sage in his cups informed me, that Don Tonay had heard that the Kray twins were coming to take a look at Manchester in the late '60s. The train from London Euston arrived at Piccadilly and the brothers decamped to be met by Don and what can only be described as a posse of hard bastards. The Krays took the next train back. 

Is it true? I dunno, but I'd like it to be. Already, I'm falling into the Tony Wilson school of 'printing the legend'.

In his book, Factory: The Story of the Record Label, Mick Middles elaborates more on Tonay's 'gangster' qualities; 

"The Russell Club had numerous guises, mainly though as the PSV Club (Public Service Vehicle...no, I never understood that, either). It had made its name in later days as a suitably downbeat reggae-orientated venue handily placed, as it was, for nearby Moss Side. (Tony) Wilson had chanced upon the venue following a meeting with the owner, local 'businessman' Don Tonay. He was, in the eyes of Wilson, ' an incredible character...a civilised gangster' 

Tonay, undoubtedly, had style. He was a tall, commanding handsome man in his late forties. Each night, after prowling around the club, he would leave at precisely 1 a.m. A van would pull respectfully onto the car park. The rear door would open to reveal two beautiful prostitutes in reclining poses, between whom Tonay would stylishly flop. The door would be pulled shut and the van would cruise away into the night. Tonay's style was a throwback, of sorts, to the gangster tradition - he did have links, it was strongly rumoured, with the Kray fraternity - and most people who knew him, and knew him well enough not to cross him, regarded him as a lovely individual. One is tempted, of course, to break into Pythonesque tales of a Piranha Brothers nature; 'Oh yeah Don... he was a lovely bloke...' etc, and such cliches wouldn't be too far from the truth as Tonay ruled his patch with an iron hand, be it a loving hand or otherwise. This was, perhaps, typified by a conversation overheard at the Russell Club one night when Magazine were performing. The band's van had been cynically and pointlessly broken into in the car park. Two 'drug squad' officers, standing at the bar - drinking Red Stripe - were heard to mutter, 'Whoever broke into that van will be very sorry...very sorry indeed...pity for him that it wasn't our precinct. Don will sort them out, poor guys'

Tonay had a few other quirks. There were signs in the club that read 'NO TAMS ALLOWED'. It was difficult to know quite what this meant. However one clue could be the time Tonay wandered into the club and, spying three Jamaican guys in woolly hats, screamed 'Haaaattttts!', following which the offending articles were removed. On another occasion Tonay entered the club at 2 a.m, and two or three straggling tables remained - students mainly - only too slowly finishing their Guinnesses, smoking dope, chatting about the evening's gig.  'Don't you know how to clear a club out?' asked Tonay, his question directed at Alan Wise, his sidekick Nigel, and Wilson. Wilson answered pointedly, 'No...not really, Don'. Tonay proceeded to pick up a table, hurl it in the air and, before it crashed to the ground, screamed 'OOOOOUTTTTTTT!!!!'. The students, needless to say, filed out respectfully, silently, nervously."

Alan Wise himself had this to say in a conversation with New Order frontman Bernard Sumner, included in Sumner's memoir, Chapter and Verse;

"Don was actually quite an erudite gangster who's been involved in political activities all over Africa. He went off to be a paratrooper and had been involved with certain members of the African National Congress. He'd gone to Africa and dealt in iron pyrites. Fool's gold. Don was a fascinating character and I really took to him...he was a pirate...he was a fence. The police used to come round to his house and he'd say, 'how's things, guys?' and they'd say, 'we're broke, Don': they used to openly come round to take money, so he was still involved."

Whilst Lindsey Reade, Tony Wilson's first wife, recalls in her book, Mr Manchester and the Factory Girl, that Tonay was;

"A man of Irish gypsy descent with black wavy hair...(Don Tonay) looked like a big Mafiosi character. Tosh (Ryan) recalled accompanying Don's right-hand man to collect Don from the airport after a trip to Italy. The first thing Don said was, 'Anything happen?' '5 Mitten Street got torched,' came the reply. (This was a shebeen that Don owned.) To which Don responded, deadpan, 'Anything else?' 

So as you can see, the reality was far and away quite different from Peter Kay's interpretation in 24 Hour Party People - even though the film retained Tonay's flamboyant mode of transport home from the Russell Club each night.  

Emphatically NOT the real Don Tonay,

played by Peter Kay in 24 Hour Party People

On my special limited edition DVD of 24 Hour Party People (number 1756 of the DVD release which, of course, has a Fac number too: DVD424) there is a great extra entitled From the Factory Floor; an in-vision DVD commentary of Winterbottom's film, featuring the likes of Peter Hook (Joy Division/New Order), Bruce Mitchell (The Durutti Column), Martin Moscrop (ACR) and Rowetta (Happy Mondays), and chaired by the delightful Miranda Sawyer. In it, Hooky talks about Tonay and how radically different the film chose to portray him, and unconsciously challenging the Middles anecdote that made it into the movie;

"Don Tonay wasn't like that though was he? He was much more aloof, much more of a gentleman, you wouldn't catch him in the back of a van with fuckin' hookers. It's probably a good thing that he's dead, the poor bugger, otherwise we'd all have our legs chopped off for that!"

Later on, as Peter Kay makes his first appearance in the film, Sawyer asks the group to recall the real Tonay. Hooky is somewhat confused as to what Tonay's ethnicity was; "Was he black or Italian?" he asks, and Moscrop replies "Italian" "He was very dark skinned though wasn't he?" Hooky continues. "He was from Manchester, but he was of Italian descent" Moscrop concludes - which differs from Wilson's claims that he was originally from Dublin. It's left to Bruce Mitchell to fill in more detail;

"He was a very serious level. He wore like £500 suits...and a £500 suit in those days was a serious suit. He run all the blue beats, he ran all the deliveries of the beer to the blue beats, and this guy was seriously cool..." 

Mitchell then goes on to say something that is presumably libellous as the sound drops out! When it returns, he concludes with "...But he was a very charming guy as well"

The performance by Peter Kay, and the way the character is written in the film, still rankles with Hooky;

"But that's such a strange portrayal. That portrayal of him, if you knew him, is the strangest"

Ultimately, it's Moscrop who sums it up in relation to the audience;

"Everyone knows who Peter Kay is, but they don't know who Don Tonay is" 

In short, the film required the depiction of a northern club owner, Peter Kay was, at the time, playing a northern club owner in his sitcom Phoenix Nights, therefore the film cast Peter Kay, a popular comic, to more or less play himself. A case of printing the legend rather than the truth again.

Did you know Don Tonay? Do you have any stories about him? I'd love to hear from you if you do. Just drop me a line in the comment section below. 

The Frontline (1993)

The Frontline is the debut feature film from Boston Kickout director Paul Hills. Aged just 21 and armed with enthusiasm and naivety Hills wrote, produced, directed and edited The Frontline, a film which took three years to complete from 1990 to 1993.

Vincent Phillips stars as James King, a young man newly released from a psychiatric hospital in London. Given his freedom, he hitches a ride up to Manchester, and the run down and tumultuous Moss Side area, keen to look up an old flame in the shape of local pirate radio DJ, Marion (Amanda Noar). At first she's reluctant to reignite their passion, but eventually the pair resume their love affair - an affair that runs the risk of breaking down when Marion's drug addiction becomes apparent. James makes it his mission to help Marion kick the habit and get clean and just when the future is looking rosy for them both, Marion winds up dead and her murder seems to point towards a man with some considerable power in the region; local MP, William Armstrong (Renny Krupinski).

The eponymous 'Frontline' itself refers to Moss Side and Hulme. Back in the '80s and early '90s, this was an impoverished no-go area in which gangs were profligate and danger lurked around every corner. Left more or less to fend for themselves, the residents created their own resources, including pirate radio and it was here that the tightrope between 'Madchester' and 'Gunchester' was walked. As a time capsule it's quite a worthwhile document, capturing as it does the urban decay and destruction from a decades worth of Tory rule in what proved to be the dying days of their regime, as well as attempting to highlight the cities creative and eccentric culture and the cross-over in casting Factory Records impresario Tony Wilson in his day job as a TV journalist with Granada Reports, there on the scene for the film's bloody denouement. Even John Mundy from BBC's Northwest Tonight pops up in a film that isn't blessed with familiar faces or star names. In fact reliable character actors Geoffrey Leesley (Bergerac, Casualty and Brookside) and a young Tim Dantay (Alan Partridge's builder friend) are probably the most recognisable faces for audiences, and if you're familiar with your Mancunian rock from the period, you'll see some live footage from the New Fast Automatic Daffodils performing in a club scene.

The key theme in Hills' feature is the notion of insanity being both condemned and condoned depending on your class and status; Moss Side is essentially an example of  that old adage about 'the lunatics taking over the asylum' and it is ironic that the newly released James sets up home there. But the real psychotic in the plot is Renny Krupinski's killer, the privileged William Armstrong MP, a man whose dangerous mental health is kept largely hidden and ignored.

However this is an extremely low budget debut feature and one that was extremely difficult to create, so it's not surprising that the overall result is a bit of a noble failure. Hills himself has described the three year long process as an absolute nightmare; in the film's initial stages, he was sleeping rough in Manchester Piccadilly and subsequently progressed to sleeping on the floors of cast and crew once he had assembled them, basically for no money whatsoever. Each day's filming ran the risk of running out of film at any given moment, meaning often only two takes were ever done. It makes for an amateurish, rough and ready end product and, by Hills' own admittance, he was perhaps to young and naive to attempt such a film in the first place. It's true that the essential message of 'drugs are bad, and so is the establishment' is a painfully earnest and sketchy one from a young filmmaker and he seems to struggle between a straight attempt at social realism and something more heightened (the scenes featuring the police are especially heightened and fit awkwardly around everything else). The on-the-hoof nature of the shoot means that it's sometimes hard to make sense of some sequences and I'm not sure the plot holds up to much scrutiny either, but what cannot be denied is that this is quite an impressive effort from a first time filmmaker with zero budget and a myriad of pressures. Hills' next feature, Boston Kickout, was a marked improvement that was no doubt achieved by the lessons he learnt here.

The Alcohol Years (2000)

It's hard to look the person you once were in the eye. Being reminded of how naive and reckless you were as a younger person, when you were still struggling to find and claim your own identity, can be an embarrassing and painful experience. Like finding old photographs of yourself or guilty, long abandoned items in your wardrobe, you're confronted with the cringe-inducing realisation that you were once someone very different. Someone that you might not like or be able to tolerate if you met them now.

"There was this story about Alan Wise...(how he) used to like you weeing on him"

In The Alcohol Years, Carol Morley dares to confront her 16-21 year old self; a complex and complicated figure who stalked the hinterland of a post-industrial Manchester that was awaiting something to happen to it; a new dawn which ultimately turned out to be the second summer of love at the end of the decade  - a summer of love that was effectively the cities first, the previous one having been robbed by the pall of the infamous Moors Murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hyndley. 

Morley was a legendary figure, her reputation proceeding her in a manner which belied her youth as she drank and caroused her way through clubs like the Hacienda and The Boardwalk and into the bedrooms of several men and women, and sometimes for a price. The film therefore makes it clear through its interviewed participants and its striking collage of imagery that to know Carol Morley meant that you had an opinion of Carol Morley, good or bad. A night out with Carol Morley was a promise of drama, and an experience that was anything but boring. It is that mythologised status that Morley chooses to explore here, along with the mythology of Manchester itself. Electing to stay behind the camera, she develops a character that is rather ethereal, like the spectre at the feast, whilst her friends and contemporaries reminiscence about her and deliver their prized anecdotes about her behaviour either fondly or in contemptible, withering terms - behaviour that she herself can no longer recall, thanks to the effects of alcohol. In relying on these talking heads, the film creates a composite character of who Carol Morley was, whilst understanding that any story that relies on memory is understandably one of an unreliable narration as each interviewee tells their own truth.

The Alcohol Years is a film about sexual identity and the inequality at the heart of how our society perceives gender. Morley was clearly a very sexually provocative and promiscuous young woman, but she argues in the accompanying commentary that she felt the need to fulfill a sexual fantasy at a time when women were objectified on sexual terms but were perversely expected to be passive in their own sexuality. Some of the contributors refer to her as a sexual predator, with a very masculine approach to sex, and the age-old issue of sexual promiscuity being rewarded in men yet condemned in women once again raises its ugly head. Psychologically, it's interesting to consider Morley's behaviour as a direct result of her father's suicide - were these series of one night stands a way of seeking love and affection from men like Buzzcocks frontman Pete Shelley and promoter Alan Wise who could be considered father figures? - and the recollection that Morley would often go to clubs dressed as a little girl playing with toys such as train sets (a potent sexual symbol in itself) or a toy duck on a wheel whilst at the same time offering the contradictory agenda - seemingly subconsciously -  of being sexually provocative, is also an intriguing one to analyse. 

Equally intriguing is the notion of lines of behaviour that should not be crossed; it's clear that Morley lost or offended several female friends as a direct result of her wild behaviour, her bisexuality, and her prostitution of herself to the likes of Alan Wise, (who paid both her and her fellow bandmate, Debby Turner, £50 to sleep with him, which they later bought a meal with - a much anticipated but unedifying introduction to Chinese cuisine) and to the strangers she picked up for paid sex in London whilst visiting New Order in the recording studio (and was Bizarre Love Triangle written about her and Debby?). These are all discussed as part of her legend, whilst some wonder if she was 'sexually ill' at this stage in her life, arguing such acts were of transgression rather than free will, an in built desire and need to be liked played out in the most unsuitable and dangerous of manners. 

But equally The Alcohol Years is a film that is as much about Manchester and the people who happily participated with the film as it is about Morley herself. Mancunian pop cultural icons such as the aforementioned Wise (now sadly no longer with us having died of a broken heart last year following his young daughter's suicide) who gleefully and cheekily produces his cock for the camera, Tony Wilson, Vini Reilly, Bruce Mitchell and Dave Haslam to name but a few all appear, with the latter commenting on how you could bump into like-minded people in the city one week and the next they'd be on Top of the Pops. The implication is that it is this very generation, through their talents and boisterous antics, helped bring about what Manchester was unconsciously waiting for. But that to do so would always ultimately conclude with the betrayal of leaving the north for a new life and a career in the south, leaving only the mythology behind. Morley's story ends with her own betrayal, departing for London the day after a tenth anniversary celebration of punk put on by Factory Records at the G-MEX in mysterious circumstances. Realising that the myth is key, Morley refuses to elaborate on the reasons for the self-imposed exile that brought about the death of her old self and the birth of the new, allowing the film to end in a very effective way as various summaries of her character ring in her ears and run her out of town in a dark and impressionistic sequence that suggest Morley was worryingly close to the edge. 

It can be argued that this is a somewhat egotistical venture, a filmmaker making a film about herself. But Morley wisely elects to remain behind the camera and to include the most scathing of criticisms about her past behaviour in the final cut. "Why don't you just have therapy?" one of the more persistently critical contributors argues at one point, but the fact remains that the ghost has been laid to rest and has in the process left behind a remarkable film from which there lies a clear line to Dreams of a Life.  

Theme Time : Shawn Phillips - World In Action

Seeing as Tony Hatch's Man Alive theme went down so well yesterday, I thought I'd turn my attention today to its ITV rival, the great World in Action

World In Action was truly groundbreaking television from the heart of the North West's Granada Television. Beating Man Alive to the screens by two years, World In Action effectively had the monopoly on the investigative journalism and current affairs format during this period. Across the years (the show ran from 1963 to 1998) World In Action's campaigning nature frequently had a major impact on events of the day. Its succession of bold and committed production teams who were unafraid of taking risks meant the show gained a solid, though somewhat left-wing and radical, reputation. Indeed Margaret Thatcher was alleged to have once said that the show's production team consisted of "just a lot of Trotskyists". In short, they were - to quote Keith Richards in the dock in 1967 - "not worried about petty morals" that the establishment seemed to live by. 

The criminal case against Richards and his fellow Rolling Stone Mick Jagger was important for World In Action as it was they who bagged a post-trial encounter between the newly released Jagger and senior figures of the establishment in what the then WIA researcher and future DG of the BBC John Birt claimed to be "one of the most iconic moments of the '60s"  

Thanks to WIA, cabinet ministers such as Jonathan Aitken fell from grace and miscarriages of justice were brought to light and rightly rectified, most notably with the release from gaol of the Birmingham Six in 1991. The show infiltrated and dug up the dirt surrounding Scientology, the police force, the intelligence services, local councils and major businesses and far right paramilitary groups such as Combat 18. It was also responsible for the long running Seven Up! series of TV films by Michael Apted which continues - revisiting its key cast every seven years - to this day. This was hard hitting, campaigning investigative journalism of the highest order and the show would regularly draw in audiences of up to 23 million, that's effectively half the population.

Its removal after 35 years was seen by some as part of a general dumbing-down of British television, and of ITV  in particular. The Tonight (With Trevor McDonald) programme is effectively the show's replacement but it is woefully inadequate to that task and the pool of investigative journalism remains somewhat arid now without the vital training ground that was World In Action, the show which gave us Tony Wilson, John Pilger, Gordon Burns, Paul Greengrass, Michael Apted, Donal MacIntyre and Stuart Prebble.   

Growing up in Granadaland in the '80s, I have so many memories associated with this theme tune, mainly fear. It sounded so imposing and doom laden and, as Tony Wilson did his day job presenting from the studio grave stories of harsh regimes abroad and social decline and desperation at home, I felt even more scared and depressed. Growing up in the '80s could be quite traumatic!

Kudos therefore to Shawn Phillips for his great proggy jam that put the shits up kids immediately after watching Corrie

Manchester Passion (2006)

Passion plays, the staged reconstructions of Christ's last hours, have been a ritual tradition of drama and song performed in Christian countries during Easter for centuries. In Gouda on Good Friday, 2011 a Dutch adaptation of The Passion, featuring well known Dutch language songs was broadcast on TV and has proved so successful that it has become an annual event ever since...but it all started, of course, in Manchester in 2006 with BBC3's Manchester Passion.

It's easy to dismiss something like Manchester Passion. With society at its most secular any attempt to celebrate traditional Christian values or approach the stories we have been told since childhood anew from an intelligent, contemporary stance has often been met with derision. It's a great shame really because, whilst I am not religious (I consider myself either agnostic or atheist depending on what mood you catch me in) the practice of faith and the stories told therein fascinates me. Manchester Passion sought to tell the story of Christ's betrayal and crucifixation live in the heart of the North West city on the evening of Good Friday April 14th via the songs that originated in that city; Morrissey, The Smiths, New Order, Joy Division, The Stone Roses, Oasis, James, M People and Robbie Williams provided the soundtrack to the key moments in Christ's final hours sung by an eclectic cast including Darren Morfitt as Christ, Keith Allen as the host and as Pilate and James frontman Tim Booth as Judas Iscariot.  

In between these dramatisations, cameras followed the procession of a giant specially made illuminated cross as it made its way from one end of the city to the other, with then North West Tonight anchor and reporter Ranvir Singh (now known nationally after ITV poached her for Daybreak and latterly Good Morning Britain) interviewing those accompanying it.

It's a great spectacle and, as a live event, was pretty flawless. Yes it's a teensy bit naff in places but that's perhaps to be expected. Through strong performances and those songs that set Manchester apart you can actually reconsider the stories that bored you during RE at school in a similar thought provoking yet entertaining manner as in Stewart Lee's excellent show What Would Judas Do? I defy anyone not to feel their spirit soar a little upon seeing Morfitt standing at the Town Hall clock tower singing 'I Am The Resurrection' to the wrapped audience down below in Albert Square.

Look out for Tony Wilson hovering by the burger van and Shameless star Chris Bisson as the ''Shameless criminal Barabbas'' Bez from the Happy Mondays was set to appear as a criminal in the van on the way to Pilate but bottled out at the last moment (he appears in the trails I believe) to be replaced by a Liam-alike. The whole thing is available to watch on YouTube.

At Christmas 2007, a Capital of Culture awarded Liverpool sought to tell the story of Christ's birth along similar lines with The Liverpool Nativity but that was shite and had more to do with Liverpool and its winning bid than it did with religion and so it has rightly been forgotten and consigned to the vaults. Unfortunately it's failure has meant that, unlike Holland, no such revivals of The Passion has occurred since - though Michael Sheen performed a 72 hour Passion in his hometown of Port Talbot, highlights of which appeared on BBC Wales and was similarly effective.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

As you may have noticed, I've tinkered with the blog title tonight, swapping it from Random Ramblings, the abbreviated title that has served me well for the last 18 months or so, to something more oblique, So It Goes

As the above flyer shows, So It Goes was the name of the Granada produced music magazine series fronted by a hero of mine, Tony Wilson in the late 70s

Wilson came up with the title as a reference and homage to Kurt Vonnegut's cult classic Slaughterhouse Five, which uses the phrase as a refrain whenever death or mortality occurs in the story. It appears 179 times in the novel, fact fans!

It's not my intention though to be gloomy. Personally, I just like the transitory nature and conversational tone the phrase suggests. As my blog has never truly been about one thing - encompassing everything from film and book reviews to music and pretty pictures (d'aww) - it seems to rather fit the constant change that occurs from post to post.

Do let me know what you think, or if you prefer the original title.

Goodbye Granadaland

As readers to the blog will notice from the little icon on the right over there, I'm from Granadaland, ie that area of the north whose televisual entertainment was provided in the glory days from the studios in the heart of Manchester via the Winter Hill TV transmitter and the financing of the Bernstein brothers. 

The famous Quay Street studios (above) with its bright red lettering, such a legendary site on the way into Manchester by road and rail for decades, is now no more. The company have, since March, moved to the Media City development in nearby Salford. As a result ITV paid a belated tribute to the 56 years Granada spent at Quay Street with a special programme last night entitled Goodbye Granadaland, hosted by Peter Kay and narrated by Suranne Jones.

It's easier to say what hasn't been made/come from Granada over the years rather than what has, so extensive is the catalogue; Coronation Street, Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel In The Crown, World In Action, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Prime Suspect, Cracker, 7 Up (and most recently 56 Up) This Morning, The Comedians, The Wheeltappers and Shunters Club, Game Set And Match, The Royle Family, The Mrs Merton Show, Cold Feet, The XYY Man, Strangers, Bulman, Stars In Their Eyes, The Krypton Factor, Nearest and Dearest, Crown Court, Watching, Band Of Gold, Laurence Olivier Presents, The Time, The Place, The Jeremy Kyle Show (ugh) and University Challenge which has the honour of being the last programme recorded at Quay Street. 

It is also the station responsible for launching such talents as presenters like Tony Wilson, Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan, and Michael Parkinson, writers such as Kay Mellor, Jack Rosenthal, Paul Abbott and Russell T Davies, comics like Kay himself, Steve Coogan, John Thompson, Caroline Aherne and Sacha Baron Cohen, and internationally critically acclaimed directors such as Paul Greengrass and Michael Apted. 

Music was also a key interest with Granada and thanks to Tony Wilson on the regional news show Granada Reports and subsequently So It Goes and The Other Side Of Midnight Granada scored debut and key performances from bands like Blondie, Joy Division, The Sex Pistols, The Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses. Take That would gain their TV debut at Granada, whilst The Stones In The Park, the Rolling Stones legendary Hyde Park concert was filmed by them, as was Mick Jagger's first interview upon his release from prison following the Redlands drug bust, care of World In Action

Ultimately with such a rich record no single tribute could do it justice, especially one that relied heavily on Peter Kay's tired stereotypical northerner schtick. Nonetheless it was a pleasant enough trip down memory lane that paid suitable, if often too brief, homage to key programmes.

"I think that what Manchester sees today, London will see eventually"

-Sidney Bernstein 

Granada came to fruition thanks to Sidney and Cecil Bernstein, brothers who had run a chain of cinemas and theatres in the South of England under the Granada umbrella since the 1930s, the name coming from the Spanish town where they had a holiday home. When the bid for commercial TV production companies came on the market in the 1950s, Sidney cannily purchased the rights for the north west for two reasons; one, so that it didn't impact on their cinema business in the south and two, because he believed Manchester being the rainiest city in England would be an ideal opportunity for high ratings as, because of the bad weather, people would stay at home with only the TV for their entertainment.

Robbie Coltrane looks out from Granada Studios

Growing up in the 80s and 90s were my pivotal years for TV watching and programmes shaping me and naturally Granada was at the fore. It felt like the north west was at the cultural heart of the nation back then with Granada Reports Tony Wilson responsible for the Madchester music scene running Factory Records and The Hacienda, as well as Wilson's great current affairs debate show Granada Upfront live each Thursday. There was also groundbreaking investigations from World In Action like the conviction quashing of The Birmingham Six, significant drama like Cracker and Jeremy Brett's definitive Sherlock Holmes, the nation's top talent show Stars In Their Eyes (long before the days of Simon Cowell!) and of course the perennial Coronation Street, the nation's number one soap opera.

 It was also the era that I was lucky enough to actually visit Granada Studios, when the company would allow tours for visitors and in my case, school parties. This was an amazing experience to actually walk around the studios, to step onto the cobbles of both Coronation Street and Sherlock Holmes' Baker Street as well as experience a replica New York street and 10 Downing Street right in the middle of Manchester!

Sadly by 2001, Granada Studios stopped its tour primarily because of Coronation Street going to 5 nights a week making set visits no longer tenable, but I have extremely fond memories of going there in the early 90s with school; for me, it was like experiencing Hollywood first hand!

Granada and the north west go hand in hand, and it's just one of the reasons why I am so proud to be a northerner.

Out On Blue Six : Joy Division

Continuing to rectify not playing some of my favourite bands often enough

End Transmission

World In Action

Growing up in Granadaland in the 80s, I have so many memories associated with this theme tune, mainly fear. It sounded so imposing and doom laden and, as Tony Wilson did his day job and presented from the studio stories of harsh regimes abroad and social decline and desperation at home I felt even more scared and depressed. Growing up in the 80s could be quite traumatic

Kudos to Shawn Phillips for a great proggy jam that put the shits up kids immediately after watching Corrie

The Tomorrow People...Again?

The US are remaking 70s kids cult classic The Tomorrow People

A pilot is being made which will feature our very own and the strikingly stunning Madeleine Mantock who had previously played Scarlett in Casualty

It will of course remain to be seen if the show is picked up for a series, but it's further proof that the American film and TV industry seems bereft of new ideas.

It's worth recalling that the 90s revival of the series hardly gained critical or commercial acclaim.

Personally, if the show won't have Mike dressed as a Nazi to go down the disco then I won't be in favour! Haha

Here's Dudley Simpson's classic theme tune, last heard for Tony Wilson's early 00's Channel 5 quiz Topranko!

Hit And Miss : Miss or Hit?

Hit and Miss is Sky Atlantic's latest homegrown offering from the pen of Shameless creator Paul Abbott which made its much anticipated debut on Tuesday this week. The story is that of a pre-op transsexual contract killer, who finds out she had previously fathered a son to a woman who has just died, and that she is now expected to be that son's - and his half brother and sisters - legal guardian. It's a project that  has been praised for it's 'uniqueness'. Indeed several papers and TV listing magazines have claimed that very thing to be the reason to watch; with The Mirror's TV critic stating "It's unique style should make it memorable"

But actually, it's not unique or original at all.

In 2008, the self same Paul Abbott made a pilot for BBC3 entitled Mrs In-betweeny whose plot can be summed up thus c/o IMDB; 'After the death or their parents, three children are put into the care of their Aunt Brandon-aware of the fact that she is a transgender male' This, like Hit and Miss was also set in Manchester and the North West.

Mrs In-betweeny was a delightful hour of comedy and drama that unfortunately never made it to a series and never saw a repeat or DVD release. The fabulous Amelia Bullmore (currently stealing the show in ITV1's Scott and Bailey) donned the latex attachable willy in this and the only difference it has to this current second take from Abbott is that it didn't have the hit 'man' aspect.

So the idea of a North West based transsexual contract killer is unique then?

Um, no.

In 1995, Mancunian author and former Factory Records techno signing, Nicholas Blincoe penned Acid Casuals - a wonderful hip slice of clubland noir and 'Gunchester' that Amazon describes thus; 'Estela, who used to be Paul but has just had the operation, returns to Manchester on a business trip. The business - to kill her ex boss, a club owner and money launderer' 

Acid Casuals is a great book, sort of Tarantino meets Factory Records, and it's obvious that Blincoe based the character of Burgess, Estela/Paul's club owner boss on his own former boss Tony Wilson (who idolised Anthony Burgess-see what he's done there?) and the club was clearly The Hacienda at its most problematic drug days. 

So, no, Hit And Miss is not at all unique!

But is it any good?

Well, it has a strong cast featuring not just Hollywood' Sevigny (sporting an iffy Irish accent) but familiar Granada-land faces like Peter Wight (a Mike Leigh legend and star of Early Doors) Vincent Regan (ironically Amelia Bullmore's ex in Scott and Bailey) Ideal's Ben Crompton and former Robin Hood Jonas Armstrong. 
Mia, who used to be Ryan, is an intriguing and downright funky character you can't help feel for,just as Estela was for Blincoe and Brandon for Abbot previously was.
It shoots Manchester like a grubby back street end of New York and the moors (Saddleworth?) Mia finds herself on, looking after her adoptive brood, like the wilds of the Deep South;as such it really has a cinematic flair and indeed it could make a great David Lynch style movie, and you get the feeling that  Abbott, Sky Atlantic and Red Production Company are hoping that US TV will either buy or remake (leading to even more transsexual killers in fiction!)
 But by God, it looks and indeed it is bleak - not helped by the fact Sevigny in pre publicity claimed (rather unfairly in my opinion) that Manchester was 'one of the grimmest places' she'd ever visited.

My advice, stick with it as it could be a slow burner. But if it gets viewers looking at Abbott's previous Mrs In-Betweeny or boosts the sales of Blincoe's Acid Casuals then that's even better.

We Can Be Heroes

An occasional and random look at some heroes of mine. 

Number 1: Anthony H Wilson

Head of Factory Records, music innovator, businessman, club owner, zeitgeist rider and creator, journalist, writer, TV presenter and broadcaster, wit, intelligentsia, face of teatime news in Granada for a generation and Mr Manchester - proof that The North is better than anywhere else in the world. 

I love Tony and cried when he succumbed to cancer and I wasn't alone - an entire region, the music world and music lovers did too. A terrible loss.

One example of his wise words appears in the right of this blog. Examples of what he allowed to bloom musically appear everywhere daily.