The Haçienda Read Online Free

character. He was slightly older than us and it felt like he belonged to a different generation.We viewed him as the boss,not as a peer,and he was very much the man in charge.Every so often he’d check on the band to see how we were doing and I suppose we felt a bit in awe of him because of his success on television:he was a star,a very important mover and shaker, whereas we were just working-class tossers from Salford. There were many times when his passion gave us the drive to carry on. He was very enthusiastic and always worked hard for things he believed in. Ideas were his thing but, as in time I came to realize, he glossed over details. They slowed him down, bored him and stopped him from moving on to the next project, which he had this compulsion to do. It meant he’d put things in motion then leave others to implement them without always ensuring that the lieutenants he put into place were qualified.The day-to-day running of Factory he’d leave to Alan,but Alan (unlike Tony) wasn’t very good with people – I suppose they complemented each other’s weaknesses in that respect.
    Our manager Rob was one of the most important people in my career. At the time he began working with us, Rob lived in a one-roombedsit in Chorlton and had no money. He was a working-class Wythenshawe boy from a big family with a sister and two brothers. Relationships mattered a lot to him. Throughout his life he needed to be surrounded by people he felt close to. Loyalty defined him, as did his love for Manchester: promoting anything to do with the city was his passion.
    Rob hated his previous job, working for Eagle Star Insurance in Manchester. Getting rich didn’t motivate him as much as freedom and enjoying himself. He disliked being told what to do, so he looked at ways of making his own opportunities.First he promoted events at the Oaks in Chorlton (I went to see Siouxsie and the Banshees there, and still have the ticket),then he started his own record label to release a single by the Panik – funnily enough stealing our then drummer, Steve Brotherdale, from us – plus he worked as a roadie for the band Slaughter and the Dogs, as well as producing and creating a fanzine for them.
    Rob and Joy Division ran parallel to one another for some time before he decided to ally himself with us. If anything, we came into his scene,rather than him into ours,because by the time we started playing Rob was very involved locally. Like I say, it was a real community back then.There were no fortunes to be made or lost so financial concerns never came into our minds. We played for a sense of achievement and in the hope of one day educating and changing the world. It felt like us against the establishment. We were rebels.
    Rob – like virtually everyone associated with Factory – was raised Catholic (Bernard and I were the only two Protestants on the label, which became the source of some amusement). Rob didn’t talk much about his spiritual life, although he and his girlfriend Lesley Gilbert once worked together at a kibbutz in Israel. He’d decided to take a year off for it,but got pissed off because of the scary,oppressive atmosphere and the fact that he had to carry a rifle. He never did well with mechanical things and he disliked guns – I’m surprised he didn’t accidentally shoot Lesley, or himself.
    The band didn’t have much to do with Lesley. Perhaps it’s because Rob did his level best to keep our professional and personal lives separate. He didn’t like girlfriends (or, as in Ian’s case, even wives) coming to shows. To him, what happened backstage stayed there – and a lot of what went on wasn’t particularly compatible with family life. Robstructured things so that we could be different people on the road; it became a bit Jekyll and Hyde.
    I remember we were forever looking for places to play. At the Factory Records’ New Year’s Eve concert in 1979, Joy Division performed, along with the Distractions and another Factory