The Women of Factory Records
A new book examines their importance at the venerated British label
Yeah, you’ve heard the Factory Records story before.
It feels like there’s been dozens of books written about the label and its biggest names, Joy Division and New Order. And that doesn’t even count Michael Winterbottom’s enormously fun 2002 film 24 Hour Party People, where British comedian Steve Coogan plays the legendarily self-promoting Factory figurehead Tony Wilson as a self-important blowhard almost exactly like Coogan’s most famous character, vacuously clueless TV personality Alan Partridge.
All of those books, and that movie, make it sound like Wilson was solely responsible for Factory’s success—maybe with an assist from graphic designer Peter Saville, whose iconic sleeves made it possible to spot a Factory release from 20 yards away in any ’80s record store. But British music journalist Audrey Golden tells a very different story in I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records (White Rabbit Books, $32.99). This 500-page oral history centers the voices of the women who worked at or with Factory Records. From the executive suite to the women who cleaned the loos at the Haçienda, the Factory-owned nightclub, Golden has either interviewed or found quotes from nearly a hundred women. And although many of them have horror stories — original Haçienda manager Penny Henry was tied up and beaten during an attempted robbery, then fired by managing partner (and New Order manager) Rob Gretton, who implied that she was somehow in on the crime — one thing is clear: Factory did a better job than most of its contemporaries in living up to the post-punk ideal of an egalitarian space where women’s work and ideas were genuinely valued.
This was very true of the record label — especially its more experimental subsidiary Factory Benelux, run by Belgian journalist and promoter Annik Honoré, who only gets mentioned in most Factory texts misidentified as the marriage-wrecking girlfriend of Joy Division leader Ian Curtis. (Honoré maintains their relationship was strictly platonic, and she would know.) Both labels featured acts with women in both vocal and instrumental roles, from label stars like New Order and Section 25 to cult favorites like Stockholm Monsters and Life. Women signed bands — I had no idea before reading this that Wilson’s wife Lindsay Reade was an active A&R scout — and also managed and promoted bands. But it was even more true of The Haçienda. Although Wilson and the other managing partners conceived of the massive multi-story club on a whim, thinking of it as much as a personal clubhouse as a venue, the people who made this utterly impractical venture work were the experienced, in-the-know women who actually put it together and ran it.
The Haçienda eventually — as in like five years after it opened, during the Madchester summer of 1989 — became a huge success. Based on the descriptions here, I would have preferred its early days, when it “felt like a student union,” with patrons reading books and playing board games in quiet corners. In the basement was The Gay Traitor, Manchester’s first gay bar, with a weekly fetish night and reputedly the best DJs in the north. There was also a hairdressers called Swing, which became not only THE place to get your barnet done, but a hangout for every band in town, from The Smiths to The Fall. There were fashion shows, art exhibitions, and a t-shirt shop. All of that sounds absolutely glorious. And more to the point, despite Factory’s cold visual image and tortured, it’s-grim-up-north reputation, Golden and her subjects make it all sound incredibly fun and rewarding.
To help you get ready for this mammoth and fascinating oral history, here’s five Factory and Factory Benelux acts that featured women.
New Order
Too often dismissed as drummer Stephen Morris’ girlfriend/wife, Gillian Gilbert was the linchpin of Joy Division’s transformation into New Order. The group literally wouldn’t have happened without her: she originally joined as a second guitarist when new frontman Bernard Sumner learned that he wasn’t able to play guitar and sing at the same time. Even her accidents sounded cool: the off-kilter syncopation of “Blue Monday” came about because Gilbert accidentally put an extra rest into the melody as she was painstakingly programming it. The result was only the biggest-selling 12” single of all time. It’s not a coincidence that the two albums New Order recorded without Gilbert, Waiting for the Siren’s Call and Lost Sirens, are the worst in the band’s entire catalogue.
VIDEO: New Order “True Faith”
Section 25
On their first two albums, Always Now and The Key Of Dreams, Section 25 came off as second-string Joy Division wannabes. After losing guitarist Paul Wiggin, bassist Larry Cassidy and his drummer brother Vin reworked the group by adding their sister Angie Cassidy as keyboardist and Larry’s wife Jenny Ross as lead singer. 1984’s From The Hip was a complete reinvention, both hypnotic and ethereal. (It was also the only non-New Order Factory release to use the alphabetical color code Peter Saville had invented for the sleeves of “Blue Monday” and Power, Corruption and Lies. Lead single “Looking From A Hilltop,” with Jenny’s sighing vocals front and center, arguably invented the entire Darkwave aesthetic that’s become popular among new generations of electro-Goths. After the deaths of Jenny Ross (2004) and Larry Cassidy (2010), their daughter Beth Cassidy led a new lineup of Section 25 through the 2010s.
AUDIO: Section 25 “Looking From A Hilltop”
Stockholm Monsters
One of the most underrated bands on the Factory roster, Stockholm Monsters stood apart from their early ‘80s contemporaries due to their oddball blend of idiosyncratic pop tunes and hypnotic beats. The first lineup, best heard on quirky-pretty 1981 debut single “Fairy Tales,” featured keyboardist Lita Hira. By the time of their sole full-length, 1984’s Peter Hook-produced Alma Mater, she had been replaced by keyboardist and trumpeter Lindsay Anderson. Taking aim at Factory’s increasingly powerful distributor the following year with the terrific 12-inch “How Corrupt Is Rough Trade?” didn’t do the band’s longevity any favors, but their charming peculiarity still sounds great decades later.
AUDIO: Stockholm Monsters “How Corrupt Is Rough Trade?”
Thick Pigeon / Stanton Miranda
Perhaps the most mysterious act on a label that prided itself on being inscrutable, New York duo Thick Pigeon released a pair of atmospheric, minimalist singles on Factory Benelux’s sister label Les Disques du Crépuscule, featuring an American woman quietly talk-singing over a quartet of tracks ranging from soundtrack-like delicacy to skittery art-funk. Those singles sounded positively normal compared to 1984’s Too Crazy Cowboys, a fractured collection of experiments that included near-unrecognizable covers of Billy Swan’s ‘70s rockabilly single “I Can Help” and the Johnny Mercer standard “Moon River.” One-half of Thick Pigeon made herself known the following year with the almost-conventional dance-pop single “Wheels Over Indian Trails,” a collaboration with New Order’s Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris that she released as Stanton Miranda, a reversal of her given name. Miranda’s partner turned out to be Oscar-nominated soundtrack composer Carter Burwell, best known for scoring almost all of the Coen Brothers’ films.
AUDIO: Stanton Miranda “Wheels Over Indian Trails”
Life
Manchester trio Life was singer Rita Griffiths, keyboardist Andy Robinson (who became New Order’s manager following Rob Gretton’s death in 1999) and guitarist Graham Ellis. They only released two singles, 1984’s “Tell Me” and 1985’s “Optimism,” but “Tell Me” is quite often my favorite Factory release ever, including any Joy Division or New Order single. A swirling, gently psychedelic pop song with a delightfully flirtatious lead vocal and an unexpected acoustic guitar solo, “Tell Me” doesn’t sound like anything else that ever came out on Factory, and it’s an utter delight. (Like Stanton Miranda’s “Wheels On Indian Trails,” it was produced by Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris, under the pseudonym Bemusic that all four New Order members used when producing other Factory artists.
AUDIO: Life “Tell Me”
- The Women of Factory Records - March 28, 2024
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