“Four musicians and their manager made this film. Other musicians appear in it. Some just didn’t make it. Factory Records, a partnership, a business, a joke”
In the mid-1980s, Channel 4’s nine-part television series Play at Home offered bands such as Big Country, Level 42, Echo & The Bunnymen and XTC an hour-long format to make films about themselves, their music and their home towns—and, hard to imagine today, with complete control over the content, without interference from the broadcaster or production company.
While some stuck to the idea of the format, two bands took a slightly different route. Before the deliciously psychedelic version of Alice in Wonderland by Siouxsie and The Banshees was aired, New Order kicked things off on 21 August 1984 with the first episode entitled »›The Word Came Out of L.A.‹ Son of ›Leaving the 20th Century‹«, a spoof on their own Manchester turf, with unconventionally staged interviews, spiced up with a pinch of Dada and Monty Python.
“Who says we don’t videos.”
Sharing a bath with him, Gillian Gilbert asks a naked Tony Wilson if he is a capitalist, and the question of his financial relationship with his artists forms the film’s controversial subtext, as when Wilson offers A Certain Ratio, Section 25 and Durutti Column pills but they want to see the label’s accounts instead. But despite the resentment towards Wilson, the film is an amusing and revealing glimpse into the chaotic world of Factory Records.
Stephen Morris interviews Martin Hannett playing with a revolver in the studio. Bernard Sumner interviews Peter Saville with his mouth full over a meal in a pub. Peter Hook interviews Alan Erasmus on the back of a motorbike on a ride around Factory Farm. And Rob Gretton interviews himself because no one else could. In between there’s Lonesome Tonight, Temptation and Thieves Like Us from New Order’s gig at the Haçienda on 20 July 1983.
Keup 