Golden, Audrey (4 May 2023). I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records. Orion. ISBN 978-1-3996-0620-2. This heartfelt and searingly honest memoir details the relationship between legendary music impresario Tony Wilson and his first wife, Lindsay Reade.

In 1988, Wilson hosted The Other Side of Midnight, another Granada weekly regional culture slot, covering music, literature and the arts in general. Wilson co-presented the BBC's coverage of The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium with Lisa I'Anson in 1992. He hosted the short-lived TV quiz shows Topranko! and Channel 4's Remote Control in the 1990s, as well as the Manchester United themed quiz, Masterfan, for MUTV. Dave Simpson (10 August 2020). " 'You've been smoking too much!': the chaos of Tony Wilson's digital music revolution". The Guardian . Retrieved 10 August 2020.There are lots of great tunes on it; it’s amazing how many you remember. Nearly every song on there could have been a single if they wanted to. Summary: The story of the marriage, divorce, and subsequent professional personal relationship between record label owner and TV journalist Tony Wilson and Lindsay Reade, which lasted until Wilson's death in 2007. The band limped on for another six months before their final, disastrous appearance at Reading Festival in August 1996, when the emotionless guitar-playing, sub-standard vocals and overall poor sound was met with boos from the disappointed crowd. It was the Roses’ last stand. Indie [before the Roses] was quite grim, quite bookish and quite a stigma that you consumed it at home, alone and feeling miserable. So their debut album redefined indie as something that was quite communal and something that was celebratory. And that’s where they got a lot of their power from; it was tribal, it was a community and it redefined indie. So when bands like Oasis and Kasabian came along they were directly benefiting from this. They were very rooted, authentic and proud of where they came from. Stardom came to them rather than them going to stardom: which was very much part of what the Manchester music scene in the late ’80s was all about. McDonald was replaced by Diane Charlemagne (later lead vocalist with Moby and would go on to bigger UK success with the Urban Cookie Collective). [5]

The early years were vitally important in setting the scene for everything that followed with Factory, the way that the label and the bands were talked about, how it and they talked about themselves, the ethos and the look of what was produced … nobody at the start would have, in their wildest dreams, believed that we’d still be here talking about it today…”

Customer reviews

Many of the voices help depict Ian as he was in daily life - a man who was sensitive to others, who would always extend a hand to the outsider or try and help those with problems. Several people recall situations where they hovered on the edge of proceedings, too shy or uncertain to join in. It was almost always Ian who would make a gesture of warmth and inclusivity, whether by handing them a can of beer or drawing them into conversation. It takes an outsider to know the discomfort of not belonging.

Collins, Simon (9 February 2007). "Music showcase postponed after founder in surgery drama". The West Australian. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007 . Retrieved 10 August 2007. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, the museum has unveiled a new opening date for Use Hearing Protection: the early years of Factory Records – a new exhibition that will shine a light on the little-revealed early period of the label and trace new outlines of its famous history. You interviewed the people who knew him such as his former wives; his former colleagues from the Granada Television, Factory Records and Hacienda eras; and his children. Was there a common thing that all of your interviewees brought up about Wilson for this book? The title said it all. Expectations were high for the Roses’ follow-up album, and when it finally arrived on December 5th 1994, it fell in the wake of the Britpop wave that washed over Britain. Lead single ‘Love Spreads’ signalled the new direction the music was taking: chunky Zep riffs, gravelly blues, tribal rhythms… The naivité of their debut had given way for an assured yet often indulgent successor. Ultimately, the expectations were just too great a burden. They ran out of beer – there was no beer in the bar; God, there was loads of horrible things about it. People were probably “on one”, as they used to say in those days, so they probably enjoyed themselves anyway. I wasn’t. I was too scared to take ecstasy.It was great how this biography had information about his early years (provided by his mother and sister) and the last year of his life (provided by Annik Honoré, the girl that deeply loved him and probably understood him better than anyone else did at the time). I loved finding out about his childhood, how his classmates called him "Hammy" because of his chubby cheeks (god he was such a cute child, wasn't he?) and how he loved football and playing with animals. On the other hand, reading his letters to Annik was both beautiful and heartbreaking. I got really emotional at times reading how he narrated, in his own words, his downward spiral. It was simply heartbreaking to see how these letters became less and less coherent. How, at first, he was just a normal boy talking about his dog and the music he played and by the end he kept asking how he could go on and expressing how terrified he was about his illness.