IN PRAISE OF ST ANTHONY
MANC TRIO UNITE TO CELEBRATE TONY WILSON
THERE’S a repeated refrain in Mike Garry’s poem St Anthony that sums up his relationship with the former Factory Records boss and TV presenter Anthony H Wilson.
“Talk to me,” the Manchester poet says over and over, the phrase dominating the crescendo – pleading with the late, great Mr Manchester to speak about the culture that captivated him.
The phrase came to Mike because he never shared a single word with Wilson in person, but all around him Wilson’s vision for Mike’s home city was shouting at him: in the music, the buildings and the record shops.
The poem, written almost eight years ago for Terry Christian’s BBC Radio Manchester show, has taken on a life Mike never expected.
“I remember bringing it in and reading it – and his face!” he says.
“When you write things, you don’t realise how good something is, and I could see in his face it was either **** or ace.
“When you deliver a poem it’s quite a tense moment.
“I never talked to Tony Wilson – that’s the whole idea of ‘talk to me’, but the Hacienda opened a week after my 17th or 18th birthday and I went there when it was ****; I remember playing ticky-it (tag) and racing around because it was such a massive, empty space.
“We were children. We didn’t know how to club. I hated acid house, I thought most of the people in there were ****heads.
“I was a working class boy from Moss Side, I didn’t have to confidence to talk to a guy off the tele.
“But I always admired Wilson, I knew he was a ****head but I always liked him – I knew he was doing something really spectacular.
“I liked the angles he was coming from.”
Anyone who has heard Mike perform the work live will understand why this one, above all other poems in Mike’s considerable arsenal, has become his most requested.
It’s a complex, alliterative study of the psychology of a man, but it’s as much about Manchester itself and summarising the cultural zeal that made Oxbridge educated Wilson come back home to Salford and make Manchester his own.
Three years ago, the destiny of St Anthony started to change when Mike met composer Joe Duddell.
Duddell’s reputation preceded him, too, having worked with Elbow and The Halle, as well as James and the BBC Proms.
At Festival No 6, they hatched a plan to set the song to music - something Mike had been approached to do by rock musicians before, but refused.
“He sent me a rough recording of poems, literally him on his iPhone,” says Joe, “and I had to come up with something.
“The one that stood out was St Anthony.
“Mike’s very rhythmic, and the pace of it reminded me of Your Silent Face, by New Order – so I kind of based it on that, but with a string quartet.
Power, Corruption And Lies is mentioned in the poem, so that made sense.”
Its similarity to the New Order classic meant it had to be run by the band, and they sanctioned it immediately – even giving the recording its first airing at their gig at Jodrell Bank.
“It’s a homage,” Joe laughs. “And Hooky, as well as all the remaining members of New Order, were really happy to support it.”
The next stage for St Anthony, though, will see it officially launched as a charity single on August 10, raising money for The Christie, where Wilson was treated for cancer.
To make this happen, I Am Kloot’s Pete Jobson has come on board, releasing it on his Skinny Dog Records label.
“We thought that would keep it in the spirit of how Tony would have done things,” says Pete, “and the records are all going into independent shops – you’ve got to find it, put a bit of work into getting it.”
Other vital personnel on the list include Manchester string group Cassia Quartet ; designer Peter Saville – the man who made Factory Records’ output as collectable for its sleeves as its music – who has created the sleeve, artist Stan Chow who has created a special screenprint, DJ Andy Weatherall who has remixed the track for the B-side, and web designers Retrofuzz who have built a website at saintanthony.co.uk that mirrors the spirit of the poem, putting all the cultural references in contains in context.
On the sleeve is an image of Tony from the private archives of Ben Kelly – the man who designed The Hacienda and Factory’s offices.
In it, Wilson is unrecognisable, wearing an elephant’s head as he enters the label’s first meeting.
To promote the single Manchester filmmakers Soup Collective have created a video that features the lip-synching talents of dozens of people touched by Tony’s talent.
In there are Steve Coogan, Iggy Pop, Shaun Ryder, Christopher Eccleston, John Cooper Clarke, Philip Glass, Bernard Sumner, Gillian Gilbert, Stephen Morris, Richard Madeley, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Paul Morley, Miranda Sawyer, Rowetta, Terry Christian, Kloot’s Johnny Bramwell, James guitarist Larry Gott, The Durutti Column’s Vini Reilly, as well as Mike and Joe.
Loads of others wanted to do it, but timing was against them; they had only two days at Manchester’s Sharp Project and a studio in London to film it.
“The enthusiasm of people was amazing – everyone we contacted wanted to get involved,” Pete remembers.
“In every single area, Wilson had championed people.
“He was really pervasive, from street posters right up to television.
“A lot of people who are still around owe him a debt of gratitude, but also his idea that you can do it yourself and do it here in Manchester – you don’t have to go with your begging bowl to London – inspired a lot of people.”
The next logical step now is to do this live.
They perform it on August 14 at Old Granada Studios, helped by DJ Clint Boon and followed by a club night (with Mike Pickering, Bobby Langley and Kath McDermott spinning) until 2am in the studio where Wilson filmed his famous music show So It Goes.
But even with all that hard work put in, Mike is sure this isn’t the end of the line for the St Anthony project.
“I’m committed to the Christie now,” he says.
“From when this single goes out, I’m gonna continue working on this to press the cause, have different events, sell the T-shirts, keep pushing it
‘IN EVERY SINGLE AREA, WILSON HAD CHAMPIONED PEOPLE. HE WAS REALLY PERVASIVE, FROM STREET POSTERS TO TELEVISION’