A TALE OF TWO CITIES
A
REgUlaR visitor to Eric’s in the early days was Tony wilson, then a presenter on Manchesterbased granada TV. “Tony became an integral part of Eric’s,” explains the club’s co-founder, Ken Testi. “There was a five-minute slot at the end of Granada
Reports every Friday evening, which detailed anything of interest that was going on in the North west. we were frequently included, so Tony started coming over. a while later, granada gave him a half-hour show called So It
Goes and half of the filmed footage was done at Eric’s.” This, in turn, led to the idea of a joint record label to showcase upcoming talent across the region. “we set up a label called Eric’s Factory,”
Testi says. “The first record pressed was a gatefold EP, half of it liverpool, the other half Manchester. Orchestral Manoeuvres were on the Eric’s side and maybe Joy Division and The Durutti Column on the Factory side. But on the way home from the meeting, Tony told
[Factory co-founder] alan Erasmus: ‘Fuck all this, let’s just do it ourselves.’” The sticking point was a disagreement over layout: wilson wanted a regular EP, while Roger Eagle preferred a 12in. as wilson conceded later: “The origin of Factory is a falling out over the format of this Manchester/liverpool collaboration. if Roger Eagle hadn’t rung me at home saying, ‘will you do it?’ i might have been just a TV presenter.”