Welcome to part two of Ian McCartney's interview with Caesar of The Wake.

Did The Wake socialise with any of the other bands on the label?

We didn't really socialise much with many of the other bands - mainly because we were based in Glasgow and only spent time in Manchester when we were down to record or play live.

Through some of the shows we did get to meet a few of the other musicians. We got to know Stockholm Monsters a bit. One time they were up in Glasgow - supporting The Smiths on tour - and they stayed with us. We had a game of football with them (boys only - our keyboard player Carolyn gave it a miss) - a Scotland against England thing - and they kicked lumps out of us. After The Smiths gig we were in the van waiting to go home and a couple of Japanese girls approached them with these beautifully packaged little gifts for Sir Morrissey. And of course they said oh yeah we'll make sure he gets them and proceeded to rip them to shreds in the van when the Smiths fans had gone. They were good fun in a slightly mad way.

Vini Reilly played on the Talk About The Past single. Tony brought him along to the studio and he just improvised his piano part instantly which was impressive to see and a great help to the end of the song. We played with The Durutti Column maybe a couple of times too. One of our favourite Wake gigs was supporting them at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London. We've done some soundtrack work with Vini in recent years too with our theatre company 12 Stars.

We met Donald Johnson and some members of ACR at different points - especially the Factory All Stars thing when there was an episode of that TV show The Tube from The Hacienda and Factory put together a collective of sarcastically named non-stars to perform. It was only meant to be Carolyn taking part on vocals and keyboards but I got roped in to sing Love Will Tear Us Apart at the sound check. Oh and Simon Topping added brilliant percussion to several Here Comes Everybody tracks - that was a great idea from our producer Oz.



Obviously we played live a lot with New Order but that was never really a social situation.

Did you share concerns about lack of promotion, and so on?

We did hear some discussions about the lack of promotion but other groups seemed more concerned about it than us. We'd always looked on turning away from conventional publicity as a bit of strength at Factory. The lack of promotion was a kind of promotion in itself if that‘s not too romantic a view. The label was known for not resorting to the usual round of desperate publicity - which in truth it couldn't afford anyway. For me, as someone who got into the label through the music and presentation of the music as something I could trust without any hype, it made a sort of sense, I could see how it might work.

In the end, for a label which supposedly didn't have adequate advertising it's still around today, people are still interested, new generations. I don't see many books and movies out there about Sony. Although, unfortunately, we thought that 24 Hour Party People film was really poor. But James Nice's Shadowplayers book redresses the balance to my mind. Admittedly, James is a friend, but I genuinely believe it's a better representation, more in the spirit of the label.



Promotion is a really specialist thing and unless you can do it on a very large scale I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference. When we were with Blue Mountain for publishing they funded some music press adverts for Talk About The Past and it did seem to give it a slight boost - no more. Factory had no objections. So I'm not sure it was such an idealistic issue - more of a practical thing - they just couldn't compete in that arena.

Anyway, for what it's worth, we thought it was a good move to go in the other direction and make it a label you had to become interested in through your own reactivity and awareness.

Was Rob Gretton your main ally at Factory?

Yes, Rob was our main ally. Every time we wanted to do a record it was Rob we approached in the first instance. We stayed at his place quite often. He always dropped by the studios when he had time. He was around for most of Harmony and that made us feel like a real part of the label during those initial sessions.

I mean our relationship with Tony was good as well. Although when we did the Something That No One Else Could Bring EP we had a bit of a dispute with him about the artwork. We'd always done our own covers up to that point and we had an idea of what we wanted but didn't really have anyone to draw it up for us. Tony wanted to use specific designers - can't remember the name but it was some company who did a lot of the ACR stuff at the time. They came back to us with a sleeve that was basically for an ACR dance record and it just wasn't right for us at all - very 80s New York, very clubby - and nothing to do with our starting point. Had any of these people even listened to tracks like Gruesome Castle and Pale Spectre? That was the first time we felt Factory could easily slip into being a bit formulaic. We were expected to say yes to an idea that had nothing to do with our work just because Tony thought some art school guy was the next Peter Saville. We went in the opposite direction and went for something a lot more punk. But Tony didn't like it and the record was given a pretty low key release even by Factory standards to teach us a lesson. Apart from that though, Tony was great to us.



I'd say Rob would've been a lot more supportive over an issue like that but he wasn‘t around so much or accessible to us at the time. Rob actually enjoyed people challenging any preconceived notions of what a Factory record should look or sound like. I'm not saying Tony wasn't like that. I think he was deep down. It was just a period when the label was changing and certain people were becoming more influential and convinced Tony that dance music was the only way forward. We thought our EP was a much more interesting direction for Factory to go in than the dance stuff. We were right in my humble, but correct, opinion. It was never a natural dance music label apart from the ACR side of things.

What are your memories of Palatine Road?

Again being based in Glasgow we didn't get to Palatine Road that much - maybe four or five times - no more than that. Most of our business was done over the telephone - mainly with Rob at his place and later with Tony and Tina who worked at Palatine Road.

All I can remember is it being a lovely big house in Didsbury. There were lots of boxes and office paraphernalia lying around. It had a nice relaxed atmosphere. Some might say too relaxed. And yet it could get quite chaotic suddenly. My impression was it operated on the spur of the moment - there was a lot of spontaneity involved - not much in the way of a strict business plan or anything like that. I suppose there must've been a hell of a lot to deal with in respect of Joy Division and New Order at the time. But if you approached anyone at the Palatine Road office for help they would always try to get something done. It had the feel of a place that had grown organically - defined by the people who worked there and who ran the label on a day-by-day basis. I have good memories of it but as I say we weren't there very much.



What are your memories of Manchester in the mid-80s? (The Hacienda pre-acieeed, the city pre-Madchester, Manchester United pre-mega-global success.)

Memories of Manchester are fairly limited too. After that early period when we were chasing support slots and trying to find a label we weren't down that much and when we worked there we were in studios and hotels mainly or Rob's house in Chorlton (hardly the centre of any burgeoning music scenes). We spent an equal amount of time in Stockport during the Harmony and Of The Matter sessions working at Strawberry.

When we did go out it was to The Hacienda once that was up and running. We were there at the opening and quite a few occasions after that and played there a couple of times. Once supporting Howard Devoto and once on our own. They were good gigs but the sound there wasn't so great as is well known. Before it took off as a club it was a strange one. It was an exciting and impressive space to be in but of course people weren't going in any great numbers at the start. I think the gigs did okay. I always felt something significant was going to happen there eventually - it had so much potential. I'm just not sure that what actually happened was that significant artistically although it undoubtedly left its mark all over the city.

I suppose living in Glasgow we were closer to what was happening here. This was a very active and creative place at the time too. We spent more time around the groups here and had more awareness of what was happening with the Postcard label really.

As for Manchester United - well, for me football begins and ends with the SPL in spite of all the Sky billions.

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See also: part one, parts one and two

Many thanks to Ian and Caesar.

Labels: 24_Hour_Party_People, Caesar, interview, New_Order, Shadowplayers, Stockholm_Monsters, The_Durutti_Column, The_Wake_interview

The Wake formed in Glasgow (Scotland) in April 1981, after singer/guitarist Caesar joined forces with drummer Steven Allen and a bassist, Joe Donnelly. Caesar had previously played with Altered Images and wrote their first single Dead Pop Stars, but elected to leave shortly before the band crashed into the UK charts.

- extract from the LTM biography by James Nice

The interview that follows was conducted via email with Caesar between around 2010 and 2012. Originally planned for Cerysmatic Factory's print fanzine Scream City, it never saw the light of day. This was my fault and down to my dilatory approach. The interview process should take, ideally, about 90 minutes. In this case we're talking 18 months. By which time Scream City's editor had decided it was time for the print project to rest (at least for the moment. Ed.). So, what follows is some talk about the past, from the (5+ years) past.

- Ian McCartney

In a VBS TV "Soft Focus" interview a few years ago, ex-The Wake bassist Bobby Gillespie tells the story of how the band signed to Factory. His version of events seems pretty simple: you basically knock on Rob Gretton's door and hand him a tape, leading to the band recording for Factory. Is this how you remember the events leading up to The Wake's being on the label?

Bobby's version of events is basically right. Some of us went to Manchester. It must've been around January 1982. I'm not sure who was there from the group and who wasn't. Anyway, a Wake delegation went down.

The idea was to visit Richard Boon at the New Hormones office - as well as Rob - to give them a copy of our self-released single On Our Honeymoon. We might have handed in a tape as well as the single - I can't remember - but the main thing was to give both a copy of the record. We were looking to support Buzzcocks or New Order. Also, obviously, we hoped that something might happen label-wise eventually.

Anyway, New Hormones wasn't really operating as a label anymore. Richard Boon had his hands full just managing Buzzcocks of course. But he was very friendly and helpful when we went to see him. I'm not sure how we got Rob's home address. It could be that Richard Boon gave it to us - I can't think how else we would've got it. But Richard Boon was kind enough to advise us a little and he was very encouraging.

However, we managed to find him, Rob was hugely approachable when we turned up at his door. We gave him the single and I got in touch with him shortly after to see if we could do any gigs with New Order. Sure enough something came up immediately; I'm not certain where it was - one internet site mentions Trinity Hall in Bristol 26th Feb 1982 and that sounds about right to me. After playing with them a few times he spoke to us about doing something with Factory. He'd already had a word with Tony about us.

As well as seeing us live, I guess Rob liked the fact we'd done the single independently and had the initiative to take it down to him and so on… The brilliant thing about people like Rob and Richard Boon was that they kept in touch directly with new music. Well, NEW Hormones and NEW Order after all.

Cheekily enough, when Rob asked us to do something - probably having in mind a single or an EP - I said we wanted to do a mini-album even though we were completely unknown. Again, the great thing about Factory then was they just went with an idea and enabled you to do it if they thought there was something behind it. No demos, no proposals, no need to explain what you were trying to achieve. If they believed in you, they backed you.

They booked us into Strawberry Studios in Stockport to record - it was a pretty state-of-the-art studio at that time, part owned by 10cc. I suppose Rob liked the fact they'd provided that facility outside of London.

And that's how we came to make Harmony.



A release like The Wake's debut single On Our Honeymoon would, I'm sure, have had the likes of Virgin records knocking on the door. Were labels other than Factory making offers at the time, and were they considered? Also, how many copies of On Our Honeymoon were pressed?

As for the notion that On Our Honeymoon (1,000 copies pressed) might have had the likes of Virgin Records approaching us that certainly wasn't the case...

I had been signed to a major label for a short time as part of the original line-up of Altered Images. I was the guitarist and wrote quite a lot of their early songs - first single Dead Pop Stars for instance - and I was still potentially contracted to CBS/Epic when I left to form The Wake. Even though I could've been tied to them legally they had absolutely no interest in keeping me on fortunately. We didn't contact any majors re The Wake.

It's hard to realise now the impact the new independent labels were having - we think of indie music as a genre, a style of music, whereas back then it was actually an explosion of small labels like Fast, Rough Trade, Factory and Postcard - and they were just the better known ones. It wasn't a guitar based beat group style of music at all - there were all kinds of musical approaches out there - it was more a way of thinking about how to keep creative control.



Unlike previous independents like, say, Stiff Records, labels like Factory weren't just calling cards to try and get a major deal, they were labels that appeared to be saying this is a way ahead - responding to the supposed ideals of punk - a new way of doing things, a new way of releasing music, and we were really attracted to that and thought it was the way forward for The Wake. Personally speaking, I would've seen The Distractions single on Factory, Time Goes By So Slow, that record, the song itself, the way it was presented by Factory, as some sort of ideal, that was what I wanted the group to be doing, that was the template.

Major label interest actually came later around the time of Talk About The Past. Just as that was about to come out on Factory we signed a publishing deal with Blue Mountain Music which was a company connected to Island Records. When we signed that deal, which came off the back of a headlining gig at the Hacienda, the boss of Island at the time - it was Dave Robinson who had started Stiff Records - heard Talk About The Past playing in the Blue Mountain office - and in true corny showbiz style burst into the room saying, ‘That‘s a hit! Who is it? They‘ve got a deal.'

Not too surprisingly, in subsequent meetings, when it came down to the details of signing to the label for real, some conflicts arose. The main problem was our determination to choose which songs could be released as singles. Another big stumbling block was our suggestion that singles might not necessarily appear on albums as was our way of doing things at Factory. Also we wanted final say on - and the option to design - all artwork including any advertising. Basically we were trying to retain the creative controls we had at Factory. This was the ultimate test for us - had this so-called major learned any lessons from smaller labels like Factory? And, of course, they hadn't taken the slightest bit of notice. So the deal never happened.

In any case, Tony really encouraged us to follow up on any major label interest. He was always very open about that. He was pleased when bigger labels took an interest in the Factory groups.

Around the same time, we recorded a session for the David Jensen Show on BBC Radio and the broadcast led to phone calls from - and meetings with - a few other well-known labels but it never came to anything.

We were always trying to move forward on a creative level - that was the main thing - and Factory was the right place to be when working on the Here Comes Everybody album which was coming next.



The Wake's time at Factory was about five or six years. Starting round about sometime in 1981, with the final release Something That No One Else Could Bring being in 1987. Now, I'm not trying to be a cheeky bastard (and please correct me if I've got it wrong) but by my reckoning the sales of the records wouldn't have paid enough to live off. Did you have another way of making money during these years?

...and did you have any discussions about moving elsewhere?

You're so wrong - we were living the dream and owned properties across the world. OK - I'm only kidding.

Record sales weren't enough to live from on a regular basis but we got occasional royalties and made money from gigs. Basically, we went through phases of having enough to get by on and some times of signing on and doing a few part time jobs now and then. The publishing deal made a big difference as it involved an advance.

Certainly now we make more from the LTM reissues than we ever did from the original Factory recordings. Then again, the records wouldn't exist at all without Factory's considerable financial input.

As mentioned before, we had major label interest around the time of Talk About The Past. The one we took most seriously was when Sounds journalist Dave McCullough, Geoff Travis (Rough Trade) and Mike Alway (Cherry Red) started up Blanco y Negro Records through Warners and there was definite interest from Dave in his new role as head of A & R. In the end we stuck with Factory for as long as we felt a connection. Possibly it was the right place for us to be all that time although it changed later.



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End of part one.

See also: part two

Labels: interview, New_Order, Rob_Gretton, The_Wake, The_Wake_interview, Vini_Reilly

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