A one-page "mission statement" by Tony Wilson for Red Cellars¹ which, following a name change, became F4 Records:

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"WHAT IS RED CELLAR?
red cellars???

1. THE NEW FACTORY RECORDS

"I try to open up the freedom within the artist himself, to help him discover what he believed his message to be.... to bring out that curiosity, to encourage that area of creative difference, to stifle not even the smallest element of exploration." Sam Philips

2. WE ARE AN INDEPENDENT RECORD COMPANY BASED IN MANCHESTER, ENGLAND

"I just put some records out with me mates" Rob Gretton

Factory after all is merely about people, about the way people work, the way Red Cellar works.

3. WE MANUFACTURE AND DISTRIBUTE OUT OF MANCHESTER

"The mode of production determines the mode of consciousness" Hegel

Sign - one major band per annum for the first two years and up to six "interesting bands" per year released through "Sticky Paw", Red Cellar underground imprint.

Business Plan

"A merchant is he who buys cheap and sells dear be he Gentile or Jew" James Joyce

Nothing is as cheap as great art when it's fresh, cause no-one wants it.

We sign bands for £80,000 not £180,000. Some we sign for £30,000. No bidding wars because no-one else will bid when it's that early. "I hear a hit single" - "No you fucking don't - they haven't written it yet." Cf 'Love will tear us apart",

We sign bands without hit singles, cause they haven't written them yet."

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¹ - the provisional title of F4, "Red Cellars" was derived from the following famous extract from Ivan Chtcheglov's Formula For A New Urbanism (1953): "... And you, forgotten, your memories ravaged by all the consternations of two hemispheres, stranded in the Red Cellars of Pali-Kao, without music and without geography, no longer setting out for the hacienda where the roots think of the child and where the wine is finished off with fables from an old almanac. That's all over. You'll never see the hacienda. It doesn’t exist. The hacienda must be built."

See also: FAC 51 The Hacienda and FAC 511 And you forgotten

Labels: back_in_the_cellar, F4_Records, Red_Cellars, Rob_Gretton, Tony_Wilson

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