Cerysmatic.Factory

Tim Peaks - Songs For A Late-Night Diner

2019-10-25T07:30:00.000+01:00

Imagine the Pacific North-West of Twin Peaks country transposed to the North-West of England and a new soundtrack added on top and you'll get the premise for 'Tim Burgess & Bob Stanley Present Tim Peaks - Songs For A Late-Night Diner'. Throw in the bonus of three tracks from your favourite Factory Records artists The Durutti Column, The Royal Family and The Poor and Stockholm Monsters and then you've really got something going. 'Lips That Would Kiss (Form Prayers to Broken Stone), 'I Love You (Restrained In A Moment) and Fairy Tales are alongside others from the likes of Young Marble Giants, Isan and Echo & the Bunnymen.

The album is released via Ace Records [->] on 29 November 2019.

Tracklisting

Choci Loni - Young Marble Giants
House With A Hundred Rooms - The Chills
Lips That Would Kiss (Form Prayers To Broken Stone) - Durutti Column
Yanks - The Gist
Hunros (A Dream) - Gwenno
I Had To Say This - The Clientele
I Love You (Restrained In A Moment) - The Royal Family &The Poor
Betty's Lament - Isan
Slow Motion - Jane Weaver
Fuel - Echo & The Bunnymen
Flowers - Galaxie 500
The Broken Fall - Gnac
Blue Dress - Birdie
Dog - El Perro Del Mar
Fairy Tales - Stockholm Monsters
Different Now - Chastity Belt
A Year With No Head - Blue Orchids
Ten Years - Bracken
Sheila - She Beats In My Heart - The Fates
Sky Burial - Dean McPhee

The Temple Of The 13th Tribe re-released

2014-05-01T20:22:00.000+01:00

Juno Download has announced that the first album by edgy ex-Facsters led by Mike Keane, The Royal Family and The Poor - 'The Project Phase 1 – The Temple Of The 13th Tribe' (originally released as FACT 95) will be released by Mannequin on 26 May 2014.

More info at Mannequin Records Facebook.

The Pope's Daughter out 1 March 2010

2010-02-24T11:13:00.000+00:00

The release date for the previously-announced new album by The Royal Family and The Poor, The Pope's Daughter has been brought forward to 1 March 2010.

Thanks to Arthur on the Cerysmatic Factory Message Board. Check his posting (and this other one) for full details on how to order and further insights.

The Pope's Daughter

2010-02-05T00:00:00.000+00:00

The Royal Family and The Poor's new album The Pope's Daughter will be available in May 2010 from New Art Editions.

The album contains a live version of Art on 45 (Liverpool 1982) and recent tracks New Babylon, War Film, Classicism and Beneath A Gothic Moon. The price is 10.00 GBP.

Fans can go to Saatchi Online magazine to Put Downs and Suck Ups by Matthew Collings for recent thinking at readers comments from October 2009 to - January 2010.

New Art Editions
PO Box 1111
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE99 4YU
UK

With thanks to Arthur on the Cerysmatic Factory Message Board.

North By North West: Liverpool & Manchester

2006-06-11T19:51:00.000+01:00

The Paul Morley-compiled North By North West: Liverpool & Manchester from Punk to Post-Punk & Beyond 1976-1983 3CD Limited Edition (5000 copies) set is released on Monday 19 June on Korova and features a host of Factory bands including Joy Division, New Order, Section 25, James and OMD. There is also a regular 2CD set with a Manchester disc and a Liverpool disc. The 3rd disc is cunningly titled, erm, Liverchest.

CD1

1. Boredom - Buzzcocks
2. Repetition - The Fall
3. I Don't Want To Be Nice - John Cooper Clarke
4. Shot By Both Sides - Magazine
5. What Do I Get - Buzzcocks
6. Sketch For Summer - The Durutti Column
7. Transmission - Joy Division
8. Fear - Passage
9. Work - Blue Orchids
10. Time Goes By So Slow - The Distractions
11. Shack Up - A Certain Ratio
12. My Cherry Is In Sherry - Ludus
13. Ceremony - New Order
14. How Soon Is Now - The Smiths

CD2

1. British Refugee - Spitfire Boys
2. Suffice To Say - Yachts
3. Fuzztronic - Will Sergeant
4. Electronic - OMD
5. Pictures On The Wall - Echo and The Bunnymen
6. Better Scream - Wah Heat
7. Touch - Lori and The Chameleons
8. Reward - Teardrop Explodes
9. Rescue - Echo and The Bunnymen
10. Flaming Sword - Care
11. There's Always Something On My Mind - Pale Fountains
12. Holiday In Disneyland - Dalek I Love You
13. First Picture Of You - Lotus Eaters
14. Relax - Frankie Goes To Hollywood

CD3

1. No Love Lost - Warsaw
2. Cranked Up Really High - Slaughter & The Dogs
3. My Boyfriend's Back - Bright, Bette & The Illuminations
4. Iggy Pop's Jacket - Those Naughty Lumps
5. Big In Japan - Big In Japan
6. Happy Ever After - Stockholm Monsters
7. Folklore - James
8. African And White - China Crisis
9. Sweet Tooth - Spherical Objects
10. Don't Let Go - Pink Industry
11. Deaf - Crispy Ambulance
12. Knew Noise - Section 25
13. Call Me Honey - Swamp Children
14. Valley Of The Lost Women - John Cooper Clarke
15. Dream - The Royal Family and The Poor

Release date: 19 June 2006
Label: Korova
Catalogue number: KODE1001L

Available from Amazon.co.uk

Electrospective - Greg Wilson

2005-10-10T05:47:00.000+01:00

Greg Wilson was the first DJ to host a specialist dance night at Fac 51 The Hacienda, in late 1983. He also later played at Legend, to a mainly black audience. He also nearly made it onto the Factory catalogue at FAC 95 with a dance 12" single but this never happened. In a slight change of direction, the number FACT 95 is allocated to an album by The Royal Family and the Poor.

Greg takes up the story: "I only realised I'd actually been given a Factory catalogue number, when somebody mentioned it to me last year - I think they'd come across it as a Factory trivia question. It was for a mix that I was going to do of stuff that had come out on the label. For one reason or another it never happened - most of the stuff I'd been given to work from was definitely not suitable for the type of mixes I was doing (I was a black music specialist), so, from my perspective it would have been trying to fit square pegs into round holes (only New Order, Quando Quango and 52nd Street had released dance singles on the label). Nowadays, with the assistance of computer programs, I'd have taken a completely different approach and could have put together something pretty interesting, but back then it was to have been a more straightforward one track into the next type mix."

Greg stopped DJing in 1984 but recently has been back on the decks, most notably when he supported A Certain Ratio at their Cargo gig back in August. Also, check out the new album 'No Sell Out', a Legend / Wigan Pier Electro Retrospective (May '82 - Dec '83) mixed by Greg Wilson for A Guy Called Gerald / Samurai FM. An mp3 is now available to download: www.samurai.fm/electrofunkroots

More info at: electrofunkroots.co.uk. Many thanks to Greg.

--

It's good to be back.

Factory designer Trevor Johnson Q&A

2005-03-02T20:33:00.000+00:00

The beautiful work of Trevor Johnson and Johnson/Panas (Trevor's company with fellow graphic designer Tony Panas) has adorned the sleeves of record releases on Factory Records by (amongst others) Stockholm Monsters, Kalima, A Certain Ratio, Biting Tongues, The Royal Family and the Poor, The Durutti Column and Electronic. More recently, Trevor designed the artwork for the Rob Gretton tribute Fac 511 And You Forgotten. His work post-Factory included the establishment of the multi-disciplinary venture Object 57 (more of which below). He now works with Via Design & Communications Ltd in Manchester's Northern Quarter.

Cerysmatic Factory posed Trevor Johnson a few questions about his career.

[Cerysmatic Factory] What happened to your project Object 57?

[Trevor Johnson] Object was an idea at the time to introduce the disciplines of commercial visual exchange into a gallery environment with a commercial remit. We attempted to display several disciplines at the same time, and presented fine art, graphics, illustration, photography, new media and 3d together, with original pieces for sale, in a gallery space to be accessible by the public.

Because of my experience and connections in our industry and my relationship with regional colleges I was able to provide an opportunity for talented graduates to display work alongside high profile established professionals such as Peter Saville, Ben Cook, Philip Diggle, Martin Parr, Elaine Constantine and such. It was important that we did this from Manchester and from the northern quarter and all exhibitors had a Manc connection, and an attitude to their work which was a result of their connections with the city.

This was operated by my wife Michelle and myself. Michelle's skills and experience are in finance and customer services. Object 57 was very successful very quickly and we achieved all our planned objectives within the 1st twelve months. We became a specialist consultancy for contemporary art sales and creative commercial projects, and as well as providing art for private collectors, Object 57 became successful in facilitating the requirements of institutions, businesses and cultural industries.

Object 57 as an exercise was intended to operate as an Artboutique for a specific period to see how things went and was entirely self funded, therefore did not have to operate as a gallery putting on shows every 2 months for the sake of fulfilling a calendar. Object is a thought process, a state of mind or attitude to approach certain ideas, and will continue to evolve. 57 was the physical manifestation of output at the time - 57 Thomas Street. Object's basic principles have foundations in Existentialism - "a term covering a number of related philosophical doctrines denying objective universal values and holding that people, as moral free agents, must create values for themselves through actions and must accept the ultimate responsibility for those actions in a seemingly meaningless universe."

Well, you did ask!

Are you going to do a Peter Saville and sell posters of your work?

The current official merchandise which Saville sells is an extension of the promotion of his book, which supported an exhibition of his life's work at the Design Museum and is touring the world, and which was at Urbis a year ago for a period. This includes official copies of some old poster designs.

Saville is a big admirer of the work of Andy Warhol. The work he created and which we displayed in the gallery were 'waste paintings' and were very specifically intended as purely pieces of art using commercial (computer programme) processes.

I don't really have the necessity or means to sell old pieces of design, and we didn't actually do that many posters, although this may happen with some of the projects we have in planning. We are definitely going to continue the process of Object and look at how the disciplines of graphic design can transcend the principles of fine art, and create new saleable works for the gallery environment.

What happened to the Panas in Johnson/Panas?

Because of the stupidity of the demands of this industry at the time - continuously busy, unreasonable clients, ridiculous operational hours, bad diet etc., (all of which was manual production, pre-computer) - Tony Panas became very ill and was out of the loop for 12 months in the early 90's. When he was well enough to return to work, he decided he'd had enough and that was it. We parted on good terms although I haven't spoken to him since. Tony lived in Todmorden. I have heard that he was teaching graphics for a period at Salford, and also doing some id design over his way.

What is your favourite piece of Factory work? (Yours or someone elses)

I have been lucky enough to work with all of Factory designers, and have the greatest respect and admiration for them all. I enjoyed a good working relationship with Ben Kelly and I am a great admirer of all of his work. The Gay Traitor cocktail bar at The Hacienda was my favourite place on earth for a period.

I suppose my favourite Factory graphic designs were Central Station's Happy Mondays cover which typified the culture of the city and the vibe of a generation for me at the time, Saville's 10th Summer numbers, and New Order titanium sleeve and conch shells photography, and all of 8vo's designs - for Durutti and Hacienda were delightful.

The most enjoyable pieces of my own work were probably for independent identities we created for such nights as Flesh, Hot, Zumbar and Void at the Hacienda.

--

Many thanks to Trevor for taking the time to answer the questions in so much detail. Additional thanks to AJ.

The Factory catalogue parts 17 to 24

2004-10-29T13:45:00.000+01:00

In the ongoing occasional serialisation of the Factory Shareholder's Analysis brings us to the END OF YEAR '80 edition:

[Fac 17, promised at the end of the September 1979 analysis is mysteriously omitted]

FAC 18 Section 25/"Girl's Don't Count". Reissued early December in 12" version. Horrendous sleeve courtesy of musicians. Nice collage though. S25, "most underrated ...... in the country" ....re K.Hewick. S25 also FAC BEN and video; next project for them, an album, recording February. Single 12" 45 rpm

FAC 19 John Dowie/"hard to be an egg" this has taken a long time to get out, but it has been worth it. Factory's first major assault on Radio Two. Secret deely sleeve concept. Of note: Hannett/Hopkins cello effects plus, Easter single tactic. Out late Feb early March.7" 45 rpm

FAC 20 "Too young to know...too wild to care". The film has become a video.. has become a series of surrealistic sketches. Will change again. No date No time.

FAC 21 The badge; April '81. Enamel and chrome "F" as in "fractured. Small. Black or maroon with silver/cream. Possibly. Contact Better badges, Jolly, Portobello Road..... and ask him about bootlegs. He can be embarrassed.

FAC 22 A Certain Ratio/"SFlight". Fine. Out now. Don't you feel bad about not buying FAC 5 when you had chance. Label on 22 was wrong due to consistent mind-changing over just what was the single track side. The one with the Bonne engraving IS "Flight". 12" 45 rpm

FAC 23 Joy Division/"Love will tear us apart" Available in 7" or 12". Sound quality on double B-side much better on 12". Obviously.

FACT 24 A FACtory Quartet/The Durutti Column, Kevin Hewick, Blurt, the Royal Family and the Poor. Double album.. Bit late; sleeve delays, lots of embossing. Four very different approaches to the idea of saying something. Vini&Kevin may do joint 4-set gigs in New Year. Blurt doing something for FAC BEN next and the Royal Family may get into xxxxxxxxxx. O.K. 2@ 12" 33 rpm

Thanks to Sebfact for transcription.

Double good

2004-07-15T14:17:00.000+01:00

There is a long and fine history of Factory allocating the same catalogue number to different projects, intentionally or otherwise. Unrealised concepts abound in the Factory canon and sometimes the unused number was freed up for use on something else. Sometimes though a simple cock-up occurred and Factory forgot a number had already been used.

Fact 95 - The first instance of number duplication occurred when the Royal Family and The Poor's album 'The Project - Phase 1 (The Temple of the 13th Tribe' was given the number originally reserved for a 12” single by (Haçienda DJ) Greg Wilson. The single never appeared so the number was recycled.

Fac 137 - Fact 137 was the Shorts compilation video but was also allocated to the 12" single 'Genius' by Quando Quango.

Fact 150 - A strange one here because whilst Fact 150 was the New Order album 'Brotherhood', Fac 150 was assigned to the Japanese version of the PFD video (which has the regular Factory catalogue number Fac 177).

Facd 207 - Rob Gray's Little Big Band mini lp was assigned the number Facd 207 but 207 was at one time going to be his 'Digital Buskingomo' video. Sadly the video never materialised.

Fact 210 - By the time Fact 210 'England Made Me' by Cath Carroll was released, Cath's band Miaow were a distant memory but originally this number was reserved for their unreleased album 'Priceless Innuendos'.

Fac 211 - The excellent Joy Division documentary aired on Channel 4's Wired programme (of which officially packaged and numbered tapes exist) about Joy Division (and specifically the release of Fac 213 Atmosphere and Fact 250 Substance had this number but it was also attached to the 'Book of Ideas' concept detailed in the Fact 400 Palatine booklet.

Fac 221 - Tony Wilson's trip to Hollywood to raise interest in and money for the Mad Fuckers film (Fac 181) resulted in the allocation of the 221 number and badges bearing it but in a classic piece of number duplication it reappeared as the number for the 8vo Factory Contract. These contract binders date from mid-1990 starting with Cath Carroll (who allegedly signed an 8-LP deal). Two 12" x 12" clear perspex plates with screenprinted signal green, silver and signal orange design, hold with 4 metal bolts. The bolts are positioned so as to hold A4 sheets in place and to allow the number of pages to vary from contract to contract.

Fac 289 - Factory produced special notepaper to promote the release of Fact 275 'Technique' by New Order. It was given the number 289 because the campaign was launched in February 1989. Later on, Factory forgot about this and reallocated the number to The Wendys' single 'The Sun's Going To Shine For Me Soon'.

Fac 301 - This was a Factory conference held at Mottram Hall, Cheshire, 5 July 1990 for which special white notepads, flyers and white serviettes / napkins were made. The number was also allocated to a book to be written by Tim Chambers (who worked for Ikon) about the first 50 numbers in the Factory catalogue.

Fac 451 - Jane Stanton's loving documentary about Fac 51 The Haçienda which aired on Granada Television entitled 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' was given this number (currently the second highest number issued) was the same as the number given to the 'rebuilding' of the Haçienda for the movie 24 Hour Party People, itself the recipient of Fac 401.

Many thanks to OMNY.

Magick and Mystery

2004-04-19T19:59:00.000+01:00

Mike Keane, who IS The Royal Family and The Poor, takes us on a track by track tour of his new album, 'North-West Soul' [Boutique 6607].

1) 'Falling' - This song was partly a response to the way having to watch my mother die in hospital in 1999 at sunset on her birthday, it is also about the reality of knowing that I/we ALL have to die and that we are ALL equals in death. It's also about how people tend to put everything and anything, particularly money - before love and their own humanity.

2) 'Sick Sad World' - self-explanatory. Yep, "Daria" is one of my favourite animations, should be up there with the Simpsons in my opinion !! :-)

3) 'Wandering' - This is about being able to rise above all the crap even though you have and are & will inevitably eventually be nothing.

4) 'Ratio' - this is about the strength to be found within oneself and how that strength unites the heart with all those other hearts across the world who also adhere to and express themselves in terms that do not conform to the banal and one-dimensional cardboard-cutout world of consumer society.

5) 'Long Time Coming' - This is about being alone for 10 years and living like a hermit in the inner city for 10 years & how to wake up to the fact that when you live by the truth in your heart you are never really alone, i.e. by overcoming one's fear of death.

6) 'Midnight Symphony 2' - I've always liked the idea of creating contemporary compositions & this track is an attempt at this idea, it reminds me of a 15 min track I did in 1979 called "Midnight Symphony" - which was never released, this track is an extension of my dreams as a child where I imagined fantastic creatues living in the night who were immortal and solitary & that one of them came to my bedroom one night and made me one of them & from that moment on I was never the same again.

7) 'Sweeter Than The Day' - Self-explanatory. It's about what it says i.e. - that people can't see whats right in front of and all around them all the time. Its also about the beauty of sunset / evening time.

8) 'Tell-Tale-Heart' - This is a "contemporary Nocturne" composition i.e. - musick for the Night. I've always LOVED horror movies and romanesque / gothic architecture & its history & culture, I also love really scary music, this is my tribute to these ideas. It is also about pain and healing & in that sense plumbs the depths of the human Psyche & its struggle to come to terms with ALL our own unconscious and subconcious desires - which is expressed thru such mediums as horror, fantasy, sci-fi and all those arts that express something more than the surface of things.

9) 'Hymn To The Night' - A song about aiming as high as you can in life. It's a "hymn" to the night in the sense of "night" as a "symbol" of all that is "secret" or "hidden" in our lives, the underlying things that move and motivate us, you see I believe that the surface of things is a big lie that we all agree to abide by, but the truth is that the way I see it we are ALL "magickal" beings, incarnations of some phenomenal intelligence at work in this universe, a universe FULL of magick and mystery as well as unlimited possibilites and opportunities for experience and expression, it remains a great tragedy that the majority of people today seem as lost and confused about their place in the universe as they always were, history attests to this fact, that it's only ever been the minority who are the thinkers, artists, scientists and truth-seekers & that these people have influenced the entire history of mankind and civilisation as we know it. My "music", if you can call it that, has always been nothing more than an expression of wanting to help others wake-up to their OWN potential & that I can best do that be fulfilling my own potential and then finding ways of expressing the experiences and adventures I've had in the land of "no limits" :-) Of course walking the road of "no limits" has taken a bit of a toll on me !!! :-)

10) 'Leaves In The Wind' - An old song originally released on Zulu compilation in 1882 - re-recorded here coz I always liked it. The song is self explanatory.

11) 'Sol Sonic' - Recorded about 3 years ago when I first got my equipment & studio. It was one of the FIRST recordings I did in 10 years so it's dear to me for that reason.

12) 'You & Me' - A reflection on the complexities of relationships.

13) 'Starfire' - from the same 1st session that 'Sol Sonic' was recorded in 2000 when I first got the studio.

Many thanks to Mike Keane.

Universal

2004-04-18T11:04:00.000+01:00

The Royal Family and The Poor's Mike Keane discusses the new album 'North-West Soul' [Boutique 6607] exclusively for Cerysmatic Factory:

"OK, well, 'North-West Soul' is a collection of songs that were adapted to music I had been working on for some time, others were written from scratch especially for the album.

This was by far THE most difficult album Ive ever had to produce, not least of all because I had lost all of my confidence having not recorded any serious work for so long (10 years) & also coz it's REALLY hard to get the overall sound and balance right on hard drive digital recorders. Life was SO much more simple when everything was analogue..... the problem with digital recording is that it is an utterly NON-musical process/way of recording, for example - with digital recording there is NO preference in the recording hardware towards HARMONICS, it just records a HUGE resolution of non-audible audio, in fact it records up to 80% of non-audible white noise, black noise and all sorts of other non-audible frequencies whicgh are NOT even needed OR wanted as they effect and interfere subtly with the "harmonics" of the notes you are trying to play - what this means is that it makes controlling and manipulating the tracks and overall mix so much MORE difficult coz unless you are adept as knowing how to strip and balance the frequencies for EACH track of audio they cross each other and create discordant sub-harmonics that decrease the clarity of the sound.

Plus I was working with a digital 8 track hard drive recorder and digital recording is VERY difficult to get "just right" ESPECIALLY when your using budget equipment with cheap d/a converters, what this basically means is that you have to be VERY careful not to use the digital connections too often - for example a track might sound so much better recorded digitally but once the master is transfered to a master-cd recorder this means it has already been digitally transfered a number of times within the d/a converters within the equipment used - resulting in serious degradation of the overall signal - AND this gets even worse when it then has to be digitally transfered to somebody else's mastering equipment in order to finalise it for cd manufacture. The long & short of it is that I had to spend a ridiculous amount of time struggling to balance everything out and get rid of a lot of noises."

That was Mike's history and technical analysis, but what about the title, 'North-West Soul'?

"It was inspired by several "sacred" sites that are NW including that Crowley's old house in Boleskine, Scotland is due North-west in the UK. Also coz I live in the North-West. All the tracks are very much influenced by the time of year they were written and recorded (autumn / winter 2003) and how this time of year tends to make me reflect on mortality, death and what it is I love most about being alive, the trees, the sky, the air, dreaming, the long nights, grey skies, etc.... and of course the condition of the human soul, solitary, universal, lonely as hell, immortal but alone, in fact I believe the entire universe was created out of loneliness!! :-) The irony is that despite the fact that we are surrounded by other so-called "human" beings one can still find oneself as isolated and alone as one might in the desert - odd that I sent it? I've been a hermit for over 10 years, what people cannot understand they tend to fear, so despite the fact that my "message" has always been about "love" & "will" people tend to steer clear of me. A while ago I came to realise that people don't love "me", they love the "idea" of "me". Alas, such is human nature I guess."

Coming next: Mike's track by track guide to the album.

Where is the meaning, where is the love?

2004-04-16T08:55:00.000+01:00

North-West Soul the long-awaited new album by The Royal Family and the Poor ("on this occasion Mike Keane and The Discarnate Angels of the Revolution"), has winged its way to Cerysmatic Factory (thanks Mike!). Recorded between July 2000 and January 2004 at Gaia Studio, Liverpool, England, and released by LTM, it features 13 new songs.

Early favourites include the Daria-inspired 'Sick Sad World' and the atmospheric 'Tell-Tale Heart'. Coming soon: Mike Keane's track-by-track breakdown of the album and the stories behind its making.

"I have learned that we do nothing 'alone' nor are we ever rarely alone, we just don't know how to recognise that which constantly watches over us. All we need to do is wake up to the possibilities and unchain our minds". Mike Keane, 2.49pm, 4th February 2004, Liverpool, England.

Hot stuff

2004-01-03T11:05:00.000+00:00

LTM are ringing in the New Year in style with two new releases: LTMCD 2381 Miranda Dali by Thick Pigeon and LTMCD 2364 So Hot by Swamp Children (formerly available as Fact 70). The latter comes with all new groovy artwork and includes extra tracks taken from the Fac 49 'Little Voices' 12" single. These releases are not yet in the shops yet, but are available from LTM direct (where Visa payments are now accepted).

Also, LTM will have the Revenge double CD - LTMCD 2375 One True Passion V2.0 - in stock on or about 12 January.

Later in the year, amongst other delights, watch out for a re-release of the Fact 165 Anna Domino album by Anna Domino, Crispy Ambulance's The Powder Blind Dream, The Royal Family and the Poor's Nocturnes, and a sequel to LTMCD 2377 Cool As Ice - The Be Music Productions called 'Twice As Nice'.