This brings an authenticity to the story - we are hearing not only the authors' interpretation of Curtis's life but that of many people closest to him. The album spawned two other modest hits in the UK Singles Chart in early 1986 with "You're My Last Chance" (No. Which is a very sad situation, because they grew up together – they became friends in their infancy, and they were absolutely entwined for so long. Mani is now bassist in Primal Scream, injecting the band with a new life force and musical cohesion. Although his campaign was successful, with the British government announcing that a vote would take place, this was later abandoned when North East England voted against the introduction of a regional tier of government.

After Wilson developed renal cancer and had one kidney removed in 2007, doctors recommended he take the drug Sutent. It was Tracey who came up with the idea to curate an exhibition about Factory’s 40th anniversary, back in early 2019. As with everything else in the Factory empire, Wilson's coffin was given a Factory catalogue number: FAC 501.It wasn’t just that the music was awful, or that Ian was out of key, they had stuff like… they had a girl dancer on stage in big boots or something, and I remember Robbie Maddix saying, “Come on, make some noise, this is The Stone Roses”, and I just thought how pathetic that sounded, because this was a band that had never needed to do that sort of shit, and it was demeaning. This band wasn’t about John Squire; this band was to do with the chemistry of Ian Brown, Mani and Reni, and their taste just as much as it was about the brilliant guitar playing and guitar heroing of John Squire. He presented a weekly radio show on Xfm Manchester – Sunday Roast – and a show on BBC Radio Manchester. Depending on who you speak to, it was John Squire or Ian Brown that held them back, but certainly there were tensions within the group. and MTV Europe’s Remote Control in the 1990s, as well as the Manchester United themed quiz, Masterfan, for MUTV.

I think that was the biggest thing that killed the Roses; they lost that impetus, and for band that had done everything together – rehearsing day in day out, touring – they were just hanging around, and when you hang around you start to moan, and you start to find fault with people. One of the amplified stories we tell in the exhibition looks at five key women involved in the Factory story at the start. With a cruel irony, part of his work involved visiting individuals with such severe epilepsy that they had to wear protective hard hats.The protracted legal battle to extricate themselves from Silvertone (their original contract didn’t include CD sales and, when CD sales rocketed in the late Eighties, the label apparently withheld the format’s royalties from the group) meant that it was their last new offering for four years. The fact that this band had a woman in it who was a core musician and not just a singer was really important.

In 1984, the group recorded its sole single, a cover of the Joe Meek song " Telstar", with the B-side being "Telstar in a Piano Bar". Curtis was unusually intuitive, sensitive and empathic as well as being exceptionally intelligent and gifted, and as far as I'm concerned, these attributes explain his perception and ability to look to the future without need for recourse to suggestions of supernatural powers. They had a really cheap PA system, which was hidden behind the screens at the side of the stage, and the sound was blowing around all over the place because the place was so exposed.Ian Brown was probably the most interesting, but at the same time he had quite a lot of trouble articulating what he wanted to say.

Ian Brown has a very distinct, very soulful and very passionate voice, whereas Reni was just a good singer and I reckon there was a little bit of a competition between the two of them there; a little bit of friction that I thought was a bit sad. He almost had too much empathy - he even felt sad for Adrian Thrills, an NME journalist who was denied an interview at one of the later Joy Division gigs. Lindsay also brought Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark to Factory, encouraging Tony to release their debut single Electricity. The biggest hit from the album was "Tell Me (How it Feels)" which, in the winter of 1985, reached No. Lesley was the Production and Office Manager at Factory from 1980–85, seeing all sides of the label as it developed.Liz went on to create a four-page film script for FAC 20 Too Young to Know, Too Wild to Care, a film about A Certain Ratio that was never made. Portraits of Reade taken by Wilson and the sleeve of Durutti Column’s I Get Along Without You Very Well – featuring Reade on vocals as well as the artwork – are also included in the exhibition.