Tony Wilson Quotes & Sayings

Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does. — Tony Wilson

There is no celebrity quite as powerful as the local, homegrown celebrity. — Tony Wilson

Most of all, I love Manchester. The crumbling warehouses, the railway arches, the cheap abundant drugs. That's what did it in the end. Not the money, not the music, not even the guns. That is my heroic flaw: my excess of civic pride. — Tony Wilson

This is Manchester, we do things differently here — Tony Wilson

Pong had mutated into large stand-up Sega consoles by '82 and here was some extra revenue the guys were well up for. So the space on the left of the entrance was to be the games room. Until two weeks to opening.
"Where's the cloakroom?"
"The what?"
"The cloakroom, the fucking cloakroom."
"What's your problem?"
"We don't have a cloakroom. We have special polished South African granite bar tops that we haven't told Erasmus about 'cause he has a thing about apartheid, we have a balcony balustrade made of shaped QE-fucking-2 mahogany, but we seem to have built an entire club without a cloakroom."
"Fuck."
Hence you did not pass the games room but the cloakroom, the only cloakroom in the Manchester with forty-two power points. if you ever wanted to do a bit of ironing, these people were there for you. — Tony Wilson

soothing seemed to work and soon the grunts petered away in to the rhythmic rasping of animal slumber. To keep the camel calm, he removed his saddle and unstrapped the heavy bag from its back, and took out his robe. In — Tony Wilson

That came from my mother. She was the biggest influence on my life. I remember once refusing to get on a bus with her because she was wearing a mink, and I thought we should be taking a taxi. She just said, 'Who cares what people think?' and I remember sitting on that bus, being utterly embarrassed, but knowing somehow that she was totally correct. — Tony Wilson

When forced to pick between truth and legend, print the legend. — Tony Wilson

I'll just say one word: Icarus. If you get it, great. If you don't, that's fine too. But you should probably read more. — Tony Wilson

Every band needs it's own special chemistry. And Bez was a very good chemist. — Tony Wilson

Richard Branson once said: 'Tony's very good at selling bands and he's very good at making television programmes. But he'll never be great at either, until he decides which one he wants to do.' I entirely accept that. That doesn't matter to me very much. I like the irony of the two lives. — Tony Wilson

If you live in Birmingham, then being awake is not necessarily a desirable state. — Tony Wilson

I've been a minor celebrity since I was 23 years old. — Tony Wilson

Energy, energy? Energy is, is, it's nothing more than a lot of new age hokum masquerading as religion. — Tony Wilson

I am not a piece of hash. I'm in charge of Factory Records. I think. — Tony Wilson

It's my belief that history is a wheel. 'Inconstancy is my very essence,' says the wheel. Rise up on my spokes if you like but don't complain when you're cast back down into the depths. Good time pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it's also our hope. The worst of time, like the best, are always passing away. — Tony Wilson

I'm a minor player in my own life story. — Tony Wilson