Clocking in at the Factory: the Use Hearing Protection exhibition

In my typically slapdash way I've just - this very night* - scooted round the Use Hearing Protection exhibition of early Factory Records artefacts in the Chelsea Space gallery in central London. (*Actually it was on 17 September, but I've had to re-post this because of problems with the bloody font. Design issues, eh?). "Really Niluccio?", I hear you exclaim. "Who gives a FAC?" And off you go, you irate reader, cursing me and my unutterably boring blog. FAC this, and FAC that. Off into the distance … Hmm. It's all too easy to mock music history's growing reverence for all things Factory. It is, it's true, kinda stultifying. The FAC catalogue numbers - oo-er. The design-conscious Saville sleeves - yes, very nice. The endless praise for Joy Division - make it stop. I've certainly done it myself - mocked Factory factotums that is (the FAC203 clear plastic ruler anyone?). So now I'll try to ... desist. Actually, I freely admit to liking plenty of the music put out by Factory and also enjoying (appreciating, you might say) the effort and skill that went into some of the excellent design work. (For a few months in 1991 I also used to live next door to Alan Erasmus in Didsbury, and - nice bloke that he was - he even gave me and my housemates a few New Order t-shirts. Hey, I'm almost family). All told then, I'm theoretically close to being the perfect consumer/viewer of Use Hearing Protection - were it not, that is, for my habitually peevish disposition ...

Boredom, boredom ... b'dum b'dum

The ESG classic

Was it packed to the Rafters?

So - to finally get to the point - what do you get with the exhibition? Unsurprisingly, you get the record sleeves (not sure if every single one is there, but certainly quite a few), the posters and the knick-knacks ("ephemera" I suppose I should say) from the FAC 001-050 period (the exhibition's styled FAC 1-50/40 - geddit?). In other words, the stuff from mid-1978 to late 1981. There are notebooks with jottings about things like the Unknown Pleasures album (engineer's or producer's working notes, I assume). There's a letter confirming payment of £278.25 for "one performance by Joy Division" (dated 13 July, which is er, my birthday, always a highly noteworthy date). There's also a curious black leather pouch thing entitled The Sex Pistols The Heyday (FACT 30), which is, to judge by what Wikipedia says, the container for what was a cassette tape of a Sex Pistols interview by Fred and Judy Vermorel in August 1977. The tape didn't seem to be there ... In fact, what with a big poster of the 20 July '76 Lesser Free Trade Hall gig ("Presented by Malcolm McLaren") and the fact that a certain Glen Matlock was himself in attendance at the exhibition when I was there (great suntan Glen), this Factory exhibition has quite a few Sex Pistols links. (De-stroy! ... but then preserve, catalogue and... exhibit. Art shows in the UK, coming some time maybe ...).

 I was there: The Lesser Free Trade Hall

 My birthday again!

Write on both sides of the paper and include your workings

As ever with attending these exhibitions, I must admit to rushing the experience - dodging between beer-in-hand punters, snapping a couple of photos, glancing quickly at an exhibition case here a wall display there, and ... moving on. It's all very shallow, man. And I take full responsibility for that. As I've said previously, I must also admit to finding exhibitions about music strange affairs anyway. Overly-sanitised, with er, no music playing, they're too close to worthy museum experiences for comfort. Or is that me being too impatient and superficial ..? Anyway, despite recently rather glorying in destroying the hessian cover of my own copy of Joy Division's Still, the record sleeves at the Use Hearing Protection exhibition are, in the end, probably still the stars of this little show. Sleeves from Durutti Column, A Certain Ratio, Section 25 and - naturally - JD and New Order, do still exude a lot of charm, beauty and even - yes - a certain kind of cool. One of the most enduringly beautiful, in my opinion, is Joy Division's Transmission 12" - something to do with the deep black (of outer space?) contrasting with the fuzzy orange-yellow spaceship thing. These records sleeves, by the way, were all securely held inside perspex display cases at this event, presumably to stop us nicking them all. How disappointing. One of the ones on display that I didn't need to steal was Crawling Chaos' Sex Machine, possibly the only rare (slightly rare) Factory record in my possession. Presently given a median value of £19.23 by Discogs, when it reaches £100 I'm going to put it on public display in my flat. Yes, it's going under tamper-proof glass. You can come round to see it. Bring a friend. There will be no charge ...

Clocking in at The Factory: the B52s and the Knack