Factory's greatest pop record

From Andy Wake at the Songs From Under The Floorboards blog comes this fine piece on The Distractions' most famous track, Adrian Wright's Time Goes By So Slow.  Take a look around the Floorboards blog, amongst the gems covered are The June Brides, Life Without Buildings, and Joy Division Live at the Electric Circus.

The Distractions - Time Goes By So Slow

by Andy Wake

Title: Time Goes By So Slow
Format: 7"
Label: Factory
Year: 1979

Side A - Time Goes By So Slow
Side B - Pillow Fight

A few miles out of Manchester, the town of Stockport gives birth to a river which flows west to Liverpool and whose name became synonymous with the latter’s Sixties music scene.  It must have been tough being a Mancunian back then but despite being in the shadow of Merseybeat, Manchester as always had its own thing going on.

At least in the Seventies the title of 'centre of the musical universe' quite rightly shifted to my home city with the advent of punk and the rise of Factory Records.  It was a great time for a music obsessed teenager to be growing up but in 1979, the year of post punk, one record in particular stuck out for it’s unashamed debt to the beat groups of the previous decade.  In my opinion it’s still the greatest pop record Factory ever released.

Time Goes By So Slow was The Distractions second single and never fails to fill my head whenever I pass through its name checked Albert Square.  It’s one of those records that at first seemed out of time but now just sounds beautifully timeless…

Title: Come Home

Format: 12" vinyl / CD EP

Label: Occultation

Year: 2010

Tracks - Lost / Nicole / Oil Painting

So on to the present and thirty odd years later the core of the group - vocalist Mike Finney and guitarist Steve Perrin - are back sounding just like the classic Distractions of old with a couple of EPs on new label Occultation.  Both come with differing sleeve shots of that all important Albert Memorial with Black Velvet featuring material recorded in the Nineties and Come Home containing three newly written tracks.

Andy Wake, Songs From Under The Floorboards, March 2011