Up In Albert Square

Nice little piece from the fine Bagging Area blog from a fellow Mancunian.

I Put Your Statue Up In Albert Square

"That's Albert Square Manchester, not Albert Square Walford.  The Distractions, a largely forgotten early Factory Records band, released FAC 12, a wonderful piece of guitar pop called Time Goes By So Slow.  The record was Single Of The Week in the NME and drew praise from Paul Morley (a bit inevitable perhaps) and Jon Savage, who called them 'the perfect youth club band'.  There are so many little gems in the Factory back catalogue and this song is one of them.  From Factory they went to Island, and then back to the independent sector with Rough Trade before splitting in 1981.  They have become active again recently recording and gigging, and are set to release a compilation album this year.  If this little blog helps to shift a couple of copies of that, or just jog a few memories, I'd be very happy."

Swiss Adam

Another Manchester aficionado recently had this to say about Time Goes By So Slow at The Tedious World blog:

"There were also several one-shot acts such as The Distractions, whose debut single Time Goes By So Slow was perhaps the best pure 'pop' music Factory put out until Temptation by New Order.  Like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, whose also recorded their first single on Factory, The Distractions signed to a major label soon after, but vanished when the subsequent album failed to cross over."

D. C. Harrison