Mystery video

There have been a couple of mentions of an alleged Time Goes By So Slow video that was filmed by Charles Salem in Albert Square (where else?). Sadly, Charlie doesn't recall filming this - but admits that doesn't mean it didn't happen!

We do know that Salem worked as Factory Records' video man during the time that The Distractions were associated  to Tony Wilson's label.  He worked with friend of The Distractions, Liz Naylor, on 'No City Fun'  with music by Joy Division.  'All Night Party' and 'Red Dress' were music videos by Salem featuring soundtracks from A Certain Ratio and Ludus, respectively.  These three videos were packaged together as FAC 9 [1].

Salem was supposed to work again with Liz Naylor in September 1979, in a video project entitled 'In Search of the Lost Chord', a "sojourn through the mathematics of Western tonal mathematics" with music supplied by Martin Hannett.  Unsurprisingly, this never happened due to "...misgivings on the part of Miss Naylor on the question of this all-pervading concept of 'product.' She wants to know when we're going to market toilet paper next.  Good question [1]."

Unfortunately, it's probably more likely that FAC toilet roll will turn up before footage of The Distractions in Albert Square with FAC 12 as the soundtrack...

Here's the original, beautiful, colour image of Albert Square by Andy Cooke that inspired Mark Cooper to take the shots which resulted in the artwork for The Distractions' two 2010 EPs, Black Velvet and Come Home. The below image is a rough mock-up of what became the Black Velvet EP sleeve.

(c) Andy Cooke (andy.cooke) at flickr.

1. http://news.cerysmaticfactory.info/2004_10_01_archive.html.