Naivete and ambiguity

A couple more snippets from Mick Middles' Factory: The Story of the Record Label.  The cover below is from the original 1996 edition, since updated in 2002 and 2009.

(c) cerysmatic.

'... sex, of one form or another, was the fuel for every Buzzcocks song ever written.  Magazine, I always liked to think, used a rather more subtle, perhaps more feminine sexual approach.  Slaughter and the Dogs were a backstreet gang bang.  The Drones talked about it, very loudly, while The Distractions were a charming mix of sexual naivete and ambiguity.  They would hardly dare to steal a kiss yet would ultimately steal other people's wives... in image, that is.  Ludus's Linder was - far more than Margox - the most potent post-punk sexual figure in Manchester.  She toyed with this in her artwork, and in her music and, eventually, even became the muse for Morrissey.'

Paul Morley is in the City Arms pub in Manchester, freshly up from London, but with Factory Records associates, is busy slagging off the Manchester scene:

'"I just can't stand it up here any more," he announced, "really, I can't.  I don't think there is a scene at all.... I'm not impressed with the independent scene... it seems so bloody pointless."'

'This wasn't, one presumed, quite the response that Factory had hoped for.  As if to emphasise the point, standing next to Morley, chirruping in his ear in fact, was the figure of ex-Stockport Grammar boy, Martyn Fry, frontman of ABC... His lame suit, someone noticed, reflected the image of local lad and Distractions vocalist, Mike Finney.'

(c) Mick Middles (2009). 

Factory: The Story of the Record Label. 

Virgin Books: London.