The wonder of Wilson

Tony Wilson (far left), Andy Spinoza (far right) and award winners Mando in the middle

By Andy Spinoza, MD of SKV Communications

No one could do it quite like Tony Wilson.  The Big Chip awards were given a massive injection of credibility and class when he agreed to handle the MC duties for the first time in January 2004.

The previous awards had been cobbled together in late 2002 when the dot bomb/9-11 twin cataclysms had crippled the confidence of all business sectors.

The compere that night had been maverick Didsbury hypnotist Andrew Newton; he did an efficient job, and the event kept the Big Chip alive just when it seemed the awards’ heart monitor might flatline.

Now here was a genuine TV personality – not just a talking head, but a fascinating guy with a massive heritage behind him of nurturing creative talent.

Yet, despite his amazing personal back catalogue, Tony was never one to be resting on the past glories of Factory Records, the Hacienda and Joy Division/New Order.

He was always the early adopter – I recall back in the day when he went head to head in the NME against Morrissey, with Tony loving the new-fangled CD and DAT, and Mozzer hating everything the new technology brought over his beloved vinyl.

Factory were the first UK record company to use DAT recording technology, and if anyone reading this went to the Hacienda in around 1984 they will surely recall mind-bending ‘video-jockeying’ on large screens above the dancefloor. That kit was not cheap then, and it was miles ahead of its time.

Ever the enemy of the traditional music business, at his In The City convention Tony championed the new micro-payment formulas coming through, to enable artists to get royalties from downloads.

As chair of Manchester Digital at the time, I approached him to do it because he was on top of all the coming technology trends, and was the perfect fit for the awards. I’m glad to say that he loved doing them, and made room every year in his diary for the next one.

Tony was an intellectual radicalised by the politics and drugs of the 60s, who exploited the angry energy of punk. No matter that he was the trusted face of local TV, he would never lose his subversive edge, his need to push, shock and confront.

Wilson-watchers at the Big Chips were always on a razor’s edge of comfortableness.

There were the gratuitous four-letter words from the stage that made the boss of shortlisted Local SME Ltd cough nervously in front of the missus, dolled up for the big night out.

And he never failed to – religiously, consistently, every year for the four years he compered the awards before his death and at most other awards he presented – describe Warrington as “the perineum of the North-West.”

Look it up. It’s a medical term, and it ain’t a compliment.

God bless you, Tony Wilson.