Out now in Hardback: SHADOWPLAYERS- The Rise and Fall of Factory Records

The definitive, authentic story has never been told- until now.

"Definitive and comprehensive, this is the actual story of Factory Records" Peter Saville

"Shadowplayers offers a meticulously researched year-by-year account of the label's beginnings, its triumphs and eventual dissolution. Nice brings an encyclopaedic zeal to his recollections of such fleeting musical oddities as Crawling Chaos, Swamp Children, Biting Tongues and The Wendys, alongside Factory's more famous players" Fiona Sturges, The Independent

"Familiar Manchester music saga retold in epic detail" **** Q Magazine

"An immaculately researched history of a label born in 1978 with Joy Division and whose later peaks...are as interesting as the famous, financially induced troughs" Ben East, Metro Scotland

In 1978, a 'Factory for Sale' sign gave Alan Erasmus and Tony Wilson a name for their fledgling Manchester club night. This proved to be the launch of one of the most signigicant musical and cultural legacies of the late twentieth century. The club's electrifying live scene soon translated to vinyl, and Factory Records went on to become the most innovative and celebrated record label of the next thirty years. Always breaking new ground, Factory introduced the listening public to bands such as Joy Division, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, A Certain Ratio, Section 25, The Durutti Column and later New Order, James and Happy Mondays - yet its founders' avowed ambition was not chart success but 'a laboratory experiment in popular culture'. In the years since, the label and its troubled folly, The Hacienda, have become both a legend and a cautionary tale.

Shadowplayers is the most complete, authoritative and thoroughly researched account of how a group of provincial anarchists and entrepreneurs saw off bankers, journalists and gun-toting gangsters to create the most influential, acclaimed and adored music of modern times.

This is the definitive study of the label and would make a treasured possession or gift.

Shadowplayers can be purchased at www.amazon.co.uk/Shadowplayers-Rise-Fall-Factory-Records/dp/1845135407