Factory, The Story of the Record Label written by Mick Middles, isn’t a story about The Factory, formerly located at 231 East 47th Street in midtown Manhattan, New York, USA, where Andy Warhol conducted many of his art enterprises from around 1963 (precise dates vary) to 1984, it’s a story about a phenomenon initiated in Manchester, England, more precisely, in Hulme, in the northern city, between Liverpool, to the west and Leeds to the east. The story is, ostensibly, about three distinct groups of musicians, two related, namely Joy Division and New Order, and the drug fuelled combo called Happy Mondays. Indeed drugs is the key word throughout the lives of most band members, many of those around them and many people drawn into the Factory creation, the dance, live venue palace known as the Hacienda for nights of abandoned joy and killer tablets known as Ecstasy. The guru behind the idea, the concept, the notion was Tony Wilson, foremost a TV presenter hosting programmes such as Granada Reports, What’s On and the short lived So It Goes, with the aid of others including the Factory Co-founder Erasmus and the graphic designer, Peter Saville. I’m no Factory insider so as an avid reader, much trust is put in the author or authors of what I may be reading so to only know two facts, beyond the names of most bands and their respective records, in the entire Middles book, and that each of them are false, wrong, incorrect, comes as a huge surprise and, ultimately, demonstrates a flawed text: the M61 doesn’t take you from Manchester to Rochdale or, more significantly, Milnrow, the M62 does that, and it’s Nena who has a 1980s hit with 99 Red Balloons, not Nina! So where does the reader go? Well, there’s a measure of suspicion, is this actually true, and broken trust. Ignoring those blemishes, the individuals who make up the story, particularly the named drug users makes me want to reject their music, reject them as role models and view them as obnoxious, unlikeable individuals. The Middles story? To me, the entire Factory story is overblown and hyped; what real value came out of it? Find out yourself from a witness to cultural history but is it wholly believable?