Book and DVD about Martin Hannett, by former local music mover and shaker

Date published: 28 March 2014

A 204 page book and a three hour 47 minute DVD documentary have been made about Martin Hannett by former Rochdale music mover and shaker Chris Hewitt.

The book and the DVD will be released nationally in May but in Manchester on 10 April, the anniversary of Martin's death.

Chris, who made the film with his son Tom, said: “I’m sort of a Rochdale musical historian and I think without Rochdale, the Manchester music scene would never have happened.”

Chris has maintains that “without Rochdale there would have been no Joy Division, no Factory Records, no New Order, no Stone Roses and no Happy Mondays.”

Martin Hannett was a Manchester based record producer who regularly visited Suite Sixteen Studios/Cargo Studios and Tractor Music shop in Rochdale.

Martin Hannett DVD cover

The documentary has been filmed over a number of years and explores the life of Martin. Interviews have been undertaken with an extensive cast including Tony Wilson, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and many more.

The project was originally conceived by Anthony Ryan Carter and began production in the 1990s with a number of interviews carried out. It was then shelved and has now been resurrected by Chris and Tom with additional interviews carried out.

Through Martin’s friends, musician friends and studio co-workers, the film presents a picture of Martin’s chaotic life, strange production techniques, his unusually styled but brilliant bass playing and his vision of bands and the music business not having to be based in London.

The former Cargo Studios in Rochdale town centre

“We have spent about five years doing the film. It has been hard because there were always more people with information so it just got bigger and bigger, and that is how the book got started,” said Chris.

Martin had a long career and produced Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures and Closer albums as well as producing early Stone Roses material and Happy Mondays material.

The film shows how "Fat Mart", the educated teenage gang member from the Tripe Colony houses in Miles Platting, turned slowly from record collector, hi-fi fanatic and bass player into the creative genius that harnessed the sound of industrial machinery in Manchester and using early synthesisers, subtly layered those sounds into the production of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures album, thus setting the benchmark for the Manchester Sound.

“Martin was fascinated with the sound of the North West and often visited a studio in Rochdale so without those sounds, things may not have happened the way that they did,” said Chris.

After the release of the book and the film, Chris is planning a second version of the film. He added: “We are already looking at a mark two version of the film because there is just so much information.”

Commemorative blue plaque