(Footage begins with a middle aged man in a suit next to large machinery)
Interviewer: One of the things Mark was saying to me, erm, Tony was that, erm, Simply Red Stars was the first sort of mass digital export from Manchester, you know, with real significance. Would you like to comment on that?
TonyWilson: Simply Red Stars? Did you play on that, Chris?
Unknown male: No.
TonyWilson: No? Okay. My friend over here was the drummer for Simply Red, obviously he didn’t play on that album, so we're not gonna give it that credit. Erm, was it the first major digital export?
Unknown male: (inaudible)
TonyWilson: (laughs) The first... No. Erm, in a sense the beginning of digital music in pop music if we're talking about that, erm, was actually another Manchester band, was actually New Order, one of my bands who began with very early Apple Macs. I used to go to their rehearsal room in 80/81/82. And they had very early Apple Macs and wires joined to different pieces. And the whole very, very early equipment. And in fact they developed a song which the machines could play, this is in 83, so they could go off stage and leave everybody, leave the audience, erm, bored and bemused by a track that would go on playing. This is a song that was called Blue Monday. And despite the massive success of Stars, which I admit, er, this particular record which predates it by about nine years was the biggest selling 12 inch single in the history of the British record industry, and right now adorns the American Express advert which, erm, is on TV every day in Britain. That song is seen as being the, the dawn of digital music and computer generated music in Britain. Erm, The Pet Shop Boys describe how they'd developed this vision in their minds and then read this review... (mobile phone rings) I'll turn this thing off. Hang on a second (inaudible) (speaks on mobile phone) Hello?
(Camera zooms in on interviewee’s face)
Oliver, I shall be with you, er, by around 2 o'clock. Will you be ready for me? Thank you, darling. We're with the computer. Will you come and see the computer this afternoon? Good man. Okay. See you at about quarter to 2. Okay? Chow, darling. (ends conversation on mobile phone)
(Camera zooms out)
My computer literate son. Erm, Blue Monday... Er, Neil Tennant and The Pet Shop Boys were beginning to develop this idea of what music was going to be in 83. And they read this review, and they ran out to the record shop in Blackpool, bought this 12 inch thing called Blue Monday, took it home, put it on, and after two minutes they claimed to have locked their doors and spent three months in isolation cos they were just so depressed someone had beat them to it. So really, er, in that little way, that Blue Monday is the dawn of digital created music.
(Camera pans round as interviewee points to large machinery)
Although, this machine’s third child, which was the mark 1 or it was the 1949/50 experimental unit developed from this in Manchester, was the first ever... Do you know about this?
(Camera returns it's focus on interviewee)
Was the first ever computer generated music. Do you not know this story?
Interviewer: No.
TonyWilson: Okay. Alan Turing, the great Philosopher and Mathematics who'd invented the idea of the computer, but then had been beaten cos he was at Teddington trying to get the computer to, a computer to work with Mercury delay lines. He was beaten by Williams and Kilburn. Manchester did it. Teddington was closed down. Turing came to Manchester in 49, was a bit too weird to get on with everyone in Manchester, so did his own things with the computer in Manchester, but sent a letter to all his friends saying, “This is the great computer they’ve got here. Erm, if any of my, if any of you want to write a programme to use it, please do.” So I think it was 1950/51 one of his friends who was Head of Maths at Harrow School said, “Oh I've got this programme written. Can I come and try it out, Alan?” He was called Christopher Stratchy(?). He arrived on the train at Piccadilly Station or London Road as it was then, turns up at the university, they all sit back, and he spends three hours typing in a punch card. They then, it's 1 o'clock in the morning, afternoon, he puts the punch card in this machine and it goes (makes noise) It plays God Save The Queen, everyone goes... (dramatic expression) And that’s the first time he'd... Er, he'd played God Save The Queen, then he played In The Mood, and then finally... it's either Ba-Ba Black Sheep or Bye-Bye Blackburn, one of those two. And he'd looked at Turing’s specification of the Manchester machine and seen a hoot instruction, and figured out that if you actually changed some of the parameters you could make the machine play music. So in fact, the first computer digital music is from this machine’s, er, grandchild in 51. (points to computer)
Interviewer: Right. This is the first stored computer, er, stored...
TonyWilson: No. No. No. It's the first computer.
Interviewer: Okay. It's the first computer.
TonyWilson: Okay. Would you say...
Interviewer: You have...
TonyWilson: Would you say you’re a human being with blood? You wouldn't. Cos human beings have blood. All computers have stored programmes. So the academics who are fussing around, saying this is the first stored programme computer, it's bollocks. This is the first computer.
Interviewer: Okay.
TonyWilson: There are no computers without stored programmes.
Interviewer: The first computer...
TonyWilson: Yes.
Interviewer: Has memory. Your...
TonyWilson: It has memory.
Interviewer: ... piece of card there, which has...
TonyWilson: I am.
Interviewer: ... got, er, another piece of memory on it.
(Camera zooms in on interviewee holding card)
TonyWilson: It's got a little chip in it that I would imagine, I have no idea, probably has about a million times the memory of this. But that’s the way the world is. Look at... You know.
(Camera zooms out to show the object which the interviewee is describing)
Also, this is rather prettier than the GPO racks, and these were actually British Post Office racks that we used. This is how sweet it can get these days. I know.
Interviewer: So Manchester 50 years on. Where do you think, er, we'll be 50 years from this?
TonyWilson: The important thing is that you have no idea. Erm, the quote that I always use, obviously we always talk about the Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, who told one of his boys who was working on this, actually working on the commercial version, “Well, you're gonna be out of work soon, because you're building two. By my recommendations I would've thought the world could probably use three. And then you'll be out of work.” And that was a Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge saying the world will only need three computers. Erm, I always quote the Bell telephone company. And when they announced the telephone to the world at the Astoria Theatre in New York I think it was, to 2500 journalists, whatever it was, in the 19th century, and there was the telephone.
(Camera pans round to show interviewee holding object)
And the final statement from the Bell company was, “One day there will be one of these in every city in America.” And that’s how little we know.
(Camera pans round to show large machinery)
And we had no, I mean they had no idea that they would change the entire world. Nothing that we do... There’s, there’s a chip inside that camera there, there are things... They have no idea what was gonna be 50 years later as a result of this, and we have no idea what will be here in 50 years time. It'll be a damn sight weirder than it is now.
Interviewer: Tremendous.
TonyWilson: Thank you.
(End of footage)
End of transcript