Early on Martin was obsessed with having the best hi-fi equipment. Listening to and examining records became a pastime that would pay off. -LC
Neil Pointon: friend, co-worker
"I met Martin at ICI Blackley [Imperial Chemical Industries, where they worked together] in September of 1965, on a typical Manchester rainy day. He was sitting there in his Hush Puppies with a packet of Sterling cigarettes, and he offered me a cigarette. He bought a hi-fi system from a shop on Oldham Street with his first month's wages. That's when he began listening obsessively for some unattainable silence between or behind the notes. On Saturday morning we'd make the routine tour of all the hi-fi and music shops."
Bruce Mitchell: drummer, Durutti Column
"His first LP production was the Belt & Braces Roadshow Band. His second production job was Slaughter & the Dogs' 'Where have all the Boot Boys Gone?' His third job was Spiral Scratch by the Buzzcocks. It was what established him in that generation's eyes as the sympathetic producer. It was geography; he was in the right place, at the right time."
The Buzzcocks' Spiral Scratch was the first independent punk record, and the third release ever by a British punk group (The Damned and Sex Pistols were on major labels). It still remains an urgent and melodic slab of vinyl. -LC
Phil Hampson: engineer
"Tuesday, 28th December, 1976. Buzzcocks set up, we mic'd up, and started sorting out the sounds. I was used to loud noise, but this was special. 'It's totally distorted,' says I. 'Yeah, great!' says they. We got a sound, and then barely touched the faders. They played, and we recorded. Although the songs were recorded as live takes with minimal overdubs, we were using 16-track on 2-inch tape at that time, so everything was on individual tracks — and recorded with some separation, which meant that we could play around with the mix later."
Richard Boon: Buzzcocks' manager
"Although he did have set ideas, it depended on the toys he had in the studio. Sometimes the gadgets eclipsed his interest in the music he was supposed to be producing. He's as inventive as he can be within a limited budget. The studio is a playground."
Howard Devoto: vocalist, Buzzcocks, Magazine
"Martin was the only person we knew in Manchester that was known as, or called themselves, a producer. Martin felt restricted by the sessions."
Martin Hannett
"I was trying to do things, and the engineer was turning them off. 'You don't put that kind of echo on a snare drum!' I'd have whipped it away and remixed it, but he erased the master because he thought it was such rubbish."
Mick Middles: journalist
"I first heard of Martin Hannett [from] the Buzzcocks' Spiral Scratch EP. It had an intelligent energy; something strange was going on. It would set a benchmark."
Martin had a long history in the Manchester music scene before the Buzzcocks, running Rabid Records and booking bands. He became a partner in the legendary independent label, Factory Records, which released records by Joy Division and many of the artists he recorded. The first release by the label was Martin producing Durutti Column's ironically-titled debut, The Return of the Durutti Column. -LC
Chris Hewitt
"Hannett had always wanted to be a record producer, but the occupation requires a tremendous [amount of] discipline. The advent of new hardware in the early 1980s, and the constant refinements in high technology have turned the modern studio into a clinical operating room. Martin wanted to offset the barrier between the booth and the mixing room, so he preferred to record as many instruments as possible right by the desk."
Vini Reilly: guitar, piano, Durutti Column
"I first met Martin in about 1977 when we [Ed Banger and the Nosebleeds] did the first record on Tosh [Ryan] and Martin's label [Rabid]. [He was] incredibly charismatic; one of those people who communicated more by what he didn't say than what he did say. Martin had a sort of aggressive dominance with me. He was being completely oblivious to my ranting and raving in a studio with him. It was my first album for Factory, in 1979, and he was messing around with all this very obsolete synthesizer stuff — plugging pins into little sockets and making noises. I was very ill, at that point. I sat there, and after about two or three hours began to scream and shout at him. Every so often he would look up and say, 'You're being a bit irrational there, Vini,' and carry on. All of a sudden these noises became sort of bird noises. I had my guitar plugged into the desk; DI'd. I'd asked for a delay, because I used to use tape delay. He said, 'You can't use tape delay. Use this.' He'd plug in some piece of technology he'd had developed. When these bird noises came up I immediately thought of a tune, and I started playing along. In the space of about a minute he made a very basic rhythm pattern with the bird noises and it went down to tape. I overdubbed one guitar and that was the track. The whole album was done like that, in a very strange way — in that sense he was the direction of that album. Martin wouldn't let anything stand in the way of a perfectly original piece of art. Nothing would be sacrificed, unless it became too obtuse or imperfect. Everything had to be perfect, in every way."
Tony Wilson: Factory Records co-founder
"It doesn't matter if Martin falls asleep under the mixing desk. Even in his sleep Martin is creative."
Martin Hannett
