Indie Originals: The New Hormones Story

This website tells the story of New Hormones records. The label that started the indie revolution, later overshadowed by Manchester rival Factory, and now unjustly and inexplicably forgotten. It’s time to set the record straight.

To read the story of New Hormones, click on the relevant sections in the Categories bar to the right. The story is told in both long (’the full story’) and shortform (’the short story’) versions. Other sections expand on key areas touched on in the main story, namely: the label’s sleeves and packaging (’Graphic Design/Packaging’); a full discography (’Discography’); the story of The Beach Club, inspiration for The Hacienda (’The Beach Club’); the relationship between New Hormones and Factory (’Factory’s shadow’); the chaos of the New Hormones offices at 50 Newton Street, Manchester (’Fifty Newton Street’); The story of City Fun fanzine and Crone Management (who shared office space with New Hormones) (’Fun with the Crones’); full interviews with New Hormones acts Biting Tongues and Diagram Brothers; a selection of sleeve imagery, flyers and photographs (’images’); choice quotes from some of the key protagonists (’Pull quotes’); and a personal selection of the best New Hormones tracks (’My New Hormones mix’). Added to the site as of March 12, 2oo8, Jon Savage’s 2006 essay on The Secret Public (’The Secret Public’), republished with permission – many thanks Jon. Links to various related websites can be found in the section dubbed The Associates in the right nav bar.

I’d like to say a big thank you to the 30+ people who very generously agreed to be interviewed for this story. And a special thank you to Stuart James for inspiring the whole project. Tour manager, producer, sound man and sometime performer, Stuart is one of the unsung heroes of the music business. “The poor man’s Martin Hannett” indeed!!

Enjoy – and listen to the music! Postpunk Manchester was definitely not just about Factory…

Cheers, Justin

Update: June 5th 2008: Just added to the site – an interview with former Gods Gift guitarist, Steve Murphy. It was a great please to speak to Steve, particularly as Gods Gift proved so hard to track down during my earlier research. To read the interview scroll down or click on ‘Gods Gift’ in the Categories bar to the right.