CPI Archive 2008: Far from the drums of the Frank and Walters, Ashley Keating has a second, secret musical life. Andrew Hamilton chats to the Fifa Records co-founder about musical poverty, Russian electronica and being shafted by Fight Like Apes.
MARCH 7, 1983 should have been a great day in Manchester. After five years of musical swashbuckling (but commercial suicide), the boys at Factory Records had finally struck gold. New Order’s Blue Monday was a song with a soul, all seven and half minutes destined to change music and alter the fortunes of the original Indie label. Wilson, Saville, Erasmus and Hannett had always played by the rules of rock and roll and now, it seemed, the almighty dollar was finally to be their reward. That would have been nice, fitting. But, as in all the best stories, nothing ever really seems to fit and a nice happy ending never rings true. And so it was for Factory, as Peter Saville’s record sleeve for Blue Monday was so expensive that the label actually lost money on each of the million-plus copies sold worldwide. In business terms, a moment of unthinkable madness but, in the annals of rock and roll, it is the stuff of pure tragic legend. And so, 25 years later, we come to Fifa Records. Founded by Ashley Keating from the Frank and Walters, along with Killian O’Flynn and Pat Doyle, Fifa is a label without contracts, where the music comes first and the bank balance is an all too unwelcome distraction. “With the Frank and Walters, we worked with seven different labels and four different publishing companies. The best experience that we ever had was when we were with Setanta Records and everything was done on a handshake. I wanted to do it that way with this. I didn’t want contracts; I didn’t want to have legal people in before we even talked about the music,” said Ashley.
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