The short series looking at the contents of the Use Hearing Protection box set. FAC5 proved to be the first ‘proper’ or traditional Factory 45 in that it had one track on the a-side and one track on the b-side, both by the same act:-
mp3: A Certain Ratio – All Night Party
mp3: A Certain Ratio – The Thin Boys
This one has featured previously on the blog as part of the debut singles series, and I’ll simply cut’n’paste from November 2018:-
“The debut single from A Certain Ratio sounds unlike anything else they would ever release during their recording career for the simple reason that it doesn’t feature Donald Johnson on percussion or drums. Indeed, this September 1979 release is one which will be of huge appeal to the raincoat-wearing brigade, particularly those whose tastes encompassed Joy Division or Bauhaus, featuring that brooding guitar sound which producer Martin Hannett was beginning to refine in his work with the former and a vocal that was goth-lite.
Echorich, very bravely, had this open up his ACR ICA back in February 2017 and I don’t think there’s any way of topping (pun intended) his description of it:-
“All Night Party has a soulless urgency that just builds and builds until it stops. It is certainly night music, but the only party it would soundtrack would likely occur in a mausoleum.”
FAC5 confounded the critics, albeit Jon Savage in a review in Melody Maker said the band displayed ‘rudimentary skills with more panache and imagination than most since the Sex Pistols’
Neither track was helped much by the cheap pressing afforded to the recording, but such has become the modern-day demand for vinyl of this vintage that you can expect to pay £50 for a copy of a 7″ single that’s in decent nick as only 5,000 were pressed….there’s a lot of Factory obsessives out there you know.
The addition of the new drummer and percussionist, allied to the other members own tastes, took them down a road in which funk, dub and disco played their parts in making them quite unlike any other on the Manchester label. It’s hard to imagine they would have lasted that long if they hadn’t shifted direction, but there’s just something I find alluring and very appealing about the debut.”
The difference in this posting and that from November 2018 is that the mp3s come from the vinyl within the box set.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
One of post- punk’ s greatest singles. And one of Manchester’s too.
Adam got it in one! Impossible not to include All Night Party in any conversation about the greatest moments of Post Punk. In the space of 6 years they would go from the All Night Party to a Wild Party and the road they too to get from one to the other was far from the most direct!