James Nice

Producer, record label executive, label owner, and author - mostly under his pseudonym James Hayward, though he published the book Shadowplayers (The Rise And Fall Of Factory Records) (first published in 2010) under his real name. Nice founded the LTM (4) label in 1984. His earliest releases championed the work of Section 25, The Happy Family and Crispy Ambulance, among others. In 1987 he moved to Brussels and began work at Les Disques Du Crépuscule, handling their mail order operations. His role expanded swiftly into being, in his words, "a full-time job as a gofer for Les Disques Du Crépuscule boss Michel Duval". His work was rewarded with his own sub-label, Interior Music. In 1988, he switched from Les Disques Du Crépuscule to a position at Pias, and in 1990 decided to reactivate LTM. This second phase of his label really hit its stride when Nice started licensing and reissuing classic, long-deleted Factory and Les Disques Du Crépuscule albums. In 2010, he established Factory Records Ltd., but after that didn't kick off, he resurrected Factory Benelux by buying the FBN name and logos from former owner Michel Duval.