Category: Joy Division

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#045– Joy Division – ‘Atmosphere’ (Factory Records ’80)

Dear friends,

„oh, bugger off:“, I hear you saying, “’bloody ‘Atmosphere’! Are you serious?! Why not ‘Transmission’? Or ‘Love Will Tear us Apart’?”.

Well, yes, you have a point there, I admit. Still, I think we can start a war upon what’s the best Joy Division song released on 7” – and probably no-one will ever win this war. I mean, yes – if I had a 7” copy of ‘Transmission’, I would perhaps even have chosen it instead. But those go for € 50,- these days – and that’s one reason why it’s ‘Atmosphere’ today.

Basically the same applies for not presenting something from ‘An Ideal For Living’, but a) it’s questionable whether ‘Leaders Of Men’ and/or ‘Failures Of The Modern Man’ are preferable to ‘Atmosphere’ (‘Warsaw’ and ‘No Love Lost’ certainly are not!) and b) the current value for a copy is € 8.000,-. So, perhaps after Christmas, who knows?

So its inclusion today is an objective of cheap in a way, if you want. Forgive me. And also I know that ‘Atmosphere’ is often considered as not being one of ‘the real things’, if you know what I mean … not in a ‘row’ along with ‘Transmission’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ and ‘She’s Lost Control’. Probably its fragility is one reason, it being overshadowed by ‘She’s Lost Control’ at the time of release another one.

Then again, perhaps you remember, on the US-release of the 12”, ‘Atmosphere’ was the A-Side and ‘She’s Lost Control’ was (only) the B-Side. A questionable decision perhaps, but then again Factory Records have never been famous for marketing wisdom, have they? They even had to hold back the UK release for half a year to avoid affecting the sales of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.

This though was not a problem for the lucky ones who managed to get their hands on one of the 1578 copies of ‘Licht & Blindheit’, a 7” issued on a French label, Sordide Sentimental, which had ‘Dead Souls’ on the flipside. Why? Because those lottery winners (it’s now worth € 3.000,-) would have known the song since March ’80 – before ‘Love Will Take Us Apart’, in fact! Also it was already recorded in October of 1979, quite some time before ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.

So, the point I’m trying to make is: if you look closely, it’s a song which should not just be seen as a nice dessert served after a superb three-course-dinner. No, it actually had its (deserved) place in the ‘Joy Division sequence of things’: as far as I’m concerned, and I have never seen this differently, ‘Atmosphere’ simply is a brilliant song – and therefore it should not be neglected:

mp3: Joy Division – Atmosphere

If you remember, the links in this series always lead to a rip of mine of the actual 7” singles – depending on their age and the way they were recorded the sound quality may suffer a bit from time to time. It will probably do so even more than usual on this occasion, because ‘Atmosphere’ might well be the most quiet and frail one in all of the 111 songs.

Also, both of my copies of ‘Licht & Blindheit’ are currently in a bank safe in Switzerland (along with all my Misfits and early Postcard singles plus a copy of ‘God Save The Queen’ on A&M), therefore I had to rip the 1988 reissue which, confusingly enough, has ‘The Only Mistake’ as the B-Side – it’s the very same version as the original one though.

Still, I hope you enjoy it. I certainly do.

Peace,

Dirk

Joy Division – Closer (1980)

The thing is, I prefer Unknown Pleasures to Closer, but as I didn’t buy the debut album until around the same time as its follow-up, it can’t be considered for inclusion in the rundown.

I’m also loath to actually say that Closer is actually a favourite album.  It is such a sad and tragic piece of art, especially all these years later with the knowledge of the circumstances under which it was written and recorded, that it is impossible for anyone to place it on a turntable and call it an enjoyable listen.

It is fair to say that my relationship with Closer has changed a great deal over the past 43 years.   The 17-year old me was certainly moved by the suicide of Ian Curtis, but I never really made the connection between his music and what had driven him to take his own life.  I clearly wasn’t alone, as can be evidenced from the many millions of words that have been written about it all ever since, with none of his three fellow musicians in Joy Division, or indeed almost anyone involved in Factory Records ever stopping to consider that his lyrics were, to all extent and purposes, a cry for help from a frightened and confused man.  Nobody gave a damn about mental well-being in those days, and while there is still something of a stigma about it, at least there is a growing recognition these days that illnesses of the mind require the same level of professional care and attention as those which affect the bones, joints and muscles.

It is impossible to play Closer without picturing some of the scenes from the film Control, or to recall some of the prose written after the fact by the likes of Tony Wilson (RIP), John Savage or Paul Morley.  There’s also been so many documentaries or TV shows in which Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris have had their say on things, and their words also are hanging in the air when listening to the music.  It’s an album that is difficult to listen to purely on its own musical merits.

And yet………………..

I couldn’t dream of leaving it out this Top 60 for the simple fact that Joy Division are among the most personally influential groups in my life – some of the others have already featured in the rundown and others are still to appear. If it wasn’t for Joy Division, then a huge amount of the music I have loved since my late teens would never have made sense.

mp3:  Joy Division – Isolation

Yup.  Despite devoting all these words to the fact that Closer is such a hard listen, I’m finishing off the piece with the one that’s most danceable. It does seem remarkable that Ian chose to put one of his darkest and most foreboding lyrics to such an upbeat number…but it’s even more remarkable that nobody in the studio stopped to think for a couple of minutes and ask what he was thinking about or what was the meaning behind the lyric.  If that had happened, who knows how things would have turned out?

JC

I’m returning to the eBay purchases today.

Those of you who have long followed the blog will be aware, as I’ve mentioned it a few times previously, that I stupidly lost almost all the 7″ singles that I owned back in 1986.  It involved a midnight flight out of a shared flat with whom there had been a lengthy dispute over the rent being charged and moving elsewhere to a new location, without leaving any indication of where that new location might be.  It was only when I unpacked my possessions in the new shared flat that I discovered I had left behind a number of boxes of 7″ singles (it was all done in a hurry, and drink had been taken!) and of course, the keys to the old place had been put through the letterbox.

All of which explains why, when I first started using eBay in 2006 to pick up second-hand vinyl, that one of the first purchases was a 7″ copy of Love Will Tear Us Apart to sit alongside the 12″ copy that had long been in the collection.

The price I paid was £3.39.  The vendor from back then still has an eBay presence as a long-time seller of vinyl, CDs and tapes.  In a perfect world, the same vendor would today have another copy of Love Will Tear Us Apart to offer for a direct comparison.  But, as we all know, it is a far from perfect world.

There are, as I type this, 29 results emerging for a search for  ‘Joy Division Love Will Tear Us Apart 7″ Vinyl FAC 23‘

The thing with eBay is that it encourages bids over a period of time, and one seller has it on offer at 99p with around three days to go.  Other sellers have a ‘Buy It Now’ option, with prices ranging from between £8 and £25.

Once you click on the actual product, you find that some of the lower prices are not offering the picture sleeve, or that the condition of the vinyl is not ideal, or that the single is a later pressing from 1983.

The closest match that I can find is from who appears to be from a private seller who is asking for £15.

Over at Discogs, there are something in the region of 60 copies for sale of the same 7″ as I have.  Most sellers are from the UK.  The asking prices range, in the main, from £8 to £30, which would seem to indicate that eBay sellers who aren’t connected to shops or stores are taking their cues from Discogs prices. There’s also similar caveats around picture sleeves, condition vinyl etc.

£15 appears to be the average price.

The rise since 2006 works out at 342%.   It’s not quite as staggering as that of the Go-Betweens album highlighted last month, but it’s still substantial.

mp3: Joy Division – These Days

JC

The first post on the contents of the Hearing Protection : Factory Records 1978-79 box set, was on 24 March 2022.  I hadn’t intended it taking this long for the series to come to its conclusion, especially as there was only ever going to be ten parts, but having covered all of FAC1 through to FAC9, I didn’t think it would be right to do anything in depth on FAC10 while Joy Division were competing in the ICA World Cup.

FAC10 is in the above picture in the front row on the left-hand side. It is, of course, the album Unknown Pleasures.

I’ve long had a copy of this album, originally released on 15 June 1979. I bought it a few months after it came out, on the back of falling very heavily for the single Transmission.  I haven’t taken good care of it.  The vinyl itself isn’t actually too bad, but the sleeve is bashed, battered and creased, and the edges have splits to the extent that the info is unreadable.  I get quite embarrassed when I look at, with the realisation that I have played loose and free with a wonderful piece of art.

I now have a second copy of Unknown Pleasures, thanks to it being part of the box set that I bought when I visited the Factory Records exhibition that was put on at the Manchester Science and Industry Museum in the latter part of 2021.  It is not a replica of the original album, instead being the reissued and remastered version of the album issued by Warner Bros in 2015.

There is an on-line debate about the merits or otherwise of this particular repress, with many at pains to point out that it is actually a remastered version of something that had originally been remastered in 2007, meaning that the 2015 version was further compressed from digital files.  This has led to accusations that the differences in sound from the original are more than minor, and that the 2015 version is cleaner, punchier and at odds with what Martin Hannett wanted to deliver.

There is no question that the version of the album that came with the box set is different.  For one, it has no clicks or pops in the way that my 1979 pressing has succumbed to.  And yes, I find I do have to play it a little louder than I do with the original pressing, which is maybe the clearest indication that the two pieces of vinyl are far from identical. The thing is, I have ears which are almost 60-years-old and which are well past their best, (thanks, somewhat ironically, as a result of my failure to use hearing protection while DJing or going to gigs), so I’m not really best placed to outline the differences, other than to say that the remastered version feels/sounds as if I’m listening to things via a CD rather than a slab of vinyl.

Unknown Pleasures has become, with the passing of time, one of the most important and influential albums ever released.  I’ll be honest and say that when I bought it, I thought it to be a bit on the ‘meh’ side, as there wasn’t really anything that grabbed me in the same way that Transmission had. My excuse is that I was 16 years of age, and my musical tastes weren’t fully developed.  I won’t waste anyone’s time arguing the merits of its contents or otherwise, other than to say that no music collection, in my opinion, is complete unless you have a copy…..but I suppose I’ve got something of a cheek to say this given I’m someone who has nothing from Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd (among many others) in his own collection.

Here’s four tracks from the remastered album, all recorded at 320 kbps which is as good as I can do for you.  None of them made it to the Joy Division ICA:-

mp3: Joy Division – Day Of The Lords (Outside, Track 2)
mp3: Joy Division – New Dawn Fades (Outside, Track 5)
mp3: Joy Division – Wilderness (Inside, Track 3)
mp3: Joy Division – She’s Lost Control (Inside, Track 1)

JC

I haven’t forgotten about this planned short series on the contents of the Use Hearing Protection : Factory Records 1978-79 box set, albeit there hasn’t been a posting since 29 July.  It’s the fact that Joy Division are so heavily involved in what would be the final two parts, and are still in the ICA World Cup, that has made me hold things back.

FAC 9 was a film/event on 13 September 1979 at Scala Cinema in the King’s Cross area of London.  A Factory information sheet at the time provided this info:-

FAC 9; Matrix number for films made on factory records money; the first three are by Charles Salem, accomplished and super ‘8’ stock, and featuring minimalist tendencies as far as the budget is concerned, and celluloid nod in the direction of the aesthetics of ’75. The normal budget for a three-minute film will be in the region of ten pounds; normal equipment being a cheap camera and a cassette player to furnish the desired soundtrack; sync being achieved by careful synchronous pressing of buttons. To cope with the new commodity relations defined by this ‘you only have to know three chords’ approach to Hollywood, the Scala have installed for today an 8mm projector. These films are offered in the hope that other people will begin squirting off 8mm as visual refractions of their favourite music or other obsessions, and further arenas will invest in (cheap) 8mm projectors. Super.

FILM 1; “Red Dress” LUDUS

Animations to accompany track by Ludus, a Manchester four-piece band who work out of the New Hormones stable. Vocals by Linder, lady responsible for ‘The Secret Public’ and Orgasm addict ironing/nude.

FILM 2; “Factory flick” JOY DIVISION/CITY FUN

Amplification of article by Liz Naylor in the Manchester fanzine, ‘City Fun’, entitled ‘No City Fun’. Music is by the last thing to come out of Manchester that got its pic on the front of N.M.E., Joy Division, three tracks being taken from their “Unknown Pleasures” album. FACT 10. c.f. Londoners; if you don’t know who the last gentleman in the film is………….. you SOON will.

FILM 3: “All Night Party” A CERTAIN RATIO

Visuals for a classic modern single which sold shit, but no accounting for the assholes in the press FAC 5. ‘Being in love means never having to say sorry to Claude Lelouch.’

Films 1 to 3 were made by Charles Salem for Factory, Film one being also done under the aegis of New Horwones; you see they have this lawyer……….

FILM 4: “Joy Division” JOY DIVISION

This film by Malcolm Whitehead was also made on super 8, but this time with stripe sound put on via his projector, syncing it took him seven months. For those with a geographical turn of mind, the concert footage was shot in the Bowden Vale youth club, Altrincham. A film made cause he liked the band/more than anything else, and likes cameras; he is more surprised that it’s being shown in this flash London cinema than you are.

ALSO SHOWING: Wonderful promotional films (what were the above???)

P.S. Will Devo ever be hip again?

AND IN THE BAR:

A small home videotape of a variety of modern music items screened by Granada Television in the North-West (yes, Manchester, like) in 1976 and 1977. Many of the items were only shown in the North West, and act here (as a disincentive to leave the bar as deep background ; the kind of TV stuff that young Mancunians were watching back in the days when anarchy really meant anarchy.. T?shirts. Since these are home taped videos shown for collectors interest as opposed to gain of any sort, it is emphasized that any writers/critics/hacks chancing upon them should not mention having seen them; and that in general they should be taken in the spirit they are intended; homage to the already golden age………..

Love, the Factory.

The Use Hearing Protection box set included a DVD copy of the No City Fun film as detailed above.  It’s a fascinating artefact of the era when cars were (relatively) fewer on the streets, when most folk rented their televisions, and when magazines or publications took a minimalist approach to graphic design. It was an age of brutalist architecture, of orange and white double-decker buses, and developers had yet to get their hands on every spare piece of vacant or derelict land.

mp3: Joy Division – Disorder

It was never a secret but as has been indicated above, FAC 10, which will be the final part of this short series, is Unknown Pleasures….but that’s for another day.

JC

Thanks for the terrific responses to the re-introduction of this series – there’s been a number of suggestions which are now forming an orderly queue along with a few that I had already picked out myself and pulled together an early draft.

As it turns out, I had already scheduled Atmosphere/She’s Lost Control as the next entry in the series when regular reader, Mark French, who I should also mention has supplied a fantastic ICA which I hope to have up very soon, suggested it would be a good addition for a Monday read.

It’s a timely addition as it was only around just after the turn of the year that I got my hands on a copy of the single after a gap of more than three decades.  I did buy it back in the day, but sadly it was one of those pieces of vinyls which ended up being badly treated, not just by me but the various flatmates throughout the 80s, to the extent that the sleeve ended up grubby, discoloured, tattered and torn while the vinyl jumped, skipped, hissed and popped to the extent that it was unplayable.  As such, it was one day thrown out with the rubbish…..

It’s long been on the list of things to try and pick up, but I was adamant I would do so by finding a copy in a second-hand or charity store as it’s the sort of release I would want to check for condition before making the purchase  – I always feared Atmosphere, being such a quiet song in places, would have loads of unwanted background interference, while She’s Lost Control, like my own former copy, would be full of jumps from being played too much by drunks who were dancing too close to the record player.

But, with the COVID restrictions always seeming to be getting extended, I decided to plunge into Discogs with my fingers crossed.  There was one seller who was asking for a little bit over the going rate, but his feedback scores from other buyers indicated that he wasn’t one who knowingly or even unwittingly rated his vinyl less than it really was.  A Mint Copy, after all these years was out of the question, especially given that the white sleeve would be near impossible to keep perfect, but on the basis of the vinyl being ‘Near Mint’ and the sleeve being ‘Very Good Plus’, I took the plunge, and as you’ll hear, got a nice return:

mp3: Joy Division – Atmosphere
mp3: Joy Division – She’s Lost Control

As I’m sure most of you know, Atmosphere was originally released in March 1980 as a stand-alone, limited edition, 7″ single for Sordide Sentimental, a French label, with its b-side being Dead Souls. It is incredible to look back and realise that everyone was content to have it issued this way when it would have been a perfect single for Factory Records, or indeed more than worthy of being kept back for later inclusion on Closer, the album that Joy Division would record in London around the time Atmosphere was enjoying its release just over the channel.

It was only in the wake of the death of Ian Curtis, and with the ever-increasing number of fans pleading for a wider release, that Factory relented and issued the single, on 12″ vinyl, but with a different version of She’s Lost Control as the b-side.  It was a very welcome move – I think just over 1500 copies of the Sordide Sentimental release were pressed up, and today you’re looking close to a four-figure sum if you want to get your hands on one of them.

Atmosphere is spellbinding; it’s the perfect marriage of the sorts of mesmerising music written by Joy Division with the studio genius of Martin Hannett. For a long time, it was still something of a secret to the outside world – the 1980 re-release sold only in reasonable numbers – and it wasn’t until 1988 when a fresh re-release, on vinyl and CD to accompany the Substance compilation, that it entered the charts, peaking at #34.

The 1988 re-release was also the occasion for the making of the haunting promo video, directed by Anton Corbijn, who would, of course, almost 20 years later, direct Control, the biopic of Ian Curtis which, when I saw it at one of its very earliest showings at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007 at the ungodly hour of 10am on a Saturday morning, (the tickets for the original screening the previous evening were impossible to get), reduced me to a blubbering wreck at the end when the opening notes of Atmosphere were played over the images on screen. It remains one of the most surreal experiences of my life, emerging out of the cinema to a dazzling midday sun trying to get my red raw eyes to adjust….even just thinking about it as I type these words sends a shiver down my spine.

JC

I’m the proud owner of a substantial number of books which, as a result of my sad inability to throw anything away, are taking up an increasing amount of space in Villain Towers to the disgust of Rachel whose efforts to modernise and improve its interiors are constantly thwarted by my storage requirements.

The vast majority of the books are music and sports related, consisting in the main of biographies in some shape or form. Among these are something in the region of 20 books related to Factory Records/Joy Division/New Order/The Hacienda, with the latest two additions coming via Christmas presents, one of which was the wonderfully entertaining first volume of autobiography by Stephen Morris, whose often self-deprecating effort far surpasses those of his bandmates Hooky and Barney, as much for the fact that he doesn’t use the book to rant about old grievances – but given that Record Play Pause only goes up to the formation of New Order, it may well be that a further and much anticipated volume will go down that path.

The other new book was This Searing Light, The Sun and Everything Else: Joy Division – The Oral History , whose author is Jon Savage.

The book was published in April 2019 and received great reviews, but I refrained from buying it at the time as I thought it would be more or less a cut’n’paste effort consisting of a re-hash of the tales told elsewhere in books by so other authors over the years. It was only when I pulled out the author’s Unknown Pleasures review from 1979 as part of the Festive Period series (click here) did I realise that here was someone who really did get to the heart and soul of the band and was probably the most qualified to do justice to the task, and so it was put on Santa’s list.

The book duly arrived on 25 December and I began to read it that evening, on the basis that it would be an easy enough book to dip in and out of while also turning my attention to some of the other books that had ended up under the tree. I spent hours engrossed in its contents and ended up not going to bed until some ungodly hour which set the tone for a stupid sleep pattern right through until my return to work on 6 January. As soon as I woke up, my nose was back in between its wonderful looking hardback cover and plans to watch or do other things were put on hold as what I was devouring and enjoying immensely was the definitive story of Joy Division that hasn’t been bettered.

For the most part, there was very little I didn’t already know – but the new snippets of information were invaluable and, in one particular case, a real game-changer in terms of how I’ve always thought about things over the past almost 40 years since Ian Curtis took his life. The author lets others do the talking, and offers a mixture of new interviews with those still living as well as dipping into archives to enable the voices of people such as Tony Wilson, Martin Hannett and Rob Gretton to be heard. It’s very clear that the questions Jon Savage has posed to everyone while carrying out the work involved to piece the book together were far from run-of-the-mill, and there’s a sense that everyone responding has been able to be wholly open and transparent about things, secure that what they say will be written down and then put in print, even if it those words are at odds with one of the other contributors or indeed are different from what has been said by them before.

One of the most fascinating things about this book is that it gives much more space to Peter Saville and Annik Honore than any previous publications, enabling them to fill in some gaps and to also offer up a sense of what really went on when so many others, over the years, have mythologised many of the events and happenings.

There’s also some incredibly reflective words throughout from the late Tony Wilson, many of which feel as if they were provided in what must have been one of the last of the detailed interviews he gave before his death. It is entirely fitting that the book is dedicated to Wilson, a lifelong hero of mine and my memory of the one time we met and spoke briefly for all of 45 seconds will never leave me; worth mentioning also that the book’s seemingly strange title is taken directly from one of the quotes he provided to the author.

This Searing Light also benefits from being exactly what it says on the cover. There’s just a few reflections into the early lives and upbringings of everyone in the band and it comes to a halt just after Ian Curtis’s funeral, with no mention of what was still to come for Factory or the emergence of New Order. It is the story of a band whose fans at the time could never ever have imagined the impact they would make or the legacy they would provide, so much so that more than 40 years on, there is still much to be fascinated by.

One thing it did remind me of was just how young and largely inexperienced the other band members were at the time. The infamous Stiff/Chiswick challenge took place on 14 April 1978….all four members were 20-22 years old. They had yet to have Gretton, Wilson or Hannett come into their lives to help shape things. Just two years and one month later, it was all over.

So much transpired between April 78 and May 80 that even now it feels overwhelming, so it must have been nigh on impossible to deal with first-hand.

The book also provides a stark reminder that Joy Division, being on a largely unheralded and small label in Manchester, didn’t ever really find too much fame, until they were no more, beyond the pages of the music papers. The biggest shows they ever played was as the support act on a UK tour by Buzzcocks and nobody was getting rich from any of it, with life seeming to be not far off a hand-to-mouth existence for the most part. There was little glamour and a lot of hard slogging.

The onset of the singer’s epilepsy does seem to have been beyond the belief and understanding of all concerned – including the university-educated Wilson – and it wasn’t helped by the fact that the treatment on offer from the medical professions seems to have been haphazard and involved a lot of guesswork – it certainly got me re-assessing my own long-held views that if the others around him had been more understanding or proactive back in the day, then the suicide could have been prevented.

mp3 : Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart

18 May 2020 will mark the 40th anniversary of the suicide, and will be a time when you’ll be sure to read many tributes, words and reflections across all forms of media. I’m willing to bet that none of them will better what Jon Savage has delivered across these 326 pages.

JC

Album : Unknown Pleasure – Joy Division
Review : Melody Maker, 21 July 1979
Author : Jon Savage

“To talk of life today is like talking of rope in the house of a hanged man.” Where will it end?

The point is so obvious. It’s been made time and time again. So often that it’s a truism, if not a cliche. Cry wolf, yet again. At the time of writing, our very own mode of (Western,advanced, techno-) capitalism is slipping down the slope to it’s terminal phase: critical mass. Things fall apart. The cracks get wider: more paper is used, with increasing ingenuity, to cover them. Madness implodes, as people are slowly crushed, or, perhaps worse, help in crushing others. The abyss beckons: nevertheless, a febrile momentum keeps the train on the tracks. The question that lies behind the analysis (should, of course, you agree) is what action can anyone take?

One particular and vigorous product of capitalism’s excess has been pop music, not so much because of the form’s intrinsic merit (if any) but because, for many, bar football, it’s the only arena going in this country, at least. So vigorous because so much has to be channeled into so small a space: rebellion, creation, dance, sex energy, and this space, small as it is, is a market ruled by commerce, and excess of money. It’s as much as anyone can do, it seems, to accept the process andcarefully construct their theatre for performance and sale in halls in the flesh, in rooms and on radios (if you’re very lucky) in the plastic. The limits imposed especially as far as effective action goes) by this iron cycle of creation to consumption are as hard to break as they are suffocating.

“Trying to find a clue/trying to find a way/trying to get out!” “Unknown Pleasures” is a brave bulletin, a danceable dream; brilliantly, a record of place. Of one particular city, Manchester: your reviewer might very well be biased (after all, he lives there) but it is contended that “Unknown Pleasures,” in defining reaction and adjustment to place so accurately, makes the specific general, the particular a paradigm.

“To the centre of the city in the night waiting for you…” Joy Division‘s spatial, circular themes and Martin Hannett‘s shiny, waking-dream production gloss are one perfect reflection of Manchester’s dark spaces and empty places: endless sodium lights and hidden semis seen from a speeding car, vacant industrial sites – the endless detritus of the 19th century – seen gaping like rotten teeth from an orange bus. Hulme seen from the fifth floor on a threatening, rainy day… This is not, specifically, to glamourise; it could be anywhere. Manchester, as a (if not the) city of the Industrial Revolution, happens only to be a more obvious example of decay and malaise.

That Joy Division’s vision is so accurate is a matter of accident as much as of design: “Unknown Pleasures,” which together with recent gigs captures the group at some kind of peak, is a more precise, mature version of the confused anger and dark premonitions to be found (in their incarnation as Warsaw) on the skimpy “Electric Circus” blue thing, the inchoate “Ideal For Living” EP, and their unreleased LP from last year. As rarely happens, the timing is just right.

The song titles read as an opaque manifesto; “Disorder,” “Day Of The Lords,” “Candidate,” “Insight,” “New Dawn Fades” – to recite the first, aptly named, “Outside”. Loosely, they restate outsider themes (from Celine on in): the preoccupations and reactions of individuals caught in a trap they dimly perceive – anger, paranoia, alienation, feelings of thwarted power, and so on. Hardly pretty, but compulsive.

Again, these themes have been stated so often as to be cliches: what gives Joy Division their edge is the consistency of their vision – translated into crude musical terms, the taut danceability of their faster songs, and the dreamlike spell of their slower explorations. Both rely on the tense, careful counterpoint of bass (Peter Hook), drums (Stephen Morris) and guitar (Bernard Dickin): Ian Curtis‘ expressive, confused vocals croon deeply over recurring musical patterns which themselves mock any idea of escape.

LIve, he appears possessed by demons, dancing spastically and with lightning speed, unwinding and winding as the rigid metal music folds and unfolds over him. Recording, as ever, demands a different context: Hannett imposes a colder, more controlled hysteria together with an ebb and flow – songs merge in and out with one another in a brittle, metallic atmosphere. The album begins unequivocally with “Disorder”: “I’ve been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand”; the track races briskly, with ominous organ swirls – at the end, Curtis intones “Feeling feeling feeling” in the exact tone of someone who’s not sure he has any left.

Two slower songs follow, both based on massively accented drumming and rumbling bass – in their slow, relentless sucking tension, they pursue confusion to a dreamlike state: “Day Of The Lords” is built around a wrenching chorus of “Where will it end?” while the even sparser “Candidate” fleshes out the bare rhythm section with chance guitar ambience. In a story of failed connection and obscure madness, Curtis intones: “I tried to get to you” – ending with the pertinent “It’s just second nature/It’s what we’ve been shown/We’re living by your rules/That’s all that we’ve known.”

The album’s two aces are “Insight” and “She’s Lost Control”; here, finally, Gary Glitter meets the Velvet Underground. Both rely on rock-hard echoed drumming and bass recorded well up to take the melody – the guitar provides textural icing and thrust over the top.

The former leads out of “Candidate” with a suitable hesitation: whirring Leslie ambience leads to a door slamming, then a slow bass/drum fade into the song. The attractive, bouncing melody belies the lyrics: “But I don’t care anymore/I’ve lost the will to want more” – at the end Curtis croons, his voice treated, ghostly: “I’m not afraid anymore” to drown in a flurry of electronic noise from the synthesised snare.

“She’s Lost Control”, remixed to emphasise guitar and percussion, is a possible hit single: it’s certainly the obvious track for radio play. Deep and dark vocals ride over an irresistible, circular backing that threatens to break loose but never does: the tension ends in a crescendo of synthesised noise.

On the “Inside,” three faster tracks follow – mutated heavy pop, all built around punishing rhythms and riffs it’d be tempting to call metal, except control is everywhere. “Shadowplay” is a metallic travelogue – the city at night – with Curtis fleeing internal demons; the following couple, “Interzone” and “Wilderness,” wind the mesh even tighter.

“Wilderness” externalises things into Lovecraftian fantasy,all echoed drumming and sickening guitar slides, while “Interzone” moves through a clipped, perfect introduction to guitar shrills and “Murder Mystery” mumbles: “Down the dark street the houses look the same trying to find a way trying to find a clue trying to get out! Light shine like a neon tune no time to lose no place to stop no place to go…”

Both sides, finally, end with tracks – “New Dawn Fades” and “I Remember Nothing” – so slow and atmospheric that alienation becomes a waking dream upon which nothing impinges: “Me in my own world…”

Leaving the 20th Century is difficult; most people prefer to go back and nostalgise, Oh Boy. Joy Division at least set a course in the present with contrails for the future – perhaps you can’t ask for much more. Indeed, “Unknown Pleasures” may very well be one of the best  white, english, debut LPs of the year.

Problems remain; in recording place so accurately, Joy Division are vulnerable to any success the album may bring – once the delicate relationship with the environment is altered or tampered with, they may never produce anything as good again. And, ultimately, in their desperation and confusion about decay, there’s somewhere a premise that what has decayed is more valuable than what is to follow. The strengths of the album, however, belie this.

Perhaps it’s time we all started facing the future. How soon will it end?

mp3 : Joy Division – Disorder
mp3 : Joy Division – Shadowplay

JC adds : No matter how you look at it, this is an extraordinary review.  It opens with a quote from Raoul Vaneigem, a Belgian writer closely associated with the Situationist movement, that refers to suicide by hanging, the ultimate fate of Ian Curtis less than a year later. It also quotes the lyrics extensively, hinting at the troubled mind of the songwriter, and yet in the period after his death his bandmates would state constantly that they weren’t aware of what exactly was being sung, that they paid no attention and as such weren’t aware of the mental state of their friend. It does beg a few questions, not least whether any of the musicians of Joy Division actually read the album reviews…..

It’s now more than 40 years since the release of Unknown Pleasures and it still gets millions of words devoted to it on a yearly basis as fans, old and new, try to make sense of it all.  I don’t think, however, anyone has ever written anything as chilling as ‘Joy Division are vulnerable to any success the album may bring’.

Hard to believe, but I’ve never had a post dedicated to Love Will Tear Us Apart. Plenty of Joy Division stuff, including an ICA in which the song was featured, but never any sort of in-depth look or attempt at discussion.

Let’s get some of the basic facts out-of-the-way.

The song was written around August 1979 and was quickly included in the band’s live sets. It was recorded on 26 November 1979 for a session for the John Peel Show on BBC Radio 1 which was broadcast on 10 December 2017. The producer was Tony Wilson…..but not the bloke who ran Factory Records….this particular Tony Wilson was almost part of the furniture at the BBC, heavily involved in all sorts of radio sessions and live events from the 60s to the 90s.

mp3 : Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart (Peel Session)

The band would make its first effort to record the song on 8 January 1980, with the location being Pennine Studios, in Oldham, a town some 7 miles north-east of Manchester, with a view to it being a stand-alone single. Indeed, the intended b-side, These Days, was also recorded that same day.

mp3 : Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart (Pennine version)
mp3 : Joy Division – These Days

Martin Hannett was on production duties that day, and while the recording was in the vein of how the band had been performing the song in the live sets, the perfectionist in him meant he was far from satisfied with the outcome. As it turned out, Ian Curtis too was unhappy with the recording and was quick to agree that everyone should reconvene and try again.

This time, in March 1980, they booked into one of Hannett’s favoured locations, the increasingly popular and sophisticated Strawberry Studios in Stockport, a place into which successful chart act 10cc had heavily invested in the hope and with the aim of providing a top studio in the Greater Manchester area so that they, and other local bands, wouldn’t have to head to London to work. It was a long and trying session as evidenced by drummer Stephen Morris being awakened by a 4am telephone call to his home with Hannett on the other end of the line demanding he drive back to Stockport as a fresh input on the snare drum was required.

mp3 : Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart

Everyone declared themselves happy with this version and plans were put in place for it to be released in June 1980 in advance of the release of the band’s second album. Peter Savile was again engaged to come up with appropriate artwork, with his brief in keeping with previous Joy Division 45s to have different sleeves for the 7” and 12” versions, although the contents on vinyl would be the same, with the two tracks recorded at Pennine to be the b-side and the Strawberry version being the a-side. The 12” version would not be differently mixed or extended in any shape or form.

Tony Wilson (yes, THAT one and not the bloke from the Beeb) loved what he was hearing and felt the band had come up with a song that was capable of crossing over into daytime radio and persuaded them that a first ever promo video should be made. Filming took place on 25 April 1980 at the TJ Davidson studio in Manchester, an old haunt of the band from the pre-Factory days.

It’s worth mentioning that while the video has Ian Curtis playing guitar, and indeed while he did strum some chords when it was aired live, the part in the studio was played entirely by Bernard Sumner.

Less than a month later, on 18 May 1980, Ian Curtis committed suicide. What no-one outside of those closest to the band knew was that he’d previously attempted to take his life shortly after the Strawberry Studios session and in advance of the shooting of the promo video.

It’s been well documented that none of his band mates or those at Factory at the time equated the mental state of Ian Curtis with the songs he was writing and recording. Nor did they give any consideration to deviating from the timetable agreed for the issuing of the single and subsequent album. Nor did they think that the coincidental art work was in any way controversial or problematic, and to be fair nobody else said much at the time either:-

Love Will Tear Us Apart reached the shops in mid-June, entering into the charts on Sunday 29 June where it enjoyed a 16-week stay. Yes, some of the initial sales might have been driven by the suicide but the fact it climbed all the way to #13 proved that the man in charge of the label had been right all along and that it was a bona-fide radio friendly pop song.

Next year will see the 40th anniversary of the song. Unlike many from the era, it hasn’t dated in the slightest which would indicate that Hannett got the recording spot on. The opening chords have made it instantly recognisable to generation after generation of music fans which would indicate that it is a real earworm of a tune. It has been covered in many different guises over the years, many of the versions being ghastly to the point of unlistenable. It has received the ultimate popular recognition with the tune later being adopted by football fans at Manchester United with a lyric adjustment to pay homage to Ryan Giggs, one of the most famous players in their long and illustrious history.

It constantly appears in polls – NME in 2002 proclaimed it the best single of all time, while two years later Rolling Stone magazine had it as #179 in a list of the ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time’ which is some achievement for a track that wasn’t widely known or available in the USA until many years after its initial release.

Other musicians have lavished praise on it , none more so than Neil Tennant of the Pet Shops Boys – a man who has forgotten more about great pop music than many of the rest of us will ever know – who is on record as saying Love Will Tear Us Apart is his favourite ever pop song.

Me? I bought it immediately on its release, just a few days after my 17th Birthday. Loved it then, but didn’t think it was as good a record as Transmission. Nowadays, I can’t compare the two songs as they are so different sounding despite being released less than nine months apart.

Love Will Tear Us Apart is a song of great mystery, capable of so many interpretations. It sounds like no other Joy Division song. It is an upbeat and danceable number completely at odds with its lyric in which the protagonist is despairing of what life has become. Life with his loved one has gone sour – routine is biting hard, ambitions are running low, the atmosphere in the bedroom is icy cold and the complete breakdown in communication has led to a lack of respect on both sides. It really doesn’t get much more brutal and depressing than that does it?

The subsequent books and films have led to an acceptance that the song was an effort to provide an apology and explanation to Deborah Curtis over Ian’s affair with Annik Honore. But it could just as easily be interpreted as being for Annik as a way of Ian explaining that he was unable to completely give up on his wife and young daughter.

It’s also been held up as the song which drove the singer completely over the edge given its desperate nature. Again, this isn’t the recollection of those who were closest to him at the time and Ian seemed more troubled by his epilepsy than by his complicated love life.

One thing it most certainly can’t be labelled is ‘cult classic’ – it is far too well-known for that to be the case. It’s impossible to say with any certainty whether the subsequent chart success, with Ian Curtis remaining alive, would have led Joy Division to make more pop-orientated records or whether they would have retreated back into a shell to churn out the gothic and doomy anthems which found favour with the overcoat brigade. Love Will Tear Us Apart stands alone in the band’s canon, justifiably capable of being proclaimed as one of the most important and influential songs in musical history.

Who’s with me on this one?

JC

There’s a while bundle of ICAs in the pipeline, many of them from guest contributors.  I’m going to ration them to one per week for the time being so that they all get a decent amount of space and time to be absorbed.  I’ve also penned some myself and I’ll fit these in around everyone else’s….please keep them coming as they have become the mainstay of this blog.

It’s been a while, but I reckoned it was about time I took on another nigh-on impossible task.  If I said that I first thought about this last summer, you can hopefully get some idea of how often I’ve put down two sides of an ICA that I considered not only to be derivative but also the perfect running order….. only to change my mind.

In the end, I thought the best way to approach it was to imagine that I had been tasked with curating an album that was to be played to music fans who were receiving their first introduction to Joy Division. It still saw six takes discarded before I decidied that take seven had to be submitted on the basis that the project was about to run out of time and money. Here goes:-

FEEL IT CLOSING IN : A JOY DIVISION ICA

SIDE A

1. Digital

The earliest song to feature in the ICA and the one which provides its title. This was the band’s debut for a new Manchester-based record label, featuring as one of four acts on A Factory Sample alongside Cabaret Voltaire, The Durutti Column and John Dowie. (It’s just struck me that I’ve been lucky enough to see all four of these acts perform in the live setting).

We should all be honest and accept that the four earlier songs on An Ideal For Living don’t cut the mustard, being not much above demo quality.  As such, Digital is the band’s calling card. It was the first time the four musicians had worked closely with producer Martin Hannett and the outcome was something that blended old style punk – have a listen to the guitar solo which is more than a nodding tribute to early Buzzcocks – with a cold, hypnotic almost artificial sound that was unlike anything any of us had much experience of in the late 70s. And, of course, there’s that voice.

2. Transmission

A guest posting from Dave Glickmann in August 2017 described Transmission as the first true kickass JD track; my own thoughts were articulated at length when I placed it at #6 on my 45 45s at 45 rundown – Hooky’s basslines grab you in, Stephen’s drumming sets a beat that makes you want to jump out of your seat while Barney’s guitar work reminds you of the punk ethos when anyone could pick up an instrument and play. But it’s THAT voice that makes the song so very special. It’s the sound of someone reaching deep inside his own soul and then straining it through every nerve in his body before hitting the listener in the chest with its power and authority. And just as you think he can hit you no more, he screams…..

‘And we can Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaance’

I did. As did many others.

3. Atmosphere

It’s not all about dancing mind you. A song I didn’t own for a long while after it had been released. It sort of beggars belief that something this immense, epic and masterful was intended to be restricted to a limited edition 45 available only in France. The death of Ian Curtis changed everything for his band mates and his record label, and while the decision to reissue Atmosphere was an early signal that the rules had changed, it never displayed any facets of a cynical cash-in. This was a song that deserved to be widely heard, and in the pre-internet age, the only way that could be achieved was via radio or in your own bedroom on a turntable or cassette player. Tony Wilson et al did us all a huge favour, even more so in 1988 when it was re-released again to promote a singles compilation, when acclaimed photographer Anton Corjbin was commissioned to direct a promotional video which itself set in train the idea of a film bio to be shot in a similarly monochrome style.

4. Dead Souls

The Sound of Being OK team are running a delightful series looking at some of the best b-sides of all time with Joy Division featuring as a result of me penning something for them about These Days, the flip side of Love Will Tear Us Apart. I’d have been equally happy to warble on about Dead Souls, the b-side of the original French release of Atmosphere, which, incidentally was limited to just 1578 copies and is worth an absolute fortune these days (pun intended).

I can’t ever recall hearing Dead Souls, which had been recorded at the tail end of 1979, until the release of the double-album Still in October 1981. Even then, it was only thanks to a friend putting the song on a cassette tape for me as I couldn’t afford to buy the new record; besides, it consisted mainly of what was a fairly substandard live performance which one listen was felt to be enough. It would take until 1997 before I really for the opportunity to appreciate the song when I was able to splash out on the 4-CD box set Heart and Soul.

The song obtained a certain amount of notoriety, stemming in part from its title (which like many JD songs isn’t part of the actual lyric) and that many fans, in the wake of the death of Ian Curtis, interpreted the chorus as alluding to suicidal thoughts. I’ve never bought into that. This is one of those songs, stuck on a b-side, that was completely overshadowed by the a-side which is a damn shame as it has proved to be one of their most enduring songs in which the trio playing the instruments got to sound as powerful and terrifying as the vocal delivery.

5. Isolation

A tune that wouldn’t sound out-of-place in the early catalogue of New Order, this is part of the evidence I’ll present to argue against anyone who says that Ian Curtis would have been dismayed and appalled by the music his mates would go onto make in their next band. It is impossible to second-guess what might have happened hadn’t he taken his life. The subsequent tour of America may have exposed him to new sights, sounds and experiences that would have been reflected in his writing, or it might well have been that the strains of such hard work would have really exposed his physical and mental wellbeing to the extent that he would no longer want to be part of a band. Nobody can say with any sort of certainty.

Isolation gives a hint of where the music could have gone…..as equally do the songs I’ll come to on Side B of this ICA….that the remaining three members went increasingly down the synths and electronica route indicates to me that Ian would likely have gone along with them.

SIDE B

1. Disorder

The tempo and rhythm of the opening track on Unknown Pleasures always reminds me of Transmission. Most labels would probably have pushed for this to be considered as a single to be lifted from the album but Factory weren’t that business orientated. It’s long been recognised that She’s Lost Control is a song that reflects on epilepsy but there’s been less acknowledgement that Disorder, and in particular its second verse, has the singer trying to articulate the things that are going wrong with him:-

It’s getting faster, moving faster now
It’s getting out of hand
On the tenth floor, down the back stairs
It’s a no man’s land
Lights are flashing, cars are crashing
Getting frequent now
I’ve got the spirit, lose the feeling
Let it out somehow.

The thing is, nobody outside of the tight confines of the band knew of his condition and the lyric only really began to make sense much later on.

2. Love Will Tear Us Apart

Millions of words have been written about LWTUA and I don’t have anything new or fresh to add. One thing that does stand out for me, however, is that despite it being by far and away the most popular and most aired of their songs, I never ever get tired of hearing it. Oh, and I’m pleased that a promo video was shot for it as it did provide some high-quality footage of the band before it became tragically too late.

3. Shadowplay

This is the song which most likely introduced the band to a wider audience of Mancunians and other residents of north-west England (aka Granadaland) given it was performed on their debut TV appearance in September 1978 when Tony Wilson, at long last after much badgering from Ian Curtis and Rob Gretton, gave them a slot on Granada Reports, the regional evening news programme on which he was a presenter (as well as mover and shaker when it came to the musical segments). It’s a brooding, dark, claustrophobic number that has always seemed to me to be of the ‘It’s Grim Up North’ genre that so many of the 70s/80s bands from that part of the map which incorporates Liverpool to Leeds via all points, would prove so adept and capable of churning out with what seemed like little effort but much aplomb.

4. The Eternal
5. Decades

I’ve said before that ICAs can seem like an impossible task. I’ve spent weeks trying to pull this one off and I’m not 100% convinced that I’ve succeeded. It’s impossible to think about Joy Division without thinking about the tragic circumstances they had to deal with.

Closer was a really tough listen to begin with and its final two tracks in particular. The tunes were of a funereal pace and the words felt as if they were from someone on the edge of the despair. As has been said so many times since, how could anyone not have spotted that the lyricist was in a bad way and in a shockingly bad place. I was 17 years of age and to be honest, I wanted my music, as much as possible to be vibrant, uplifting and occasionally danceable. Joy Division had already generated a few moments like that and it was those types of songs that were on heavy rotation, Side 2 of Closer was a tough, and at times impossible, listen.  But then I got older and life threw a few more experiences at me. My musical tastes matured and The Eternal and Decades, were no longer impenetrable.

Oh, and the reason I have them together, just as they are on the parent LP, is that I cannot bring myself to separate them. I don’t know how many compilation cassettes, CDs or digital lists that I’ve compiled for folk over the years – I suspect it runs into four-figures – but I have never included either of these on any of them. They simply have to be listened to back-to-back.

I’d like to dedicated this ICA to Jacques the Kipper. Nothing to do with him being a particularly big fan of Joy Division (although he is….but he prefers to look forward than back). It’s more that I feel this could form the soundtrack to our friendship these past near 30 years. He’s always been there, in the words of Rev Al Green, whether times have been good or bad, happy or sad. Cheers mate.

JC

PS : The teams for edition two of the ICA World Cup, due to take place in 2020, are beginning to shape up very nicely!

PPS : Sad man that I am, I’ve already thought of a similar type of competition, but with a twist, for 2019.  Let’s just say, it will be a collegiate effort – all will be revealed in the very fullness of time.

A GUEST POSTING from DAVE GLICKMAN

OCD EP #6 – Joy Division

Quite honestly, I hardly feel worthy writing about a band so seminal to the post-punk movement that I generally prefer to sit in silent reverence and awe. Fortunately, thanks to the wonderful New Order/Joy Division Recycle project of several years back it has all been written before (almost certainly more accurately than I would be able to muster). And since, the Recycle site has long since been deleted, I feel no shame in reposting their words.

When it comes to assembling a Joy Division OCD EP, the exercise is really not more difficult than asking, “Was it compiled on Heart and Soul?” Here are four that were not, with notes from the Recycle team.

Side One

1. Digital (Genetic Demo)

[This] is a diligent – and FAST – run through for (and produced by) Martin Rushent, part of a series of demos recorded at Eden Studios, London on 4 March 1979 for Genetic Records. Oddly enough the only track from these sessions not to be released on Heart and Soul, I find this take – while pedestrian – as gravitating as the Hannett recording. Slightly cleaned up from a low-generation cassette copy, [this track was] originally sourced in the early 1980s from an unnamed band member.

2. Atrocity Exhibition (Piccadilly Radio session)

[This] track was recorded on 3 June 1979 at Pennine Sound Studios, Oldham for Piccadilly Radio, produced by Stuart James. It is unknown if this session was ever actually broadcast. Four other tracks from this session (These Days, Candidate, The Only Mistake, Chance (Atmosphere)) were released on the Heart and Soul box set, but this track was held off. [Previously] available [only] on noisy bootleg releases, this particular version was sourced from the private collection of a longtime friend of the band, who received it from an unnamed band member in the early 1980s.

Side Two

3. Transmission (Central Sound Rough Mix)

4. Novelty (Central Sound Rough Mix)

The first true kickass JD track, Transmission and its sibling Novelty were recorded twice by Martin Hannett. The first attempt is captured here in never-before-heard quality. These were recorded in July 1979 at Manchester’s Central Sound Studios, and as the title implies, are presented here as “rough mix” versions. As far as we know these are the only versions that ever made it out from the masters. Two other tracks recorded at the same session, Dead Souls and Something Must Break, are on the Heart And Soul box set – though in lesser fidelity. [These tracks were] sourced from a recently-surfaced (Ed. note: at the time of the Recycle project) extremely low generation “rough mix” tape, from an unnamed band associate or member.

That’s it for bands in my library that warrant the OCD EP treatment, so unless any other readers want to pick up the gauntlet or until the “I’ve got to have everything they ever recorded” bug bites me again, it is time to say goodbye to this series.

DG

JC adds……but what a way to bow out!!!  I’m hoping Dave will come back again soon with more ideas.

A NEW GUEST SERIES FROM JONNY THE FRIENDLY LAWYER

CHARGED PARTICLES

I don’t have a music blog of my own but I gather I have something in common with JC and the regular contributors that do: Like you lot I was always the guy people asked to make mix tapes (and, later, playlists) for parties, trips, birthdays, etc.

One of the categories that people liked very much was called Charged Particles. These consisted of songs with one word titles ending with ION. That was the only thing they had in common. Turns out there are tons of them; I’ve got nearly 200 in my iTunes library and they always seem to combine interestingly. I mentioned doing something with the list when I met JC in Manchester and he said, ‘Ask me, I won’t say no, how could I?’

My thinking was that he could plug in a charged particle post when he was away or busy or couldn’t be bothered that day to put up a new one. The posts would be short and sweet and let the music do the talking. JC liked the idea okay and correctly guessed the songs I had in mine for the first one.

And here it is. Remember the only guideline is a single word ending in ion. Can it end in ‘ionS’? No, so no ‘Complications’ by Killing Joke. Does it count if you cram a bunch of words together like ‘StationtoStation’? Nope. How about if the word is preceded or followed by a phrase in parentheses? No, not that either. (Unless I feel like it.) Hyphens? Sure, why not.

Right, here we go: Today’s charged particles are by Manchester’s best or second best band, depending on your preference, in honor of the town where I got to meet the Vinyl Villain, at last:

Joy Division: Transmission
Joy Division: Auto-suggestion
Joy Division: Isolation
Joy Division: Incubation

JTFL

I found a copy of a posting from 2007 that even today, nearly ten years on, I’m quite proud of. The old blog was less than a year old and having just found my feet and gaining the confidence to post every day, I then found myself in Toronto for a five-month spell that prevented me blogging every day ( mainly a combination of pressure of work and not having access to the thousands of mp3 files I had lovingly created); but the time in Canada brought other great opportunities my way that more than made up for it.  Such as being among the first to see a stunning movie that I reviewed at the time.  From 9 September 2007….

This past week and a bit saw Mrs Villain join me for a short stay in Toronto. It was her first ever visit to the city, and we did loads of touristy things including going along to something that was part at the recently opened Toronto International Film Festival 2007.

We were lucky enough to get two tickets for Control. We had hoped to get to the first showing at 9.45pm on a Friday evening, but the tickets were impossible to obtain. But we had the consolation of getting to the second and final showing, albeit at the ungodly hour of 9am on a Saturday morning.

First surprise was that we were far from alone. The cinema was almost full to capacity with maybe the best part of 1,000 folk inside. Second surprise that it was not an audience entirely made up of music fans – just behind us we heard one exchange along the lines of “Was this guy Curtis some sort of cult figure?”. The third surprise was a brief personal appearance by Anton Corbijn, who expressed his delight that so many people would come along so early in the morning to watch a black and white feature by a first-time film director.

The effort of getting out of bed at such an ungodly hour on a weekend was more than worth it. Control is an exceptional piece of work. I’ve long been a fan of Corbijn’s photographs and videos, so I had a fair idea that it would look good. What I wasn’t prepared for was the level of performances from just about everyone in the film.

The part of Ian Curtis is played by the relatively little-known Sam Riley, and he does an unbelievable job. The more famous Samanatha Morton is outstanding as Deborah Curtis, especially in the second half of the movie as she begins to come to terms with how her husband is treating her.

The other young actors who play the members of the band – James Anthony Pearson (Bernard Sumner), Harry Treadaway (Steven Morris) and Joe Anderson (Peter Hook) are just about perfect, and not just because the roles called on them to play live. Bernard in particular comes across perfectly as the wide-eyed little-boy not quite believing that he’s making it as a musician.

While the overall mood of the film is, as you would expect sombre, the script is packed with some fantastic one-liners, some of which are delivered by Hooky, but most of whom belong to Rob Gretton who is played by another relatively unknown actor, Toby Kebbel.

If I have one gripe, it was that I wasn’t initially convinced by Craig Parkinson as Tony Wilson – most probably because I found myself comparing it to the way that Steve Coogan portrayed him in 24 Hour Party People – but I did find myself loosening up a bit as the movie progressed and appreciating his performance.

And there will be some people – there always are – who will be apoplectic with rage that the film has not stuck 100% to the facts. For example, Tony Wilson introducing them on So It Goes on Granada TV. In real life, Joy Division performed Shadowplay, but the film has them playing Transmission.

There’s also a number of occasions when the need to have the movie go along at a decent pace means some things appear just a bit too melodramatic – for instance, the inspiration for the lyrics behind She’s Lost Control.

I understand that Control will be coming out in the UK early in October. I also expect that not everyone will greet it with universal approval. For instance, Kevin Cummins, another photographer who worked with the band has said “The film lacks humour. It would appear that Corbijn has bought into the mythology surrounding the band…the crypto-fascist young men in their grey overcoats from the grim north of England. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

I think that’s a bit harsh, but then again it is a fact that in just under two hours, there’s no evidence of the light-hearted side of Ian Curtis (such as the well-documented high-jinks the band got up to when they undertook a tour as support to Buzzcocks).

There will be others who just don’t get it. There’s one scathing review kicking around on the web from the Reuters Hollywood Correspondent who saw the movie at Cannes back in May. He didn’t like Control because it doesn’t live up to the 1960s black and white movies set in Northern England that often starred Albert Finney or Tom Courtenay (and which were so beloved by Morrissey).

It’s a dreadful and lazy comparison to make- the films of the 60s were based on fictional novels whereas Control is of course based on real-life events – the only thing they have in common is that they are black and white films.

It is my view that Control falls into the category of ‘must-see’, especially if you are a fan of Anton Corbijn, Joy Division, Ian Curtis or indeed Samantha Morton.

Incidentally, I’m not ashamed to admit that I was in floods of tears at the end of the movie – as was Mrs V. Yes, we both knew how it was all going to end, but that didn’t stop the intensity of the performances from the two lead roles having a huge effect on us. We weren’t the only ones sobbing and sniffing away in Toronto. So take along your hankies….

song : Joy Division – Passover

2017 update

By now, I’m guessing all of you with any interest in the band or film-making will have seen Control.  I think my initial review, written and published the following morning after its second screeing at the 2007 festival has stood up well.

JC

……this is hard to beat.

I’ve been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand
Could these sensations make me feel the pleasures of a normal man?
These sensations barely interest me for another day
I’ve got the spirit, lose the feeling, take the shock away.

It’s getting faster, moving faster now, its getting out of hand
On the tenth floor, down the back stairs, its a no mans land
Lights are flashing, cars are crashing, getting frequent now
I’ve got the spirit, lose the feeling, let it out somehow.

What means to you, what means to me, and we will meet again
I’m watching you, I’m watching her, I’ll take no pity from you friends
Who is right, who can tell, and who gives a damn right now
Until the spirit new sensation takes hold, then you know
Until the spirit new sensation takes hold, then you know
Until the spirit new sensation takes hold, then you know.

I’ve got the spirit, but lose the feeling
I’ve got the spirit, but lose the feeling
Feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling.

mp3 : Joy Division – Disorder

That is all.