Oblique Saturdays

A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion. 

Last week's Oblique Strategy suggestion was Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do.

I opted for a JFK response, his 1961 speech about doing things not because they are easy but because they are hard. Steinski and Mass Media, The Wedding Present and Lou Reed all provided me with Kennedy themed songs. 

The Bagging Area community came up with some inspired choices- PTVL went for Genesis P. Orridge with Richard Norris and Dave Ball as Jack The Tab, arguably the UK's first acid house record, Ernie went for Lowell George and Little Feat, Al G with Mansun, Rol (arriving late after some serious jet washing) with The Walker Brothers and Walter with Nick Drake and Vini Reilly.

This week's Oblique Strategy cards reads thus- Is there something missing?

A obvious choice and one which has been in my mind recently is this...

Todd Terry's remix of Missing was everywhere in 1996, inescapable and irresistible, a crossover hit that deserved to be massive. Missing is a mood in song form. 

I also thought of Dub Syndicate's 1985 album, the mighty Tunes From The Missing Channel, Adrian Sherwood and Style Scott's hugely influential dub album that opens with Ravi Shankar Pt. 1 and with Jah Wobble appearing too, goes about pushing dub into sci fi/ ambient dub territories.

Out And About

But there's more to this Oblique Strategy stuff than just going with the most obvious, word related choices. 

Is there something missing?

Stephen Morris, drummer in Joy Division and New Order and authentic nice chap, has described the three surviving members of Joy Division in the pub after Ian Curtis' funeral. They sat their nursing their pints, not knowing how to talk to each other about death, suicide and loss, young men on the cusp of something big that has been wrenched away from them. A planned American tour cancelled. The second half of 1980 suddenly looking very different from what they envisaged. 

'See you on Monday then', one of them said as he left. 

'Yep, see you on Monday'.

Because they didn't know what else to do, they reconvened at Joy Division's rehearsal space in Little Peter Street and tried to make music as a trio. In Jon Savage's oral history, This Searing Light, The Sun And Everything Else, they each talk about the difficulties of making music with something (or someone) missing. Ian Curtis, frontman and lyricist, the object of attention at gigs, 'one of those channels for the gestalt' (said Martin Hannett), the intense and distinctive singer who set them apart from their peers, was gone. It was more than just missing a singer- he was a mate too and he was the rehearsal room ears and the editor. When the band jammed, Ian would pick out the parts that were good, get them to play that bit but put it with this bit and repeat it. 

They struggled on obviously- we all know the story. Ceremony (the last Joy Division song) and Movement (the last record they made with Martin Hannett). Movement is a sound, post- punk songs with a Hannett tone, but it lacks tunes. Apart from Dreams Never End (sung by Hooky ironically), nothing on Movement sticks in the memory for long. It's an album I have to play to remember what it's like. 

Dreams Never End

In 1981 they appeared on Granada TV, sonically moving forward with Gillian Gilbert on board but visually, physically, they all behave like there's still something missing. This clip has them playing, tentatively, five songs from Movement and Ceremony. The crowd, all local fans, look like they know this too. There's an absence, the band and the audience both feel it. 

They got there in the end of course. Discos in New York and Everything's Gone Green showing them a way out. 

Everything's Gone Green

Vini Reilly, mentioned above, had his own response to the missing boy...

The Missing Boy

'There was a boy/ I almost knew him/ A glance exchanged/ Made me feel good/ Leaving some signs/ Now a legend'.

Other bands have struggled with missing members. Is there something missing?

In 1998 R.E.M. tried to regroup following Bill Berry's decision to leave the group (a brain aneurysm onstage during the Monster tour being a key part of his decision). Bill admitted last year in an interview that he 'didn't regret it at the time but... sort of regretted it later'. Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck experimented with vintage synths and drum machines and eventually made Up but it nearly broke them. Bill Berry wasn't just the drummer, he wrote songs too- the beautiful Perfect Circle for one and worldwide smash Everybody Hurts for another. Without Bill they were destabilised, nothing worked the same way. Michael Stipe memorably but none- too- convincingly commented, 'a dog with three legs is still a dog'.

Daysleeper

In 1985 The Clash, or what was left of them, released Cut The Crap. Topper Headon had gone in 1983 and Mick Jones was sacked by Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon (and Bernie Rhodes) in 1984. 'We fell to ego', Joe remarked. This Is England may well be up there with the rest of Joe's songs but the much of the rest of Cut The Crap most definitely has something missing. Mick Jones. Topper Headon. 

This Is England

Strummer's 1985 state of the nation address evokes strikes, unrest, police brutality, unemployment, divisive right wing politics, war in far off places, poverty, racism, protest, marches, football and asks 'when will we be free?'. 

Feel free to drop your own responses to Is there something missing? in the comment box. 

What Do I Get Out Of This?

Wythenshawe Park, 70 acres of green, open space in South Manchester with a 16th century half- timbered hall and statue of Oliver Cromwell at its centre, played host to a 30, 000 capacity gig headlined by New Order on Saturday. Nadine Shah who kicked things off in fine style, her band playing repetitive, crunching post- punk/ indie rock with Nadine's theatrical, huge voice the c point.  Greatest Dancer from this year's Filthy Underneath was a highlight, booming out in the late afternoon sunshine. Having spoken passionately about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, she spends the last few minutes of the final song screaming the word 'ceasefire' into the mic as the band kicked up a glorious racket, before leaving the stage to squeals of feedback. 

Roisin Murphy is on shortly after, a singer with connections to Manchester- she lived here during the late 80s and early 90s. Her set is a well honed and highly entertaining forty minutes of dance music and costume changes, Roisin the queen of Wythenshawe Park. 

One outfit has her wearing a massive oversized, square biker jacket, another a black top hat and robes with a life size model of a baby on a necklace which she ignores until the instrumental break at which point she stands centre stage cuddling it. Later on she is bedecked in a giant, head- to - toe red frill. Her songs sound equally impressive, Moloko's The Time Is Now getting a rework and Incapable from 2020's Machine both stand out, the latter a long extended disco- house groove. Sing It Back is fused with Murphy's Law and she closes her set by sauntering through Can't Replicate and then having a huge amount of fun with an onstage camera that is feeding directly onto the big screen behind her, finishing with an extreme close up of the inside of her mouth.

Incapable

Local lad Johnny Marr takes the stage at 7.30, the venue filling up. Johnny grew up round here- 'Wythenshawe Park, Saturday night', he says between songs with a rueful grin. Johnny and his band are on it from the start, electrifying and plugged in to the crowd, playing eleven songs that span his career, from The Smiths to Electronic to his solo albums. Second song in he plays the clanging riff that intros Panic and we're putty in his hands. Generate is sparky post- punk pop. This Charming Man sends the crowd into a spin, dancing and singing the words from a song he wrote with a man from Stretford forty years ago back at him. 

In the middle of the set he switches to acoustic guitar and plays Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want, a long finger picking introduction before singing it very sweetly. I have a bit of a moment during this song, tears and everything, something that has been happening to me a gigs since Isaac died. He follows Please, Please, Please... by introducing another Wythenshawe lad, 'the king of the Wythenshawe guitarists' according to Johnny, Billy Duffy to the stage and they drive into How Soon Is Now, Billy finding space for a Cult- like guitar solo as Johnny and the band shimmer and surge through the song.

The final pair of songs are equally crowd pleasing- first Electronic's 1989 single, the sublime pop of Getting Away With It (Bernard doesn't appear to sing this with him alas) and then the mass singalong of There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, a song that despite the doom- laden lyrics with death arriving by being crushed by ten ton trucks and double decker busses, is a song of optimism and survival, an anthem for the young and not- so- young everywhere. 

Getting Away With It

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

Prior to New Order's appearance DJ Tin Tin raises the temperature with a set of songs, played from a table and decks set up at the front of the stage with A Certain Ratio's It All Comes Down To This sounding great as the sun went down. Then, five minutes of dry ice, films of gymnasts and divers and orchestral music pave the way for New Order. It's dark by now, the lights on, the stage dramatic and dark, as Bernard walks to the centre and straps on his guitar. The venue is rammed by now. We have a spot down the front to the right. They open with Academic from 2015's Music: Complete and then go into Crystal (the highlight of 2001's Get Ready, a post- reformation song that showed they still had what it takes). The crowd have come from near and far. Half of Manchester seems to be here, teenagers and sixty- somethings. The two young men next to us have flown in from Cologne specifically to see New Order who according to our new German friends 'never come to Germany'.

From there, the next run of songs is close to perfect. All the idiosyncrasies, fragilities and temperamental equipment of 1980s New Order are long gone- this is a fully fleshed out, massive sounding hits machine with backing projections, smoke and lasers. Regret. Age Of Consent. Ceremony with Gillian switching from keys to guitar. Isolation, a Joy Division song containing one of Ian Curtis' darkest lyrics set to urgent, pummeling electronic post- punk. Then, slowing things down slightly, Your Silent Face. They play a couple of recent songs (Be A Rebel, the song with the most un- New Order song title ever) and then a superb, sky- scraping Sub- culture, 1985's Lowlife song/ single, the instant hit of the keyboard line, Stephen's drums and Bernard's words about 'walking in the park when it gets late at night' and having to submit filling Wythenshawe's space completely. 

Sub- culture

Bizarre Love Triangle (possibly their greatest single) seguing into Vanishing Point (possibly their greatest album track) and True Faith (again, possibly their greatest single). Blue Monday. Temptation (possibly... oh you know). It's all about the songs and the feelings they provoke. 

The encore is a Joy Division mini- set, Ian's face projected onto the screen behind them, the presence that is always hovering somewhere around the band. Atmosphere. Transmission. Love Will Tear Us Apart. 

Transmission (Live at Les Bains Douche, December 1979)

They've come a very long way since crawling out of the wreckage of Joy Division, from their faltering debut as New Order at The Beach Club in Withy Grove to this massive gig at Wythenshawe Park. They've made groundbreaking records, done it their own way, survived record company collapses, bankruptcy, the demolition of nightclubs, deaths, break ups and fall outs. Tony Wilson once said that Joy Division/ New Order were 'the last true story in rock 'n' roll'. It felt that way on Saturday night in a way, more than just a big gig, a band and an audience who have grown up together, whose songs mean so much to each other and who had come home. 

To The Centre Of The City

There was a furore in Manchester recently when this gable end mural of Ian Curtis was painted over. The mural (by artist Akse) is/ was on Port Street on the edge of the city centre near newly refurbished/ gentrified Ancoats (I took this photo back in May). It was painted over with an advert for the new album by local rapper Aitch. Immediately social media was filled with people saying this was 'sacrilege' and a travesty. Aitch responded saying the painting was done without his knowledge, he wouldn't want to 'disrespect a local hero' in this way and he'd ensure it was put right. Akse has been asked to paint the portrait in 2020 in association with a music and wellbeing festival, Headstock, and Manchester City Council and the contact details for various mental health charities are/ were on the mural. 

There are hundreds of other places an advert for Aitch's album could have been painted, it seems a little odd his team decided to put it over the mural of Ian Curtis. Unless the resulting publicity was what they wanted (and got). On the other hand street art like this is by nature transitory and can't be expected to be around forever. I sometimes get a bit perturbed by the Ian Curtis death cult, something I realised writing this post I've written about before. It's been around since he died and the photographs of him from the time- all black and white, a far away look his eyes, the doomed romantic poet of post- punk frozen forever- add to it. The 2007 film Control further contributed to this view of Ian. In contrast all his former bandmates have written in their respective autobiographies about what a great laugh Ian was and how being in Joy Division was fun much of the time. Ian's epilepsy and its treatment seems to have been the trigger for much of his poor mental health, exacerbated by the domestic/ relationships situation he got into. The pressure of being in the band, performing while being ill and the feeling of letting everyone down must have played a part. Suicide though is never romantic. It leaves those left behind with more questions and than answers. The death of someone so young affects those left behind forever. I sometimes wonder about the continuing Ian Curtis industry, including murals like this (and the similar one in Macclesfield), and if they merely add to the myth or whether they help anyone suffering. I've no answer to that but I'm not always sure the Ian Curtis death cult is a healthy thing. 

A few days after the mural incident I saw Joy Division on the TV, on one of Guy Garvey's From The Vaults programmes (Sky Arts, Freeview). The episode was music clips from independent TV channels in 1978. The clip in question was Joy Division's first appearance on television on Granada, introduced by Tony Wilson, playing Shadowplay live down on Quay Street. The producer's decision to overlay the band with footage of the drive into the city was a fortuitous one. 

It's extraordinary stuff, four young men writing a new chapter in Manchester's musical history, setting into motion the wheels that would lead to Factory, the Hacienda, Madchester, World In Motion and whatever else you want to add to that list (the current construction boom that is changing the city so fast it's difficult to keep up, the museum- ification of that whole period too). As soon as the clip starts to play and Hooky's bassline rumbles in, inevitably thoughts of 'here are the young men/ the weight on their shoulders' or something similar roll in. The second verse of Shadowplay has the line like 'In the shadowplay acting out your own death knowing no more' and there it is again, Ian Curtis death myth, inescapable.

Shadowplay

18th May 1980

Ian Curtis died forty years ago today. The details are public knowledge- found by his wife in his kitchen in Macclesfield, a cord around his neck tied to the clothes drying rack,  Iggy's The Idiot on the turntable, a Werner Herzog film the last thing he watched.

The Ian Curtis death cult is a bizarre thing. You can find it easily on the internet, people from all over the world who have taken on the view first expressed by Paul Morley at the time, that 'he died for you', that he was too pure a soul for this world. Anton Corbijn's 2007 film Control, made with the full co- operation of family and bandmates, has fed into this myth- beautiful, romantic, poetic, doomed Ian. It's a stunning bit of filmmaking and the performances are sincere and sympathetic. I'm not sure though that it's healthy to portray suicide this way. It's pretty clear that Ian's suicide has had a huge impact on those he left behind. His widow Deborah couldn't stand to listen to New Order between Ceremony and True Faith. His daughter Natalie grew up without knowing her father. Bernard has said the suicide has affected him ever since. Hooky has often referred to the shadow Ian's death has cast. This isn't the 'romantic' side of suicide. It's people left behind not knowing why he did it and the guilt that they could have done more to prevent it. The Joy Division industry and the endless Unknown Pleasures merchandising is a spin off that I don't think anyone on the evening of 18th May 1980 would have seen coming.

Joy Division Oven Gloves (Peel Session)

The Joy Division publishing industry has given us the autobiographies of the main players- Bernard Sumner, Deborah Curtis, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris. So many other people around the band have also now passed away- Rob Gretton, Martin Hannett, Tony Wilson- who would surely have written their versions had they lived. Wilson wrote the book version of Twenty Four Hour Party People which also covered the events.

All of which sometimes overshadows the sheer dark brilliance of Joy Division and their music, a band who were more than just Ian Curtis and three mates despite what Hannett said about them being 'a genius and three Man United fans'. Ian's untutored voice, Bernard's rhythm guitar, Hooky's melodic bass and Steve's lead drumming, perfectly balanced, each contributing 25% to the whole and Hannett's production giving them that extra quality, the dark stardust. The fact that Ian's death is now forty years old underlines just how young everyone involved was and maybe how difficult it was in 1980 for anyone around to have been able to do anything to stop him as his marriage collapsed, his illness got worse and his medication exacerbated his problems, and the US tour loomed. Recent gigs had been chaotic as he had seizures on stage. Mental health services in 1980 were not like they are today. Young men didn't talk about these things. They didn't even take his lyrics at face value despite Closer reading like a forty minute suicide note.

R.I.P. Ian. Remember him, listen to the music, dance to the radio but let's not fall into the trap of the romantic suicide. It's a dead end with no way out for those left behind.

This is a dub cover version of their most famous song by a New York group called Jah Divison. This isn't a novelty cover by any means.

Dub Will Tear Us Apart

This is She's Lost Control, live on Something Else in 1979, the real thing, northern post- punk, a reflection of the post- industrial city they were formed in and formed by, what Wilson called 'the last true story in rock 'n' roll'.

Elegia

A bonus post for Saturday night, just because. Lots of people I know are off to Castlefield tonight to watch New Order. I hope they have a great time. I'm not going (wife is away overnight so I'm here with the kids) and I'm not getting into the whole debate I've spent some time having with different people about the current incarnation of the group.

In 1985 New Order released Lowlife, one of their many, many 80s peaks. On it, opening side two, was an instrumental called Elegia, a tribute to Ian Curtis. The version on the album was under five minutes. When the Retro boxed set came out in 2002 the bonus fifth disc contained the full length seventeen minute version. It is very beautiful and very long. And here it is...

Elegia (Full Length Version)

Ceremony

On July 19th 1986 New Order headlined a show at GMEX (formerly Manchester's Central railway station, for much of the 70s and early 80s a derelict carpark. We used to park there when shopping in town and my Mum and Dad got all of us kids back in the car on one occasion and drove off, leaving one of my brothers standing forlornly where the car had been, aged only three or four. Don't worry- they realised before leaving the carpark). The show was the highlight of the Festival of the Tenth Summer,a Factory organised event celebrating ten years since punk and the show at the Lesser Free Trade Hall where the Sex Pistols set into motion everything that has happened to Manchester since. The Lesser Free Trade Hall, also the venue where Bob Dylan was accused of being Judas, is now a swish hotel. The Festival of the Tenth Summer had its own Factory catalogue number (FAC 151) and had nine other events including a fashion show, a book, a Peter Saville installation, an exhibition of Kevin Cummins photographs and so on. Very Factory. Support for New Order at the gig included The Smiths (billed as co-headliners), The Fall, A Certain Ratio, Cabaret Voltaire, OMD, John Cale, John Cooper Clarke and Buzzcocks. Not a bad line up really.

During their set New Order were joined on stage by Ian McCulloch who sang Ceremony with them. This clip shows that meeting, the only drawback being it's less than a minute long.



There's an audio only version of the whole song here. Ian sings in a register closer to Ian Curtis' and certainly gives it his best shot. The bit where Hooky joins Mac at the mic is great.

Ceremony was Ian Curtis' last song, intended for Joy Division but recorded and released as the first New Order record. The first two New Order records actually- it was released in March 1981 by the three piece New Order and produced by Martin Hannett. It was then re-released in September 1981 in a newer, slightly longer version with Gillian Gilbert on board and with a different Saville sleeve. If you want to get really trainspottery about it, the run out groove on the first version says 'watching love grow forever', while on the second version it has 'this is why events unnerve me'.

New Order and Echo And The Bunnymen toured the USA together along with Public Image Ltd throughout 1987, billed as The Monsters Of Alternative Rock. The Melody Maker reported from it as the picture up top shows. According to Lydon's autobiography 'Bernard Sumner was having problems emotionally and looked a bit the worse for wear' and describes him being tied to a trolley to sing at one gig as he was unable to stand. 'Nice fella' though says Lydon. Bernard's favourite tipple was 'a pint of headache' (Pernod and blackcurrant).

To The Centre Of The City

Thirty five years ago today Ian Curtis brought his life to an abrupt and premature end. Ian's suicide brought Joy Division to an end as well, though they found a way out eventually.

In 1978 Joy Division played live on Granada Reports, after Ian harangued Tony Wilson in a nightclub. This was Wilson's response, their first TV appearance. The editor's decision to superimpose footage of cars rushing along the Mancunian Way was inspired. In his autobiography Hooky recalls that each band member was given £2.50 by Rob Gretton to buy a new shirt for the occasion. Hooky also recalls being pissed off that Wilson said in his intro that the guitarist (Bernard) was from Salford ('a important difference') when he was a Salfordian as well and still lived there. It's the little things that stick in the memory.

Disorder

That's enough with the Johnny stuff for now.

I've been listening to Joy Division recently, not just the singles but Unknown Pleasures and Closer. I find I have to be in the right place, to be receptive, to listen to them. Closer especially. It's difficult to listen to Closer and not dwell on the fact that, particularly with the lyrics, the man singing the songs killed himself in the few months between finishing recording it and it being released.

Both albums are masterpieces musically, a band punching its way out of punk, with the assistance and oversight of production genius Martin Hannett. But specifically I've been listening to Peter Hook's basslines, which are in a class of their own. Entirely self-taught, he wrote more killer basslines than the rest of the post-punk bassists combined. Hooky borrowed and stole and then made something new. His look was cribbed from Paul Simonon's extra long strap and his sound from seeing The Stranglers and then buying the same amp set up as Jean Jacques Burnel. The playing developed from his and Bernard's discovery of how to play together. Unable to hear himself above Bernard's riffing in the early days with poor equipment, he played the higher notes and gained a completely distinctive style. I think it also came from being self-taught and not having served any kind of apprenticeship in standard blues-rock bands. There are no walking basslines, no follow-the-guitarist-just-playing-the root-notes stuff. The basslines in many Joy Division songs are the songs, the lead instrument, the melody.

Digital is a thrilling descending and ascending three note riff. Isolation has a fast two note riff with two alternating high and low ones after the main phrase, set against Bernard's toy synth and goes straight to heart of it, Closer's most instant song. The bass notes to Disorder, the opener on Unknown Pleasures, set the tone of the whole record. Shadowplay's bass riff is genuinely threatening, tense, menacing. A Means To An End is repetitive, circling heavy-disco before it grinds to an unsettling halt. Peter Hook- I salute you.

Disorder

Live Transmission

In chapter three of his autobiography (Chapter And Verse) Bernard Sumner describes the destruction of the street he grew up on in Lower Broughton and the displacement and resettlement of family, friends and neighbours to tower blocks and flats.

'Everything had gone, even the school had been pulled down. It was as if someone was actively trying to erase my memories. All the parts you could feel, touch, even smell, they were all gone and would never come back.... I don't think it's a coincidence that this is when I got even more into music, because what happened around that time has really influenced the music I've made. I think that you can hear the death of a community and the death of my adolescence in my contribution to the music of Joy Division'.

With Joy Division the focus is often on Ian Curtis' lyrics (and what they say about his state of mind) but clearly for Bernard the chord progressions and guitar lines had an actual content too, the guitar playing was about something. 

This recording of Transmission at Les Bains Douche, from December 1979, is astonishingly good- full of power and energy, Bernard's guitar distorted and furious, Hooky's bass pushing and pulling. Stephen Morris' drumming has to be heard to be believed.

Transmission (Live at Les Bains Douche)

Missing

Vini Reilly has had a rough time recently with health issues and major financial problems. One of his Durutti Column masterpieces LC is currently being re-released with twenty odd extra songs. LC is an lp I already own twice, once on vinyl and once in a 90s re-release version on cd. I don't think I'll buy it for a third time but if anyone from the Manchester scene deserves some cash to go with the talent it's Vini, so maybe we should put our hands in our pockets. This song was written for the missing boy, Ian Curtis. New Order, ACR, Durutti Column and Tony Wilson were all around a pool somewhere in the US in the early 80s and Vini said to Tony 'You know who's missing don't you?' As well as Vini's beautiful guitar this song features some very fragile Vini Reilly vocals..

The Missing Boy

LC stands for Lotta Continua- the struggle goes on.

Don't Walk Away

Technova's electronic cover version of Joy Division's Atmosphere, finding light amongst Joy Division's shade. This is a really good cover, with moments of beauty- lovely synths (showing the direction Bernard Sumner was already heading in 1980), dancey drums, squidgy bass and a blissed out, treated vocal replacing Ian Curtis' sombre baritone. Assuming this Technova is the same Technova who were on Weatherall's Emission Audio Output record label in the mid 90s, then this is the work of David Harrow, who also records as James Hardway. Weatherall and Harrow also recorded together as a fictional female techno artist Deanne Day (D and A, geddit) and Blood Sugar.

Edit 8th March 2011 Post and track removed by Mediafire and Blogger. I've reposted without the track.

Joy Division 'Digital'

Today, the 18th of May, is the 30th anniversary of the death of Ian Curtis. I'm sure I won't be the only blogger to mark this occasion. Ian Curtis hung himself the day before my 10th birthday, not that I knew that at the time, but ever since I became aware of them (several of their songs on a mixtape back in the mid 1980s, thanks D.J.) I've always remembered the date. Joy Division have become one of the most talked about, written about, filmed and interviewed bands in recent years. The late, great Anthony H. Wilson called them 'the last true story in rock 'n' roll', which is a good line, but I'm not going to debate whether it's true or not. They are what they were- the young men, the weight on the shoulders. Which is a good, doomy line, but Bernard, Steven and Hooky all dispute it, saying that though the music was serious being in the band was a good laugh, and conversely in New Order it was the other way round.

This song, Digital, was recorded in the band's first session with the equally late and great Martin Hannett and was their first release, on the A Factory Sample e.p. It was also, in one of those slightly spooky coincidences, the last song they ever performed at a gig at Birmingham University on May the 2nd 1980. 16 days later Ian died. New Order would carry on, taking the title of this song and running with it.

4shared.com - music and mp3 sharing - download 01 Digital.wma