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. 

Shadowplayers

I bought this book just before Christmas and read it through January, a new edition of Shadowplayers: The Rise And Fall of Factory Records by James Nice, originally published in 2010. It's a really good read, an in depth and thoroughly research history of the label with a wide cast of players present, both via interviews by Nice and already existing ones. There are contributions from all four members of New Order, Martin Moscrop of ACR, Alan Erasmus, Vini Reilly, Mike Pickering, Peter Saville, Lindsay Reade, Liz Naylor, Dermo, Larry Cassidy, Gary Newby, Bez and Shaun Ryder, Leroy Richardson, Paul Mason, Paul Morley and Jon Savage who in different ways all offer insight and explanation. Those who have gone- Ian Curtis, Martin Hannett, Tony Wilson, Rob Gretton, Vincent Cassidy, Annik Honore- are all well represented by archive interviews. 

James Nice is a fan of Factory. In the mid- 80s he founded his own label, LTM,  inspired by his love of Factory and re- issued some out of print Factory records. More recently he began managing of the Factory adjacent labels Le Disques Du Crepuscule and Factory Benelux and has worked on re- releases records by the Durutti Column, Section 25, The Wake, Quando Quango, ACR and others. He's invested in the label and loves the art it created. Shadowplayers isn't a fan account though and in some ways is a very necessary corrective to some of the less reliable, if more entertaining accounts that have grown since the labels demise, the 24 Hour Party People film and book among others (enjoyable though both were to a certain extent). Nice's history goes some way towards puncturing some of the myths and at times questions the received versions. One of Tony Wilson's most celebrated quotes is the old, 'When forced to pick between the truth and legend, print the legend'. Nice most definitely leans towards truth over legend. 

He traces the label's origins and tells the story chronologically from 1978 to 1992, roughly in three parts: the early days and the Joy Division story; the early- to- mid 80s (a mix of groundbreaking records, sleeves and productions coupled with some questionable A&R decisions and a largely empty nightclub); and the later years, when Happy Mondays gave Factory their much longed after second big selling act and their drug consumption/ lifestyle began to influence the label  and the way it was run (and Wilson particularly), a nightclub suddenly at the epicentre of a youth culture explosion and the financial mismanagement that brought about Factory's collapse in 1992, a process that sped up when a potentially lucrative deal with London Records (oh, the irony) was scuppered by Wilson's own admission and producing of a piece of paper from 1978 that read, 'the musicians own everything, the label owns nothing'. Factory had almost literally nothing to sell and had huge debts run up by the acquisition/ development of three properties (one of which, the offices on Charles Street, would generate no income). 

It's as much about the other bands as it is about the big two Joy Division/ New Order and Happy Mondays- those records and artists that span the Factory catalogue numbering system, from the ever- present Durutti Column and A Certain Ratio to James, The Railway Children, Section 25, Stockholm Monsters, The Wake, Kalima, Cath Carroll, Crispy Ambulance, Kevin Hewick and Northside. 

Dirty Disco *

Wilson is quoted as saying that Gretton was far better at A&R than he was and Wilson's track record supports him. In the late 80s, at a crossroads in the label's history with debts and crises mounting (gang violence inside the Hacienda, drugs, police and council attention) Tony Wilson signs The Adventure Babies and The Wendys. He also spends £250, 000 on a Cath Carroll solo album- a lovely album for sure but never likely to recoup that money. The chaos that the Mondays brought to the label, the lifestyle and shift in sound, turned Factory upside down,. The Mondays were a generational band on the one hand, capable of creating incredible records- Bummed, Pills 'n' Thrills- but also one that Tony Wilson bought into so deeply that the lifestyle and promotion of it, that it threw the label off and unbalanced them. 

Delightful **

It's also a reminder of how cutting and brutal the music press could be in the 80s. Nice presents umpteen critical accounts and reviews of Factory nights, gigs and records from the contemporary press, showing how Factory rarely had across the board approval during its lifetime. Manchester's own press- City Fun et al- were often hyper- critical. The four national music papers too. From their end Factory refused to promote or plug, refused to advertise the records ('if they're good enough, people will find them', was Wilson's belief). New Order refused to talk to the press and gave one interview a year in the mid- 80s, willful sabotage of their own sales due to a mistrust of the press. Some Manchester bands avoided the label, keen not to sign for Factory. Factory was divisive as well as cool- something that has been forgotten in the time since the collapse. 

Hymn From A Village ***

The contemporary view of Tony Wilson, in Manchester and beyond, is that he built the modern city and was a universally loved figure. The book calmly outlines events and people, showing rather than telling. You gather that by 1989, Wilson's ego could run out of control, as seen on the Hacienda trip to the USA titled Wake Up America You're Dead!, where they offended a panel of American house/ techno pioneers (which included Keith Allen posing as a pharmaceutical expert), Wilson reveling in the image he was creating, portraying the Mondays as musicians and drug dealers. I say this as a fan of Tony Wilson by the way- but a more realistic portrait of him and popular views of him at the time is drawn by Nice here than in some accounts of the Factory story. 

All the stuff of the legend is there too, some of it debunked- Saville's groundbreaking and beautiful art and inability to meet deadlines, Blue Monday and the cost of its sleeves and groundbreaking sound, Strawberry Studios, Unknown Pleasures, Martin Hannett's production, drug consumption and fall out with Factory, the Russell Club, The Hacienda, Dry, the Charles Street offices with the floating Ben Kelly table, the Festival of the 10th Summer, the guns and gangs and violence that overwhelmed the club and the label in the late 80s/ early 90s, the tensions that rose in New Order that led to their split, all of this and some very necessary and important minor stories too. It's a thorough and very readable account. 

We see Factory now through the lens of coffee table books of sleeve art, exhibitions, box sets, posters, films and documentaries, merchandise and re- issues. I'm as guilty of this as anyone in my own way. I too buy the merch and re- issues, go to the exhibitions, write about the records and contribute to the Factory nostalgia industry. In contrast, while adding to the pile of Factory books James Nice gives us a richly detailed, clear eyed and largely un- nostalgic account.  

In one part towards the end of the 80s Bernard Sumner recounts how New Order were praised for doing things 'the Factory way' or 'the New Order way', deliberately choosing the more difficult, more obtuse, less commercial route. Sumner says that he and the band realised that doing things 'the Factory/ New Order way' had cost them a massive amount of money and made life difficult for them when it didn't have to be. He wanted them to become a less truculent, less arty band, more commercial and more conventional, playing the bigger gigs, for more money. At that point, I thought while reading it, 'the experiment in art by a bunch of Manchester Marxists' (to quote Wilson) started to come to an end and was eventually replaced, after 1992 when Factory finally collapsed with a bunch of creditors that included friends and family, by something less interesting but more beneficial to the musicians. 

Shadowplay ****

* Dirty Disco is a slice of mutant post- punk grind by Section 25, the Blackpool band who singed with Factory and released their debut album in 1981, produced by Martin Hannett at Pink Floyd's Britannia Row studio in London and clad in an absurdly beautiful and lavish Peter Saville sleeve. 

** In 1985 Factory released this Happy Mondays single, Delightful, produced by Mike Pickering, a song that gives a hint of what lies ahead although clearly the band are still finding out where they are going. 

*** Hymn From A Village was by James, the lead song on their James II single in 1985. James were still a four piece at the time, a unique and visionary band who left for a major label and who I don't think ever sounded better than on this song. 

**** Shadowplay is from Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, as I'm sure you know, the album that made the reputation of band, producer, sleeve designer and record label. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Two

Last Sunday's cover versions mix worked well enough for me to undertake a second. I started with Jah Divison and went from there, a succession of dub and reggae covers, wasn't happy with it and scrapped it and started again, setting off again with Jah Division but heading in a noisier, more guitar laden direction, all a bit more shambolic. Then it slows down and blisses out before kicking up a storm again for the finish. 

After I posted last Sunday's mix Steve from Andres y Xavi messaged me to say he had a series of cover version mixes called Under The Covers, up at Mixcloud. The latest, his ninth, covers a lot of ground from Lady Blackbird to The Droyds with Isaac Hayes, Bobby Womack and Jose Feliciano among the people sandwiched in between. Plenty to enjoy. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Cover Versions Part Two

• Jah Division: Dub Will Tear Us Apart
• The Fall: Mr Pharmacist
• The Jesus And Mary Chain: Surfin' USA
• Sonic Youth: I Know There's An Answer
• Sonic Youth: Computer Age
• Hardway Bros: 1979 GLOK Remix
• Andy Bell: Our Last Night Together
• The Liminanas: Ou Va La Chance
• The Vendetta Suite: Who Do You Love?
• Fontaines DC: 'Cello Song

Jah Division is a Russian reggae band, formed in Moscow in 1990. This is what it says in Wikipedia. It also say that the founder of Jah Division, Gera Morales, was the son of Leopold Morales, an associate of Che Guevara's. Elsewhere (Bandcamp) it says Jah Divison are from Brooklyn and their 2004 12" of four covers of Joy Division songs is their sole release. According to Bandcamp Jah Divison features members of Onieda and Home, began as a joke and the four tracks were recorded in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. Take your pick. None of which stops Dub Will Tear Us Apart from being a genius cover version whoever recorded it. 

The Fall's Mr Pharmacist is a cover of a song by Los Angeles 60s psyche garage band The Other Half, a 1986 Fall single from the Brix period and produced by John Leckie. The original was on an early 80s Nuggets compilation. Mr Pharmacist was also on The Fall's Bend Sinister album, an opinion splitting album derided by Mark E. Smith and John Leckie.

Surfin' USA was a Darklands outtake, all feeedback, rough and rowdy drums, breaking glass, East Kilbride sneers and TV preachers. The Reid brothers knew how to cover a song. The original was a 1963 Beach Boys single...

... and I Know There's An Answer was a 1966 Beach Boys album song (from Pet Sounds). Sonic Youth's cover comes from 1989, recorded for a Brian Wilson tribute album released in 1990 and sung by Lee Renaldo- no one else could sing it according to Lee who says J. Mascis helped out in the studio too. Appropriately squally and rather wonderful. 

Sonic Youth also recorded a Neil Young cover in the same time frame for a Neil Young tribute album, The Bridge (a superb album). They chose a song from Neil's most misunderstood album, Trans. Like the Mary Chain, Sonic Youth instinctively know what makes a good cover version. Computer Age is a gem in the SY back catalogue. 

Sean Johnston's Outre Mer label is an outlet for Hardway Bros recordings. In January 2024 he released an EP called My Friends which included a cover of Smashing Pumpkins 1979 (a song which is itself pretty much a New Order tribute). A remix EP saw GLOK tackle 1979, and has a massively overloaded guitar sound that makes you check your speakers are OK. 

Andy Bell's covers EP Untitled Film Stills contains four covers- Our Last Together is an after hours beauty, impressionistic, woozy and moving. Well, it moves me. 

The Liminanas featured in last week's mix and they're back today with a song from this year's album Faded. Ou Va La Chance is a cover of a Francois Hardy song, closing the album in fine style.

The Vendetta Suite are from Belfast and their 2021 album The Kempe Stone Portal is packed with electronic, acid house, Balearic and cosmische sounds plus this slowed down, electronics and feedback rumble version of Bo Diddley's classic (also covered by The Mary Chain back in the 80s). The Vendetta Suite's Gary Irwin goes all the way back to David Holmes and Iain McCready's nights at Belfast's Art College in 1990 and has worked with Holmes on and off ever since. 

Fontaines DC's cover of 'Cello Song has featured in at least three previous Sunday mixes- a Nick Drake one, a Fontaines one and an end of 2023 mix. I make no apologies for its re- appearance here. They take Nick Drake's 1969 song, a beautiful poetic song and retune it, turning it into a modern rock 'n' roll thrill with Grian Chatten finding new meaning in Nick's words. Both versions, original and cover, struck me quite profoundly in the time since Isaac' died, these lines in particular...

'For the dreams that came to you when so young
They told of a life where spring is sprung

So forget this cruel world where I belong
I'll just sit and wait and sing my song

But while the Earth sinks to its grave
You sail to the sky on the crest of a wave'

And that's where we're ending today. 

Forty Five Minutes Of New Order- ish

I heard Your Silent Face on Friday night- not for the first time obviously- and it floored me once again. There's something about it that is very special- the rippling Kraftwerk inspired keys and synths, Hooky's bass and the mechanical drumming, Bernard's serious lyrics completely undercut by the 'why don't you piss off line', the way it gloriously skips between euphoria and melancholy. It's much more than all of that, one of those songs that is way more than the sum of the parts. It inspired me to start a New Order mix for my Sunday series but then I changed tack almost immediately. Rather than just sequence of load of my favourite New Order songs (almost all of which would be from the 1980s) I thought it might be more interesting or more fun to do a Your Silent Face/ New Order inspired mix and see where it took me. It took me here...

Forty Five Minutes Of New Order- ish

• New Order: Your Silent Face
• Galaxie 500: Ceremony
• Gorillaz ft. Peter Hook and Georgia: Aries
• The Liminanas and Peter Hook: Garden Of Love
• Ian McCulloch: Faith And Healing
• The Times: Manchester 5.32
• Ride: Last Frontier
• New Order: Isolation
• Mike Garry and Joe Duddell: St. Anthony: An Ode To Anthony H. Wilson (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Your Silent Face opens side two of Power, Corruption And Lies, New Order's second album, released in May 1983. It's now seen as a New Order classic, a landmark album, the fusing of dance and rock, light and shade, a band stepping out of the shadows of Joy Division and the first NO album Movement. Your Silent Face had the working title KW1 (the Kraftwerk one). Funny story about New Order and Kraftwerk- the Dusseldorff robots visited New Order in their Cheetham Hill rehearsal space/ HQ and sat open mouthed as the band showed them the kit they used to make Blue Monday. 'You made that record using... this?' 

Galaxie 500's cover of Ceremony is a beauty, a slowed down, slow burning version, ringing feedback, the guitars gathering in intensity, and Dean's upper register voice smothered in echo. Ceremony was New Order's first single (and in a way, Joy Division's last). It was released as a 12" in 1981, twice, with different sleeves and slightly different versions. Galaxie 500's version came out as a B-side on their Blue Thunder 12" in 1990. At the time the nine year gap between 1981 and 1990 was an eon, the 1981 world and 1990 world two totally different eras- for New Order as much as anyone. 

Gorillaz got Hooky to play bass as part of their Song Machine project in 2020. Aries is I think the best 'New Order' song of the 21st century. Murdoc, Noodles, 2D and Russel Hobbs/ Damon Albarn together with Hooky's bass totally nailed what NO should be sounding like now. 

Four years before Gorillaz got Peter Hook to sling his four string guitar around he hooked up with French duo The Liminanas. Garden Of Love is (again) a great 21st century 'New Order' song, slightly fragile, slightly woozy, psychedelic garage rock, the bassline wending its way to the fore and staying there. 

Ian McCulloch's Faith And Healing is virtually a New Order cover- it sounds so much like a off cut from Technique he probably should have given them writing credits. It came out as a single in 1989, taken from Mac's solo debut Candleland. 

The Times was one of Creation mainstay Ed Ball's projects. In 1990 as The Times he released Manchester as a single, a hymn to a city at the centre of a youth explosion. Hooky's mentioned in the lyrics. It's also a tribute to the sound New Order had on 1985's Lowlife. It couldn't be more Lowlife unless it came wrapped in a tracing paper sleeve. I sometimes it think skirts the line between ridiculous and brilliant. I can imagine it making some people cringe but I think it has charm. Once, driving through France it came on the car stereo on one of the mix CDs I'd burned for the trip and made me briefly, stupidly homesick. I got over it- I mean we were on holiday in France for fuck's sake.  

Last Frontier was on last year's Ride album, Interplay. It's an Andy Bell song, soaring, chiming guitars and on the money drums. It sounds like a close cousin of Regret (the last truly great New Order single, released back in 1993. Although actually, I'm happy to listen to arguments for Crystal, released in August 2001). 

Isolation is a Joy Division song, from their second/ final album Closer. It's a stunning song, the collision of electronic drums and real ones genuinely thrilling, along with the synth and bass. Ian's words are bleak, a man at the end of his tether. This version is by New Order, recorded for a John Peel session in 1998. They still play it live- they did it at Wythenshawe Park last August. 

Mike Garry and Joe Duddell's St. Anthony: An Ode To Anthony H. Wilson is a song I come back to often, Mike's A to Z of Manchester music endlessly listenable and at times very moving. For his remix Andrew Weatherall, a huge fan of Factory, turned the song into a nine minute Weatherall tour de force, complete with a version of the Your Silent Face bassline. Which is where I came in. 

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. 

Forty Six Minutes Of Twenty Three

Two months ago this weekend, the day before we were taking Eliza back to Liverpool for her final year in university, the three of us were sitting in a cafe in Didsbury village, one of our afternoon walk and a brew haunts. Eliza said, out of nowhere, 'I think we should all go and get a number 23 tattoo for Isaac'. Lou and I looked at each other and both said, 'yeah. ok'. It was very spontaneous, none of us ever really thought abut getting a tattoo before. Me and Eliza had joked about but very much in a 'we won't ever do this' kind of way. But at that moment it suddenly seemed like a good thing to do. Unfortunately the tattoo parlour in Sale couldn't fit us in on the day so we booked in for a month later- it felt like something the three of us should do together and Eliza didn't want to come back from Liverpool for a while. It also gave us some time to think about fonts and parts of the body.

The number 23 has become associated with Isaac. I've written about it before this year. He was 23 when he died and his birthday is the 23rd November (just a couple of weeks away now with the 2nd anniversary of his death a week later). In the last year the number 23 has kept appearing in front of me- on street signs, graffiti, electricity boxes, random tv countdown shows suddenly channel surfed onto, the only available table in a pub. I don't think it necessarily means anything- it's just something I've started noticing and when I see a 23 now it makes me think of him and smile. Getting a 23 tattoo might trigger the same reaction (and a month later, I'm happy to say it does). We got the tattoos done a month ago. Mine is pictured above, a type writer font on my forearm. Lou got a smaller 23 on her side and Eliza got an even smaller, fine line 23 on her upper arm. 

The number 23 has a rich history. I've written before as well about it's part in KLF mythology, with their interest in Discordianism and numerology. When Isaac died I was reading John Higgs' book about The KLF. A few weeks after he died I picked the book back up and the first chapter I read was about the significance of 23. I finished the chapter and put the book down, totally freaked about. I read it again the next day and it had a similar effect. When I was looking at fonts for my tattoo I thought about a KLF block 23 but it would very inky and take some time to do. I fancied a type writer font. On the morning we were due to go I suddenly wondered what 23 would look like in a factory/ Peter Saville font and started going through my various Factory art books. What, I asked myself, was Fac 23? A quick search later and I realised Fac 23 was the 7" release of Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division. Which caused me to stop in my tracks for a moment. In the end I didn't quite go full Peter Saville Fac font but it played a part in my thinking. We're all really glad we got them done. At the moment, all autumn chilliness and long sleeves, its often covered up, but when I see it, it makes me smile. The upcoming anniversaries are weighing quite heavily and I'll be glad to get November over with- but the tattoos feel like a positive and I'm not sure a year ago I'd thought that would be possible. 

This mix is 46 minutes of songs connected to the number 23. I was going to bring it in at 23 minutes but that felt too short so went for double 23. Two of the songs below were also released in full 23 minute versions which felt too long for a Sunday mix but they're here in shorter versions to represent their 23 minute long brothers. 

46 Minutes Of 23

• Chris Rotter And The Bad Meat Club: 86'd
• 10:40: Sleepwalker
• Local Psycho And The Hurdy Gurdy Orchestra: The Hurdy Gurdy Song (Mothers Of The New Stone Age Remix)
• 23 Skidoo: Coup
• Jah Division: Jah Will Tear Us Apart
• The Vendetta Suite: Eye In The Triangle
• Two Lone Swordsmen: 23rd Street
• Mogwai: U235
• Gorillaz: Aries
• Psychic TV: Godstar
• The KLF: 3am Eternal

Chris Rotter was the guitarist in the live band incarnation of Two Lone Swordsmen and played on and co- wrote songs on Andrew Weatherall's solo album A Pox On The Pioneers. I became friends with Chris online and then in real life. When Isaac died he wanted to record a song for Isaac. I asked him to do 86'd, a song I heard Andrew play on a radio show, a glorious chiming krauty instrumental. Chris went and re- recorded 86'd in new form, 23 minutes long. For reasons of space I've included the shorter one here. The full length 86'd (For Isaac) is here. 

Last December Jesse represented the entire 10:40 back catalogue as an advent calendar. This was the track for the 23rd December, the sleek psych and somewhat krauty Sleepwalker with Ben Lewis on guitar.

The KLF and the number 23 I've mentioned above. Read John Higgs' Chaos, Magic And The Band Who Burned A Million Pounds for more detail. Local Psycho And The Hurdy Gurdy Orchestra are ex- KLF Jimmy Cauty and ex- Pogue Jem Finer. Their hurdy gurdy, neolithic celebration drone came out on 12" came out earlier this year complete with a 23 minute mix. I've included the shorter remix here but the 23 minute version is the one really. 

23 Skidoo are here for obvious reasons. Coup is a block rocking post- punk/ punk funk track from 1984. In a further Andrew Weatherall connection, it was one of the songs on his 9 O' Clock Drop compilation from 2000. 

Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart, as I said above, was Fac 23. Factory's numbering system was central to their ethos. All Joy Division and New Order singles ended in 3. Rather than include the original I decided to put Jah Division's dub cover in- it fitted better. Jah Division released an EP of four dub covers of Joy Division songs  in 2004. If you ever see a vinyl copy, please give me a ring. 

The Vendetta Suite are from Northern Ireland, the work of Gary Irwin. In 2017 Gary released an EP titled Solar Lodge 23 from which this piece of cosmic dubbiness is taken. 

Two Lone Swordsmen- yes, them again- released their first record in 1996, a 12" that contained four tracks- Big Man On The Landing, Azzolini, The Branch Brothers and the one here, 23rd Street, a few minutes of abstract Swordsmen sounds. 

Mogwai's move into soundtrack work has paid off. This is from the soundtrack to Atomic, a bit of a cheat maybe numerically but 23's in there and the track fits.

Gorillaz have played with the number 23 frequently in their imagery and artwork. This song Aries was a single in 2020 and has the unmistakeable and melancholic/ uplifting sound of Peter Hook's bass at its heart.  

Psychic TV, Genesis P Orridge's experimental psychedelic/ acid house band had some interest in 23. In 1986 they began a series of gigs to be recorded and released, 23 in total, each played on the 23rd of a month for 23 consecutive months. Godstar is a single from 1985, a tribute to Rolling Stone Brian Jones.

The KLF's 3am Eternal was the second of their stadium house trilogy, released in 1991 (after a previous version in 1989 and a subsequent one in 1992). The version here, the 1991 single and chart topper, took this mix to 46 minutes. 

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

Late Night Letts

Don Letts has compiled an album for the Late Night Tales series, a twenty one track dub excursion that pulls together all sorts of strands, strains and offshoots of dub, punk and post punk. Among the highlights are a bunch of cover versions.  Capitol 1212 and Earl Sixteen cover Love Will Tear Us Apart, a dubbed out version of the song with a cool vocal and buckets of echo. 

Wrongtown Meets The Rockers deconstruct The Clash's Lost In The Supermarket, bassline and FX, a snatch of melodica carrying the topline. The Easy Star All Stars break out the sitars for a very stoned version of Within You Without You. Gaudi and The Rebel Dread tackle Big Audio Dynamite's E=MC2, samples from Performance and a mangled, cut up vocal while the bassline prods and pushes Don's old band's song along. 

Black Box Recorder's cover of Uptown Top Ranking, a Prince Fatty cover of Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit (becoming Black Rabbit), Zoe Devlin Love's lovers rock take of The Beach Boys Caroline No and Yasushi Ide's version of Ain't No Sunshine further blur the boundaries, drawing wobbly lines between then and now. Matumbi and Dennis Bovell, Ghetto Priest, John Holt and Mad Professor all show up. None of this feels like a novelty or a joke, it's all part of a much greater whole, a celebration of the culture that has seeped from radios and Dansettes in the 60s and 70s to whatever device or platform you're using to listen to music at the tail end of 2021. 

Every Time I See You Falling I Get Down On My Knees And Pray

Heaton Park is all set up for Parklife, a two day festival across this weekend largely attended by people much younger than me. New Order took advantage of the set up and played a homecoming gig there on Friday night. Stepping outside Heaton Park's Metrolink station there's a long line of middle aged fans queueing to get to the gates where Covid passports are checked, bags are rummaged through by security, people are scanned with metal detectors and then finally QR code tickets on phones read by yet another line of security. JD Sports logos are all over the big screens either side of the stage. We arrived late, having missed both support acts (Working Men's Club and Hot Chip) but with enough time to join another long queue to get drinks. No draught beers, just bottles and cans with four cans of Carling coming in at an eye- watering £24. No wonder that so many people turned up having had their pre- gig drinks elsewhere. My unease with Covid and crowds meant we found a spot near the back- usually I'd want to be far further forward. The air is sweet with the smell of substances. The ground is not muddy despite some recent rain. A couple of men near us have a picnic blanket out. There's a chilled atmosphere but as DJ Tin Tin slips Voodoo Ray onto the sound system a palpable buzz starts to fizz through the crowd. Not long after, just as dusk hits, New Order appear. 

I wasn't expecting to be as blown away as I was. Bernard welcomes us all, saying how good it is to be playing live after a shit eighteen months and then adds, 'Fuck Covid', and then they're off into Regret and without much much of a pause Age Of Consent. This is a filled out, muscular New Order, the slightly shonky, thinner sounding, almost on the verge of it all falling apart, group of the 1980s beefed up, loud and powerful. Their romp through the set takes in most of what you'd want New Order to play, the songs that you've danced to at indie nights, clubs and house parties since the mid- 80s plus a handful of newer ones. Ultraviolence, resurrected from 1984's Power, Corruption And Lies, is an early highlight, the bassline bumping and the anxiousness of Bernard's original vocal replaced by something calmer and older (inevitably). They follow it with Ceremony which causes mild mayhem around us, the ringing guitar lines and Stephen's hi- hats cutting through the decades and the masses joining in, 'This is why events unnerve me/ They find it all the same old story'. Moments like this catch you off guard, emotions suddenly bubbling up, songs you've sung for over thirty years that have become part of a  shared history and people's lives. Early New Order songs feel achingly personal, the sound and the words, a response to the end of Joy Division and Ian's death, and when you hear them sung by thousands in celebration it's quite something. Your Silent Face, listed as KW1 on the band's setlist, the working title for the song back in 1983 (KW1 = The Kraftwerk One) is a joy, Bernard's melodica solo just as shaky as it ever was. A friend said elsewhere that half the attraction of New Order is when they 'nearly fall to pieces... they're never quite 100%' and I think that's exactly right. Their frailties and lack of polish still gives them an edge even if they're nowhere near as unprofessional as they used to be and have equipment that is one hundred times more reliable. 

The final eight songs are a blur, one high after another. A monumental Subculture (one of their greatest moments for me), that keyboard riff hammering out and the stuttering drums crashing around Prestwich. Funnily enough the group's old rehearsal rooms are just down the road, the songs that were written and worked out in a bunker in Cheetham Hill now filling the air a mile away. As Subculture ends there's less than a moment to draw breath before the bass intro of Bizarre Love Triangle slams though the PA and we're taken yet another notch higher and then as they segue into the majestic Vanishing Point, they lift us even further- the kick drum, sequencer and those delirious guitars and keys, 'My life ain't no holiday/ I've been to the point of no return...' 

Bizarre Love Triangle (12" Mix)

Vanishing Point

As if that wasn't enough they play The Perfect Kiss next. Plastic from their last album is dedicated to Denise Johnson and then we're into the home straight and True Faith, Blue Monday and Temptation. True Faith has been one of my favourite New Order songs since it came out back in August 1987, I never tire of it- the version they paly live is housed up with piano all over the chorus. Temptation is in a class of it's own- that acidic sequencer line bringing us up and Bernard's words the sound of a million kids now grown up and a thousand nights out, 'Heaven/ A gateway/ I hope... Tonight I think I'll walk alone/ And find my soul as I go home'. We all do the whoops and sing the basslines and join in with the chorus, 'Up, down, turn around/ Please don't let me hit the ground'. The tension and release that everyone knows is coming still hits hard, one of those heart in the mouth moments, 'Oh you've got green eyes/ Oh you've got blue eyes/ Oh you've got grey eyes/ And I've never seen anyone quite like you before'. 

If that was all we got I think we'd have been happy (apart from one of our party, Geoff, who shouts for Procession and in his own words 'always shouts for it but they never seem to hear'). Bernard, Gillian, Stephen, Phil and Tom re- appear for an encore and give us three Joy Division songs- a still fragile sounding Decades with Ian's face projected on the screens, a blistering Transmission and then finally Love Will Tear Us Apart- and that's it, we're done, spent, wrung out, happy. 

At this point my brother's wife's cousin decides to shin up the nearest flagpole and fair play to him, fired up by Mancunian dance rock, lager and natural excitement, he gets a good way up it. 

In A Lonely Place Again

The In A Lonely Place cover version tribute to Andrew Weatherall by his brother Ian and Duncan Grey and the remixes courtesy of Keith Tenniswood, Sean Johnston and David Holmes, have sent me back to the original. In A Lonely Place came out in January 1981, the B-side to Ceremony, New Order's first release. Ceremony, with it's ringing guitars and pace has a celebratory feel, a sense that the three surviving members of Joy Division have somehow made it through the night and seen the dawn break. In A Lonely Place doesn't- it is a funereal dirge with Bernard singing Ian's lyrics which can only be read as a cry for help, a man at the end of his tether. 

'Caressing the marble and stone/ Love that was special for one/ The waste and fever and hate/ How I wish you were here with me now

The body that kills and hides/ Matches an awful delight/ Warm like a dog round your feet/ How I wish you were here with me now

The hangman looks round as he waits/ Gullet stretches tight and it breaks/ Some day we will die in your dreams/ How I wish we were here with you now'

The slow rolls of drums, the synths and the laser, Bernard's melodica and Hooky's dramatic bassline plus Martin Hannett's production (the reverb making it sound like it was recorded in a vast empty church), make it an uneasy listen at the best of times, a grimly beautiful song. The song was written (as was Ceremony) by Joy Division and recorded by them and then re- recorded by New Order in 1980 as their first single. 

In A Lonely Place

New Order's first  steps into the world of performing were tentative and uncertain, the band visibly displaying the stresses and strains playing live brought. Gillian learning to play the songs and finding a space in the group, the increasing reliance on unreliable equipment, Bernard's discomfort with singing and being in the centre of the stage and an audience who in some cases came out of ghoulish curiosity and in some cases came because they wanted to see Joy Division. In 1982 they were filmed playing In A Lonely Place at BBC Riverside in London. 

At nearly six minutes this is a longer version than the single and the song has clearly become a lament for their departed friend. Stephen is the key, the drums at the centre of the song while Hooky plays the cymbals. Bernard's vocal is drenched in echo and he looks like he'd rather be anywhere else. Gillian's keyboards and the melodica add the colour- if the various shades of grey this song contains can be described as colour. It is a superb rendition, taut and emotional and intense. When Bernard steps out of the spotlight to play the synth, turning his back on the audience, there is a gap in the middle of the stage- a gap they still haven't really worked out how to fill. As it approaches its end, with the song still playing Bernard walks off stage and the rest then follow. I have an internet friend who saw New Order perform the song in London around this time and he says that when Bernard sang the 'How I wish you were here with me now', his eyes looked to the ceiling and members of the audience gulped and wiped their eyes. 

By 1984 New Order were established, two albums in and with tours and gigs behind them, confident and bolshie and with a pioneering sound, rock and dance fused, Joy Division's basslines and the electro of clubs in early 80s New York and Berlin making something new- the rousing, sensational rush of Temptation, the dance dynamics of Everything's Gone Green, the life affirming day- glo colours of Age Of Consent. The story of their performance at the Radio One studios in summer 1984 has been told before. The group played a gig in Cornwall the night before and assumed that a cross country dash to London would be no problem. It was- bank holiday traffic and stinking hangovers combining to produce a grumpy band arriving at the BBC. The studio wasn't to their liking and all their temperamental synths and machines had to be set up in the summer heat. Bernard in particular is in a foul mood. Both Hooky's and Stephen's autobiographies are pretty candid about the drug use within the group by this point and when watching the four songs played that day, it's looks like at least one member of the group, the one in the short shorts and vest, has guzzled a significant quantity of cocaine. 

In A Lonely Place is a strange choice for a live Radio One session when they had a good number of songs to choose from by this point but it seems typically New Order to play it. As Stephen begins the song, rolling his sticks round the drum kit, at what is the correct tempo, Bernard screws his eyes up at the mic and snarls 'faster, Steve, FASTER'. The song progresses to a pace Bernard is happier with. At one point Hooky shoots his school friend a foul look. Bernard wipes his nose with the back of his hand, again admonishing Stephen to play faster. It is the grumpiest performance of a Joy Division song you'll see. You might feel that it undercuts the funereal majesty of the original recording and the otherworldly quality of the version at BBC Riverside but that's New Order for you, certainly the 1980s incarnation of the group. 

Hooky's amp, if you want another Andrew Weatherall connection, is sprayed with the words Gay Sperm. On the 1998 Two Lone Swordsmen mini- album A Bag Of Blue Sparks there was a song called Gay Spunk- I'm guessing one led to the other. Hooky had a habit of spraying messages on his amp- Salford Rules was a common one. In 2007 as he played what would turn out to be his last gigs as New order's bass player, over four consecutive nights he sprayed the words 'Two Little Boys' , then 'Formed  A Band', followed by /'They Fell Out', and finally 'The End'. 

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'.

Isolation Mix Six

I got this dramatic shot of the sky over the Mersey on Thursday night. One habit I hope I manage to maintain once this is all over, whenever that is, is taking regular walks. You miss so much sitting inside and even the most familiar and mundane places can look different when caught at a particular time. This week's Isolation Mix is a dubwise and post punk excursion from The Clash, some dubbed out Joy Division covers, Bauhaus, The Slits, Killing Joke remixed by Thrash, a bunch of Andrew Weatherall dub versions and some On U Sound from Dub Syndicate.



The Clash: The Crooked Beat

Steve Mason: Boys Outside (Andrew Weatherall Dub 2)

Jah Division: Dub Will Tear Us Apart

Jah Division: Dub Disorder

Bauhaus: Bela Lugosi’s Dead

The Slits: I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Dub Syndicate: Ravi Shankar Part.1

Sabres Of Paradise: Ysaebud

New Order: Regret (Sabres Slow ‘n’ Lo)

Lark: Can I Colour In Your Hair (Andrew Weatherall Version)

Killing Joke: Requiem (A Floating Leaf Always Reaches The Sea Dub Mix)

This Searing Light

I have recently read Jon Savage's book about Joy Division- This Searing Light, The Sun And Everything Else: Joy Division: The Oral History. When I first heard about it I wasn't sure an oral history, constructed from interviews old and new, was what I wanted from a Joy Division book by Jon Savage, one of the best writers of his generation. What I wanted was Jon's writing, his thoughts and words, his insights. But within pages of starting the book I was realised I was wrong- the selection of quotes from interviews, the perspectives of the participants and eye witnesses, is exactly the way the story of Joy Division should be told. Some of the excerpts and quotes are familiar, from the Joy Division documentary from 2007, from interviews and articles I've read elsewhere. Some are taken from reviews and contemporary music press accounts. Some are new. The genius of Jon's assemblage of the quotes is in the constant forward momentum of the story, told from within the band and from outside it, and the way he manages to make time shift. Clearly we all know the ending and some of the passages are from interviews with Sumner, Hook and Morris talking now about then, but despite them having the benefit of hindsight the book has a real immediacy, as if events are unfolding in front of your eyes. The shifting focus from one person to another, with interviews conducted at different points between 1978 and 2018, is really well done. The final few chapters, hurtling into 1980 and Ian's increasing issues with his epilepsy and the side effects of the medication, the ongoing situation with Ian, Deborah Curtis and Annik Honore and the sense within the group that they should stop and give Ian a rest- while at the same time they're making Transmission, Atmosphere, Dead Souls, Closer and Love Will Tear Us Apart- is brilliantly portrayed, heartrendingly so as the whirlpool sucks Ian further into it, and the loss of control by all involved. If you have any interest in the Joy Division story or the music they made, I can't recommend it enough.

Fittingly, for a group so defined by the graphic presentation of the art and the beauty of Peter Saville's work, it is a superbly put together book too, from the shiny reflective cover with the book title in the font used for Closer and grainy band photo, to the selection of gig shots and posters. There are a pair of quotes placed at the end of two of the chapters that are genuinely breathtaking, that make you stop, turn back a few pages and read again, so that the quote comes at you once more- one is from Tony Wilson, that gives the book its title (you should buy it, read it and enjoy that moment yourself). The other is from Annik Honore where she says 'They made [the music] very naturally... and that's why it was so good, because they were not self-conscious about it. I think it was coming from deep within them... it was spontaneous, it was not calculated, you know, not artificial; they had the light, the spirit.' For a group that lasted only a couple of years and wrote and recorded no more than eighty songs, that had an enormous impact on those around them and in their audience at the time- Annik's quote goes some way toward explaining their particular brilliance.

In 1978, before Factory existed, Joy Division got some studio time from RCA (who had an office in Manchester at the time). The session didn't go very well and they almost walked out. It was suggested that they record a cover of version of N.F. Porter's northern soul classic Keep On Keeping On. Hooky says they could never do covers, they never turned out well, they couldn't work out the parts, but in this case they kept the guitar riff which became Interzone. It would be one of the ten songs that became Unknown Pleasures, recorded in Stockport's Strawberry Studios with Martin Hannett in 1979. Hooky and Bernard hated Unknown Pleasures. Hannett took away their aggressive, punky live sound and made it something else, something with space and atmosphere and a doomy sense of things going wrong. Everyone else loved it. The rest, as they always say, is history.

Keep On Keeping On

Interzone

Ceremony

I'd forgotten until I posted Galaxie 500 last week that they did a cover of Ceremony, a B-side on the 12" of Blue Thunder.

Ceremony

Galaxie 500 slow it down and make it a bit looser than the original. Dean Wareham's guitar playing is stellar, just enough distortion and fuzz and the drums are less mechanical than Stephen Morris' and avoid the tom toms completely.  It's a slow burn affair, less quiet-loud-quiet than New Order's versions of the song.

Ceremony was one of the last songs written by Joy Division and then New Order's first single- it was released in two different versions in 1981, the first recorded in January and then re-recorded in September when Gillian Gilbert had joined the band, and then issued with two different Peter Saville sleeve designs but both versions were numbered FAC 33. Subsequent pressings saw either version put into either sleeve which seems typically Factory- an obsession with detail coupled with can't be arsed. Famously when they came to record the song they couldn't find Ian Curtis' handwritten lyrics and had to work them out from the demo version, recorded onto cassette- some of Ian's vocals were unclear and they had to put the tape through a graphic equaliser. Even then Bernard was guessing at some of the lines.

Ceremony

In June 1983 New Order played Chicago's Cabaret Metro, a semi-legendary gig due to the heat knocking the power out and the synths and sequencers malfunctioning. Towards the end of the set they played Ceremony, rawer, faster and more ferocious. On fire in fact, as Galaxie 500 called their album. 

Ceremony (Live at Chicago Cabaret Metro 1983)

A Double

In past years on music blogs October 25th was Keeping It Peel Day (October 25th being the day he died in 2004), a day to celebrate the life and music of the man. I remember this largely because October 25th is also my wife's birthday.

This photograph/meme was doing the rounds a couple of weeks ago and I love it. In the spirit of the meme and for Keeping It Peel Day- Peel supported and loved both bands- I offer you a Joy Division song recorded by New Order in 1998 for a Peel Session.

Isolation

Isolation contains one of Ian Curtis' most distressing lyrics. The second verse has for a long time seemed to me like where he knew he was moving towards the place he ended up in on 18th May 1980.

'Mother I tried please believe me,
I'm doing the best that I can.
I'm ashamed of the things I've been put through,
I'm ashamed of the person I am'

Musically Isolation is immense, Stephen's urgent electronic drums, Hooky's driving bass and Bernard's keyboards which bring a bit of light into the shade. The second half of the song receives a real shot of adrenaline when the 'real' kit and hi-hat come in, propelling it onward. On Closer, Joy Division's second album, it is a breath of fresh air, a few minutes of aural relief following the claustrophobic, intense and unsettling opener Atrocity Exhibition. If you can ignore the content of the lyrics. The New Order version above is well worth your time, an update and upgrade, a merged musical version of Ally Sheedy and Molly Ringwald, both black and pink.

And happy birthday to Mrs Swiss (Lou), a fan of The Breakfast Club and Molly Ringwald's dancing.