Fifty Six

Today's post is brought to you in association with the number fifty six. The A56 runs past the top of our road and a mile up the road from us (heading towards Manchester city centre) it goes past the beautiful but empty Art Deco cinema in Stretford (formerly Stretford Essoldo, pictured above). 

The A56 starts out on Frodsham Street in Chester and heads east through Cheshire, past Warrington and Runcorn and then passes Lymm where it turns to Altrincham, then Sale and Stretford (it is at various points between Altrincham and Old Trafford called Chester Road, Cross Street and Washway Road). Then it runs through Gorse Hill to Old Trafford where Manchester United's ground lies to its left, skirts Hulme and when it hits town it becomes Deansgate. From there north to Salford and Bury and into Lancashire, to Colne and Nelson before reaching Skipton and eventually running out of tarmac in the village of Broughton, North Yorkshire. 

Fact 56 was A Factory Video, a various artists VHS video released by Factory in 1982, the starting point of what Tony Wilson believed would be a brave new artistic world for the record label. The Factory video production arm was Ikon (Brian Nicholson) and operated from the basement of the Factory HQ at 86 Palatine Road. For a while it was based in the cellar of Tony Wilson's house on Old Broadway, a house that in 1982 I walked past every day on the way home from school. Aged twelve, I wasn't really up to speed with what was going on in that cellar. Ikon ran their own video release series and Fact 56 was a compilation of some of those releases.  

It starts with New Horizon by Section 25. New Horizon is the final song on their 1981 album Always Now, a record produced by Martin Hannett and clad in one of Peter Saville's Factory artwork masterpieces. The advice Peter got from band member Larry Cassidy was 'something quite European, but psychedelic with some oriental influences'. 'After that', he said, 'I was on my own'. The sleeve opens like an envelope, marbled on the inside on specialist card with bold type on the front and die cut. 

Tony Wilson was right about the importance of videos and video art. Fact 56 was available to buy on VHS and Betamax. I would guess a lot of copies of both ended up in landfill in the 90s as the world went digital. There are two copies for sale on Discogs, one for £50 and one for 80 Euros which would suggest they're pretty scarce now. 

There isn't too much else about the number 56. It became a symbol of the Hungarian Uprising. Joe DiMaggio had a 56 game hitting streak. It means that I'm now closer to 60 than 50. 

This came out recently, nothing to do with 56, just something I wanted to share- Seu Jorge and Beck covering Nick Drake's River Man, a lush and very lovely bossa nova version of the song from Brazil and produced by former Beastie Boy producer Mario C. 

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. 

Forty Minutes Of January And February Songs

A month ago I had the idea that at the end of January I'd put together a January mix, songs with January in the title or lyrics, and then maybe repeat throughout the rest of the months of the year. For one reason and another it didn't happen and now it's February. No problem, I thought, I'll just roll January and February together, and do that. It turns out I have not very many January songs and even fewer February ones- the only February songs I could find were Lou Reed's Xmas In February and Billy Bragg's 14th Of February and neither really fitted with the vibe I started the mix with. I extended February's reach into Valentine's Day and that, no surprise, made it much easier. All of which is a long winded way of saying here's a forty minute mix of songs about January and February. 

Forty Minutes Of January And February Songs

• The Orb: Perpetual Dawn (January Mix 3)
• M- Paths: January Song
• The Durutti Column: Requiem For A Father
• My Bloody Valentine: Soon
• Lizzy Mercier Descloux: My Funny Valentine
• Charlotte Gainsbourg: Deadly Valentine
• New Order: 1963
• Half Man Half Biscuit: Epiphany (Peel Session)

Perpetual Dawn is an Orb classic, remixed twice by Andrew Weatherall in fine style. For their album Aubrey Mixes: The Ultraworld Excursions, released and deleted on the same day in 1991 The Orb remixed songs from Beyond The Ultraworld, finding new shapes and sounds for seven essential early Orb tracks including the January Mix 3 version of Perpetual Dawn- early 90s ambient house at its best.

M- Paths release ambient/ electronic music, sometimes for Mighty Force and sometimes on their own label. Now down to the core figure of Marcus Farley, who also records as Reverb Delay, this track came out a year ago, at the start of January 2025, an archival M- Paths recording for the new year.

Tony Wilson, TV presenter and founder of Factory Records, was also from 1978 the manager and friend of Vini Reilly. When the original band version of The Durutti Column split in 1978 Wilson decided that the future for Durutti was Vini Reilly and whoever else was around but that Reilly was such a talent that he should make Durutti Column his own. Wilson also decided that he would put all Durutti Column records out on Factory and that he would manage DC/ Vini along with fellow Factory founder Alan Erasmus. Wilson formed a management company on the 24th January 1978 and called it The Movement Of The 24th January, borrowing the name from the Situationist students who formed their own International Movement on 22nd March at Nanterre University 1968 (Mouvement 22 du Mars). Here is a copy of the letterhead Wilson designed for his company...

Requiem For A Father is from The Return Of The Durutti Column, the debut album released in January 1980, Vini's guitar playing and Martin Hannett's echo and delay devices and synths in perfect harmony, Vini playing a song for his Dad and Hannett making a rhythm out of a digital machine that sounds like a cat purring close up. 

My Bloody Valentine have been never very far away this year to date, their songs soundtracking much of January 2026. Soon is from Loveless in 1991, a track that did things with guitars that genuinely hadn't really been done before. Kevin Shields' guitars following Vini Reilly's is exactly where my head is at right now. 

Valentine's Day is less than a week away lovebirds. 

Lizzy Mercier Descloux was a French punk, friends with Patti Smith and Richard Hell, published Rock News and moved to New York where she set up ZE records with her partner Michael Esteban. Lizzy released several albums, minimalist punk/ No Wave, wrote poetry and painted, retired to Corsica to write books and lived a full and varied life. She died in 2004. Her cover of My Funny Valentine, the Hart and Rogers song, is from her 1986 album One For The Soul which had Chet Baker guesting on some of the tracks including this one. 

Sticking with French artists, Charlotte Gainsbourg released Rest in 2017, her fifth solo album and one that dealt with the death of her father Serge and alcohol addiction. Deadly Valentine was a single and is dramatic synth pop with a lively throbbing bassline and feathery vocals.

1963 is from the B-side to 1987's New Order single True Faith, a giant in their back catalogue. 1963 could have been a single in its own right. Bernard's lyrics are peculiar/ awful (delete according to taste). 'It was January/ 1963/ When Johnny came home with a gift for me'. Bernard once spun a line that the song was about JFK and Marilyn Monroe arranging for Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot Jackie Kennedy so they could get together but Oswald shooting the wrong person. Bernard may not have been entirely serious- Marilyn died in 1962 so at the very least his chronology's off. Producer Stephen Hague thought it was about domestic abuse. Whatever the lyrics deal with, the music is New Order 1987 magnificence.

Half Man Half Biscuit recorded Epiphany for a Peel Session. It starts out with Nigel Blackwell narrating a chance occurrence on a Friday in July that then unfolds in surreal Blackwell style taking in Dictionary Corner, black apes gibbering on dark lawns, a lime Dyson, a date in Parbold (near Wigan), a crossed telephone line, a sickly foal, a straggle haired girl called Karen Henderson, songs recorded for a a hospice, bus outings, Billing Aquadrome and busking at Embankment Tube before concluding 'January the 6th. Epiphany'. 

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. 

Four Years

Four years today, at quarter to two in the afternoon, Isaac died at Wythenshawe hospital. He was 23. That it is four years seems barely possible- time goes so quickly in some ways. I can transport myself back into that room in the hospital very easily- it's probably not a good thing to do too often. In the time since he died I've noticed that the grief, the thing, the ball of darkness, the knot in the stomach and the ache in the chest, can replace him, engulfs him (and me)- he, Isaac, gets lost inside it. Which isn't right.

It's difficult to remember that sometimes because the loss takes over, but it should be about him, remembering him and who he was, the things we did and the things he said, the good times. We are able to do that now- we sent some time in a cafe yesterday laughing about the things he used to do, him and Eliza when they were both much younger and smiling at photos of the pair of them. It's nice to be able to do it but it becomes much harder in November. Anniversaries are still hard. I'll be glad to put this month behind me. 

Isaac touched many, many people when he was alive and he continues to do so even now, through photos and memories on social media. Photos previously unseen by us still appear. Short video clips Eliza made of him I've not seen before pop up. Sometimes on these clips he looks so close you could almost reach out and touch him. Recently a friend I've never met said this about him, 'His smile lit up many a soul, so many that he hadn't even met'. It is lovely to think of him having a long afterlife in photographs, still lighting up the lives of people all this time later. 

We played Sketch For Summer at Isaac's funeral, 17th December 2021. Vini's guitar playing and Martin's production never sounded better than on Sketch For Summer, the opening seconds of electronic birdsong and then the primitive drum machine entry and those guitars. Sketch For Winter is different but equally affecting and seems appropriate for today. 

Sketch For Winter

The Durutti Column's first album, The Return Of The Durutti Column has been re- issued recently, an album made by Vini Reilly and Martin Hannett in 1980, the pair put together by Tony Wilson. Hannett sat with his new toys, various digital echo and delay devices and a drum machine. Vini played bits of guitar but was largely ignored by Hannett who was deep into the new machinery. Occasionally parts were recorded. Eventually Vini walked out, frustrated and pissed off. Hannett completed the album and when Vini was presented with it, it sounded completely new to him- he didn't like it. Like Joy Division before him, he grew to love it, as Joy Division did with Martin's production on Unknown Pleasures. 

Fourteen

New Year's Day is also Bagging Area's blogging birthday, this blog born kicking and squealing into the internet fourteen years ago today, 1st January 2010. I had no idea when I started that I'd still be doing this in 2024 but it's proved to be a habit that sticks. There was an interesting article about blogging by Simon Reynolds at The Guardian a week ago which struck many chords. Here are a handful of fourteens to mark the occasion.

Fourteen Again was one of the standouts from Rheinzand's debut, self titled album from 2020, an album packed full with chuggy, spangly, trippy, disco/ Balearic/ house delights. There's a wobbly synth sound and long keening drone that sit on top of the wiggly arpeggios and four four beat that send it into cosmic disco, a long build up before singer Charlotte begins the chant, 'I wish I was fourteen again...', everything becoming quite heady and intense. 

Fourteen Again

After the album there was a hefty remix package with Fourteen Again being retuned by fellow Belgians Borokov Borokov, a very wigged out take on the original. 

Fourteen Again (Borokov Borokov Remix)

Factory Records is a recurring part of Bagging Area posts. Fac 14 was the debut Durutti Column album, The Return Of The Durutti Column, one of my favourite albums. If you ever see a copy with the sandpaper sleeve at a reasonable price, let me know (ditto one of the cassette copies in the big boxes that factory used to do). Sketch For Winter seemed appropriate, Vini and Martin Hannett at Cargo in Rochdale and Strawberry in Stockport creating magic. 

Sketch For Winter

Forty Minutes For Christmas Eve

I haven't really felt much Christmas joy so far this year and all of a sudden it's Christmas Eve and I need to try to get into the spirit a little. Therefore, today's Sunday mix is a Christmas special, a little under forty minutes of Yuletide tunes to sing around the Christmas tree. Admittedly The Jesus And Mary Chain aren't particularly full of Christmas cheer but a little noise and self- loathing is all part of the season isn't it? 

The picture, 'cos I know you're asking, is from a nativity scene that gets erected every Christmas about half a mile up the road from here. It's full of the Joyeux Noël spirit and is a feast for the eyes. 

Forty Minutes For Christmas Eve

• Durutti Column: One Christmas Your Thoughts
• The Sugarcubes: Birthday (Christmas Eve)
• Basement 5: Last White Christmas
• The Vendetta Suite: Christmas In Cologne
• Low: Just Like Christmas
• Johnny Marr: Free Christmas
• Sonic Boom: I Wish It Was Like Christmas Every Day (A Little Bit Deeper)
• The Fall: Xmas With Simon
• Saint Etienne: Her Winter Coat

One Christmas For Your Thoughts was originally released as part of a 1981 compilation, Chantons Noel, on Crepescule along with other festive tunes by artists including Aztec Camera, Paul Haig, Simon Topping, and Cabaret Voltaire. It then became an extra track on the various CD re- issues of LC, the 1981 Durutti Column classic- LC stands for Lotta Continua, the struggle continues. This is a particularly lovely piece of Vini Reilly guitar playing and let's face it, there's never a bad time to listen to Vini.

Basement 5's Last White Christmas came out in December 1980, dub/ punk produced by Martin Hannett. Post- punk dread as standard.  

Birthday was a single by The Sugarcubes, their breakthrough record. In 1988 Jim and William Reid remixed it three times, each one with a Christmas title- Eve, Day and Present. Scuzzy Christmas sounds. Side A of the 12" is double grooved so when putting the needle on the record it was always a lottery as to which version you'd get. 

Christmas In Cologne is on The Vendetta Suite's December 2019 EP The Wheel Turns, a festive krautrock treat from Belfast's Gary Irwin, Christmas a la La Dusseldorf.

Just Like Christmas has become one of the few seasonal songs I'll actively seek out around Christmas, the  Minnesotan three piece releasing it as part of an eight song Christmas album in 1999. Sleighbells, Velvets drums and sweetly sung lyrics about driving from Stockholm to Oslo, it starting to snow and it feeling like Christmas. 

Johnny Marr's Free Christmas was given away free from Johnny's website back in 2011. Chiming guitars, acoustic guitars, baritone guitars and some choral voices with Mr Marr wishing listeners a happy Christmas. 

Sonic Boom's 2020 Christmas song was a reworking of another of his songs from the All Things Being Equal album and has Galaxie 500/ Luna's Dean and Britta helping out on vocals. Christmas as repetitive, trippy drones and a song specifically for a Christmas we all spent in Covid enforced isolation. 

Xmas With Simon was the B-side to 1990's High Tension Line single. The Simon in question is Simon Wolstencroft, ex- Fall drummer who I bumped into at the Unknown Territories gig last weekend. Shame I didn't have the presence of mind to get a photo with him. The caption would have written itself. 

Saint Etienne's Her Winter Coat was a December 2021 single, a rather beautiful Pete Wiggs song and production, a wintry blur of synths, sleighbells with the distinct air of melancholy. Just like Christmas. 

ACR At Band On The Wall- Early, Current And Future

During the lifetime of this blog I've reviewed live gigs by A Certain Ratio more than other band. ACR have played a range of small and medium sized venues around Manchester in the eight years and I've been at many of them (with a foray to Blackburn a few years ago too). On Sunday night they finished their current tour with a gig at Band On The Wall, Manchester's oldest/ longest running gig venue, with two sets. It was the third time I've seen them in 2023 alone- previous gigs took in a memorable celebration of this year's album 1982 at New Century Hall and an outdoor set at Factory International in the summer at Dave Haslam's request, with Dave DJing afterwards. At both the outdoor gig (thankfully with a roof) and Sunday's night's at Band On The Wall it poured down in typically Mancunian style, driving rain and wind welcoming us as we traipsed out onto the dark streets having seen ACR provide the punk, the funk, the post- punk, the Latin, the jazz, and the Manc- noir and signpost the way to the future. 

The tour, ACR45, is a celebration of the journey they've been on since 1978. The first set was the early songs, Martin Moscrop and Jez Kerr arriving on stage and kicking into debut single, 1979's All Night Party. It's quite the opening, the dark, scratchy, definitely inspired by punk sound of Martin's guitar and Jez's bass and doomy vocal standing out starkly- very early Factory. Halfway through the song Donald Johnson gets behind the drum kit and joins in, suddenly, both in the song live and back in 1979 when he joined the group, they change, the punk/ post punk dread instantly becoming fuller and funkier. Donald brought the groove to ACR and they never really looked back. 

All Night Party

All Night Party is a seminal Factory single, numbered Fac 5 in the catalogue system, produced by Martin Zero (Hannett) at Cargo in Rochdale. All Night Party was so early, that the only Factory record that precedes it is Fac 2 A Factory Sample. Fac 1, 3 and 4 were all Peter Saville posters. In the late 70s cultural commentator/ style guru Peter York was shown a photo of ACR and said they looked 'early'. 

'Early what Peter?', Tony Wilson asked. 

'Just early'. 

Back in 2002 when they reformed after a few years apart they played Band On The Wall to promote the album Early, a two CD compilation on Soul Jazz Records. Tonight, twenty one years later, they still have that feel, that feel of being early, of being pioneers. 

As All Night Party ends ACR expand to the current six piece line up, with new bassist Viv Griffin giving Jez the freedom to concentrate on vocals, whistle, percussion and triggering samples, long running sax player Tony Quigley, keys/ synths player Matt Steele and Ellen Beth Abdi, vocals and percussion, a youthful foil at the front next to Jez. Their early songs, those singular Factory songs, singles and album tracks, sound superb- Do The Du, Flight, Shack Up and Knife Slits Water, all as dark as the night outside and cut through with that skeletal funk. In the middle the rhythm and drone of Winter Hill shows how far they could go. Wild Party and Lucinda bring the jazz to go with the punk funk. At one point the six players are cooking up a storm, the sound filling the room and the crowd bobbing and moving, with various percussion instruments, lithe bass, keys and saxophone- none of the trappings of rock 'n' roll, no squealing guitars and crashing drum solos, but instead an alternative, a cinematic, dancefloor soundtrack. Just to show they aren't doing a nostalgia show (and at no point does the gig feel like nostalgia or a revival) on Mickey Way they update the 1986 jazz funk with its atonal trumpet and sax parts with the appearance of a rapper, Chunky- and it works perfectly. 

After a short break the come back for the second set. Jez is in good form, cracking jokes and muttering sardonic asides. He opens the second set by dedicating the first song to Denise Johnson- Won't Stop Loving You is as good a late 80s/ early 90s Manchester song as any of the others, and is lit up. Then they play a deep, dub house version of Good Together complete with Matt's freak out synth ending and then 27 Forever, a glorious piece of electronic pop from 1991. It's followed by their cover of Talking Heads' House In Motion, a song they recorded at Strawberry Studios in the early 80s with the intention of having Grace Jones on vocals. Grace made it to Strawberry but never put her vocal down. ACR released the cover in its demo form with Jez's guide vocal a few years ago. Hearing it played live tonight is worth the price of admission alone, Viv leading the way pushing Tina Weymouth's bassline into new spaces, ACR covering Talking Heads making perfect sense. 

It's testament to how revitalised they've been in recent years and how much of a streak they are on that the new songs they play for the rest of the set stand alongside the older ones they've played up to this point. Their 2020 album Loco felt like the result of four decades work, a distillation of their sound, experiences and influences. Yo Yo Gi and especially the sleek, early 80s noir pop of Berlin are immense. 

Berlin

The title track of this year's album 1982, a love letter to the time the band spent in new York in that year, is a modern Manc funk groove. SAMO is clipped, driving hook heavy dance music, Ellen Beth Abdi all exuberance and cool vocals. At the end they bring on a trio of new, young co- vocalists for Day By Day, the newest song and a nod to the future, three early twenty- somethings crowded round the mics, ACR the next generation, with Ellen's lead vocal front and centre. The finale is the customary set closer Si Firmir O Grido, everyone on drums and percussion, a heady, good time groove, Jez blasting his whistle, Martin and Don swapping seats behind the drum kit and then back again. At Gorilla a few years ago when they played Si Firmir O Grido they marched off the stage and into the crowd, the crowd gathered around ACR's tightknit circle. Tonight they stay on the stage, the crowd's faces grinning back at them. 

Earlier on between two of the songs Jez paid tribute to Alan Erasmus, the co- founder of Factory and co- manager of ACR in the early days. Alan turned up backstage before Sunday night's gig with a bottle of champagne for each member and apparently an apology for letting the band down in the early 80s. Looking at ACR tonight, it's difficult to see how they were let down- they've outlasted almost everyone else, they're making new music that is streets ahead of their contemporaries, have adapted and changed, bringing new blood in to update themselves and they look like they're having more fun than everyone else too. More power to A Certain Ratio.  

Forty Minutes of World Of Twist

World Of Twist have come up in my internet world a couple of times recently and it seemed too good an opportunity to resist to sling some of their best moments together into a single forty minute mix, one side of a C90 tape in old money. The group's back catalogue is fairly slim- a 1991 album, Quality Street, a handful of singles and remixes and a pair of BBC radio sessions, one for John Peel and one for Mark Goodier. My first encounter with them was on a Manchester compilation album, the swirling song The Storm already getting mentions in the music press. After that I bought everything they released, seeing them live twice, once in Liverpool and once in Manchester. 

World Of Twist formed in Sheffield in 1985, disintegrated, and then reformed in Manchester in 1989, many of the members living in the Withington/ Didsbury area where I grew up. The line up of singer Tony Ogden, guitarist Gordon King, Andrew Hobson on synths, Alan Frost (FX, visuals, synths), MC Shells aka Julia on 'swirls and sea noises', Angela Reilly (visuals) and drummer Nick Sanderson found press and a record contract quickly, caught up in the feeding frenzy of late 80s Manchester. They took the driving rhythms of northern soul, 80s indie rock and late 60s psychedelia, the end of the pier, faded glamour of seaside towns like Blackpool and fused it all together. Their live shows had slide shows and projections, trippy effects, glitter curtains and rotating signs with the words Rock And Roll on them. Tony Ogden, floppy hair centre parted and black leather jacket, had a stage stance that was like a young Elvis (if Elvis had been from Stockport rather than Tupelo). They finished their live gigs with a cover of The MC5's Kick Out The Jams. If Pulp (who travelled a similar road to much greater success) had covered Kick Out The Jams it would have been draped in knowing irony, Jarvis giving it high leg kicks and an arched eyebrow. World Of Twist, after an ascending Blackpool Ballroom organ intro, attack Kick Out The Jams in deadly seriousness. I really liked them. 

There was a feeling that Quality Street missed the boat. By 1991 the Manchester tide was going out and the album, largely produced by Richard Norris and Dave Ball of The Grid with Martin Moscrop of A Certain Ratio and Cliff Brigden also at the desk, never seemed to be loud enough, no matter how much you turned your volume knob. The press went from full blooded praise to very lukewarm in months.  They called it a day in 1992 when, having begun work on a second album, Tony decided he didn't want to sing any more. Gordon King and Nick Sanderson went on to Earl Brutus. Sadly two members are no longer with us- Tony Ogden died in 2006 and Nick Sanderson in 2008. 

Forty Minutes Of World Of Twist

• The Storm
• Lose My Way
• Blackpool Tower (John Peel Session 1991)
• She's A Rainbow (12" Version)
• This Too Shall Pass Away (Chat)
• Sweets (Barratt 200 Mix)
• I'm A Teardrop
• Sons Of The Stage (12" Version)
• On The Scene
• Kick Out The Jams (Live at St. Andrew's University 1991)

The Storm was on the demo tape that got them a deal. It came out several times as a single with their cover of She's A Rainbow on the B-side, variously with Martin Hannett and/ or The Grid on production duties and Hugo Nicolson and Spencer Birtwistle from Intastella engineering. It starts with thunder and sound effects, then the swirly organ and rapid fire drums kick in. Indie night floor filler. 

Lose My Way opened Quality Street, a strong start to the album with its trumpet part, hammering four four drums and Tony's full throttle vocal and lyrics about love and lust. On The Scene is from the album too, an album track that is the closest they came to the Manchester sound, swirly indie- dance from 1991. 

Blackpool Tower is from a John Peel session, 25th June 1991 along with versions of Lose My Way, St Bruno (otherwise unreleased) and Kick Out The Jams. Blackpool Tower became part of a ten minute song called Blackpool Tower Suite, released on 12" in late 1990 with The Storm and She's Rainbow.

She's A Rainbow was one of their signature tunes and the record company threw it out multiple times looking for a hit. It's a cover of a 1967 Rolling Stones song, one of highlights of the Their Satanic Majesty's Request album, and one of Martin Hannett's last production jobs. The 12" version opens with some lovely, gnarly distorted guitar before the famous piano line comes in. 

This Too Shall Pass Away was the B-side to the single Sweets (and in its 'proper' form appears on Quality Street). The song is a cover of a 1964 Honeycombs single. On the Chat version Tony's vocals have been replaced by samples of people talking about Norman Wisdom, gardening, artichokes and potatoes and other everyday matters. 

Sweets was a sugary pop song, lovely stuff. The Barratt 200 Mix  came out on the 12" and CD single.

I'm A Teardrop is a great little song, recorded for a Mark Goodier session in September 1990, two and a half minutes of indie- guitar pop. 

Sons Of The Stage was on the album and a single and if it was all they had ever released, it would be more than enough. Like Hawkwind streamlined and rebooted for the early 90s, the song is a rush of indie dance, northern soul and early 70s sci fi psychedelia. It's a magnificent achievement. Tony's lyrics describe the sensation of being the singer on stage, with the band powering away around him and the crowd a seething mass in front of him. 'The beat breaks down so we pick it up/ The floor shakes down but it's not enough/ The beam is up and kids are high/ I see them move and it blows my mind/ The floor's an ocean and this wave is breaking/ The head is gone and your body's shaking/ There's nothing you can do 'cos there is no solution/ You gotta get down to the noise and confusion...Out of our minds on the stage...'

Kick Out The Jams is a cover of The MC5's famous high octane 1969 song. This recording is live, from a gig at St. Andrew's University in 1991, World Of Twist marrying their devotion to music with the rundown pleasures of British seaside resorts, utter conviction. Kick 'em out. 

Emerald Sapphire Gold

I got an offer from my brother who had a spare ticket for ESG at Band On The Wall on Saturday night- a sold out gig in a small venue by New York dance/ funk- punk legends. That's not something to say no to. The sun shone on Saturday, town was busy with shoppers, drinkers, fans coming and going to and from Old Trafford and the general buzz of the first nice day of the spring. Unfortunately having a drink at Night And Day meant we arrived at Band On The Wall at 8.45pm only to be told the group had been on stage since 8.30 so we missed the first few songs but walking in it was clear that ESG were delivering the goods to a very enthusiastic crowd. 

ESG's history with Manchester dates back over four decades, to 1981 when Tony Wilson saw the Scroggins sisters and friend Tito Libran playing at Hurrah in Manhattan. Three days later they were recording with Martin Hannett, a three track single released on Factory in June 1981 (FAC 34 catalogue fans). You're No Good had three songs on it, the title track, Moody and UFO, the last one recorded quickly because Hannett saw there were three minutes of master tape left unused and two minutes fifty four seconds of that tape went on to become one of the most sampled songs in hip hop history, its sirens, beats and descending guitar line recognisable in hundreds of records. ESG supported A Certain Ratio in 1980 when ACR played in New York (at least two Ratios, Martin and Jez, are present in the audience tonight) and Hannett was producing ACR's To Each... at the same time as the three ESG songs that came out on the Factory single. ESG played the opening night of the Hacienda. Accordingly they're welcomed here tonight like long lost relatives, honorary Mancunians. 

Renee Scroggins is centre stage, seated, rapping and singing in her unmistakeable Bronx twang, a spit and snarl where necessary- 'I got sampled so often I decided I was gonna sample myself', she tells us by way of introduction to one of her songs tonight. Around her is that skeletal but funky, New York, mutant No Wave dance/ punk funk sound, all bass, drums and percussion, with the basslines clear and crisp and sounding huge through Band On The Wall's sound system. Stage right Nicholas Nicholas plays congas, cowbell, shakers, tambourine and woodblock, frequently breaking away from the percussion to dance around and across the stage, arms raised and with a big grin. Moody, from FAC 34, is played mid- set and the years are rolled away as the bass pumps and the rhythms clatter.

Moody

It's as much a celebration as a gig, ESG clearly enjoying themselves and the crowd completely onside. There's very little in the way of treble or melody, it's all about the bass and drums, music stripped down to a minimalist sound, a gleeful kinetic groove. Towards the end an audience member is helped up onto the stage to dance. She brings her friend up and they co- ordinate spontaneously, switching places on stage. At the end, as Renee is helped off stage, the bass and drums continue, Mike Giordano rolling round the kit and bassist Nicole exhorting us to join in the chant of 'ESG, ESG'. 

Isaac's Mix

This is Isaac's name on the Covid memorial in London, and his heart too, recently renovated by a friend. It was his funeral a year ago today. The recent anniversaries of his birthday and a week later the first anniversary of his death weighed very heavily on us for weeks before and there was quite a hangover after too. The anniversary of the funeral hasn't had the same effect. 

The day of the funeral itself, a year ago,was awful- the waiting for the hearse, the drive to the crematorium, the wait I had to stand up and read out the eulogy I'd written, the walk to the grave... all of it. It's not something I'd ever wish to live through again. 

The wake afterwards was a blur. I spoke to some people and barely to others. We found ourselves asking each other, 'was so- and- so at the wake? Did I speak to them?', for days and weeks afterwards. The number of people who attended either or both events was testament to Isaac and the effect he had on people. The friend who wrote the epitaph on his heart at the Covid memorial got it exactly right. 

These are the five songs we played at the funeral, sequenced into one mix in the order that they were played. They've all changed for me since that day, the songs and their meanings shifting in ways big and small. I guess that was inevitable. 

Isaac's Mix

• The Charlatans: North Country Boy
• Durutti Column: Sketch For Summer
• The Wannadies: You & Me Song
• The Flaming Lips: Race For The Prize
• The Sabres Of Paradise: Smokeblech II (Beatless Mix)

Back in 1998 a friend, Neil, bought Isaac a copy of North Country Boy on 7" when he was born and it's a song I've associated with him ever since. Isaac was after all a north country boy. When we walked into the chapel as the drums and slide guitar kicked in I did briefly shudder and think to myself, 'Oh shit, what have we done, I'll never get through this song'. Some of the lines have an extra resonance now. You can probably work out which ones. In September this year I saw The Charlatans play it as part of their hits set at New Century Hall in Manchester. Quite a moment. 

Vini Reilly's music has been part of my life since about 1987 and I wanted some of it played at the funeral. There was a section in the service where a slideshow of photos of Isaac played and Sketch For Summer was the accompanying music, Vini's wonderful guitar and Martin Hannett's production and synths filling the room. Originally I wanted to use Otis but the sampled vocal, 'another sleepless night for me' was too much. 

You & Me Song was Eliza's choice and I can't hear the song now without crying. She has a print of the lyrics on her wall in her room. It's her song, and his, forever.

Race For The Prize tells of two scientists competing to find an un- named cure, with the pay off line, 'they're just human/ with wives and children'. The strings swoop and swell and it careers to its ending. It's a glorious song, emotional and inspiring. Back at the turn of the millennium my brother- in- law Harvey used to film everything. When we went on family holidays or met up he'd shoot loads of camcorder footage and he'd then edit it into short films with songs over the top. There's loads of footage of Isaac, his cousin Orlan and Eliza being children. In 2002 we went to the north east for a week in August and stayed in a cottage near Alnwick. Isaac had spent the period 1999- 2001 in and out of hospital, including in 2000 a long period of time undergoing two bone marrow transplants. Isaac's transplant was cutting edge, revolutionary stuff, only the second of its kind in the world. It saved his life and gave him the next two decades with us. Two scientists racing for the prize. Harvey's film of Isaac aged three and Orland aged two running around the garden in the sun with Race For The Prize playing, a beautiful coming together of images, music and words stuck with me, and it made sense to play the song at the graveside even if the meaning was unknown to almost everyone there.

Smokebelch II- Weatherall's moment of beauty from 1993. I've lost myself a few times to that song. I will do again I'm sure. 

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

Wrote For Luck, Takes Me Higher

There was further sad news at the weekend with the announcement of the death of Paul Ryder aged fifty eight. Paul aka Horse was brother of Shaun and the bass player in Happy Mondays, and when you listen to their records you realise how much of their unearthly groove was due to his basslines. Self taught and trying to copy the basslines from Motown, Parliament and Funkadelic and house records, his basslines are the foundation on which the Mondays were able to base their chaos. I first saw them at the Mountford Hall, Liverpool University in March 1989, a gig like no other, the entire room dancing from front to back, the stage a shadowy blur with Shaun sitting on the drum riser to deliver his stream of consciousness street poetry for most of the gig, Bez appearing through the dry ice, grinning and bug eyed. Paul and guitarist Mark were left and right, shrouded in darkness churning out their weirded out funk rock grooves and noise. They finished, as they had to, with Wrote For Luck.

Wrote For Luck (Dance Mix)

This performance has the band in full flight on Club X in September 1989. Club X was on Channel 4, one of the channels late 80s, late night programmes aimed at catching the youth audience. 

RIP Paul Ryder.

Another long lost/ never seen before TV performance from the 1989/ 1990 period came my way a few days ago, this time loved up rave heroes The Beloved. The group are miming (unlike the Mondays) but this clip of them doing Your Love Takes Me Higher on Hit Studio International, recorded at Limehouse in London, is rather good and a perfect little time capsule.

Your Love Takes Me Higher is a superb piece of house- pop, encapsulating the optimism and wide eyed feel of the times. The Beloved duo Jon and Steve have expanded to a full band for TV appearances drafting in friends, everyone giving it everything, all long hair, long sleeved t-shirts and baggy jeans. 

Your Love Takes Me Higher (Demo)

Fishes Eyes Will Watch Your Lies

New Fast Automatic Daffodils coalesced in Manchester in the late 80s and were signed to Play It Again Sam, a record label based in Belgium who had early electronic rock groups on their books- Front 242, The Young Gods and Meat Beat Manifesto all released records on PIAS. New FADs fitted in with that sound in some ways, a groove based sound, drums and taut basslines to the fore, lots of percussion and bongos with clipped, spiky guitar and the gruff, economical vocals of singer Andy Spearpoint. As such, a rock band making kids dance, they had some crossover appeal with the Manchester sound of the late 80s even if they weren't really part of the scene. They had a run of singles after their debut (Lions) and a 1990 album, Pigeonhole, that all stand the test of time and really don't sound like thirty two years have passed since they were recorded. 

Big is a swirling five minutes of dance rock, starting with feedback and bongos and then some frenetic drumming takes over. This is the churning, speeding album version. The 12" has a different version, with Andy's echo laden vocals, 'The desert grows three miles a year/ It just grows/ It just grows', and the Big (Baku) remix by Jon da Silva, both well worth seeking out. 

Big

Big appeared on the Happy Daze compilation, a 1990 album released by Island to cash in on the flavours of the month/ year with Primal Scream's Loaded heading the album and The Soup Dragons, Pixies, Ride, The Charlatans, Shamen, Carter USM, Inspiral Carpets, James, Soho, The Wonderstuff, Jesus Jones and Happy Mondays all present. It sold by the bucketfull and likely many people's exposure to the New FADS was from this album. 

Fishes Eyes exists in multiple versions too, a slower take on the New FADs mutant dance rock. The 12" came with this one produced by Slow Bongo Floyd, with some skronky saxophone to make sure everything doesn't get too obvious. 

Fishes Eyes (Underwater)

Get Better came out in 1991, after Pigeonhole. This version was mixed by Martin Hannett, a man with not long left at this point. It's a cracking version of the song, full of tension and has energy to spare, Hannett crossing his production for the Mondays Bummed with something of what he'd done a decade earlier with ACR but between them, band and producer, coming up with a step forward. Dolan Hewison's guitar part stands out in the middle as the drums and bongos whip up a storm. 

Get Better (Martin Hannett Mix)

They were a phenomenal live act, totally engrossing and could get a whole venue dancing, not just those few diehards down the front. I saw them a few times round the period and a couple of years later briefly worked alongside Andy Spearpoint's partner (an English teacher in Failsworth, a school where I did a teaching practice).  Andy was a drama student and has appeared in Coronation Street as well as being the New FADs frontman. Their second album Body Exit Mind came out in 1992 but by then grunge had done for Manchester and then a year or two later Britpop showed up. The New FADs split in 1995. They deserve a bit more than to be an early 90s footnote. 

The All Night Party Just Goes On

As a counterpoint to my post on Wednesday about the imperilled Hotspur Press building here's a shot of ultra- modern Manchester taken on Wednesday night as I got off the tram at Deansgate. At the southern edge of the city centre four enormous skyscrapers have been built, completely dominating and changing the city's skyline and entrance to the city from the south. Apartments and lots of them. For wealthy people mainly. During the day they look like absurdly big, out of proportion towers. At night they have some kind of beauty. Maybe. Impact if not beauty. As a friend on my Facebook post said, 'Coronation Street meets Blade Runner. 

I was on my way out to meet the legendary Vinyl Villain, Mr James Clark, and his friend Aldo, our first meet since 2017 when we drank in half of city centre Manchester's pubs. This was a quieter affair, sitting outside in the cold for a couple of hours- and very good it was too. The venue we were drinking in, Hatch, is a load of shipping containers clustered under the Mancunian Way with bars, food outlets and a couple of second hand clothing shops. In the central area there's a stage and as we left a DJ and a rapper, no more than twenty years old, were playing to an equally young crowd (it goes without saying we were the oldest people there by some distance). It warmed my heart on a cold night to see a small crowd bobbing up and down to a couple of unknowns, all youthful enthusiasm and the knowledge that at that moment they were the centre of that world.  

Tonight I should have been going to see A Certain Ratio at Gorilla and I'm not (Covid) but I'm sure they'll be superb. I've seen ACR several times in recent years and Gorilla is the perfect venue for them. Their 2020- 21 renaissance is about to follow an album (Loco) and three EPs with a remix album (out today). As well as remixes from a cast including Lonelady, Number, Maps and The Orielles there is this one of Bouncy Bouncy by Mr Dan- uptempo, supercharged electro- funk with the sadly passed and much missed Denise Johnson in fine form on vocals. 

Back in 1979 ACR crept out of the suburbs (Urmston, Wythenshawe) into the harsh light of late 70s Manchester and the embrace of Factory Records. Their first release was this, All Night Party, a 7" single with Martin Hannett at the controls that stands alongside anything else Factory released that year. Early scratchy, skeletal punk- funk noir. 

All Night Party

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'. 

Lotta Continua

More Durutti Column, a band who have been soundtracking my life for the last few weeks. This song comes from LC, Vini's follow up to the debut Durutti Column album, The Return Of The Durutti Column. LC was recorded at home onto a TEAC four track and one of the sounds of the album is tape hiss- not that it spoils it, it's just there. LC opens with the stunning Sketch For Dawn 1 and near the end comes The Missing Boy, Vini's tribute to Ian Curtis. In July 1981 Durutti Column played at a festival in Kaivopuisto Park, Helsinki, along with ACR and Kevin Hewick. Fifteen thousand Finns had the pleasure of watching Vini and Bruce Mitchell. This clip of them playing The Missing Boy is mesmerising, Bruce watching Vini playing while keeping the rhythm. At one point Bruce has an expression on his face which suggests he can't quite believe what they are creating (the part from roughly four minutes forty onward is especially good).



Never Known is a highlight of LC, a few minutes of Vini's delicate guitar playing and a reverb- laced drum machine. There's also Jacqueline, a song written for and named after the wife of Bruce Mitchell.

Jacqueline

LC stands for Lotta Continua, the struggle continues.

In 1991 Durutti Column played at Cities In The Park, a festival in Heaton Park, north Manchester, in memory of the recently deceased Martin Hannett. Sunday's line up featured a slew of Factory acts- ACR, Revenge, Cath Carroll, The Wendys, Electronic, Happy Mondays- plus De La Soul and 808 State. The weather was good and everyone had a good time. Durutti Column played in the middle of the afternoon, their subtle minimal melodies drifting out over the park. Cities In The Park was filmed and later released on video- my VHS copy is long gone but I bought it when it came out and rushed home to play it, hoping to spot myself and my friends in it somewhere, even if only fleetingly. No such luck. A friend on social media is in it, bobbing about in the crowd, in fact he appears in the crowd during the Durutti Column clip, dancing away at two minutes forty five behind the man standing still with a frown on his face. The Youtube clip won't embed but Durutti Column playing Fado is here. The song starts with some of Vini's trademark guitar finger picking, fed through an echo space unit, and his singing. It builds over several minutes, Bruce coming in at two minutes and then joined by some haunting (sampled) backing vocals, and by the time Vini is strumming the main riff over and over the song is completely entrancing. By the time Fado came out on an album, 1994's Sex And Death, Factory had collapsed. Tony Wilson tried to relaunch the bankrupt record company as Factory Too (ironically a subsidiary of London Records, a final kick in the teeth). Factory Too was a vehicle for Durutti Column albums as much as anything else (anything else being albums by Space Monkeys and Hopper) and continued until 1998.