An Ideal For Living; Warsaw

What was planned to be Joy Division's first LP (unreleased until 1994, except in bootleg form) sounds like an album from the punk era…raw and edgy, undisciplined but tuneful, unlike the group's proper début, Unknown Pleasures. All of the tracks were later seen in different forms, but Warsaw still manages to captivate the listener through its pure energy. In addition to the original twelve tracks from the bootleg studio recordings, the album also includes five tracks from a recording session in July 1977, detailing the most punk-inspired songs in the group's discography.

I remember this album of early Joy Division recordings was one of those úber rare bootlegs you’d have to pay ransom prices for in the 90’s and, if you could find it at all in record fairs and bootleg traders stalls, it was only available on vinyl. I didn’t buy a copy until a few years ago when I picked it up for a reasonable and I’m pretty sure discounted price. Now not that Warsaw is a bad record, but it’s infinitely more “interesting” than it is “good” if you take my meaning.

It’s most interesting specifically from two different standpoints. The first is you often read interviews with ex-Joy Division members where they recount how they were unhappy with Martin Hannett’s famous productions. They’d considered themselves a punk band and weren’t happy with how he turned them into some kind of art project. But since Joy Division seemed so well suited to Hannett’s sound, I always wondered how much of a punk band they really were. It turns out they were a decent punk band (especially judging by the demo sessions recorded at Pennine Sound Studios). Though as a band Warsaw might not have had the lasting impact Joy Division has, they were still a lot more interesting than many other British punk bands from the 1977-78 years.

Which leads me onto the second quite interesting point, which is that this record suggests almost any punk band from the Manchester area, under the direction of Martin Hannett could have become Joy Division or something very much like they became. Ian Curtis‘s cult of personality aside, in some ways Warsaw proves that Hannett was as integral to Joy Division just as much as anyone else. He took a decent enough punk band and made them a phenomenal genre-defining post-punk band that would go on to have a lasting impact on alternative and indie rock for decades to come.

So for classic punk fans who always kind of liked Joy Divisions songs but were never keen on their chilly post-punk aesthetic, this album might prove to be quite enjoyable on its own merits. The production however is still a little thin to be a true punk classic.

For those interested in Joy Division, it’s probably more a curiosity for the completest than an essential album. It’s not a lost masterpiece, far from it.  A lot of these versions bear similarities in rawness to the band’s BBC sessions and higher-fidelity live recordings which is a good, bad or an indifferent thing depending on your personal views of the band’s studio recordings. It’s always a treat to hear “Interzone” played with more rage-fuelled garage-punk gusto than the 1979 Unknown Pleasures version.

If you own everything else by Joy Division, including a number of live bootlegs, you probably can’t get around the fact you pretty much need to pick this up at some point. And it’s actually a lot better (and more enjoyable) than similar semi-apocryphal records by seminal bands.

Novelty

When you’ve waited nearly five years for something this good to pop back up on the interweb, I feel that it is our duty to share. This is the Analog Loyalist 2012 Remaster of Warsaw, in his own words;

I slightly divert from this blog's stated mission and bring to you my remastering attempt of Joy Division's legendary 1978 RCA album sessions bootleg Warsaw, from the original 1989 CD release on RZM.  It's critical to disregard any other known CD release of this bootleg, because the most common version, 1994's Movie Play Gold CD issue of this, is flat-out terrible.  Too bassy (FAR too bassy), low-quality source material, the works.  I suspect the best bootleg version of this session is the original 1981 LP issue (also on RZM), but I don't have a line on a decent transfer of it.

Legend has it that RZM is code for (Alan) Erasmus, an original Factory partner who, with Tony Wilson and Peter Saville, started Factory Records in 1978.  The legend states that Erasmus (say it aloud, and then say R-Z-M) arranged the 1981 bootleg release of the aborted 1978 album, and then further arranged for the material's first appearance on CD in 1989.  Frankly, I believe it.

None of the CD releases of this set have been spectacular in sound quality.  I think the problem is that the original tape was not that great, and that the mastering-for-CD process - possibly to disguise vinyl lineage, as I suspect that the original LP was the ultimate source for all the various CD issues - really clamped down on the upper midrange and higher frequencies.  It's always sounded muffled, and boomy (the 1994 Movie Play Gold release, with the baby on the cover, is the worst in this regard).  I've fixed this.  I've also fixed up some of the harsher song starts, as it's easy in the digital domain (ain't no ProToolin' in 1978!) and the CD has a few of the intros cut off.  Why did I fix them?  Because the missed intro into "Transmission" has always bugged me, among others.  "Interzone" too.

I think this is the best we're going to get with this material.  Already it blows the few tracks released on 1997's Heart and Soul box set away, and unless someone leaks the original mixdown tape from the 1978 session, we won't find better.  That said, I do have a line on a dub of a band member's personal cassette copy of this session, but I don't have it handy and what I remember from listening to it when I did was that it wasn't really all that much different or better than the '89 CD release.