Warsaw

The rest of you are desperate fanboys with spots. When it comes to Joy Division fandom, 97% of ILM is my bitch.

If Unknown Pleasures had actually been released the way Barney and Hooky wanted it to sound it would have tanked and they never would have had another shot on Factory. In fact, it was the first factory LP and probably would have tanked the company if it had not sold a respectable 10,000 copies during it's first pressing.

Barney wanted Unknown Pleasures to be a super loud rock album with big guitars; thankfully Martin Hannett saw things differently and mixed the guitars way down with lots of reverb and hollowed out the drum sound behind Hooky's back. Hannett was the man who made Joy Division sound like Joy Division. Say what you like but I have plenty of live bootlegs that attest to JD usually being better heard on record (except when they were really on point and then they were unstoppable. This was the exception, not the rule BTW) You should watch Here Are The Young Men sometime to get a better understanding of what JD really sounded like.

If that is what you want to listen to, that is your prerogative, but I would much rather hear JD's playing tightened up in the studio through Martin Hannett's studio process than as a sloppy live band. And the second album of Still doesn't count as JD live because that was recorded on live on an 8-track and sweetened in the studio with overdubs.

JD without Martin Hannett is like Corn Flakes without the milk.

BTW, when are you planning on sending me the case of Bass ale that you owe me Jess?

When Curtis died, the survivors tried their hand at making another Joy Division record. But "Movement" just comes over as second-rate wannabe Joy Division (I do have a soft spot for this album, but objectively it's pretty poor stuff). Sumner has had 20 years to prove he can write lyrics - and he's signally failed. I can take or leave New Order - they had a few decent singles - but they've dated far worse than Joy Division. "Closer", despite a few clunky synth moments, still sounds remarkably fresh. Hard to say that about any New Order album.

You should have fucking SEEN them, MT!!

Clearly their live sound was more in line with Barney and Hooky's *original* idea of what JD might sound like, especially on material like Shadowplay, Disorder, Warsaw where the punk roots are more exposed. See Shadowplay on the Les Bains Douches set - thunderous!

**And the second album of Still doesn't count as JD live because that was recorded on live on an 8-track and sweetened in the studio with overdubs**

It wasn't overdubbed.

Susan - b-but Steve Morris's drumming style was essential to the way they developed their sound - machine rigour instead of conventional beat n' fill rock drumming.

I think Barney's guitar playing is really good, obv not in a technical muso sense (who cares about that!) but he makes a damn brutal row (e.g. Shadowplay live), and has a good melodic ear too (New Dawn Fades, Ceremony) and did some neat rhythmic experiments (Sound of Music). I suspect we'll never agree on his lyrics, other than pointing out that you're utterly wrong, I don't want to say anything more on that old chestnut. You're also wrong about Movement.

Dave, as for Sumner's lyrics, well:

"I don't wanna be like other people are
Don't wanna own a key, don't wanna wash my car
Don't wanna have to work like other people do
I want it to be free, I want it to be true"

Is it possible to be more banal than this?

Maybe some of the naysayers would like to sell you their copy cheap?

Regarding the last point: HA!

And I'll leave it at that. Dr. C is being a touch more polite on the other points than I feel like being right now. Both bands are fantastic and frankly I feel more of a 'connection,' however described, with Mr. Sumner these days (these daaaaaays...).

You should rip these into MP3s and share them with us, the lowly masses...

I have a hard time believing that for once the entire band played perfect except for Stephen Morris dropping a single quarter note on I think* Passover. Maybe it is live, but it is a fucking miracle because they were sloppy live.

*I will not stake my life on this, but one of those songs in the beginning has a single drum snafu and it is the only bum phrase played on the entire live half of Still. I don't have my copy anymore because I lent it away my copy a few months back.

Oh yes indeed, the good Dr. hits the nail squarely on the head!

The first time I saw them was supporting Buzzcocks in '79 when they left the whole crowd in the Oxford Apollo stunned into silence.

I was extremely tempted to leave after their set because I knew there was quite clearly absolutely no way, whatsoever Buzzcocks could possibly follow them - and I loved Buzzcocks.

I quite like this album, but nonetheless it's the sound of a band trying to make the next Joy Division LP, and failing. Hannett adds the electronic effects he used on Unknown Pleasures and Closer; Sumner tries to copy Curtis's voice and sings Curtis-esque lyrics.

I dunno about that - I think Hannett is experimenting wildly and with spectacular success. Some of the sounds he used were new (weird panned drum phasing, various electronic textures) and IMO were never really followed up once they'd got their hands on the sequencers. I think Movement stands as a unique, slightly flawed triumph and more credit to them for trying something different. I don't see it as a requiem - I think Ceremony/IALP was the requiem and with Movement they were bravely taking the first steps forward into the light.

The Him

Some days you waste your life away
These times I find no words to say
A crime I once committed filled me
Too much of heaven's eyes I saw through
Only when meanings have no reason
They're taken beyond your sense of right

Small boy kneels, wandering in a great hall
He pays pennance to the air above him
White circles, black lines surround me
Reborn, so plain my eyes see
This is the reason that I came here
To be so near to such a person

I'm so tired, I'm so tired

or

Doubts Even Here

Those steps which seem to take a lifetime
When eyes just turn and stare
The day begins, collapsing without warning
You fade from sight, there's nothing there

All talk allowed, calls are answered daily
The questions are on your side
Deeply moved, beyond all consolation
You felt the pulse, now hear the cry

In my mind, thoughts are becoming clearer
I'm watching every move you make
Counting time spent in observation
A single blow a false mistake

Then you revealed to me
All that I need to know now
(The close went down to times
too, too much behind us)
Then please don't turn away,
Why can't I talk to you now?
(The number of forgotten years
Where my honor isn't deepest
Grows the deepest feeling and it
Grieved for safety and despair)
There's nowhere left to go
Where is this taking her and how?
(The torish threats forevermore
Over our natural favor
And us and he's and I'll fall
Far in it, and it sees enough
In our failures and it's not time.)
There's nothing more I want
To know beyond your trust now
(I missed his promised time again
For my friend)
Don't throw our joy away
Why must you just you leave now?
(Has God forgotten to approach us?
Has He rememberd to not despise us?)
Memories are all that's left
I need you near to me now
(There, now, now, don't come to mind my deeds
And call out in defiance of times gone by)

sorry for all those lyrics. i couldn't resist to post them.

Peter Hook sings this song if I'm not totally mistaken. Maybe he wrote the lyrics too because they're too good for Barney unless he had some amazing inspiration after Ian died or stole one of Ian's notebooks or something.

The first time I heard this song I was convinced it was a left over JD track w/Curtis on vocals, it sounds so similar.

well, when i first heard that when it first came out i thought it was the most half-baked piece of junk, i really wanted my money back -- this band appeared to have no new ideas at this stage and having had a year to make the most of the old ones i think it speaks volumes for the actual ablities of the surviving members as creators, as musicians -- a pale void in the place of this fierce intense music of JD that left everyone dumbfounded back then -- and many people felt as i did about "movement", that here were the hired hands trying to cash in and make the best of this inspiration that had clearly come from someone else

when they were JD they were struggling, against the grain and odds, and the whole feel is so integrated into Curtis' m.o. -- it's so clearly his band -- and it always seemed as though his suicide was the great van gough type tragedy that played right into the marketeers hands -- New Order are just so "industry", so conveniently effetely wet -- isn't bernard the archetypal new age bore ? (in this respect alone he was a bit ahead of the pack)

but worse was to come, the revolutionary "blue monday", a piece of music compararable in complexity to material played to kindergarten children or line dancers

as for synths going out of tune on "Decades", well that slightly sea-sick end-of-movie sound it had on Closer was o.t.m. in the same way as Curtis' controversially pitched voice -- how novel -- we can't have anything going out of tune !!
compare it to the synths on the new order material -- the latter is dead wood synth from the peak of the new digital synths of the '80s, the blandest of all synth periods everyone seems to agree now, matching bernard's dead-wood tone and "life is soooo hard for me" whining -- well o.k. -- new order, a celebration of blandness, uncertainty, ambivalence, maybe even impotance, i always presumed

let's be clear here -- if new order had emerged on their own w/out the JD legacy they would have sunk without trace, and no record company would have given a damn -- surely the most overraterd band of recent decades and a deeply cynical cash-in -- and without the global interest in JD these pale creatures wouldn't have been able to afford the new synth stuff that gave them their new sound, their 'novelty', her edge -- weren't they just first on the block to those new synths ?

JD -- real passion, fear, hairs standing up -- new order (NO) passionless, always trying to regain the former glory, ordinary uncreative ex-punks in the right place at the right time (creative ? hey, let's all dance on e and jump around to tracks like blue monday and play pretend, and let the japanese synth preset programmers write our songs for us)

(and they even admit that they weren't even really listening to what Curtis was singing about, as they claim that if they had been they might have actually twigged that this guy had some serious emotional issues on his mind -- with friends like them, eh ?)

I don't know where to start George, I really don't. I'll respond in detail later, probably over the wkend when I have more time.

For now : Decades - what are you talking about? Decades studio version - best thing JD ever did, devastating lyrics, fantastic synth sound (sea-sick is a good description!). I was talking about the 'Still' version - flat, lifeless, out of tune.

No, Movement, although it has its charms, was a blind alley rather than any step forward. It really has nothing much to do with anything that came later. They were stuck with the existential rock template of Joy Division, but without Curtis couldn't pull it off. Temptation signals the change of direction when they decide to become an electronic dance band.

There's an interview with Jean-Pierre Turmel, author of the Licht and Blindheit text which ties up Joy Division with German romanticism, where he says he met the band after the Bains Douches concert and outlined his ideas but only Curtis was interested, the others found him a joke. That says a lot, I think, because all the intellectual and aesthetic underpinnings of Joy Division came from Curtis alone.

for those who read French, interview here:
http://www.angelfire.com/ga/zza77/temp/turmel.htm

I agree that Curtis was *different* from the others and that any attempt to make Movement a JD-like recd could never work without Ian. Thing is, I don't think Movement is, or ever set out to be, the third JD album. Clearly whatever it was it stands alone and NO went off in a new direction soon after.

Decades studio version - best thing JD ever did, devastating lyrics, fantastic synth sound (sea-sick is a good description!).

dr c otm as ever...

1. early warsaw around 1977 with very raw basic punk
2. warsaw album and joy division. post-punk, goth-rock, dark wave or whatever
3. new order's movement: a last reverence to ian curtis
4. new order after movement: treading new paths for electronic dance pop.

No he didn't. In JD it mainly came out of group jams. Less so in New Order, more tinkering with the synths. I would agree that BS probably writes *most* of NO's music. But certainly not all of it.

**so then we can distinguish four bands**

I suppose so. Or you could say :Pre-Hannett>JD+Hannett>NO+Hannett>Sequencers

Well, I don't think he wrote basically wrote all the music for Joy Division. From the Jon Savage article "Good Evening, We're Joy Division":

"Ian used to spot the riffs", says Peter Hook. "We’d jam: he'd stop us and say, That was good, play it again. We didn’t have a tape recorder then: imagine! He spotted 'Twenty four hours', ‘Insight’, ‘She’s lost control’ – all of them. If it hadn't been for his ear, we might have played it once and then never again. You didn’t know you’d played it half the time. It’s unconscious, but he was conscious”.

Well, that doesn't sound like Sumner writing all the music to me. It sounds like a bunch of musicians noodling about on their instruments and Curtis picking up on the usable bits.

Susan - are you Susan Jones?

sb - well Sumner no doubt came up with some riffs that went into making great songs, so yes Joy Division would have been different without Sumner. But his role is more like an actor in a movie written and directed by someone else. Sure, Clockwork Orange wouldn't have been the same without Malcolm McDowell, but the movie would have been made without him, even if it turned out a bit differently. However, the movie wouldn't have been made without Kubrick or Burgess.

[/end tortuous, probably ill-advised analogy]

So you'll be relieved to know you didn't stub out a cigarette on my hand at a Blancmange gig in 1983 then!

It wasn't you? I wonder whose hand I got then...

I just got this today and am loving the shit out of it.

YOU FUCKIN BETCHA!!! I'M GONNA BUY YOU A DRINK! I mean really, were that band EVER better? EVER? Maybe 20 years ago I would have said so, but not today. See also LCD Soundsystem's cover of "No Love Lost" released this year as a b-side to "All My Friends". Not as good as the original, obviously, but I think it flatters JD in the nicest way. That music should live on, even if someone else less talented is playing it. New Order have officially broken up now as well. I just read it in NME as of a few days ago. I wondered why no one on this board seemed to notice this blurb I read, and it isn't even posted on the neworderonline site. I guess I'll have to dig up a New Order thread and post it, though I'd really rather not. See no evil, hear no evil...

There was already a thread on New Order's breakup.

Yeah well we've certainly discussed plenty here that it seemed to be going that way, but I don't remember this story from the NME being quoted here, where Hooky laments that the reason for the breakup is "personal".

music should live on, even if someone else less talented is playing it.

...the thought that birthed a thousand cleopatra label tribute compilations.

WARSAW IS SO AWESOME

Also, to be a fly on the wall at the "Ideal for Living" session, Dec 1977, during which the following 4 songs were laid to tape:

1. Warsaw
2. No Love Lost
3. Leaders of Men
4. Failures

holy shit.

I picture them exiting the studio after that session, 3 am, a poorly lit street, and then some poor guy rounds the corner and accidentally steps on the same sidewalk as the four of them, and he immediately gets exploded off of the pavement by electricity, propelled hundreds of feet into the air and directly into an open grave a few blocks away, and Warsaw/Joy Division don't even notice because they're too busy being immortal

Warsaw's definitely awesome, like the raw, youthful punk birth of JD. Remember finding that album on some FTP server in the 90s, got me into Joy Division oddly enough.