The Ian Curtis memorial thread

rip

i loved your band dude

Likewise. Joy Division is a very important thing in my life. They're another one of those bands that comes along & renews one's faith in music.

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r262/solemndance/cleantee.jpg

roffle

loooooooool

you monsters
(lol)

LOLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!

http://animatedalbums.tumblr.com/post/589366997

it's been replaced. it's now a headstone for Bernard Sumner

That got a hearty real-life chuckle from me. Good on yer!

OK, I want one of those.

i want that shirt bad but would settle for the MES one too... where to buying?

it's been replaced. it's now a headstone for Bernard Sumner

A+

xpost: http://africanapparel.bigcartel.com/product/known-pleasures-by-christopher-wright

I never tire of listening to Joy Division, although there is only a small repertoire and I return to them often. There's no-one else I can say that about.

Not even Oingo Boingo?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81nw4IBnWMs&feature=related

so how much of a Nazi/Thatcherite/right-winger was this guy, really?

on, say, a scale of Joe Strummer > Nico > Skrewdriver

he was a nativist tory voter who compelled his wife not to vote labour as it would cancel out his vote and played with nazi aesthetics in an edgelord manner

Ian Curtis, founder of 4chan

yeah, definite alt-right vibes

was that before or after Devo founded the MRA

xp

search results on the internet (as you might expect) are all over the place - you have leftists (and fellow bandmates like Morris) defending him as actually being anti-fascist, actual Nazis/racists being all "what's the big deal" or "YOU BET, ONE OF US!"

it's always rubbed me the wrong way and I've never been that huge a fan, but it does come off as in the lineage of Ron Asheton, Dee Dee Ramone, Lemmy, Nico, etc. Nazi-apologias disguised as "shock tactics" or "intellectual curiosity" or whatever. tbf Nazis *are* pretty fascinating, but to traffick in imagery simply to provoke seems at best to be sympathetic to fascism.

the most sympathetic angle that I've heard that seems like it could hold water is that as baby boomers, children of the greatest generation, growing up in the stultifying cultural climate of post-war provincial britain, and then being into this supposed great cultural rupture and rebellion of punk, nazi imagery was them thumbing their noses at their parents' generation, bratty transgressive posturing and nothing more.

im not hugely sympathetic to that myself

yeah I've heard that too, usually combined with a "youthful indiscretion" defense, and proferred re: Siouxsie, Sid Vicious et al parading their Nazi armbands

yes to shock tactics and trafficking in imagery and provoking as was pretty popular in 1978 or so but I think the actually lyrics among other things leans more towards morbid fascination than sympathy.

Pere Ubu too. It was quite popular.

hasn't this been discussed somewhere here before?

not terribly sympathetic either, like "ooh my 'orrible parents when will they shut up about how their friends all died to defeat fascism *rmde*" just seems like entitled bullshit

xp

Pere Ubu seems like a different thing

actually thinking Rocket From the Tombs
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9b/13/6b/9b136b1e3714eb6b8f65745d893729bb.jpg

oy

(as in oy gevalt)

"ooh my 'orrible parents when will they shut up about how their friends all died to defeat fascism *rmde*"

tbh I think this dates back to:

[Man on Train: I fought the war for your sort.
Ringo Starr: I bet you're sorry you won.

at least...

isn't the punchline of that joke on... Ringo? because of what a disappointment he must be to the elder generation?

nah it's cheeky young lads ribbing the olds IMO

my point is more that kids were *already* sick of hearing about it in 1964!

yeah well the olds were right and the young'uns were wrong

yeah I should clarify that the only good response I can imagine to "why did you wear a swastika in 1977" is "because I was a stupid kid"

guy was dead by 23. It's unfortunate that we can't ask him now.

well, I haven't read any particularly convincing mea culpas from Hooky or Sumner fwiw

Does anyone know much about his religious beliefs? I've been a bit curious. There are a lot of often p intense Biblical references in JD lyrics.

and here's the still alive Siouxsie Sioux:

“It was an anti-mums and dads thing. We hated older people always harping on about Hitler – we showed him – and that smug pride. It was a way of watching someone like that go completely red-faced.” She goes on: “The culture around then, it was Monty Python, Basil Fawlty, Freddie Starr, The Producers’ Springtime For Hitler…And you know what? I have to be honest, but I do like the Nazi uniform. I shouldn’t say it, but I think it’s a very good-looking uniform…It’s almost like you feel like saying, ‘Aw, come on. Nazis — they’re brilliant.’ Political correctness becomes imprisoning. It’s very…what’s the word? It’s being very Nazi! It’s ironic, but this PC-ness is so f..cking fascist.”

so judging by his peers (perhaps not entirely fair, admittedly) would we be reasonable to expect any maturation in his views had he lived?

I often get the sense of a guy who really wanted to be able to hold onto and find satisfaction in traditional values but was never quite able to.xps

In the commentary version of Twenty Four Hour Party People, (the actual) Tony Wilson talks about his interpretation of punks using Nazi imagery. His version is much better articulated than Siouxsie's, but it's essentially the same thing: shock those who are susceptible to such reactions, simply because you can.

Not sure it was really about "shock the olds" in the case of Curtis though. There are clearly a few songs that show a fascination for Nazi violence and degredation (They Walked In Line, that one with the long quote from House of Dolls, Warsaw I think?, Atrocity Exhibition etc). And I think there's also a tie-in with the nihilistic romanticism of the Nazis (Decades, which embodies that, was originally called The Iron Cross)

Atrocity Exhibition is just cribbed from Ballard, surely?

and nothing to do with Nazis as far as I remember

My fiancee pointed out tonight that "blood of Christ on their skins" and "one-sided trials" could take on really dark connotations if one considers Curtis's Nazi fascination. Hope it wasn't his intention (and it probably wasn't).

(lines from "Wilderness")

Joey Ramone being Jewish would seem to be a knock on his Nazi cred

THirdly, and I hate it to seem as if I'm defending these idiots but Siouxsie and Billy Idol were not big name punk artists when they were traipsing about wearing swastikas - they weren't even in bands.

― Never Turn Your Back On Virginia Woolf (Tom D.), Friday, January 4, 2019 1:43 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also I understand what Tom is saying, there was a point when "punk" was what? 200-300 ppl in London?

(xp) McLaren was Jewish and he was, apparently, handing out swastikas to all and sundry.

So where does JD fit into that schema?

I think partly a clumsy provincial stab at what various arty-farty London poseurs and provocateurs were up to, partly a more morbid interest in a dark subject and, possibly, an interest in the ideology... from Curtis.

I can't really see Hooky reading Mein Kampf tbh.

he'd do lines on it though

Didn’t the Skids also get into some bother for using nazi imagery for the Days In Europa sleeve? Also they had a record called Strength Through Joy and their logo in the early days echoed the SS insignia

“The Aryan thing?” says Jobson. “I thought that sleeve looked great – but I was probably, I dunno, 18 then. But is it in the songs? I don’t think it is. I mean, there’s a song called The Olympian and there’s a sense of Europe… To be fair, I think what had happened is that we’d gone to Europe. We’d gone to Amsterdam and it was such a modern place. Britain during the 70s was still kinda like, post-war, even London – you almost felt like you were still on rations. But Amsterdam felt modern. You had all these Bauhaus buildings and everything – and then you’d go to Germany and it had all been rebuilt and was sparkling and exciting. It made a big impression on me that there was this other place out there that was full of excitement and possibility and much more about the future than the past.”

interestingly, there's a bit about pre-Bromley Contingent UK punks and Nazi fetishism in this Clash bio I just started reading (Marcus Grey's "The Last Gang in Town", which is ok but hardly great, frankly). I had never heard of this London SS nonsense, but Grey frames the Nazi-dabbling as being tied to Bowie/Stones positioning Nazi imagery as both decadent and transgressive, specifically cites Guy Peellaert and Cabaret. Also notes that it was engaged in by Mick Jones and Bernie Rhodes, despite their Jewish heritages.

Sad to read how afraid he was of being mocked by audiences for his epilepsy on the upcoming american tour. Hadn't heard that before. I like to think he could have had a long and healthy life but I don't know how much the best treatment and attention could have done.

I had childhood epilepsy and luckily grew out of it and my son has it as well - it's a lousy deal and being on the deck in a post-ictal daze and not knowing wtf the has just happened is not a good feeling. But I don't think Curtis would have been a particularly nice person if he was still here, his politics sucked arse - he might have even been a prominent covidiot if he was still here now! Pure conjecture like, but I don't think he would have aged like a fine wine.