Search and Destroy : New Order

Wolk for some reason calls Peter Hook a fretless player in his new Fork review. The heresy!

anyway, I saw a copy of Lost Sirens in HMV, of all things. No blue cross on it though.

when did Sumner sport a "ridiculous" haircut?

In fact, I always thought he had pretty good hair! Maybe ridiculous in the everything from the '80s was slightly ridiculous? Like Hook's ponytail?

By the standards of other '80s lead singers, Bernard Sumner's haircuts have always struck me as being refreshingly ordinary.

exactly! Hook is the only one who wore the mullet.

did anybody grab this before it was taken down? http://neworder-recycle.blogspot.com/2012/12/merry-xmas-from-hacienda-and-factory.html#comment-form

Yeah, I did..

did it come as an .aiff file?

i dunno, but I can get the file(s) to you..

ah okay cool - my ilxmail works. ty!

chk

oh, and I like the new album, btw..

seeing peter hook in conversation this week in SF, I think. not really looking forward to it.

also, fwiw, new order live without him were excellent. I'd be happy with them not doing any new songs though and pulling a pixies for a while, just touring old stuff. yeah it's not very forward thinking, yeah it's a nostalgia geezer act, but they were really good

They were alright, yeah.

PHook in conv should be OK too.

In this case it really is the principle of the matter, like a Black Sabbath reunion without Bill Ward. I'd like to think of my favorite bands as more than just opportunistic business ventures, even if I know better.

Still curious why Gillian vanished for so long, starting with the tour behind the group's last "Get Ready"-era reunion, and then returned right after Hook departed. I know there was the matter of her kids, supposedly, but the coincidence remains jarring. Could easily imagine her telling Stephen that there's no way she'd ever share a stage with the guy again.

xpost Hook is in full tell-all/burn bridges mode, so you never know what you may get.

Gilbert's reticence adds to her power. She might loathe Hooky, she might not give a damn about anyone who isn't her husband. She might play many of the lead guitar parts, she might let Bernard tell her what to do. Her aloofness is her strength. New Order might be the only band whose girl member didn't taint the chemistry enough for members to bitch to the NME about the drummer's girlfriend.

Well, they're also one of the few bands short of the VU where we really don't know who did what on a song by song basis.

I know there was the matter of her kids, supposedly,

quality truthing here, Gillian lied about her daughter's neurological condition, burn the witch


no matter how shoulder-chipped or whitewashing Hooky is, he's sure to be an entertaining speaker (and has demonstrated over and over again that he knows and regrets how he comes across, but can't help himself - he does HAVE perspective on his spleneticism tho)

I met them at a J&MC gig back in the day, Hooky, Gillian and Stephen. So, they socialised together, so hey..

The new Asphodells (Andrew Weatherall, Timothy Fairplay) album has a song that sounds like it could have been recorded by New Order between Power, Corruption and Lies and Low-Life complete with a bassline Hooky would love to take credit for and a great melodica line. Check out The Quiet Dignity (Of Unwitnessed Lives).

xposting I swear to God, I'd never seen any specifics about her kids! It was always super vague. Does anyone know what her child has?

Ah! Once I put in "neurological condition," searches bore fruit:

We have two daughters Tilly (11) and Grace (7). Gillian took an extended leave of absence from the band in 2001 when at 18 months Grace was diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis - something I’d never even heard of before. Its effects are something like a spinal injury and it left Grace paralysed from the waist down. She has, thankfully, largely recovered from that, but still continues to need care and treatment.

Good to know it's under control. I bet she still thinks Hook is a dick, though.

How would Grace have met him though?

Lots of good potential follow-up LOLs, but enlisting a paraplegic child for the sake of a punchline is beneath even me.

forget it, Josh. It's ILM.

I saw PHook and the Light doing Movement and PC & L a couple of weeks ago at Koko in Lon don. It was... interesting. Hooky was doing all the singing, which was okay for Movement's gothy deep voice stuff, but by the time they got to PC & L his voice was really flagging and he couldn't hit the high notes. His backing band were tight, though, and he can obviously still play himself. I got to meet him very briefly after the show!

I got to hear a recording of the Manchester gig and I thought that the band sounded pretty great, Hooky's voice however kinda spoilt the obvious care and attention applied to recreating those songs.

yeah it was good to great to begin with, his band were very proficient and they had obviously made an effort, he just didn't seem to me able to sing for a whole 2hr show.

It reminded me of listening to early NO boots and wincing at Dreams Never End, Hooky bellowing YOUR SOOOOOOOOOOOUL

Hook's kid plays bass, right?

Yes, Jack plays bass.

hah didn't realise that! Two bass players, like um Girls v Boys and Ned's Atomic Dustbin...

No, Peter plays guitar.

Hooky was doing all the singing, which was okay for Movement's gothy deep voice stuff, but by the time they got to PC & L his voice was really flagging and he couldn't hit the high notes.

in fairness, neither can Bernard

xp oh dear. I really was at that gig, could have sworn Peter really was playing a bass some of the time...

Hooky played guitar on the second Revenge EP.

I think that Manchester gig I heard was 2 hours plus, last time I saw NO was '89 they probably played for just over an hour, did they ever start doing a set longer than 70 mins?

Yes.

Hook plays some bass when he isn't waving his arm about.

He might play a 6-string bass sometimes, but in the clips I've seen it's been bass and not guitar.

(He played guitar on "Sound of Music" and "Confusion" with New Order, though. Maybe more.)

I know Barney has played some bass, too. Hook does often gravitate to 6-string bass, though. "Blue Monday" is six-string, I believe.

Comprehensive interview with Stephen Hague on the recording of "True Faith" and "1963."

It was amazing," says Hague. "Gillian didn't run ideas by me as we went along. There just came a time when I said 'Tomorrow let's work on your keyboard parts,' and she said 'OK, great.' The next day, when it was finally her turn, she had all these fully formed ideas for both tracks. We just got sounds and she recorded them, all hand-played. It was so painless. Although she seemed to be quietly distracted in the back of the room each day, she had completely plotted out her parts for the songs. She's a real joy to work with.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar05/articles/classictracks.htm

Thanks for reminding me of that. That's one of the few in-detail behind the scenes accounts of New Order in the studio out there.

Woke up from dreaming this morning and the name "Power, Corruption and Pies" the first thought.

If life were actually a Hollywood movie I'd be looking into securing rental space for my new pie place by now but in reality I'm not a pie person.

From a recent Hook interview:

Joy Division writing credits were all shared equally on every track weren’t they?

Yeah, it was absolutely correct to do it that way. When we got to New Order it changed and even though Gillian [Gilbert] got a writing credit, I think it it’s fair to say that Bernard did 95 per cent of the keyboards, and I’ve seen him say that in interviews as well. She used to play what Bernard had written but we gave her a writing credit.

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2012/12/peter-hook-bernard-and-i-could-reconcile-end-pair-duelling-pistols

re: gillian's contributions, sound on sound article about recording of true faith/1963 immediately contradicts this, does he have a clue or is this just his bitter opinion again

also fuck this fuckwit