The Ian Curtis memorial thread

Easily done!

Is he the only famous person to ever have come from Macclesfield???

I expect Macclesfield residents to chip in on this one.....

Mr Methane and Peter Crouch are both from Macclesfield, according to Wikipedia. How much more famous can you get?

Oh yeah, and I for got about the Macc Lads.

Jesus, what giants that small town has produced!

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/video/?bcpid=1586371503&bctid=1646075702

30 years ago

RIP

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SvsaNpaytxU/S5JglvgJuXI/AAAAAAAAHpM/vWJaq_TWhFY/s400/2010-02-17Bunny-2-23.jpg

Joy Division inspire school symphony

And an exhibition will include items such as letters, posters and set lists.

It will include a handwritten note from Curtis about the group's acclaimed second album Closer, in which he wrote: "This LP is a disaster."

lol, he was pretty much always wrong about everything.

Christ, it does not feel like 30 years ago.

What the hell is with that shirt...?!

xp

There's a bit in the Joy Division doc (I think) where Wilson imagines Curtis crossing paths with Mark E on their way to their respective workplaces. I expect it's a reference to that. Or it's from Hong Kong.

it's a thing

http://www.metalinsider.net/site/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/bob-marley-jimi-hendrix-t-shirt11-300x300.jpg

The Joy Division / MES one was a legit mistake by a Thai factory though

It was? Excellent!

Taking the dude's headstone was straight tacky, but its pretty sweet about that symphony. Perhaps a seance with Mahler is in order as a consult. I would like to think Joy Division would not have made it as far down disco-droid road if Mr. Curtis had survived.

Listening to "Dead Souls" right now. The force of this seems never to decay.

It's what he would have wanted...

http://www.salfordstar.com/images/l/peter-hook-poster.jpg

a friend pointed out this morning that peter hook is kinda the ray manzarek of his generation now

harsh but fair imo

I know people need to eat (and drink) but Hooky's just a embarrassing these days.

just embarrassing

He came across as someone I'd like to go down the pub with in that docu.

Did they ever recover or replace the headstone?

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

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

where were these early American punks with Nazi shit on, that did not happen

Asheton is like the lone standout, and even that wasn't really in public afaik

obligatory "not all punks" quote:

Activist, artist and punk chronicler Caroline Coon recalls rehearsals for the 100 Club's first punk festival in 1976. Malcolm started handing out swastika armbands he'd had made. Siouxsie of the Banshees put one on right away and some of the Pistols seemed ready to follow suit. Aghast, Rhodes blurted out that if anyone wore swastikas onstage, they couldn't use the Clash's instruments as planned. The Clash backed him up. The gig went on. No swastikas.

so it was far from accepted, even back then

How big does it need to have been? Several of the big name UK punk artists (Vicious and Rotten, Sioux, Capt Sensible, Poly Styrene, Billy Idol) clearly made use of swastika imagery, which a quick GIS will probably turn up. 4xp

I would also argue/question that UKs response to nazis and world war II was very different than the states. I mean, we hear a lot about the greatest generation, but I feel like maybe we had a lot less baggage. We went over there, kicked as and came back to word domination and domestic peace. The brits post WW2 had the results of the blitz and greatly diminished world power. No?

It's not that clear because I've never seen Capt Sensible, Poly Styrene, Billy Idol making us of swastika imagery - not saying that they didn't.

regarding the American punks, also from that pdf, sorry it formats a bit weird:

The hardcore punks The Dead Boys, for example, presented The Ramones with Nazi Mother’s Crosses
as gifts for helping them to settle into the city: this was the new band’s way of showing The Ramones
that they belonged.
And it didn’t stop there. After one gig the lead singer of The Dead Boys, Stiv
Bators, is said to have shaved a swastika into a fan’s pubic hair with a razor, then led a naked
rampage round the Chelsea Hotel, draped in a Nazi flag and carrying a whip while singing
the song ‘Springtime for Hitler’ from the Broadway musical
The Producers.

I imagine all the Nazi memorabilia in the US had been bought up by Hell's Angels anyway!

https://www.punk77.co.uk/graphics/swastika/damnedswastika.jpg

https://www.punk77.co.uk/graphics/swastika/poly.jpg

Re Idol, there's this but I didn't find the actual interview: http://rockdirt.com/billy-idol-interview-turns-icy-after-nazi-confession/12330/

I did not know that about the Dead Boys (who I’ve never listened to tbh). Interesting! I doubt Joey was stoked about getting an iron cross lol

Cps

Xps

I guess that's actually Styrene's friend who's wearing the swastika there, tbf.

Well, first of all, I don't think that's Capt. Sensible. Secondly, that looks like Chrissie Hynde wearing the swastika, Poly Styrene is the mixed race woman in the middle. 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.

(xp) I think it's Chrissie Hynde!

Two other sources on Sensible fwiw but yeah, I was hasty about Poly Styrene:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=tAKSNLj1wGEC&pg=PT150&lpg=PT150&dq=captain+sensible+swastika&source=bl&ots=BJs7unYs5M&sig=D05bVD7zms-5Xa-a7dwUZqi5WWQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijubLo8dTfAhWr6IMKHan_AWUQ6AEwEHoECAIQAQ#v=onepage&q=captain%20sensible%20swastika&f=false

https://books.google.ca/books?id=4GN8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT129&lpg=PT129&dq=captain+sensible+swastika&source=bl&ots=wd9eLslbXj&sig=zFrgY66_X0ZvRenNQBCdPfRJypU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijubLo8dTfAhWr6IMKHan_AWUQ6AEwD3oECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=captain%20sensible%20swastika&f=false

lou reed's iron cross hair.

I don't know about Capt. Sensible, seems out of character for him, my point was that this was not 'running rampant' on the UK punk scene and was mostly confined to the Sex Pistols and their early entourage - apparently encouraged by McLaren in a spirit of epater les bourgeois.

So where does JD fit into that schema?

Lou Reed said that iron cross haircut was supposed to be a flower lol

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.