Read Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division Online
Authors: Peter Hook
Tags: #Punk, #Personal Memoirs, #Music, #Biography & Autobiography, #Genres & Styles, #Composers & Musicians
Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division (41 page)
29 February 1980
Joy Division play the Lyceum, London, co-headlining with Killing Joke, supported by Section 25 and A Certain Ratio. Set list: ‘Incubation’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘The Eternal’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Isolation’, ‘Komakino’, ‘She’s Lost Control’, ‘These Days’, ‘Atrocity Exhibition’. This concert features on the
Heart and Soul
box set.
March 1980
‘Licht und Blindheit’ seven-inch single (Sordide Sentimental SS33022) released: ‘Atmosphere’/’Dead Souls’. Produced by Martin Hannett. Limited to 1,578 numbered copies.
5 March 1980
Joy Division play Trinity Hall, Bristol, supported by the Passage.
“Around this time Ian himself started to get very worried about the frequency of his fits, worrying that they would take over his life and that he would not be able to carry on working.”
13 March 1980
The second ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ session, Strawberry Studios, Stockport. Produced by Martin Hannett (working sporadically over a period of three weeks beginning 24 April). Tracks recorded: ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (single version), ‘She’s Lost Control’ (twelve-inch version).
“Tony had visited us at Strawberry and again brought Ian a Frank Sinatra album. Tony tried to encourage Ian to emulate it here: I think he thought the combination of the timbre of his voice and this song would be perfect. I don’t think it ended up like Frank Sinatra, though; just sounds like Ian to me.
At the time we all thought he was doing it to wind us up. But I know that in one of his letters to Annik Ian mentions how much he liked Frank Sinatra’s voice, so obviously not. But Christ, the recording of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ was a marathon. We were in the studio overnight on these sessions, everybody was exhausted and it still wasn’t done – we ended up finishing it in Britannia Row during the recording of
Closer
. There were loads of different mixes of it, too. Martin kept remixing it and must have done it ten to fifteen times; then Tony pulled the plug on him because it was costing so much money. Martin was never happy with it and kept searching, constantly, for the great mix. He tried different engineers but could never get the definitive mix. Funnily enough, I now don’t like the mix he eventually chose for the single. I like the one that’s got a dead-loud guitar overdub on it, a radio mix.”
18–30 March 1980
Joy Division record
Closer
, Britannia Row, London. The band stay in two flats, the ‘party’ flat, and the ‘intellectual’ flat, living the rock-’n’- roll high life on £1.50 a day. Tracks recorded: ‘Atrocity Exhibition’, ‘Isolation’,
‘Passover’, ‘Colony’, ‘A Means to an End’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘The Eternal’, ‘Decades’, ‘Komakino’, ‘Incubation’, ‘As You Said’.
2 April 1980
Joy Division play the Moonlight Club, West Hampstead, London, supported by Section 25, Crawling Chaos and John Dowie. Set list: ‘The Sound of Music’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Colony’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘A Means to an End’, ‘Transmission’, ‘Dead Souls’, ‘Sister Ray’.
‘Sister Ray’ features on
Still
, but is wrongly credited to the Moonlight Club.
3 April 1980
Joy Division play the Moonlight Club, West Hampstead, London, supported by A Certain Ratio, Kevin Hewick and Blurt. Set list: ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Glass’, ‘Digital’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Isolation’, ‘Disorder’, ‘Atrocity Exhibition’, ‘Atmosphere’.
4 April 1980
Joy Division play the Rainbow Theatre, London, supporting a unique Stranglers line-up along with Section 25, Fashion and the Soul Boys. Set list: ‘Dead Souls’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Shadowplay’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Decades’, ‘She’s Lost Control’, ‘Atrocity Exhibition’.
4 April 1980
Joy Division play the Moonlight Club, London, supported by the Durutti Column, X-O-Dus and the Royal Family and the Poor. Set list: ‘Transmission’, ‘A Means to an End’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘Day of the Lords’, ‘Insight’, ‘Interzone’.
2–4 April 1980
After an exhausting run of concerts Ian has a fit on stage. This comes shortly after an incident in which he wounded himself with a kitchen knife.
5 April 1980
Joy Division play the Malvern Winter Gardens, Malvern. Set list: ‘Disorder’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Atmosphere’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Isolation’, ‘Interzone’, ‘She’s Lost Control’, ‘Girls Don’t Count’, jam with Section 25.
I met the band backstage. They were all very polite and friendly, apart from Hooky, who was being an arse. Ian was sat on his own. He seemed in good spirits, though looked tired and had a painful-looking shaving rash under his chin. He talked enthusiastically about the ‘new songs’ and actually thanked me (but I don’t know what for!). He spoke in a soft, high-pitched voice, which surprised me. Fond memories indeed!’
Phil (fan), on joydiv.org
6 April 1980
Ian takes an overdose.
8 April 1980
Joy Division play Derby Hall, Bury. Set list: ‘Girls Don’t Count’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Digital’ (all without Ian), ‘The Eternal’, ‘Decades’ (or ‘Passover’; both with Ian on vocals), ‘Sister Ray’ (without Ian). The gig ends in a riot.
9 April 1980
Following the Bury gig, Ian begins his stay with Tony and Lindsay.
11 April 1980
Joy Division play the Factory, Russell Club, Manchester, supported by Minny Pops.
12 April 1980
Joy Division cancel their gig in Bradford (venue unknown).
12–13 April 1980
Ian leaves Charlesworth and spends most of the week away from home, either with Bernard Sumner or with his parents.
16 April 1980
Natalie Curtis’ first birthday. Ian is absent, though briefly returns home before leaving for Derby on Saturday.
18 April 1980
‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ seven-inch single (Factory Records FAC 23) released. Produced by Martin Hannett. Sleeve designed by Peter Saville. Re-released on twelve-inch with a new cover (FAC 23.12 27.6.80). Track list: ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘These Days’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (Pennine version).
19 April 1980
Joy Division play the Ajanta Theatre, Derby, supported by Section 25 and XL5. Set list: ‘Dead Souls’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Digital’, ‘Insight’, ‘Passover’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Isolation’, ‘These Days’, ‘Transmission’, ‘She’s Lost Control’, ‘Colony’, ‘Girls Don’t Count’, jam with Section 25.
“I remember that there was a bit of a weird atmosphere to this gig. Also we had a lot of equipment problems. The synthesizer in particular kept going out of tune – and I think if you listen to ‘Isolation’ on the live tape the whole thing’s out of tune – and it was really off-putting. The sound was bad, too, and you felt that Ian was unwell. So I really did get a feeling that something was wrong. With hindsight everything was falling apart.”
19–20 April 1980
Ian and Annik spend the weekend at a hotel on Rusholme, going their separate ways on Monday: Annik back to London, Ian home to Macclesfield.
22 April 1980
Debbie calls Annik at the Belgian embassy, warning her of her intention to divorce Ian and name Annik as co-respondent. Debbie and Ian’s parents become involved and Ian’s parents now learn about his suicide attempt for the first time. Debbie begins divorce proceedings.
25 April 1980
Joy Division cancel their appearance at the Scala cinema, London, because of Ian’s poor health. A Certain Ratio, Durutti Column and Section 25 play.
“We’d cancelled but Ian still turned up at the Scala. He arrived about 1.30am and sat at a table on his own, writing furiously in a notebook while watching Kevin Hewick play. Three songs later he was gone. He hadn’t spoken to anyone. Kevin told me that Tony debuted
Closer
that night, playing a tape of the LP in between the live acts.”
26 April 1980
Joy Division cancel their gig at the Rock Garden, Middlesbrough.
26 April 1980
Annik leaves the UK for Belgium, then on to Egypt for a holiday.
Late April 1980
‘Ceremony’ (though as yet unnamed) and ‘In a Lonely Place’ demo session, Pinky’s, Broughton. ‘In a Lonely Place’ later released in the
Heart and Soul
box set as ‘In a Lonely Place (detail)’.
“People say that the recordings of these tracks were from TJ’s, but they weren’t. The only time we went into TJ’s during this period was to record the ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ video. Besides, we’d started taping everything by then, so there might be hundreds of those tapes – it’s just that bootleggers get hold of one of them and make out it’s the only one of its kind, which is what happened here: Rob lent a tape out to a fan and it got leaked, and then years later these songs are cropping up on bootlegs and now they’re on YouTube and whatever. Exactly where the recordings are from – whether it’s Pinky’s or Graveyard in Prestwich – is difficult to say but I do know this: they’re definitely not from TJs.”
28 April 1980
The ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ promo video is filmed at T. J. Davidson’s, Manchester. Directed by Stuart Orme. The video would be first shown on Granada’s Saturday-morning children’s show,
Fun Factory
, on 26 June 1980, introduced by Manchester DJ Ray Teret, who said: ‘Joy Division isn’t a female vocalist; it’s a band.’
“That’s Rob Gretton’s hand you see pushing the door, and the ‘Ian C’ you see scratched on to the door originally said either ‘Ian C is a bastard’ or ‘Ian Curtis is a bastard’ and was scratched there by a girl who Ian had, shall we say, ‘spurned’ a while back, when we first started rehearsing there.”
2 May 1980
Joy Division play High Hall, Birmingham University, supported by A Certain Ratio. Set list: ‘Ceremony’, ‘Shadowplay’, ‘A Means to an End’, ‘Passover’, ‘New Dawn Fades’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘Transmission’, ‘Disorder’, ‘Isolation’, ‘Decades’, ‘Digital’.
This was Joy Division’s last ever gig (it was recorded and later released on
Still
), and when we debuted ‘Ceremony’. Ian wrote very positively about the gig – ‘It was our biggest crowd ever’ – while berating himself for forgetting the last verse of ‘Transmission’. He also said that the best number of the night was the new one, ‘Ceremony’.
3 May 1980
Joy Division cancel their gig at Eric’s, Liverpool.
4 May 1980
Ian is hypnotized by Bernard while staying at his flat in Worsley. The process regresses Ian to his childhood and then several lives before and leaves a marked impression on him.
5 May 1980
Ian moves back to his parents’ house.
8 May 1980
Joy Division cancel their gig at the Astoria, Edinburgh.
9 May 1980
Joy Division cancel their gig at the Albert Hall, Stirling.
13 May 1980
Ian goes home to see Debbie and Natalie. He has his picture taken with Natalie: this is the last photograph taken of him.
14 May 1980
Joy Division recording session, Graveyard Studios, Prestwick. Tracks recorded: ‘Ceremony’, ‘In a Lonely Place’. ‘Ceremony’ is later released on the
Heart and Soul
box set
“I remember doing the session because it was downstairs in Stewart Pickering’s house in Prestwich, which was next to a graveyard. (Hence Graveyard Studios.) But Martin was in a weird mood and it was very rushed, the whole thing, and a bit of an unsatisfactory session, which is why it was never used for anything – nothing official anyway. But the
plan, had everything turned out all right, was for these recordings to become the next single: the next record was going to be ‘In a Lonely Place’ and ‘Ceremony’. But, of course, this never came to fruition.
I know a lot fans think the ‘Ceremony’ on the
Heart and Soul
box set comes from the same session as ‘In a Lonely Place’, but it doesn’t; it’s from this session. ‘In a Lonely Place’ is from a rehearsal tape and this isn’t and I’ll tell you how I know. Those drums are dead loud; it’s not ducking the vocal. So I’d say that’s a recorded version of a live rehearsal, because the drum sounds as fat as fuck but it’s not making the cassette-player compressor duck and that’s what had happened. That’s the one we did at Graveyard, I swear it, and I can do that in court.”
18 May 1980
The day before the band are scheduled to leave for America, Ian commits suicide. The ‘joint’ North American tour with Cabaret Voltaire would have opened at Hurrahs in New York on 21 May, taking in Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Los Angeles after that. Martin Hannett was committed to mix the live sound on this tour.
23 May 1980
Ian Curtis is cremated. Factory hold their own wake at Palatine Road and screen the Sex Pistols film
The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle
.
13 June 1980
The inquest into Ian’s death is held, Macclesfield.
27 June 1980
‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ twelve-inch (FAC 23.12) released.
18 July 1980
Closer
(Factory Records FACT 25) released. Produced by Martin Hannett at Brittania Row, London. Engineered by Martin Hannett and
John Caffery assisted by Michael Johnson. Photograph by Bernard Pierre Wolff. Designed by Peter Saville, Martyn Atkins, Chris Mathan. Track list: ‘Atrocity Exhibition’, ‘Isolation’, ‘Passover’, ‘Colony’, ‘A Means to an End’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘The Eternal’, ‘Decades’.
18 July 1980
Free giveaway flexidisc (Factory Records FAC 28) released. Produced by Martin Hannett. Initial pressing: 10,000 copies. Track list: ‘Komakino’, ‘Incubation’, ‘As You Said’.
“For a while there had been talk of making
Closer
a double album but we dropped that plan because we all hated the idea of a double. This did mean that we couldn’t put the other three tracks on the album, so we came up with what we thought was a compromise: releasing a flexidisc with the album. You’d buy the album and get the flexidisc free. But the record stores didn’t like that and decided to sell the flexidiscs – they didn’t get the giveaway idea. So when you bought the album they’d say, ‘Yeah, you can buy the flexidisc as well to go with it: 50p,’ or whatever, the rotten devils. Our intention was to give them all away.”