We usually do these type of posts as “Happy Birthday ___” but to do that for Ian Curtis, the lead singer with Joy Division, who would have been 57-years-old today, seemed a bit much. A fragile and beautiful talent, Curtis was only 23, when he took his own life, in May 1980. His death came just before Joy Division were about to tour the States. Talk about bad timing.
I can still recall the first time I saw Curtis on TV, with his awkward, uncoordinated dancing, and his strange, resonate voice filled with loss, longing.
“You can’t listen to something without being able to, hopefully, put a feeling into the song…
...I think some of the things come out of confusion..But I’m not too sure what…exactly what or why.
When Joy Division finished recording their defining album, Closer, Curtis wrote to the band’s manager, Rob Gretton, expressing his dislike for the record:
Rob,
Judged purely on my own terms, and not to be interpreted as an opinion or reflection of mass media or public taste but a criticism of my own esoteric and elitist mind of which the mysteries of life are very few and beside which the grace of God has deemed to indicate in a vision the true nature of all things, plus the fact that everyone else are a sneaky, japing load of tossers, I decree that this LP is a disaster.
I K Curtis
He was wrong. Closer is a work of brilliance, which now stands as testament to Ian Curtis’s talents.
Bonus clip, plus rare interview with Curtis, after the jump…
The other day I wrote “Photoshop is the new surrealism.” It was one of those things that just popped into my head and sounded right at the time. But the more I thought about it the more it seemed to hold some truth. I try to imagine the fun Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp might have had with Adobe software. With all of the imagery available on the Internet, a dada collagist like Hannah Hoch would have thrived in the era of Google Images. The permutations and juxtapositions are infinite. The idea: take what’s there and create what’s not there.
Needless to say, not all Photoshop is art. But some of it, like art, lies to get at a bigger truth. Like the above picture of Michael Jackson wearing a Joy Division T-shirt. It’s fake but some of us wish it weren’t. The idea that Jackson was a Joy Division fan (even before Joy Division existed) is a thought that brings all kinds of groovy things to the fore—like the fact that pop culture is inherently a mash-up, that radio, iTunes and deejay mixes have made us grow accustomed to a world where everything collides, bounces off each other and often melds into a somewhat messy wholeness (This started for me a long time ago when I was 12 years old listening to a transistor radio transmitting a seamless stream of songs from artists whose only commonality was a good beat and a good hook. The Supremes melding into The Animals melding into Blue Cheer melding into Tom Jones).
In the collective consciousness of rock ‘n’ roll, the playlist that endures is immense, eternal, and like Michael Jackson wearing a Joy Division T-shirt, inclusive. The picture may be a lie, but the idea of it, what it suggests, is true. Rock music succeeds better than any other art form in the shattering of barriers, in bringing people together and in re-inventing reality. My world changed radically in 1963 when I first heard The Beatles on a jukebox in a pinball parlor in Southern France. I had no idea who they were, but for a moment time froze and I sensed a different future ahead of me than the one I thought I had been heading for.
When I initially discovered the photo of Jackson wearing Joy Division, I didn’t wonder “why?” I thought “why not?” It was a lie worth believing. I never came to rock ‘n’ roll for the facts. I came for the fantasy.
Chuck Berry interviewed by punk zine Jet Lag in 1980. Berry shares his thoughts about “what the kids are listening to these days.”
The Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen”:
What’s this guy so angry about anyway? Guitar work and progression is like mine. Good backbeat. Can’t understand most of the vocals. If you’re going to be mad at least let the people know what you’re mad about.
The Clash’s “Complete Control”:
Sounds like the first one. The rhythm and chording work well together. Did this guy have a sore throat when he sang the vocals?
The Ramones’ “Sheena is a Punk Rocker”:
A good little jump number. These guys remind me of myself when I first started, I only knew three chords too.
The Romantics’ “What I Like About You”:
Finally something you can dance to. Sounds a lot like the sixties with some of my riffs thrown in for good measure. You say this is new? I’ve heard this stuff plenty of times. I can’t understand the big fuss.
Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer”:
A funky little number, that’s for sure. I like the bass a lot. Good mixture and a real good flow. The singer sounds like he has a bad case of stage fright.
Wire’s “I Am the Fly” and Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures:
So this is the so-called new stuff. It’s nothing I ain’t heard before. It sounds like an old blues jam that BB and Muddy would carry on backstage at the old amphitheatre in Chicago. The instruments may be different but the experiment’s the same.
Graphic designer and artist Peter Saville tells the interesting back-story on how the now iconic Joy Division Unknown Pleasures album cover art came to be in 1979.
You may remember a few months ago I posted about Joyce D’Vision, the world’s first drag queen tribute band to Joy Division (of which I am a member) and our adventures on UK primetime TV with the comedian Harry Hill.
Well, we have finally managed to wrangle Joyce herself into the studio to record some vocals, and the first fruits of this labor are cover versions of “She’s Lost Control” and “Isolation.” Both are iconic, classic tracks, that have been covered before (by Siobhán Fahey, Grace Jones and Wino & Conny Ochs, as featured in yesterday’s Roadburn post) but I like to think we have put our own unique spin on them.
While some people find the idea of Joyce D’Vision highly offensive, to me it’s as Northern English as Eccles cakes and Boddington’s bitter. People in Manchester have a sly, sometimes wicked sense of humor, and they are not above taking the complete mickey out of themselves and the stultifying, retro-based “Madchester” culture industry that seems to have a stranglehold on this town (check the blog Fuc251 for proof.) Unfortunately Joy Division are very much a part of this frozen-in-amber, Manchester music-heritage industry, which goes against the iconoclasm inherent in the band, and is ironic as they were sorely under-appreciated in this town when they did exist.
And that’s where we come in. It’s all in the best possible taste, darling, with hints of Vic & Bob, The League of Gentlemen, Kenny Everett and Frank Sidebottom (a legendary Manc comic who famously covered “Love Will Tear Us Apart” on a Casio). We’re not doing this because we hate Joy Division, in fact it’s quite the opposite. Joy Division have helped us get through as much teen angst as the next wrist cutter, but the band’s hallowed status doesn’t mean they are above a bit of fun poking. Every religion needs its satirists. Because let’s face it, if what we’re doing is somehow ruining your teen dreams or memories of a JD goth paradise, then those dreams and memories were not very solid in the first place.
I am well aware of Ian Curtis’ mental health problems (duh!) and I’m 100% convinced he had that same sly, piss-taking, Manc sense of humor as everyone else who grew up within the city’s grey-and-redbrick confines. I think he would have had a giggle or two at a bearded drag queen singing his songs.
Joyce D’Vision with Harry Hill on the set of TV Burp
But more to the actual point, I wonder what Peter Hook thinks?
If you’re not aware, original JD/New Order bassist Hook has formed a new band with jobbing Manchester musicians called The Light, whose purpose is to cover the work of Joy Division. He’s the only original member, and now the band are embarking on a tour playing “Unknown Pleasures” in full.
Originally Hooky himself was on vocal duties, but after he shamefully forgot the words at an infamous Manchester show a couple of years ago, he has brought in Rowetta (ex-Happy Mondays and Britain’s Got Talent) to sing instead. Not to mention some of his celebrity-fan pals when they have the chance - The Light have performed JD tracks with Billy Corgan, Moby and Perry Farrell on vocals, among others. They sing from a lyrics book open at the front of the stage.
So is what we are doing with Joyce D’Vision really any worse than what Peter Hook is doing with The Light? In a sense, both are karaoke, but only one has an actual on-stage lyrics sheet. And it’s not the band with the drag queens. Which of the two acts, Joyce D’Vision or The Light, are going to do more to shatter your teen-goth memories of Joy Division?
I don’t doubt that The Light has got something to do with New Order reforming recently without Hook and his iconic bass sound, a massive “fuck you” statement in his general direction. A lot of people in Manchester are happy they did this, but there’s also many people wondering if New Order can properly function without Hook on bass. I’m not sure, but either way, I do wonder now what Barney and Steve (original JD members, remember) and Gillian (a HUGE drag inspiration for our band) make of Joyce D’Vision?
Time will tell. For now, here are our first two tracks:
It’s been described as one of the most important gigs of all time, one that saw hundreds, even thousands of people claim they were there. In truth only around 30-40 people saw The Sex Pistols perform at the Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall on June 4, 1976. But of those who did, most went onto form a generation of legendary bands - The Fall, The Buzzcocks, Joy Division, The Smiths.
Also, allegedly in the audience were such future ambassadors of taste as Anthony H. Wilson, who would co-found Factory Records and the Hacienda nightclub, and nascent journalist/writer Paul Morley.
Culturally, it was an event akin to the storming of the Bastille, for it unleashed a revolution.
I Swear I Was There tells the story of that now legendary night, and talks to the people whose lives were changed by The Sex Pistols.
Inspired by the iconic sleeve of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures album, this Waves Mickey Mouse Tee incorporates Mickey’s image within the graphic of the pulse of a star. That’s appropriate given few stars have made bigger waves than Mickey!
No, this is not merely another lame meme, this is something that is actually manufactured and sold by the Walt Disney Corporation! Reedonkulous. Buy yours at the Disney store...
So, dear readers, this is one of the things I do when I am not busy scribbling and posting here on DM - I am part of a Joy Division tribute act called Joyce D’Vision. As the name would suggest, it’s not just any run-of-the-mill tribute act - it’s a drag queen tribute, fusing those two quintessentially Northern English traits of woe-is-me miserableism and end-of-the-pier transvestitism.
Before you ask, no, I am not Joyce D’Vision herself, but rather Noel Order, keyboard whizz extraordinaire and Bontempi aficionado. Joyce is played by the very talented Joe Spencer, and we are often joined on stage by other queens such as Sheela Blige, Kurt Dirt and Sahara Dolce. Joyce has been lucky enough to share the stage with British queer performance legends like David Hoyle (The Divine David) and Scottee Scottee (Eat Your Heart Out), but those were just warm-ups for what happened last week…
A few months ago Joe took part in a reality competition show May The Best House Win, where Joyce and friends had a cameo near the end. The program was finally broadcast last Tuesday, and seen by the comedian Harry Hill, himself a fan of Joy Division. Harry hosts a show called TV Burp, which looks over the best bits of the last week’s telly, and he invited Joyce and her friends to London to sing live on the show. Joyce performed as the final segment on the final show of the series, which was broadcast right before X Factor. Meaning that this went out on a Saturday evening, just after dinner time when everyone’s getting ready to watch the biggest show of the week. Seriously - that’s prime fucking time.
The reaction since (mostly gauged through Twitter) has been interesting - some people really get it, while others have stated that Ian Curtis would be rolling in his grave. I like to think Curtis would have seen the funny side, as would Tony Wilson I’m sure, and we have heard through the grapevine that there are even Joyce fans in the New Order camp.
Joyce D’Vision is not done out of hatred of the band or the man, but rather from love - and a simple desire to deflate the pomposity that surrounds JD and their legend, as perpetuated by magazines like NME and high street stores like Primark (currently selling an Ian Curtis t-shirt). So while the idea (and sight) of a fat, bearded man in a wig singing a boss nova version of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” is definitely going to rub some people up the wrong way, I’m pretty sure our readers here at DM can handle it:
Pix and sound. Grant Gee’s impressive 2007 documentary Joy Divsion definitively brings together all the elements of the band’s story (some parts of which has been heard in other films, in other documentaries) together into one complete and engrossing film. Written by Jon Savage and containing interviews from Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, Peter Hook, Tony Wilson, Rob Gretton, Peter Saville, Anton Corbijn, Genesis P. Orridge, together with archive footage of Joy Division, Martin Hannett, John Peel and Ian Curtis.
This version is in English with sub-titles in Spanish.
Oki has put together a collection of Joy Division mashups with female singers like Cher, Katy Perry and Beyonce called Divas Of Joy Division which you can download for free here.
I’m a massive Joy Division fan so I approached Oki’s concept with trepidation, but was surprised to find that some of the tracks have an eerily appealing vibe.
This particular cut which combines “She’s Lost Control” with Nancy Sinatra singing “Bang, Bang” took a couple of listens before it got its hooks in me. But it did.
Sinatra’s flanged vocal not sitting right in the pocket (which is wobbly as it is) creates the unsettling atmosphere of a dark drug experience which seems perfect for songs about madness and homicide.
I mashed up the mashup with some video so you’d have something to look at.
Taken from the upcoming New Order/Joy Division greatest hits album “Total,” this rocky track has been played on Irish radio and since found its way onto the web. This brings up two questions in my mind - how can this be described as a “leak” if it has been played (presumably officially) on the radio? And why the hell do these two different bands need a combined “best of”?
We’ve posted before about both South African artist Spoek Mathambo and amazing photographer Pieter Hugo (his book Nollywood is sitting on a coffeetable 10 feet away from me as I type this) and wow, their new collobaoration on this video for Spoek’s fucking brilliant cover of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control” is nothing short of simply astonishing.
You think there’s nothing new under the sun, jaded reader? That every good idea has already been used up by music video directors? Guess again because this will knock your socks off!
‘Control’, the fourth single from Spoek Mathambo‘s debut album Mshini Wam, is a ‘darkwave township house’ cover of the Joy Division classic ‘She’s Lost Control’. In collaboration with one of South Africa’s most influential photographers Pieter Hugo, and cinematographer Michael Cleary, the new video explores township cults and teen gangs. Shot on location in a squatted train boarding house in Langa, Cape Town, the video features a cast mostly made up of local neighborhood kids who run their own dance troop, Happy Feet. Spoek Mathambo has been pioneering a progressive take on African music for the last few years via his DJing (as HIVIP), solo and live band projects, having featured on Boysnoize Records and Top Billin.
Directed and shot by Pieter Hugo & Michael Cleary. Edited by Richard Starkey
YouTuber SoftwareDR says, “This is Joy Division live on Something Else Studio. Recorded Transmission in this John Peel session. My first try to create a stop motion film. Hope you like it.”
This track “Chance” by Joy Division popped up on You Tube today - it’s listed as an “Unofficial Release - from the Piccadilly Radio session 4th June 1979.” “Chance” is an early version of the song that would later become “Atmosphere”.
According to Shadowplay a website dedicated to all of Joy Division’s recordings, the lyrics to “Chance” vary from “Atmosphere”:
“Chance”
Walk in silence
Walk away in silence
See the danger - always danger
Endless talking - life rebuilding
Don’t walk away - face the danger
Walk in silence
Don’t walk away in silence
See the danger - always danger
Rules are broken - false emotions
Don’t walk away
People like you find it easy
Always in tune - walking on air
They’re hunting in packs
By the rivers, through the streets
It may happen soon
Then maybe you’ll care
Walk away
Walk away from danger
“Atmosphere”
Walk in silence
Don’t walk away in silence
See the danger - always danger
Endless talking - life rebuilding
Don’t walk away
Walk in silence
Don’t turn away in silence
Your confusion - my illusion
Worn like a mask of self-hate
Confronts and then dies
[or on the Effenaar live version:
Corrupts and then dies]
Don’t walk away
People like you find it easy
Naked to see - walking on air
Hunting by the rivers
Through the streets, every corner
Abandoned too soon
Set down with due care
Don’t walk away - in silence
Don’t walk away
The Piccadilly Radio also version has the following additional words:
I’m - I’m just crossing the line - just crossing the line
Trying to get back - right where I was
Back where I was - see me crossing the line
Don’t walk away—
Peter Hook allegedly claimed “Atmosphere” was Joy Division’s best song, not surprising then that it was voted the Greatest Song of the Millennium by listeners to the late and lamented John Peel’s BBC radio show.
Bonus clips of ‘Atmosphere’ and ‘Digital’ after the jump…
