New Order, Underground Magazine

Blue Monday Mix Master

by Dubmaster Mick Middles

THE NEW ORDER INTERVIEW REMIX (A ‘dub’ feature)
"We had one letter recently from a fan that asked, ‘Who is the geezer called Dub that you keep mentioning? Who is Mr Dub?’. We all had a good laugh about that one, I can tell you.” (Peter Hook, March 1988)

They have gone and done it now. How can a band continue to he regarded as an ‘alternative’ when they employ Quincy Jones to remix their finest moment? If you have any doubt that New Order are presently surging into the international big league, then consider this. At the time when U2’s War was invading the bedrooms of America, their manager, Paul McGuinness, bumped into New Order’s Svengali, Rob Gretton, in a Stateside hotel.

“He was ecstatic,” says Gretton now, “. . . because U2 had just sold over half a million albums over there. Now I look at Substance and that has sold even more.”

Indeed. Anything can happen this year. As Joy Division are unleashed on a mainstream audience for the first time, New Order are reluctantly competing with the likes of Heart and Fleetwood Mae. The idea to ‘Americanise’ Blue Monday by allowing the precision genius of Quincy Jones to squeeze the song into a seven inch format is a concerted attack on the all important American singles chart. But the remix is to be released over here as well. Complete with a sparkling new video, Blue Monday is expected to fly into the top five. Factory boss Tony Wilson, incidentally, is hoping for a number one.

The flip side of the Blue Monday Remix is the Remix, Remix. Which may be taking things a little too far but at least it has provided the inspiration for this little feature. After all, this band, New Order, take great pride in their skill to remake, rehash, remodel and rejuvinate their sounds. So why not us? If Quincy Jones is allowed to twiddle about with a piece of supreme British underground history, than I’m damn sure that we can have a mess about as well. Nothing in the world of the remix is sacred. However, I hasten to add, everything featured here is taken from first hand experience.

New Order are, arguably, the greatest white dance band of all time. Mind you, they had one hell of a head start. This unique advantage went by the name of Joy Division. This feature remix begins, bravely, with an incident that adequately sums up the unique intensity of Joy Division, the band who were to provide the solid base for the New Order phoenix.

MAY 1979

The Factory Club nestles dangerously beneath the daunting shadows of valium city. (Actually, the Hulme estate, Manchester. A less than charming complex that at the time boasted time the highest suicide rate in Europe. A fitting place indeed for Tony Wilson and cohorts to lay the groundwork for the image-conscious empire of Factory Records.) Attending a gig at The Factory involves a certain amount of personal danger. This danger becomes very real for one young lad, though he isn’t attacked, mugged or sold a bag of dried privet leaves (like me). He is hit by an escaping taxi. In this collision, his arm is broken. However, despite being in severe pain he refuses to go to hospital until he has been in the venue to witness the performance by his favourite band, Joy Division. When told of this incident later in the evening, Joy Division singer Ian Curtis merely shrugs in disbelief and walks blankly backstage. The incident is swiftly forgotten.

JULY 1983

We sit on the roof of The Paradise Garage, New York. Inside the club, in five hours time. New Order will pump dance rhythms into the audience, who are surely the most sussed dance audience in the world. Barney will sneer at the crowd and hurl words like ‘Boring’ ‘Apathetic’ and ‘Lackadaisical’ in their direction. He will introduce the band’s sparkling new pulsebeat single, Confusion, with the words, “This is one for all you Funhouse bastards”. (The Funhouse being the city’s premier hip hop nightspot.) The relationship between band and country in general will seem strained, to say the least.

There’s a similar attitude problem taking part in the blistering heat on this roof at the moment. Gillian Gilbert and Steve Morris have surrendered to the sun and lie in one corner, oblivious to the rooftop commotion. At the centre of this activity, as always, sits the supremely disinterested Rob Gretton. A Rolling Stone photographer, complete with umbrella and three stooges, is attempting to get Gretton to round the band up for a photo shot.

“Aw... piss off and let me sunbathe,” moans Gretton, apparently unconcerned about missing out on a colour photo spread for the massively influential organ.

“Well, the singer said he’d pose for us at least,” squeals the photographer. But Barney, typically, has sauntered off in search of an orange juice. The photographer is clearly desperate and he points towards me.

“You. Will you pretend to be in New Order? Nobody knows what they look like anyway. ”

“Rob, Rob, there’s a man from Geffen on the phone. He says it’s very urgent,” screams the tour manager Ruth Folsky.

“Oh, tell him to sod off as well. I’m on holiday, you know.” Gretton relaxes and all around him lies chaos, total chaos.

DECEMBER 1985

We lounge in Yellow Two Studies, Stockport. The throbbing from the studio downstairs (actually their single, Shellshock) is barely interrupted by the noises emanating from the television set. Steve, Gillian, Rob, and Hookey are slurping away at the champagne while watching a run through of the band’s newest Ikon video, Pumped Full Of Drugs. The band are talking about technology. . .

Actually, that’s not strictly true. The band are laughing about technology or, at least, their attitude towards it. Techno wizard Steve Morris explains.

“We shot this video at a live gig in Japan. It was hilarious because the Japanese have this incredibly complex attitude towards the use of technology. They think that if it’s been invented then they must use it. Now that is really the opposite of the New Order attitude. Of course we embrace technology but, quite often, in a very simple, childlike way. We use it to suit ourselves. In Japan we wanted to film this video on a single camera with no effects or anything. We kept trying to make the Japanese shoot it through an ordinary surveillance camera, that’s all it would have needed, but, oh no, they turned up with all this mass of complex equipment, all of which was a complete waste of time. ”

Downstairs, in the studio, American producer John Robie wrestles with the highly complex mixing desk and attempts to pin down the song called Shellshock.

Later, in the studio foyer, a weary Barney attempts to speak about the high technology factor within New Order’s music.

“We never, ever use tapes live.”

You do, 1 tell him.

“We don’t,” he states adamantly, “We use sequencers, not tapes.”

Sequencers then. I’ve seen them carry on after you have left the stage.

“You can’t ignore technology and, more importantly, you’ve still got to play these things. It really doesn’t matter if you play a Fairlight or a saw. It’s the tune that matters. A strong melody was always the most important thing, and always will be. However easy it is to play, you have still got to produce that melody. That’s the art.”

Flashback to 1983 where, by the side of a Washington swimming pool, Steve Morris touches upon the same subject.

“Of course we love experimenting with machines. We used to leave the sequencers running after we’d left the stage just to wind the American audiences up. It always gets them, that one. They thought we were cheating, but in a sense we were being more honest. All bands use tapes of some sort on stage. We just don’t see why we should cover it up. ”

Blue Monday initially entered the British singles chart in March 1983. The impact of the record was deadened somewhat by the band’s insistence on playing it live on Top Of The Pops. It sounded dreadful.

Peter Hook: “I don’t know about that. We would have fell silly miming and we always felt more comfortable playing live. Nowadays, we just laugh at all the bands on Top Of The Pops and The Roxy. When we played True Faith live, everyone was in awe of us. It did give us a tremendous feeling of supremacy, really.”

DECEMBER 1987

By accident I find Rob Gretton lurking in the background at an Alison Moyet gig. He is strangely jovial but what, I swiftly ask, on earth is he doing here?

“Er. . . I can’t tell you. . . er, can I? No. I can’t possibly tell you what I’m doing here.”

Whatever the reason it lakes Alison four songs to send myself and Gretton into the pub at the back of the venue. I ask him if he enjoys the trappings of band management as much now that New Order are entering the big league.

“I suppose not. I think 1 am looking for a way out really. The trouble is that you always need more money. I’d like to move into architecture. To build beautiful buildings in Manchester. Like The Hacienda but from the outside. Tony (Wilson) has the same dream as well. To build something solid and worthwhile. But in order to do that then we are going to have to make an awful lot more money. It’s a never ending cycle. We can’t do this forever, can we? I do enjoy some of the aspects of, say, touring though. I own an Audi Quattro but I don’t like driving so Hookey takes over. On European tours he just takes control. He’s good, he would have been a racing driver had he not fallen into this. The rest of the band are too scared to come with us, they take the tour bus. But we break records through France. We constantly outrun patrol cars. Hookey reckons it’s the best road car in the world.”

MARCH 1988

New Order are fronted by the most disinterested, apathetic, cynical anti-performer in the history of rock ’n’ roll. Barney Sumner. A highly creative and intelligent songwriter, certainly, but the most reluctant pop star ever to yawn in front of an audience. Outside of his craft, Barney has little to say. Why should he say anything? For promotion? This is where we meet New Order’s Catch 22. Barney is interested in houses and cars. In order to pursue this dual interest to the full he has to continue his job. He has got to, reluctantly, agree to the remix of Blue Monday. But so far, Barney, Hookey and the whole damn crew have merely dipped their toes in the whirlpool of American superstardom. Should that record succeed in hurling this band into the full, violent hyperbole of true international mainstream success, then reality could begin to fade. At this point we could lose New Order forever. It’s frightening really. Bring on the llamas.