Cuttings

A massive earthquake hit Mexico City on 19 September 1985 , prompting this benefit gig at ULU. I only actually found out about it on the Tuesday (22 October) of the same week of the gig, so we didn't have advance tickets and it was a case of chancing it on the night. The car breaking down twice, once in Trafalgar Square, the second in Shaftesbury Avenue, didn't exactly help our chances, but we did it just - with one of us being the last but one admitted. Support were James , who performed a slow version of " Fire So Close " and a song about earwigs (amongst others). New Order were on top form this night, borne out by the reviews in Melody Maker and NME below. State of the Nation featured some additional lyrics and interesting use of echo on the drums towards the end. Echo also featured on guitar parts in Everything's Gone Green , embellishing it nicely.  Hooky introduced Age of Consent as a tribute to Gary Holton , who'd died earlier that day, and was ...

SHAMING THE NATION With last year's album 'Low-life', NEW ORDER finally laid the ghost of Joy Division and emerged as one of this nation's saving graces with a unique sound and demonstrable staying power. One night at the Hacienda in Manchester, they spoke to Adam Sweeting about past, present and future. Moody and magnificent poses by Tom Sheehan By Stephen Morris's account, New Order are very shy. Very, very shy, in fact. I'd suggested to Morris, who's the drummer, that New Order often seem aloof, even entirely dismissive of their audience. They play their songs, stop and walk off. End of story. "Er..." said Morris, wincing in the general direction of the floor. "Very very shy..." Is that right? "Certainly is. Cos you're just being yourself onstage. It would be quite easy to go 'are ya feelin' alright!' and all that, but ... Good grief, no! I don;t think we've been aloof. You can't really ignore an a...

RAIN STOPS PLAY WOMAD FESTIVAL  Mersea Island, Essex IF Ian Curtis hadn't done the decent thing, New Order would be just another bunch of white electro-dronesters consigned eternally to the middle reaches of the "alternative" (what viable alternative is offered, I've always wondered) charts. I see a ship in the harbour. Nah, it's the Thames Estuary, really (Caroline has the same amazing eyesight of Adrian Thrills ) , but there are a score or more fishing boats at anchor for the night. WOMAD '85 is in Mersea, Essex, an island not quite as remote as the Isle Of Skye, but nearly as inaccessible - the only road link with the mainland floods at high tide. If you're caught on the wrong side - say, on your way home from neighbouring Colchester - all you can do is wait it out. "I don't like that bridge," says my taxi driver. "It's haunted by a Roman centurion." It's a new moon tonight, and she's worried about getting home...

SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE WITH 'SUEDEHEAD' AN EVEN BIGGER HIT THAN THE SMITHS' FINEST AND A SOLO ALBUM, 'VIVA HATE', DUE FOR IMMINENT RELEASE, THINGS COULDN'T LOOK ROSIER FOR MORRISSEY . SO WHY IS HE OBSESSED WITH DISSATISFACTION? WHY ARE HIS SONGS STILL ABOUT ADOLESCENCE AND LOSS? SIMON REYNOLDS MEETS THE GREAT MAN, TAKES A SCALPEL TO HIS LYRICS AND HIS ENGLISHNESS AND COMES AWAY WITH A UNIQUE INSIGHT INTO THE MOST INSPIRATIONAL SONGWRITER OF HIS GENERATION I THINK I'vs met them all now. For me, there are no more heroes left. And no new ones corning along, by the look of it. It could be that this is a time marked by a dearth of characters, or that the smart people in rock aren't interested in self-projection but in obliterating noise. But really, I think, it's the case that, in this job, you don't have the time to develop obsessions, what with the insane turnover, and all the incentives to pluralism. The heroes you have kind of linger on from a pr...

SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE IN THE SECOND EXCITING EPISODE OF SIMON REYNOLDS' CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH THE MORRISSEY KIND, STEPHEN PATRICK TALKS ABOUT FAME'S FATAL ATTRACTION, THE SMITHS' FATAL DISTRACTIONS, AND THE LAUGHTER BEHIND THE MISERY. PHOTOGRAPHY: PAUL RIDER "DID that swift eclipse torture you?/A star at 18 and then -   suddenly gone/down to a few lines in the back page/of a teenage annual/oh but I remembered you/I looked up to you" - "Little Man, What Now?" "Fame, Fame, fatal fame/It can play hideous tricks on the brain" -"Frankly, Mr Shankly" One of the best tracks on “Viva Hate" is  "Little Man, What Now?", an eerie, enchanted, rather chilling song in which Morrissey ponders the fate of a young TV actor ("a real person — but I don't want to name names') he remembers from “Friday nights 1969', briefly elevated to the level of minor celebrity before being abruptly dispatched back into obscurity, nev...