Cuttings

The Thoughts of Chairman Marr THE SMITHS have just conquered the Yanks and now go into hibernation to write and record their follow-up album to the chart-topping “Meat Is Murder”. JOHNNY MARR tells a perspiring Barry Mcllheney that it will be a return to rhythm and blues and the music of John Lee Hooker and Elvis Presley. He also talks about Morrissey, Bryan Ferry, Keith Richards and Barry Grant but he only likes two of them. Chairman Marr and guitar snapped by a curious Tom Sheehan THE house that Johnny bought just after Christmas sits some six miles out of Manchester city centre. Up the M56, past the signs for Rusholme and Whalley Range, down a few leafy avenues and suddenly you're there. Smiths drummer Mike Joyce is acting courier for the day and he gets out to open up the gates. Nothing too ostentatious, you understand, but a nice enough place and a million miles away in property values from the Marr family home just 10 minutes up t' road. A few of the local schoolgirls sto

Who is the most perfect singles band of all time? Abba? Smiths? Pet Shop Boys? Cure? No. That's N-O. For New Order. ANDREW MUELLER reckons so, and reveals his delayed ejaculation technique along the way. Image: Pat Pope THE ECSTASY OF SAINT BERNARD NEW ORDER THE BEST OF NEW ORDER  London 8285801-2-4/16 tks/71 mins PROOF, if it were needed, that pop music is better than logic. Consider: this collection is, natch, a consummate work of art, a catalogue of genius, a bible of dreams and failure, the greatest story ever told, etcetera and amen. Consider further: said Babylon has been wrought by one amiable-looking chap with a well-thumbed rhyming dictionary, another who might have been thrown out of Hawkwind for being a bit unreconstructed, and two earnest, anonymous, Laura Ashley boffins. That Hook, George and Ringo are human we know: we've heard Revenge and The Other Two. Sumner, yet to put a foot anywhere astray of the shining path (Electronic are astonishing), has presumably been

VIKINGDOM COME WITH THE RELEASE OF A NEW SINGLE, 'PINEAPPLE FACE'S BIG DAY' AND A FORTHCOMING ALBUM, PETER HOOK HOPES TO PROVE THAT REVENGE ISN'T JUST A NEW ORDER OFFSHOOT, BUT HIS WAY OF MAKING LIFE INTERESTING AGAIN. JON WILDE TALKS TO THE BASS PLAYER ABOUT THE MANCHESTER SCENE, HOW REVENGE STOPPED NEW ORDER GETTING INTO A RUT AND WHY HE'S A ROCK'N'ROLL VIKING WITH EIGHT SOLID INCHES THAT NEVER LET HIM DOWN. PICS: TOM SHEEHAN. PETER HOOK, THE WORLD'S NUMBER one phallic bass guitarist, is sitting at the bar in Sheffield's Leadmill, staring into his pint of Stella Artois, considering his grand revenge. "It's f***ing great to have this," he says. "It's a real kick in the arse for me. Basically, it's like starting all over again. I can count the three most exciting periods of my life: the start of Joy Division and Warsaw; the start of New Order; and the start of Revenge. "There's people out there waiti

THAT MORRISSEY LP TRACK BY TRACK CRITICAL opinion is unanimous on this one—with “Viva Hate!”, Morrissey has returned to the apex of pop spokesmanship and furnished us with an album of redoubtable fables and clarion calls our time. From the wistful and retrospective, to the assertive and plain speaking, this is Morrissey at his fey best, trailing swathes of falsetto glory behind him. Here, the Maker's experts rally round to offer an indispensible and exclusive TTT track-by-track assessment of the latest meisterwerk. ROUGH BOYS A searing account of the playground traumas of the introverted, bespectacled boy who Dared To Be Different, in a hostile Northern environment where introspection earned you a thick ear and the jeers of the shopfloor girls in the Hovis factory across the way. Contains the unforgettable lines, “Rough boys/In the dinner queue/Pushing and shoving like brutes at the trough/No, I didn't mean to touch your bottom/l was pushed from behind/You wouldn’t hit a b

MANCHESTER UNITED Manchester goes to Liverpool! Penny Kiley reports on the Manchester bands' benefit gig for the Liverpool councillors. Photography: Gary Lornie "FROM Manchester with love"? It seemed an unlikely idea: there's never been much love lost in the past between Manchester and Liverpool. But suddenly there were three of Manchester's most desirable acts -  The Smiths, The Fall , and New Order - all agreeing to devote their names and their talents for the benefit of Liverpool City Council in a unique gig at Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre. Specifically, the cause was to raise funds for the legal costs of the Council's current High Court appeal against surcharge and disqualification, on which rests the political and financial futures of 48 councillors. Whether the gesture was particularly pro-Liverpool or just anti-Government was never quite clear. It was Morrissey who'd put this impressive line-up together, after offering support to De

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION BERNARD SUMNER has been speaking to The Maker about the new Electronic album, his use of Prozac to cure a supposed case of ”writer's block”, the future of New Order and ”Touching From A Distance” - the new book by the late Ian Curtis’ wife, Deborah. Bernard contacted The Maker from the studio in Manchester where he’s recording the new Electronic album with Johnny Marr and former Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos. Sumner and Marr have been recording for the last 15 months and have 14 tracks knocked into shape. Twelve of them will be on the next Electronic album which, Bernard says will be out either just before or just after Christmas. There will be a single in September, possibly called Forbidden City”. Sumner was quick to scotch stories that he had taken the wonder drug Prozac to overcome a severe case of writer’s block. "The first I heard about it was when l read about it in the press and it’s simply not true he told The Maker. It appears that

THE LAST OF ENGLAND VIVA HATE! HMV FOR too long, a faction around here feels, the fey, blithe Morrissey has been allowed to saunter through pop history unchecked, fawned upon even — and it was about time some of the chaps got together to administer a tarring, a feathering, and deposit him in the nearest ditch. Faced with the prospect of putting “Viva Hate” into critical perspective, the Windsor Davies in us all, bulging with choleric indignation at the antics of Mr La-De-Da Gunner Graham, welled to the surface of many a soul around here, as they sharpened their pencils and scraped their hooves in readiness to proffer a sound critical kicking to our erstwhile hero. But I’ve always been renowned for my sense of fair play and it was to me, lingering modestly at the back of the pack, that the task of reviewing the record was eventually assigned. And I say that through musically thick and musically thin, swoops and (appalling) lapses, this is Morrissey, Morrissey, Morrissey

Blood Simple New Order Low-Life THE contradictions, the confusions, the confessions continue. "Low-Life" is New Order really, it's as deliberately basic as that. Those one-string sentimentalisms still stir the senses, those explosive dynamics still jolt complacency, that disco blast still sounds cheap and mechanical and yet thumps home, those lyrics still sting like a slap and sometimes embarrass. It’s all so minimal, it's mountainous. Somehow, through a process of brutal attrition, New Order have established a cleaving purity. And remember all that Nazi business? Well, it’s not over yet, it's not that inappropriate. "Low-Life" functions with fascist intensity, shepherding the sympathies, every note honed for maximum impact. There's nothing on this record that isn't essential to its purpose and there's really no escaping its traumatic effect. It uplifts, it begins to live a life of its own beyond calculation and maintains the Ne

REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE WITH THE RELEASE OF NEW ORDER'S NEW SINGLE, 'FINETIME', BERNARD ALBRECHT BREAKS HIS TWO-YEAR SILENCE AND TALKS TO JONH WILDE ABOUT THE GROUP'S PAST MISTAKES, PRESENT HAPPINESS, THE SINGER'S FUTURE COLLABORATION WITH JOHNNY MARR, AND WHAT SETS THE MOST GLORIOUS POP BAND OF THE EIGHTIES A WORLD APART FROM THEIR CHART RIVALS. PORTRAITS BY ANDY CATLIN "THIS SOUNDS REALLY F'***ING PRETENTIOUS... BUT I DON'T REALLY BELIEVE THE MUSIC WE write comes from us. I think it comes from the people who listen to it. We are like a mirror. They are like mirrors. "This could sound mad, right... but I think the music we write comes from psychic immanations from the people who listen to it." I'm laughing. Bernard is not laughing. "Oh yeah. For instance, if I start writing a song, my mind will go completely blank. From nothing, I'll get an impression in my head. I believe that comes from our fans. Really. I st