Cuttings

Are New Order splitting up? Only New Order can answer that. A concerned PAUL LESTER confronts the most important British band since the Sixties and asks the question that will be on everyone's lips at Reading this weekend PETER HOOK ARE NEW ORDER SPLITTING UP? "Em?, I don't know. Good question. Ask Rob Gretton! Listen, they've been saying we're going to split for the last five years. We don't pay attention to it any more. They thought we were going to split after Joy Division. We've got no plans, apart from with Revenge, Electronic and The Other Two. We'll probably sit down after Reading and decide what to do in the future - which is probably to go home ( laughs ). I haven't got a clue, really. "People do analyse us more than most bands, yeah, which is quite weird cos we never do. We never talk about New Order, it's just something we do subconsciously. It's a mystery? That's good, isn't it? Otherwise it could get a bit preten

HEY there Tom Morton, where did your sense of humour go when you reviewed New Order at Glasgow's Barrowland ? Admittedly I wasn't there myself but I've seen them enough times to  presume that this gig didn't differ incredibly to most — though this may have been your point. I still think that you were being unnecessarily harsh on both them and the audience when you moaned right from the first paragraph about the length of grey overcoat, the stench of cheap hair gel and biker? So what? I think it's great that New Order attracts such a wide audience and too bad if this means rubbing shoulders with bikers and "split-ends-ridden hippies". And why do you insist that New Order want to be either Kraftwerk or a machine and "crush their angst-ridden audience into a puree of organised emotion". Know them well do you? Anyway - I'm not bitter Tom, but do try taking them with a pinch of salt if there's ever a next time. And Barney ... A Dalek? That is

PERFECT VISION  NEW ORDER TECHNIQUE Factory IT begins. It thumps with glee, it swirls with lackadaisical intensity. “ You're much too young to be a part of me, you're much too young to get a hold on me ." And never have veterans sounded so brilliantly arrogant, masters so eager. Jesus . “Technique” is so effortlessly GREAT, so languidly heroic, so vibrant and thrilling despite itself, that one wishes one could weep. As the Austrian philosopher Rose Royce once commented. “I’m in love (and I love the feeling). ” That’s what this is like. I first hear it on a train from Waterloo and as the power stations and football pitches fly past, I want to get out and race the train to the sound of this perfect, perfect music. New Order know that the times throw a malfunctioning grey electric blanket over our emotion, but also that the slightest wriggle could be the one to turn it on again. They do this wriggle repeatedly, on every jauntily fatigued song, like they've done it many ti

 

TANGLED UP IN BLUE They play live infrequently and seldom give interviews, but NEW ORDER have steadily built up a massive following which kept their single, "Blue Monday", in the charts. Frank Worrall cornered singer and guitarist Bernard Albrecht and demanded answers. For once, Bernard obliged. Behind the lens: Kevin Cummins IT'S one o'clock in the morning at Manchester's Hacienda Club - and all's not well. A beleaguered-looking Rob Gretton, manager and joint owner of the club, sips another beer and replies simply but honestly when I ask how well the club is pulling in the punters. "Terribly," he sighs. "Bloody terribly!" You can sympathise with the man. While he and New Order, who, of course, he also manages, have ploughed vast lumps of cash from their staggering record sales into the club, most Mancunians don't seem to give a toss. It's outrageous really. Before the Hacienda, they would be constantly bemoaning the lack of clubs i

HOW SOON IS NOW? SIMON REYNOLDS, LONG-TIME FAN OF THE SMITHS, SHEDS A TEAR AT THEIR SUDDEN DEMISE AND EXAMINES THE SUCCESSES AND FAILURES OF ONE OF THE MOST PROMINENT BANDS OF THE DECADE INFATUATION is the true pop response, not considered and evaluative: we all see that, even celebrate it. Why then do we have such trouble with what follows on from infatuation — partisanship, irrational, abiding faith? I'll come clean: for me, The Smiths can do no wrong. Donning my critic's cap, I can see they have regularly produced weak work. But this is what a love affair is like —a long waiting out for a repeat of that initial, initiating rapture. And The Smiths have regularly delivered that hit, restored to me that first rush. For all the attempts of critics (especially on this paper) to acknowiedge and celebrate the erotic relationship between star and consumer, fanaticism , the uncritical, is the one thing rock criticism can't cope with. But maybe the letters page sluggards we regul

GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD 'Strangeways, Here We Come' is the last album we will hear from The Smiths, following Morrissey's dramatic decision to end the group's career after the departure of Johnny Marr. Gary Leboff spoke to Morrissey shortly after the album was completed and found him already counting the days to the band's inevitable demise. Photography: Tom Sheehan Why "Strangeways, Here We Come"? Because the way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if I was in prison 12 months from now. Really it's me throwing both arms up to the skies and yelling "whatever next?". Strangeways, of course, is that hideous Victorian monstrosity of a prison operating 88 to a cell.  I don't have any particular crimes in mind but it's so easy to be a criminal nowadays that I wouldn't have to look very far. Life is so odd that I'm sure I could manage it without too much difficulty. How does the new album differ from its predecessors? '

HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD While THE SMITHS tour America, controversy still rages over their single, 'Panic'. Does the refrain 'hang the deejay' really harbour racist tendencies? FRANK OWEN tracks down MORRISSEY to Cleveland and confronts him with his pride, his prejudice and all his yesterdays. It's a long way from Whalley Range, is Cleveland. A long way indeed from the Collyhurst cut-throats, city hobgoblins, and the Stretford beer monsters so central to Morrissey's waking nightmares. What of Central Library, Whitworth Street gent's toilets, the Arndale Centre, Piccadilly all night bus station? What of the fluttering hearts and flashing Stanley Knives? We'll come to that later. But first, ladies and gentlemen, I present Cleveland. The Smiths are encamped in the middle of a civic pride that burns about them like a beacon aspiring to light up the rest of America. No longer is this city content to be known as "the armpit of the USA," to be the