Cuttings

https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2008/mar/16/unseenpleasures  (slightly expanded text) Unseen pleasures Is there anything left to say about Joy Division? Yes writes Jon Savage The big challenge in researching a feature-length documentary about Joy Division was to find rare or unseen footage. Their brief flourish occurred just before the full onset of the promo video age and the increase in broadcast outlets that happened after 1982. Manchester was not yet Pop City, and the independent sector was in its infancy. Compared to today's oversaturation of up-and-coming rock bands, they were underexposed. In fact, Joy Division were right on the cusp. They played in one of the first youth programmes - BBC2's Something Else in September 1979 - and in April 1980 made a video for 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. There was also 1978 footage of 'Shadowplay' (above). But there was very little that had not been seen many times.  The remaining three members of Joy Divisio

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/oct/07/features.review37 Out of control? If only... Anton Corbijn's story of Ian Curtis is curiously flat Philip French The sex'n'drugs'n'rock'n'roll story of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of post-punk band Joy Division, who committed suicide in 1980 at the age of 23, was one of the strands in Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People , a lively, semi-fictionalised portrait of the Manchester music impresario Tony Wilson. The story gets another airing at greater length in the sombre, monochrome  Control , the directorial debut of the Dutch photographer and graphic artist Anton Corbijn, who started out chronicling the rock scene. It's a fairly minimalist account of a bright, dreamy working-class lad (Sam Riley) growing up in a brutalist block of flats in Macclesfield with copies of Ginsberg's Howl and Ballard's Crash on his shelves, and posters of David Bowie on his walls. At 19, he marries

  https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2002/dec/08/features.review117 New Order's temple - or tomb Tempted by the new box set? Be warned: appearances can deceive Kitty Empire It was hardly an orthodox marketing strategy when New Order were interviewed last month about Retro , their forthcoming box set.  'What can you say about a fucking box set?' mused singer Bernard Sumner. Drummer Stephen Morris said: 'I buy a box set every Christmas. I never play them. They just sit there looking nice.' Bassist Peter Hook, the band's loosest cannon, went further, suggesting the band should release four blank CDs in shrink-wrap. No one would be the wiser, he argued, since no one ever opened their box sets.  The resale value of box sets was higher, he explained, if they stayed in pristine condition. How was he so certain? Hooky collects model cars. With Matchbox racers and boxed music, the same principle held: no one in their right mind ever actually

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/aug/12/tonywilson Idealist, chancer, loyal friend: why I will miss Tony Wilson Paul Morley pays tribute to his mentor, the man who shaped Manchester's culture from punk to the Happy Mondays and who died on Friday at the age of 57 Sun 12 Aug 2007 16.57 BST Sometimes, Tony Wilson was just too much. Perhaps he was just too much all of the time. Sometimes I hated that he was too much, too sure of himself, too convinced that his ways were the right ways, rampant with self-assurance, self-belief, self-confidence, self-indulgence, a man crammed with busy, swashbuckling selves to the extent you were never quite sure what he was up to, and what he was. Could someone so forward, so garrulous, so indiscreet be trusted? Was he really the idealistic northern philanthropist determined to fight a lazy, complacent and derelict south, discovering and enabling all kinds of local talent to help in his battle for an absurdist form of north-west independence? Or

Peter Saville on his album cover artwork https://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2011/may/29/joydivision-neworder Next month sees the release of Total , the first compilation to combine the back catalogues of Joy Division and New Order - who shared band members, a record label and a sleeve designer. Peter Saville was a co-founder of Factory Records and credits the label’s unique culture for providing him with a creative freedom on a par with its bands. "I had the opportunity to make the kind of objects I wanted to see in my life," says Saville, who went on to design the England football strip, art direct adverts for Dior and was creative director of the city of Manchester. Here, he talks us through his favourite designs for Joy Division and New Order sleeves Unknown Pleasures Joy Division (Factory, 1979) This was the first and only time that the band gave me something that they'd like for a cover. I went to see Rob Gretton, who managed them, and he gave me a fold

9 BLUE LINES MASSIVE ATTACK Wild Bunch, 1991; chart position: 13 Ben Thompson on the West Country’s finest FROM THE metropolitan angst of‘Safe from Harm’ -‘If you hurt what’s mine, I’ll sure as hell retaliate’ - to the insistent shaken bottle-top rhythm of‘Unfinished Sympathy’, the most striking thing about this album, 13 years on, is how urgent and dramatic it still sounds. The journey-time between ‘bold artistic breakthrough’ and ‘widely accessible lifestyle accoutrement’ has shortened considerably in the interim, but Massive Attack’s universally admired debut has made that trip without forgetting where it came from. With ex-Rip, Rig & Panic bigshot Neneh Cherry (whose boyfriend ‘Booga Bear’ - alias Cameron McVey - was the record’s executive producer) scoring a co-writer’s credit on ‘Hymn of the Big Wheel’, and a young Enterprise Allowance whippersnapper called Geoff Barrow (later one half of Portishead) working as studio tape-op, it’s easy to see how Blue Lines has acquired it

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT... MANCHESTER PETER HOOK MUSICIAN WHY VISIT...? You could spend your life trying to figure out why it is so special - how could any city feel so comfortable? I’m a well-travelled man, but there is nothing to compare with the feeling of returning home. In the old days, I would immediately head out to Dry, the bar that I used to own with the rest of New Order. These days, like many men of my age and ilk, I now like to go straight to bed. For those with more energy, there’s always lots going on. The In the City (inthecity.co.uk) music convention and unsigned bands festival starts today and runs until Tuesday, the Manchester Comedy Festival (manchestercomedyfestival.co.uk) started last week and runs till Sunday, and a major new exhibition on UK hip hop has just opened at the Urbis (urbis.org.uk). CHECK IN... Whenever New Order played Manchester, we would stay in a city centre hotel. I like the Lowry (0161 827 4000; thelowryhotel.com) but it is very minimalist and

 https://www.theguardian.com/observer/omm/reviews/story/0,13875,1197444,00.html Age of adolesence  NEW ORDER Power, Corruption and Lies (London, £9.99)  *****  Charlatans singer Tim Burgess on how New Order shaped his life   Although it may be a post-punk record and I already owned Never Mind the Bollocks and Stranglers and Clash albums by the time it came out in 1983, this was the true soundtrack to my adolescence. It is my favourite New Order album (although Technique comes close) not least because it was the first I bought and it turned me on to their earlier work with Joy Division. I felt as if I knew more about them than any of my friends, and that can be what makes records matter at a tender age. 'Age of Consent', reminds me of Siouxsie and the Banshees - it's a bit of a nod to 'Hong Kong Garden'. I always thought 'The Village' was a homage to Ian Curtis with its lines like 'Their love died three years ago'. 'Leave Me Alone' was the

NEW ORDER Get Ready (WEA London 8573896212) They certainly haven’t forgotten how New Order should sound. Whatever the motives for their reunion - boredom, creativity, the drabness of their solo projects (Monaco, Electronic and The Other Two, should you not have noticed) - the Mancunians’ first album in eight years has more swagger than the tail end of their previous life together. If only Bernard Sumner could find words to match the spirit of their playing - in particular the canny blend of his guitar and Peter Hook’s trademark falsetto bass - this would be a great album. ‘Don’t wanna wash my car’ is never going to figure in the litany of great chorus lines. Plain old ‘Rock the Shack’, where Bobby Gillespie helps out on a nod to their punk roots, is stronger. The effect of Get Ready ’s 10 tracks of beleaguered defiance is cumulative and fans will embrace it with confidence. The rest of the world isn’t likely to be so impressed.

MY TEAM PETER HOOK, NEW ORDER MANCHESTER UNITED AS A KID I used to live near Old Trafford. We couldn’t afford to go in, but we used to hang round the stadium. I was about 14 when I went to my first match. It was when the Stretford End used to riot. You spent most of the time watching the fans rather than the match. None of my family supported United and my mates in Salford were City fans. We used to go to the derbies together - there was always a lot of trouble. My God, it was frightening. I guess that was what stopped me from going, and once I got into the band I lost the passion for it. It’s only recently that I’ve been settled enough to buy a season ticket. When I’m on tour, I always watch United’s matches on TV. Football is such a big part of my life. There’s a misconception that New Order are all mad about football because we did the World Cup song. We are supporters but we’re not rabid. It was great to do World In Motion’ and meet the 1990 England team. Gazza drank three bo

Still clumsy, less shy Would you want this man to wear your underwear? Morrissey’s fans do. The ex-Smiths leader sings obsessively of violence and failure, but fandemonium has made him hugely successful. Now, trapped in his image, he admires ‘ordinary boys’ with the freedom to be natural. JON SAVAGE scratches the pop icon and finds a self-conscious man with a hair shirt, who at heart remains an adolescent. SEVEN p.m., a few Thursdays ago. Watched by up to a fifth of the UK population, 'Top of the Pops' is the country's prime source of pop news. Its format is simple and successful, deliberately reflecting the majority experience of pop. Tonight's acts - Yazz, Samantha Fax and Michael Ball — speak tidily of love and obsession. With varying degrees of panache, their moves conform to the spurious, if reassuring, intimacy of advertising. Then there is a calculated irruption. The camera pans to four young men: the back three could have stepped from the hordes of gawky,

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/may/09/peter-hook-ian-curtis MUSIC In memory of Ian’s pleasures and pain Thirty years after the death of Ian Curtis, Peter Hook brings his Joy Division pal to life In the newly converted rehearsal studio behind his Alderley Edge home, Peter Hook is sifting through his personal collection of Joy Division memorabilia, including his first ever bass, bought the day after he saw the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, his ticket for said gig, and the itinerary for the first Joy Division US tour. The latter never happened, because on the eve of the dates, singer Ian Curtis killed himself. Hook, the hand’s bassist, is musing on his decision to commemorate Curtis’s life by playing Joy Division’s debut, Unknown Pleasures , live, on the 30th anniversary of his death, at Hook’s new club, Factory. “There’s a nervousness because of what you’re dealing with... a nervousness about whether you’re doing the right thing.” Part of the

The Observer Rivals fight for Joy Division singer's biopic Vanessa Thorpe, arts and media correspondent Sun 6 Jun 2004 11.54 BST First published on Sun 6 Jun 2004 11.54 BST https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/jun/06/arts.film For a generation too old to grieve for the loss of Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and too young to hold a lighter aloft in memory of the late Marc Bolan of T Rex, there is another name that beckons from the rock'n'roll hall of tragic fame. Ian Curtis, the troubled frontman of Joy Division who committed suicide at the age of 23, is still mourned by his fans as the lost musical voice of an era. Now his legacy is to be re-examined not once, but twice, in rival films which are being developed around Curtis's life story. The Macclesfield-born singer, who died in 1980, had posthumous international chart success with the song Love Will Tear Us Apart, but was most admired among those who followed the Manchester music scene, of which he was a l