Joy Division

I'm from the far north of England, and there aren't too many dark concrete buildings or mental illness around. Moors, Beaches, disused steel works and cold weather a plenty though.

 

When I bought these albums back when I started this thread, it wasn't a great time in my life, I had just gone through some stuff and it was a testing period. Maybe, because of where I was personally when I first seriously listened to these records that I couldn't comprehend the anguish or depressive feeling Curtis was trying to convey.

 

Well. I can't agree with you - I'm also from the formerly industrial "oop north" and there were no beaches that I remember except on holiday. The 70s saw a proliferation of concrete buildings, multi story car parks, and of course it is darker in the North - it rains more.
Do you include depression as mental illness? What's Dead Souls about? Schizophrenia.

JD were huge Bowie fans (Glam Rock/Disco) and went on to pioneer the Ibiza club/disco sound as New Order.

 

This is a thing that journalists invented really. Anton Cobijn's famous snow covered Moss Side Estate photos contributed to the image also. Yes, the band did live in the Manchester area and there were some very run-down areas* there but at the time, seeing Joy Division was a huge blast of modernity! This music, this band, was white hot, electrifying. Watching and listening to them, no notion of depravity ever entered our minds. With The Clash, they were the most far out, state-of-the-art rock band on the scene.
*Even if some areas in and around Manchester were dismal, many of the surrounding suburbs and towns were gorgeous leafy places (Altrincham, Bowden (where they played once), Wilmslow, Bramhall, Knutsfords,... and Didsbury - where Factory HQ was housed!

 

If we're having a Grim North Off I used to live in Bradford. Eeee lad.

 

Amazing band and New Order were great up to Technique...

 

I worked in Bradford when I was over there a few years back. Made a few life long friends there. I dont miss the early darkness of winter though.

 

It doesn't rain any more than say Wales or the SW. The NE has low rainfall and is blessed with many miles of beautiful beaches, as well as the NW coast. We are an island, so it would be a bit weird if we had no coastline in the North wouldn't it?

Also I don't think Ian Curtis was very inspired by Glam Bowie - more the Berlin trilogy.

Aside from that - arguments about your memories of the terrible North - are a bit shaky and none of us know JD's motivations.

 

But you don't get those lovely long light evenings in mid-summer in Melbourne.. But apart from that I agree Melbourne trumps 'The North'....

 

still nicer than say Keighley, or Billingham...

 

I wasn't comparing the two, I did love the long Summer nights. They bother are great parts of the world.

 

Curtis was well known to have been a fan of Ziggy era Bowie - in fact his first date with Deborah was a Ziggy gig in Dec 72 at the Hard Rock. He had on occasion worn blue eyeshadow and black nail varnish. His sister says he had a Bowie haircut, red satin trousers and silver platform boots.

I suppose it all depends what part of town you came from whether you found the 70s "grim" as they say or glowing with rainbow coloured light and warmth.
My experience is of terraced houses, concrete shopping centres and car parks, lots of rain, and waking up with ice on the inside of my bedroom window.

I admit JD's music sounds more like The Idiot than Ziggy, but it was all part of Curtis.

 

Joy Division's, along with Pink Floyd's The Final Cut were the first albums I heard that made me realise music wasn't there just to entertain, but to make you stop and think. Yes, they were dark, but also enlightening, particularly as to the way I approached music in the future. I live "oop north" but in a lovely part of Lancashire and the only "dark Satanic mill" around here is the marvellous new pub complex my daughter works at!!!!!

 

According to Discogs, there is a repress of the "love will tear us apart" US 12 inch coming out:

Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart

similar to the 2013:
Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart

A Love Will Tear Us Apart 3:17
B1 These Days 2:20
B2 Love Will Tear Us Apart (12" Remix) 4:30
Total Time: 10:07
Credits
Producer – Martin Hannett
Notes
Deluxe canvas bag vinyl edition of the rare studio outtake recording of Joy Division’s goth rock classic!
* Alternative Versions Mastered From The Martin Hannett Tapes 1980

later
-1

 

Joy Division's music is one of those rare things that keeps growing on me, or in me or something... when I was younger I found it sort of depressing to listen to but now I can play the whole works in one sitting and feel okay about that and keep finding new aspects to it. The drums are great, the bass is great, the guitar lines are piercing, the synths accent things, and then Curtis' lyrics and way of intoning them is up there with Nico and Lou Reed. Just one of those mysterious combinations that really fit together without a huge effort (maybe the tracks that don't work very well were ones they struggled over). And of course the production fit like a glove and was basically the foundation. Did Hannett produce starting with Digital from that sampler thing? That's where they really stared blowing minds I would think.

In terms of Northern depression I guess Gang Of Four's Damaged Goods and The Buzzcocks' What Do I Get sort of fit into that label, but the Sex Pistols were sort of alienated as well as angry. What was it said in that doc... Pistols were F You, and Joy Division were I'm/we're F-ed?

 

They were MASSIVE in NZ back in 1979-1981. All three of their key albums all went Top 3 here and Unknown Pleasures went to Number 1. 'Atmosphere' & 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' reached #1 on the singles chart, 'Transmission' go to #2 when it came out in 1979. Kinda makes me proud that my adopted homeland really loved one of my favourite bands of all time in such numbers that they became a 'chart act'. If Ian Curtis had lived, they would have toured as legends here...

 

Unknown Pleasures. Unknown depths of excellence....

 

Lancashire is the Midlands...

 

When I was 14 I used to mill around in a long dark coat, in thrall to Joy Division, and the Smiths, thinking life is a cruel thing but happy to have such emotive powerful music in my life..

Twenty years later, I'm er....

.... writing this wearing a long dark coat, in thrall to Joy Division, thinking about the drums in Disorder...

It's nice to get your taste right the first time.

 

I absolutely love Joy Division but cannot say I feel the same about New Order.

 

the drums in Disorder.... a perfect moment. A still remember the first time I heard the breaking glass on UP - and each time looked out of the window for the culprit...

 

I need to pull the Heart and Soul box off the shelf again soon!

 

Make a playlist with that and Martin Gore Counterfiet!

 

Was listening to Bauhaus the other day and began putting together a theory that perhaps the abrupt change in direction of Bowie's Scary Monsters was influenced by Joy Division and Bauhaus as much as they might have been by his earlier work?

 

People who think it's "cold" in the North of England have never been anywhere that is really cold.