Joy Division - Day by Day

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I've seen lots of these day by day threads and thought it would be good to do one on Joy Division. To me Joy division optimised the late 70's post punk movement. Ian Curtis was an awkward looking man, who oozed stage presence... We all know what happened tom him, and the band. But I've rarely seen any discussions about Warsaw, or Joy Division.

As their recorded output is quite small, I intend to include the early Ideal Beginning bootleg EP and the Warsaw album bootleg. Although they've never been released "officially", both are now freely available legally as an unofficial release on the Warsaw album. The day by day thread will go in chronological release order. However the Ideal Beginning and Warsaw bootlegs will be placed first as they were recorded before they became Joy Division.

Sordide Sentimental will be ignored as we will cover Atmosphere on the largely available 12" release along with the alternative recording of She's lost Control. Likewise we'll discuss Dead Souls when we eventually get to the Still album.

We will end up discussing the same songs, for example Transmission appeared on the official Factory single, as well a live version on Still and an early version recorded for RCA on the Warsaw album...... It's inevitable that discussions will cross over to these other releases.

I have brought all the official live releases (Short Circuit, Les Bains Douches, Preston etc) into one discussion

Basic rules:

1. 1 song per day
2. I will start the next discussion at around 8:00am GMT by posting the next song from that particular release (may be later at weekends.... I like a lay in ;-)
3. The Poll is for your favourite JD song from all their releases
4. The 1st Poll will run for 14 days and the winner will roll over to the second round
5. A new thread will be created for the 2nd Poll for the remaining songs from their discography and the continuation of the discussion
6. The grand winner of both Polls will be announced at the very end of this discussion... in Around 30 days time or so.

The order for discussion will be:

• Ideal Beginning EP
• Warsaw (Unreleased RCA Album)
• An Ideal For Living EP
• A Factory Sample
  
• Unknown Pleasures
• Transmission - 7"/12"
• Earcom 2: Contradiction
  
• Closer
• Love will Tear s Apart 7"/12"
• Komakino (Flexi)
• Atmosphere 12"
• Still
• Official Live Releases

 

I'll start the ball rolling...... The Ideal Beginning EP




First song is GUTZ.

This is pure punk, and the vocals on this track don't sound anything like Curtis would only a year or 2 later. It's OK, but i take or leave it to be honest. There are better songs on this EP. as a matter of interest this is their first drummer before Steve Morris joined, Steve Brotherdale.

I suppose it's a pretty good start for a fledgling band at the height of Punk

 

I really don't have anything to say about the particular song.
These Warsaw demo tracks are historical curios and not essential at all. Best left for the curious and obsessive completists. I am glad , however, that they were included as bonus tracks for the official release of the RCA sessions.

 

That wasn't official, it's an unofficial release by a label in the EU. Nothing to do with the members of JD. The RCA album was slated for official release last year on RSD, but was pulled at the last minute. It was intended to be a double album so I heard

 

Disorder
Dead Souls

 

I have Gutz on a rarities bootleg thing but I thing I have only ever listened to it one (if that). Nothing special, it comes from the days when they were nuthin' (even on the Manchester scene).

 

Dead Souls but there are many I could choose.
They sound better to me now than they did 40 years ago.

 

My 2 favorite JD songs are Transmission (not listed) and Dead Souls: the 2nd song from the list is Glass

This

 

I totally agree regarding these early demos... They are throw away, with the exception of maybe At A Later Date which comes tomorrow and was also on the Short circuit record Live at The Electric Circus..... That's a great song

 

lest just say that again...... they're now 40 years old!!! Good grief i forgot just how old they are. now listening back to them in that context, they were definitely ahead of the game.

 

Atmosphere for me, I must have played it well over a thousand times.

 

9 votes for Dead souls? Somehow this is one rare JD song i dont like. Voted atmosphere and decades without doubt.

 

I went with Decades and Exercise One, because I don’t think they will pick up many votes, and I’ve always really liked them. I never rated Warsaw though; they sound like a middling punk band. The surprise is how they went from mediocrity to brilliance within a year. Always good to see a band stick at it and transform themselves into something special.

 

Dead Souls and Atmosphere for me - what an awesome pairing for a single.

Honourable mentions to Disorder and Decades.

 

Joy Division is so untrendy that they are truly timeless....
no silly fashion pretension beyond Barney with the fake Hitler youth sarcasm, yet even that fits the dark side of
what they could allude to.
So much of what they inspired was a pretense but it couldn't help them being the real deal, which they truly were.

 

Day 2

At A Later Date

This is a great song, that later appeared on the Electric Circus live record, as well as a live favourite on loads of early concerts. I love this song and the live version on the Short Circuit record is a stonker. Barney was a nob for the Rudolf Hess comment................ I wonder if he later regretted that?

 

Atmosphere.

 

One thing this day by day will show over the coming weeks will be how much the band changed from the early raw Warsaw days to Closer, which is a truly timeless masterpiece. I'm going to enjoy this trip down memory lane

 

I'm in. Been playing JD obsessively for a couple of weeks. Looking forward to this one.

This is precisely how I feel. It took me years to buy the Warsaw CD with the 5 demos (and RCA sessions). Even then I only bought it cos I pretty much had everything else. When I finally heard them, I wasn't really a fan at all, apart from At A Later Date. I currently have a CD copy of Short Circuit - Live at the Electric Circus on the way from France, wanted it for so long. Anyway, Gutz does nothing for me whatsoever. To me, At A Later Date is by far the best of these 5 demos. I understand that whilst the Electric Circus version was performed as Warsaw, it was credited to JD on account of them changing their name between the gig and the release coming out. So I consider it a JD song. The other Warsaw ones are bottom of the pile to me.

By the way, the A-Z poll only goes from As You Said down to Inside The Line, at least on my crap work PC using IE.

 

That's because I have to split the poll into 2 parts as it won't let me list the entire discography. Read the bit at the top.... The first half of the poll will run for 14 days, then I'll start a new thread with the remaining songs rolling over the winner from the first poll to the second. There's just over 50 songs in the discography so this should take just over 50 days'ish. By that time the poll would have finished.

Todays songs is At A Later Date, Gutz has finished

 

I was there that night!

 

You Lucky B*astard............. Was it good?

 

Gotcha. I voted Dead Souls & Disorder. Only 2 votes per list? I'd love to have a few more! Only just seen the topic today. Opinion registered on both songs. Will try and check in daily. Out of curiosity, will we discuss things like the Peel sessions, Heart & Soul box set, compilations etc?

 

The peels can be discussed along with the standard releases... or at the end along with the official live albums. We can also discuss the extra live recordings on the CD versions of the classic albums at the end.

 

Voted Dead Souls and Digital from this selection.
Will vote Novelty and No Love Lost on the next selection.

No Love Lost?? Yeah, that one song by that middling punk band Warsaw...

Anyway, my JD trail proper will start at the Warsaw boot. Btw aren’t these the bonus tracks on the Warsaw cd?