Joy Division - Day by Day

Can't agree with this enough. Martin was (to me) the fifth member of the band by that time. His influence on JD's sound cannot be underestimated. But you're right, that may be for another thread. We shall see where the conversation takes us when the time comes.

 

I actually quite like the tracklists of discs 1&2. Songs from the UP & Closer eras lumped together. Anyway, if I want to listen to the albums as intended, I’ll put on the 2007 remaster discs. But, I rather enjoy those first two discs, I also really like hearing things pick up after Decades with LWTUA and These Days. Those two round out that disc nicely for me.

The only minor issue with disc 1 was Walked In Line having to be placed on disc 3 for space reasons. Couldn’t be helped though I suppose. Also I’d have preferred the WIL version on H&S to be the added post production one from Still, not the raw one. I like the fact that Ice Age was placed on disc 1, as even though it was eventually recorded during the Sordide Sentimental session, it was actually an older song. I’m glad that As You Said was relegated to disc 3 as it wouldn’t have sounded right on disc 2

 

There were many acts playing across those two night. Warsaw were still that Manchester band that wasn't all that good, so they were on quite early. I think there set lasted about 20 minutes, maybe 30. I saw them as Warsaw a few times. The only other one I can remember was at Manchester Polythechnic (where I was studying at the time). No musical memoreis apart from the fact that they weren't good and Ian was dressed in full punk, black bondage gear with straps, zips and everything.

Go ahead!

 

A compromise could’ve been made in making the fourth live-cd a seperate release to keep with the 4-cd plan and dedicating cd 1 to anything pre-Digital/UP-era.

As You Said doesn’t belong anywhere, but that’s just my opinion.

 

From page 1


Basic rules:

1. 1 song per day

 

A large chunk of H&S CD4 is now redundant anyway since the whole Factory gig came out on the UP bonus disc.

 

Yes, but there is little more to say about today’s song and nobody said we can’t discuss the box set.

If the OP wishes to tag on the Heart & Soul box set at the end or insert it somewhere else in the discussion order, I’ll happily refrain from mentioning it until then.

 

True, true...

I just read through some posts and agree that a producer’s ego actually was essential to JD’s legacy.
Then again, I can’t help but feel sorry for what effect it had on Ian and his health.

It would’ve been interesting to see what they could’ve achieved were it not for what happened, but Closer sounds so definitive that it’s hard to figure out what they would’ve sounded like post-1981. Something like New Monday might have been possible, who knows..?

 

Do we really need to cover the h&s box set... as were already covering the individual releases most of which are on heart and soul... only 3 tracks from the RCA session were included in heart and soul, and we'll be covering pretty much the who RCA album

 

Just my humble opinion, but it’s something to fall back upon and keep conversation going, much like the Substance and Still sets.
Another idea might be to try and show covers for individual single/12” releases.

Anyway, I don’t always have much time, but would love to try and contribute every day, maybe at the times when I’m trying to get our youngest to sleep.

 

I started that with Ideal Beginning. I'll also try and post a link to an individual song on you Tube

 

As you said I agree is a nonsense song and will likely be covered along with Kamakino and Incubation in one day. We can double up on some like this....

 

Day 4

Inside The Line

Still on the Ideal Beginning EP this song is in my opinion along with At A Later Date a better song from that session. Still not a great song, and still showing anything that would come in just one years time they sounds like a garage band, and an average one at that.

I think it's safe to say that finding Martin Hannet was the best thing to happen to JD. Like the Beatles finding George Martin JD needed the guidance of someone. These early demo recordings are trash really but as I said earlier are essential for understanding where the band came from and how they developed.

 

On a second note..... I find the baby face gover of this album awful..... shows idea was that...

 

Inside The Line : Quite typical of the kind of awful din they made live at the time.

 

I really don't like the bass guitar bit that goes up and down on the instrumental break.... Awful really. I hadn't listened to this for years, this is actually the first time in about 20 years I've listened to it. As you say an awful din.....

"I don't know what's right or wroooooooooong".......... I do, this song is wrong!


I think it's safe to say this demo EP was in all fairness an attempt by them to do punk.... Not sure it achieved what they intended. Out of all the songs, at A Later Date was the best of a bad bunch. We have one more song from this durge, thankfully then we get into the good stuff...... If I was to mark the ideal beginning out of 10, i would give it a solid 2/10

 

Yes that’s what I thought as well. Though to be fair the OP did list Still right at the start, we’ll just have to wait. Anyway, when Still came out, for those who bought it at the time, those were mostly unreleased songs. Substance, though a great release, was songs that were already out there, all of which we’ll have already discussed, so perhaps there’s little to say about that. Anyway, onto today. . .

Inside the Line : Absolute pants along with the abysmal Warsaw sleeve. Never mind doubling up on some songs later, we could have covered all 5 of these in a day! Most of these, apart from At A Later Date, sound like third rate Clash rip offs. Oh no, one more of these garbage songs still to go. I agree that perhaps the only interesting thing with these poor songs is appreciating just how much the band progressed between them and their final release.

 

I totally agree with all you said....

We'll be discussing the RCA album which features a lot of material that eventually found release on unknown Pleasures, Still and as a single release with Transmission/Novelty, so conversations will cross over for sure. When we eventually do the Still album we'll likely be just covering the songs we didn't cover earlier with the RCA album. Likewise, We'll already have covered the Transmission single when we discuss the version on Warsaw... Songs will inevitably cross over. When we discuss the Ideal for Living EP we'll naturally also discuss the versions of the songs on the RCA album or vice versa.

Things start getting interesting in 48 hours

 

Lesson learned.... we will discuss all songs on the komakino flexi in one day, likewise the same with an ideal for living ep, also, as I said before some songs cross over between the RCA release and later releases.. we'll discuss these individual songs across all releases

 

Only 2 votes allowed for these 25 songs is very harsh!

I finally bought myself the 'Torn Apart' book, so will be reading it alongside this thread developing. I believe it gives a great insight (!) into Ian Curtis' life. Whilst the main purpose of this topic is to discuss the songs themselves, to me getting into the written history of the band is key to understanding the music & lyrics. I had a totally new appreciation for songs like Love Will Tear Us Apart after reading Deborah Curtis's book 'Touching From a Distance' and watching the Control film & Grant Gee 'Joy Division' documentary. Also Peter Hook's 'Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division' book is excellent. I'd recommend these to any JD fan who wants to delve deeper than the music.

Also keep an eye out for this book, due for release 4 April :
'This searing light, the sun and everything else : Joy Division : The Oral History' by Jon Savage. '3 decades worth of interviews with the principle players in the Joy Division story.' Sounds good to me.

 

Further to my previous post, 'This searing light, the sun and everything else : Joy Division : The Oral History' by Jon Savage' book (hardback) is currently up for pre-order on Amazon for just £14 (RRP £21.39) with free delivery to UK. Order placed, but been given a somewhat bizarre delivery estimate of 27-29 April, considering the book is released on 4 April.

 

Inside The Line is, as the title might indicate, a pretty straight-forward affair and gives little indication of the band’s potential. ‘Awful’ isn’t a description I would use, though. It’s always interesting where a great band came from imo.

About songs a day, I would still give a passing notion of a re-recorded song in the chronology, maybe lumped in with a ‘new’ song, maybe.

 

Read Touching from A Distance... Great book. What I also bought was "So This is Permanence"... I got it when it was first released in the hessian cover...... Lovely book. Control is a fantastic film, and Sam Riley did a stellar job as Curtis.

 

(More time to clarify my comment above, just got back from my commute )

Reason why a notion might be useful is that, for instance, the post-UP version of The Kill is basically a different song compared to the Ideal Beginning version. Also, Transmission turned out to be of such significance that perhaps it wouldn’t feel right to have it covered so early on.

But in the end it’s just a (auto)suggestion. I’m good with anything in this thread, honestly!

This thread got me on a kick, btw.
Took the Warsaw and Substance cd’s to work today and am contemplating getting the H&S box set to (mostly) cover the main three cd’s I’ve lost (UP to Still).

Btw I remember Record Collector publishing a sessionography on the band back in the late 90’s, complete with references to releases. It got published back when the box set was released. I wish I still had that issue!!

 

Yes, an incredible film though obviously gets progressively darker towards the inevitable conclusion. So This Is Permanence is on my list to buy. Another one I regret not buying when I saw it in person at record shops. Just like the Rob Gretton notebooks one. Can’t believe I didn’t pick one of those up

Joy Division Central is pretty much the finest resource for JD discography, sessionography (not sure that’s even a word!) etc. A great site. It also has a cool ‘on this day’ pop-up. The other week I was playing Preston Warehouse live CD then clicked on the ‘on this day’ tab only to realise it was 39 years to the day that said chaotic gig took place. Totally unintentional as I’d picked it up randomly to play

Joy Division Central

Edit: Holy cow, I’ve been referring to that site for years and only just noticed towards the bottom of their links, they have a chat forum!