Record Play Pause

by Stephen Morris

  Now, who footed the bill for this is one of life’s greatest mysteries. It is an accounting grey area. Was it Factory? Was it CBS? Maybe six of one and half a dozen of the other. For now, we innocently revelled in the simple wonder of the creative accounting that usually took place on the back of Tony’s hand, usually inked in red Pentel. It worked for us. If we just didn’t think about it too hard.

  Recording at Strawberry suited Martin, too, of course. He was set up with his gear already and was working with Chris Nagle, the engineer. Martin and Chris would be a double act with Chris as Martin’s straight man, holding court behind the red Helios desk.

  ‘Look, Steve, it’s got a cigarette lighter. You just push this . . .’

  ‘No, it doesn’t work any more, Martin,’ said Chris. ‘I think you broke it.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  Strawberry was one of the most modern and well-equipped recording studios at the time. In the north-west, it was probably the only modern studio. 10cc’s ‘I’m Not in Love’ is one of the finest examples of a ’70s band using studio technology to create a unique-sounding record. Now it sounds a little ordinary but in the 1970s it was a ‘Wow! How have they done that?’ record. The way 10cc used multitracked vocals and tape loops on ‘I’m Not In Love’ pre-dated sampling, and it was precisely that kind of painstaking sonic exploration through technology that Martin loved. That such things could have taken place in Stockport, of all places, seemed bizarre.

  Strawberry hadn’t changed that much since my earlier brief visit. It had all the signs of a successful recording studio. Gold and silver discs lined the walls, proof of the place’s hit-making potential. The smell of freshly brewed cona, proof of work in progress. In the control room with its crazy-paving stone-lined walls, Martin fiddled with switches on the desk while Chris loaded reels of tape on the twenty-four-track Studer. Through the glass the live room, the Steinway grand just visible on the left. At the far end adjacent to the large lift that hinted at the building’s previous occupation, the walls were covered in mirrors like a ballet school.

  ‘Maximum reflections,’ explained Martin. ‘Stick the drums there for now.’

  There was more gear than I remembered from my earlier brief visit. An Ursa Major space station that sounded interesting and an Eventide 910 harmoniser. At last the Low snare-drum sound would be mine! Martin had other ideas and copying Tony Visconti was not one of them.

  Like being given the keys to the Tardis, Martin and Chris would explore exactly what the studio was capable of. They were using it more as a musical instrument than a recording facility or, to put it another way, Martin was fucking about a lot. But most of this fucking about was intriguing and educational, especially Martin’s use of the AMS DMX 15-80. By this point, I had a vague idea of what the AMS did. On the face of it, it sounds quite simple – it recorded the input sound onto some memory chips, waited a bit (the delay time), then played it back, giving echo and repeat-type effects. Combined with this, the output sound could also be changed in pitch by using a keypad to speed up or slow down the playback rate. This could give you phasing, flanging and chorus-type effects. Its show-stopping party trick was its ability to record a snippet of sound and play it back at the push of a button. We used this on drums to replace/repair out-of-time hits or just to change the sound completely. We tried recording a short guitar phrase from ‘Disorder’ into it with the intention of doing a similar repair job. But the process transformed the sound into something so completely different and unexpected that it became a part in itself.

  Not all of them would end up on the album, but songwise we had ‘Shadowplay’, a reworked ‘Interzone’, ‘Exercise One’, ‘Insight’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Walked in Line’, ‘Disorder’, ‘Day of the Lords’ and ‘The Kill’ (version two) finished and ready to go. ‘The Only Mistake’ was about half done and ‘New Dawn Fades’ probably just needed the lyrics. ‘Candidate’ and ‘Autosuggestion’ were written in the studio out of jams between me and Hooky while Martin checked the sound of the drums and bass. Getting the sound right could take a while.

  The song that became ‘I Remember Nothing’ was up until then known as ‘the synthesiser one’ (it was called ‘The Visitors’ for about five minutes). It was pretty loose and was something that we usually did at the end of the set with Bernard playing the Transcendent. Live, it either worked really well or not at all, depending on how well the synth was behaving and the direction Ian’s improvised words took us. I wasn’t a big fan of it at that point. I felt that it meandered a bit too much and didn’t go anywhere – it really needed another element from somewhere. It got much better once we convinced Ian into having a go at playing guitar. Even then the song still felt a bit empty somehow. Of course, that is what is great about it. I just hadn’t realised that yet.

  Even though he had no idea what it did, Rob liked the idea of the synthesiser. He thought ‘I Remember Nothing’ was epic live (it was his idea that we introduce the synth song at the end of the set). Ian also liked the idea of being experimental. He found it appealing that it might lead us into something like Throbbing Gristle territory.

  Ian was a reluctant guitarist. He took a bit of coaxing and encouragement to play his Vox Phantom. This was a white rhomboid-shaped guitar that would have looked at home in a 1960s beat group, perhaps played by a mop-top at a freakout framed by go-go dancers. It oozed cool from a retro version of the future, but it was also fiendishly complicated. This was not good, for Ian was not technical in the slightest. He was easily bamboozled by anything even slightly complicated and the Phantom was a bit more than that. It augmented the basics with built-in effects such as fuzz and repeat, plus a tuning tone, all controlled by six buttons and five knobs. As the lettering on most of these buttons and switches had worn off, it was a case of trial and error to find out which switch did what. Push the wrong button and the guitar would emit random squawks and wails. Ian would randomly push buttons and turn knobs until he hit on the combination that quelled the screeching. In time, Ian improved as a guitarist but he never lost his distrust of the Phantom, which we called the Fred Flintstone.

  Bernard gets this story mixed up, but Gillian ended up playing guitar on ‘I Remember Nothing’ at a gig at Eric’s in Liverpool. Rob had been pissing about trying to open a bottle and in the process managed somehow to injure Ian’s hand. As ‘I Remember Nothing’ was the last song of the set and the only one that Ian played guitar on while Bernard did the synth, Gillian, in Liverpool on a geography trip, was hastily drafted in for just that one song.

  I could never really appreciate what effect Ian might have on the audience. I only ever saw the back of him. He moved about a lot, I could tell that, which compensated for the way Bernard and Hooky stood quite still, just concentrating on what they were playing. At the back, I would be frantically banging away but hiding behind the cymbals and doing my best to be invisible.

  We also had ‘Transmission’ by then, but we had already decided it was a potential single (hit or otherwise) and therefore shouldn’t be considered part of the album at all. So we wouldn’t record it. Considered from a purely commercial perspective this might seem naive, stupid or puzzling. All I can say is that it made sense to us back then.

  The difference between a single and an album was important to me. I did not like the idea that a single was just a marketing tool for the LP it featured on. It felt like you were getting people to fork out twice for the same thing.

  Making Unknown Pleasures exposed me to many of Martin’s unorthodox recording methods. It sometimes felt like we were taking part in a series of experiments in sound recording, most of which we willingly participated in. The one that affected me the most was obviously his approach to the recording of drums. In particular, the deconstruction of the drum kit.

  Recorded drum sound is something that has over time evolved and changed along with advances in studio technology. In the seventies, the typical drum sound was one that was muffled and very dry – bass drums were stuffed with old pillows and cu
shions. (My mum was very worried when all her towels and soft furnishings started vanishing.) Toms were covered with tape and toilet paper to deaden them, and snare drums were draped with tea towels to remove any unwanted overtones. All this was accomplished by a lengthy process of trial and error seen by the rest of the band as time wasting.

  I went along with all this as I found it interesting and also because I wanted the drums to sound as good as possible. Obviously. My slightly biased reasoning for this being that the drums are the foundations of the sound of a record. If the kit doesn’t sound good, then it’s going to be difficult to get the rest of the recording sounding great.

  I would sit at the kit in the stone-and-mirror walled end of the recording studio and pound my drums for hours on end as an infinite number of reflected Steves did the same on either side of me. One of the most disorientating things about recording studios is the lack of windows, so the sense of time passing gets suspended. I would become totally engrossed in what we were doing. This would be interrupted occasionally by Rob bringing in a joint or by Martin and Chris coming in to look at a microphone and swap it for another fancier-looking one. Then sticking more towels on top of the previous towels with ever thicker layers of gaffer tape. I felt like I was being eroded or smothered in padding. Martin would sigh then chuckle to himself enigmatically before retreating to the mixing desk.

  Having finally reduced the sound of each drum to something approaching a dull thud or a short lifeless thwack, which passed for a ‘technically good’ drum sound for 1970s engineers, I thought we were ready to do some actual playing. But Martin, being an innovative kind of guy, then decided to take the thing one stage further. He thought he would invent the drum sound of the 1980s.

  The problem was that if I hit the snare drum, it would appear on all the other drum microphones as well; if I hit a tom-tom, that would also appear on all the other mics as well. This is called spill and there are a number of ways of minimising it using studio tools. The sound Martin was after was one devoid of any spill at all. Perfectly clean.

  Martin’s solution to this problem was to record each drum individually.

  The drum kit I’d just spent ages setting up was gradually removed piece by piece until only one remained. Feeling naked and exposed I would again play away for hours as Chris moved, fiddled and added yet more microphones to the forest pointing at my solitary snare. My inner Keith Moon was mortified.

  Take a regular, minimal sort of drum pattern, the simplest beat you can think of – boom-crack, tsh, boom-crack, tsh sort of thing – that would be a combination of three sounds, the bass drum (boom), the snare drum (crack) and the hi-hat (tsh), all being played at the same time ambidextrously. This is one of the first things you learn as a drummer but now I would have to forget all that, for Martin’s solution entailed playing each part separately. For example, I would have to record the whole song just playing the bass drum and nothing else, then the snare drum and nothing else, until I had built up the part from all its individual pieces. This took considerably longer than the more ‘conventional’ method of recording and was ten times more difficult and confusing. After a few spliffs I thought I’d got the hang of it, but I ended up covered in bruises where I had been bashing my leg as a noiseless snare or tom substitute. At times I struggled to see just what Martin was trying to achieve apart from making my life a misery.

  The other consequence was frustration and boredom for Rob and the band.

  ‘Has he not finished those fucking drums yet? Come on, Steve, get a move on’ was heard more than once as our weary manager stuck his head into the control room for a progress report.

  ‘Fuck off, Gretton!’ was the usual Hannett retort.

  Imagine all this combined with Martin’s oblique and zen-like method of coaxing a performance. He actually said things like ‘play faster but slower’ and ‘louder but quieter’.

  Not all the songs were done this way, thank God. ‘Candidate’, ‘Autosuggestion’, ‘New Dawn Fades’ and ‘Day of the Lords’ were done in the more conventional manner, by recording the backing track of us all playing together while Ian did a guide vocal. Then overdubbing onto that.

  I was not the only one to suffer at the hands of Martin. Bernard was very unhappy with most of the guitar sounds Martin got. Instead of the powerful full live sound of Bernard’s amped-up guitar, Martin’s treatment left it thin, weak and tinny. Horrible was the verdict at the time.

  Martin, being a bass player and up-to-the-minute gear fan, would give Hooky his opinion on what he should be using instead of his Marshall amp – ‘Get an Alembic preamp,’ was Hannett’s advice, ‘and a Crown DC-300 power amp too.’

  Historically the way things worked in the studio was based around the dividing line of the control-room window, behind which those in charge lurked: the producer, the engineer and the man from the record company, should he deign to turn up. This was mission control. Musicians were admitted by invitation only with a strict ‘look but don’t touch’ caveat.

  The musicians were restricted to the studio area itself, where they would set up their equipment. Microphones would be placed by the engineer and producer, who would then retreat to the control-room bunker. From where, they would observe through the pillbox-slit glass window and communicate through headphones and the all-powerful red light above the door – signifying, like the factory hooter, that work should commence.

  When we were recording with Martin, though, most of the time I was the only one actually set up in the studio. Bernard and Hooky both played from behind the glass in the control room.

  There was I, stoned and alone, doing my best to interpret Martin’s cryptic commands.

  Being a part of his experimentation led us to become more aware of the creative possibilities of the recording studio. As I said, we were usually willing guinea pigs in Martin’s experiments – the more outlandish the better. We were wide open to trying new things. Smashing bottles, recording lifts, you name it. We gleefully joined in with a pioneer spirit. It was fun and educational.

  Bear in mind, though, that one man’s sonic experiment can be another man’s fucking about. For now, we liked being leftfield and off the wall.

  Were we happy with Unknown Pleasures when it was finished? No, generally speaking, were we fuck.

  When you hear a recording of your spoken voice for the first time, you recoil: that is not how I sound or how I want to sound. Our reaction to the mix of Unknown Pleasures may have been similar, but the general feeling was that Martin had somehow emasculated the sound. To some extent, the ‘Well, it’s not how I would have done it’ complaint really meant, ‘My bit’s not loud enough.’ The rawness of the live versions had evaporated and only their ghost remained. Ian and myself could be a bit leftfield and cerebral but Bernard and Hooky always liked our sound to be raw. But we’d run out of time and that was that.

  The main complaint was that it didn’t sound like us, it sounded like Martin: Martin was acting as an interpreter and he spoke hi-fi, not passion.

  With the benefit of hindsight, though, I think we were being a little overcritical. But hey, musicians tend to be like that: never happy. I thought it sounded great, well the drums definitely did – I’d spent long enough recording them, after all. But, at the time, I did understand Bernard and Hooky’s misgivings. Today it’s hard to hear what all the fuss was about. Unknown Pleasures is a classic – after forty years it still sounds tremendous.

  Joy Division comes across as being deep in thought. Something we never really were – well, Ian possibly, but never actually that deep. It is a peculiar-sounding record. Not really like anything else at that time. But Martin wasn’t like any other producer.

  We wanted to be unusual, unlike all the other bands, and that’s what we got.

  We had been overambitious with what we could do in the time available and had ended up recording six more tracks than could physically fit on a vinyl LP. So it was shortlist time again. Between us all, Martin included, we came up with the track list fo
r the final album. Martin got involved on the sequencing of the tracks, which he explained should have complementary keys. I guess he knew more than us about that. ‘Exercise One’, ‘The Only Mistake’, ‘Autosuggestion’, ‘Walked In Line’, ‘The Kill’ and ‘From Safety to Where’ were removed for use elsewhere.

  Potential album titles included ‘Symptoms of Collapse’, ‘Bureau Of Change’ and ‘The Aura’. In the end, the name was chosen democratically: ‘Unknown Pleasures’ got three votes and ‘Convulsive (Compulsive) Therapy’ got one. No idea who voted for that one. Not quite unanimously, Unknown Pleasures it was!

  If you’re looking for cosmic coincidences, while we were making Unknown Pleasures Ian became a father. His daughter was born in mid-April 1979. I guess that made him a grown-up – maybe not, but more responsible. He had somebody else to think about and care for. We all said ‘Aaaah’ when we were introduced to Natalie for the first time. Who doesn’t love a newborn baby?

  Not very cosmic, you might say, or even much of a coincidence come to that.

  OK then, how about this. On my sister Amanda’s seventh birthday, Jocelyn Bell, an astrophysicist, was doing whatever astrophysicists do for a living – using lovely Radiophonic Workshop-type gear I would imagine – and discovered a very regular signal somewhere in the constellation of Vulpecula. So regular that it seemed to be a cosmic lighthouse or an alien signal of some sort. It was discovered by looking at a very long line of data traces, which, when laid on top of one another, produced a spooky pattern of wavy lines. These were the first recorded radio emissions of a pulsar – the first time anyone had ever found one. Now that surely is cosmic.

  The pulsar was called CP1919. An image of its wavy pulse line was found by Bernard in a scientific journal in Manchester Library, sparking the idea for the cover of Unknown Pleasures.

  I liked pulsars – I thought they might be celestial rhythm machines – and I liked the CP1919 image a lot.