Record Play Pause

by Stephen Morris

  One of the objectives of this studio exercise was to bring to a conclusion the process of the New Order singer competition. ‘Ceremony’ was to be the song that would decide this. Bernard had always sung ‘In a Lonely Place’.

  On early live versions of ‘Ceremony’, the vocals were a bit of a free-for-all, each of us taking turns at delivering Ian’s lyrics. Sometimes with no rhyme or reason. The contestants were all reluctant to win the poisoned chalice of the prize (look what happened to its previous owner). But we all did our best at singing and let Martin and Rob decide which one to use. I came last, which was both a blessing and a relief.

  We still had to sing at the gigs though. This was something none of us looked forward to, but approached the task like the stoic, carefree men we hoped to be. I think Hooky was secretly the least indisposed to the idea and went at it with gusto. Bernard’s approach of having a few drinks and keeping his eyes closed worked well in a don’t-give-a-fuck kind of way. I went about it by not trying too hard to sing, more drunkenly shouting or failing that mumbling what lyrics I could remember (even the ones that I’d written myself). I did my best. But most of the time I couldn’t hear myself, which was probably a good thing. The words were delivered in my excruciatingly bad pissed, pub-singer style, and that’s being harsh to pub singers. I was truly awful. The only excuse I can think of is that my ambitions lay elsewhere. My mind certainly did.

  ‘Whose turn is it to sing “Ceremony” tonight?’

  Our repertoire at that time was comprised of eight songs, and if all else failed an emergency fallback cover of ‘Sister Ray’. The songs were:

  ‘Ceremony’

  ‘In a Lonely Place’ (Drum machine; I played the synth. Bernard sang and played Melodica.)

  ‘Dreams Never End’ (Hooky always sang that.)

  ‘Homage’ (Bernard always sang that one.)

  ‘Procession’ (Drum machine with me on keys and desperate wailing. Even though I wasn’t drumming it didn’t improve my singing.)

  ‘Truth’ (Drum machine, of course, with Bernard’s voice and my ham-fisted keyboards.)

  ‘Cries and Whispers’ (Nobody was too sure who was singing this either. It changed a lot. Alternating between me and Hooky while Bernard played the keys.)

  ‘Mesh’ (Bernard playing guitar and synth while Hooky sang.)

  As tradition demanded, there was a vague idea called ‘The New One’. I think Rob called it ‘Hour’ on a set list, though it didn’t last that long. Three minutes and then forgotten for good. God knows who did the singing on that one – Hooky I suspect.

  Our first gig was at Maxwell’s in Hoboken (birthplace of Francis Sinatra) and, despite the nervous vocalising, the gig wasn’t too bad. Some people actually clapped. A few had turned up expecting to see Joy Division or at least to hear Joy Division songs that they might have heard of. ‘Which one of them is the dead guy?’ was the typical response. We were all nervously pissed. Bernard, particularly enamoured by the amyl nitrate, suspected its effects might be enhanced if he took to drinking it; much to Ruth’s horror and Rob’s amusement. Luckily nobody died that night; another trial-by-fire gig under our belts. I felt that things were getting better. Unfortunately Terry, Dave and Twinny had a bit of a roadie tiff and, as a result, had not been speaking to each other since they entered the Lincoln tunnel. This can happen with roadies. They need constant care and attention. Be good to them and they’ll be good to you, as my father used to say.

  The result of this breakdown of communication was that the U-Haul truck, containing all our gear, was not immobilised (by removal of the distributor rotor arm) and fell prey to NYC’s musical equipment heisters.* They took the lot (it happened a lot). The van and all its contents. This was brought to my attention by Terry’s wakeup call of ‘You might as well have a lie-in, the gear’s been nicked. I don’t think we’ll be going to Boston.’ Which of course removed all possibility of further slumber.

  ‘Shit, fuck, bastard fuck.’

  ‘And Rob says we’re not insured.’

  ‘But he used to work for a fucking insurance company.’

  ‘I know, ironic, isn’t it?’

  Tony found this hilarious, presumably in a Situationist kind of way. We were supposed to drive up to Boston for the next gig, but with no gear even I found that unlikely.

  ‘Are you sure that was where you parked the van?’

  ‘Maybe it just got towed or something?’

  But no, the van would turn up later, empty save for the huge transformer we had hired from Pink Floyd. That was too heavy for the villains to move easily. The luggage from the flight over had vanished and now the gear had gone too. It was almost like someone was trying to tell us something: like perhaps this was not the best of ideas; that maybe we really were cursed in some way. But we weren’t going to let a little thing like this stop us, were we? We hadn’t come all this way just to let some gang of New York crooks get the better of us. Hell no . . . Hard men, true northern bastards that we were, we weren’t going to take this lying down.

  ‘Let’s go back to bed and sort it out in a bit.’

  And that’s what we did, while Rob confirmed the intricacies of our (lack of) insurance policy.

  As if Ian’s death were not enough, this chain of misfortune only went to reinforce the ‘whole world’s against us’ semi-jokey paranoia that infested our musical career since Warsaw. The seemingly supernatural curse continued to exert its malign influence on everything we did.

  ‘We’re all doomed,’ we laughed.

  Rob’s long-distance calls to the insurance company only confirmed the fact that, owing to some unforeseen technicality, we weren’t covered for the loss. The fact that the van wasn’t alarmed and hadn’t been immobilised by our temperamental road crew was the exact nature of the technicality. We now held a half-baked séance* in our hotel room in an attempt to contact Ian’s spirit. The hope was that he would pass on information from the other side as to the whereabouts of our missing gear. It was a long shot but we were desperate. Needless to say the spirit of Ian Curtis was no help with the location of stolen goods. Shifting gear about had never been his forte and we got a stand-in instead.

  The spirit we summoned via the traditional means of a glass and a hastily scribbled alphabet laid out on an Iroquois occasional table was definitely not Ian. This denizen of the nether regions was not exactly fluent in the English language either. It may have been speaking Polish, Russian, Navajo or ectoplasmic gibberish, who could tell? It was very good at moving the glass about though. I don’t think anybody was cheating either.

  We’d come all this way after losing Ian just to lose everything that remained of Joy Division in a fucking stupid robbery. The lack of insurance really was the icing on the cake though. The final straw, as in the one that broke the camel’s back. It could not have got any worse. We were all that was left of Joy Division, and we were not going to give up and let the bastards win.

  Whoever they were. We gathered together some hastily borrowed, bought and hired gear, and resumed our ill-starred tour. Just three more dates of my out-of-tune mumbling and ham-fisted keyboard prodding and we’d be home. At the Hurrah show Rob revived an idea he’d been pushing for a while.

  ‘Err, Steve, why don’t you set up the drums at the front? I think it’d look cool, y’know, different.’

  It is one of the long-held traditions of music combos – from traditional jazz to heavy metal, wisdom that has been handed down the ages – that states stick the drummer at the back and put the guitars in the front. It’s been tried and tested, and for various reasons that I’m not going to bore you with now, it works – it just does.

  The trouble was nobody wanted to be at the front in the middle; it felt unnatural. Not the way things ought to be. So, at the very first New Order appearances there was a void at the centre of things. As we all took turns singing – Bernard and I alternating on keyboards – it must have looked a little weird from the audience’s perspective. I could see Rob’s point but hopping f
rom the kit to the synth and back again on a tiny stage was difficult and stressful enough.

  ‘What like Phil fucking Collins? Rob, that’s a terrible idea,’ chorused Hooky and Bernard in agreement.

  Rob, thankfully, was outvoted but he would bring it up again and again, just to annoy me I think. I have to admit that the idea of singing drummers is generally not a good one. Singing and drumming always looks awkward and wrong, like simultaneously juggling bottles and spinning plates whilst swallowing nitroglycerine. Which is more or less what it felt like to me.

  The Hurrah show was videoed. It is still an awkward thing for me to watch. My atonal ‘singing’ is a crime against music. God knows what I was thinking. We were trying though. We were doing our best – 100 per cent. I don’t think we ever put in a performance that was ever half-hearted or without conviction. Whatever we did, we were passionate about the music. The show was more a recording of a rehearsal in front of an audience than anything else. Still it remains a moment in time captured forever, as Rob used to say; and I guess there’s some merit in that, despite my cringing misgivings.

  It was at Hurrah that we first met a young man from Baltimore, Michael Shamberg. Michael had been making a film with A Certain Ratio. Tony liked him a lot; he was Tony’s kind of guy – a bit arty and well-connected.

  He and his partner Miranda told us stories about the New York art and music scene. Michael would eventually become Factory’s man in New York (Tony was thinking of opening a New York office) and ended up producing all New Order’s videos.

  ACR’s funk sound really felt at home in New York; it naturally fitted right into the spirit of the place in a way that we didn’t quite manage. I don’t think we were even advertised at these gigs – just ACR plus support. We came away with a lot of ideas. We may not have had any gear but a bit of inspiration and some new friends kind of made up for that. The undriveable station wagon was returned. The car rental manager was a little anxious. The car should never have been hired out in the first place: it had a serious defect and was dangerous. They’d been trying to contact Bernard from the moment I had launched the thing on to the street.

  See, I told you so.

  The car’s brakes were shot. It was unroadworthy; it wasn’t safe; it wouldn’t stop.

  Neither would we . . .

  * The theft of touring bands’ gear was a common occurrence in 1980, especially for groups from the UK. The thieves would go to the gig, follow the van back and help themselves to the gear (working under the assumption that the gear’s guardians would either be too knackered or party crazy to notice what was going on).

  * When looking after me back in the sixties, my cousins Kath and Sue had scared me witless with tales of the Ouija board and the simplicity with which the spirits of the dead could be summoned. DO NOT try this at home.

  It was here, in this woodland glade, that I would listen to Can and Amon Düül II on cassette – usually in the dark (for reasons that only make sense to a teenager). At the time I was unaware that during the day the Gilbert sisters would use the place for frog collection. (Author’s collection)

  In the 1960s the North West’s attempts to enter the space race was plagued with difficulties. The launch site had a number of insoluble health and safety issues. Blackpool in 1967 – my kind of holiday destination – was noted for fresh air and fun. (Author’s collection)

  Every day, instead of going to school, I would (weather permitting) eat my sandwich, sitting on a bench, and read ZigZag and Andy Warhol’s interview magazine. I would then head to the next record shop for a browse. It was an education … (Author’s collection)

  I used to read this over and over, yearning for ownership of the best value mahogany drums in town. (Author’s collection)

  Hard at work hiding from and simultaneously annoying the general public. (Author’s collection)

  My father was not an egotistical man. So, why did he immortalise himself as a bronze paperweight? Got to have a gimmick, I suppose. (Author’s collection)

  The Ford Cortina Mk3 Olympic blue and rust very rarely let me down. But when it did it was usually spectacular. (Author’s collection)

  Robert Leo Gretton: the flamboyant manager himself in a typical Rob pose. (Author’s collection)

  Trying out for the role of Kilroy. I ticked the box marked no publicity. (Author’s collection)

  This was how Tony Wilson looked when we first met. I turned on the TV and there he was looking just like this, oozing confidence and hip hair. (ITV/Shutterstock)

  Martin Hannett: legendary record producer and genius. My tormentor seen here with the tools of his trade. (© Avalon)

  Joy Division in action. I never saw them live myself. I heard they were pretty good. (Chris Mills/Redferns/Getty Images)

  Bernard does a Rick Wakeman: ‘Atmosphere’ with the Transcendent and Woollies organ. (Author’s collection)

  Ian looking for the lost chord at Bowdon Vale. Love the wallpaper … (Author’s collection)

  The bar’s in here! No, I wasn’t wearing those trousers for a bet: they were the height of fashion in 1973. (Author’s collection)

  A picture from the Macclesfield Express. Ian wears a lampshade, while I view a candle with suspicion. In my mum’s front room if you’re interested. (Macclesfield Express)

  The Synare: first ogled in a Manchester music shop window one Sunday afternoon. Its handle convinced me that I had seen the future. Then I saw the price tag. It possesses the meanest-sounding ring-modulator I’ve ever heard: like a flock of Daleks at a rave. (Author’s collection)

  The Synare 3 was more my price range. My pride and joy. From 1950s sci-fi to ’70s disco this could do it all and more. Overzealous pounding was its undoing as the flimsy knobs fell victim to my clumsy thwacking. (Author’s collection)

  The SDS IV: a much more robust device. (You can tell by the thickness of the wood!) Built to last until its promising career was cut short by thieves in NYC. Bet it made a nice coffee table if you flipped it over. (Author’s collection)

  The Roland CR-78 CompuRhythm. My first brush with an actual drum machine. Lovely wood again. A classic-sounding beatbox heard on many hit records: Blondie, Phil Collins et al. But not obedient enough for Joy Division. (The hire company sent the wrong switch if you were wondering, and it took years to figure that one out.) (Author’s collection)

  A rare picture of the drummer’s face. Look at that array of synthesised percussion. It would never catch on. (Philippe Carly)

  Gillian’s poster idea for Joy Division. Part of a Stockport art project. (Author’s collection)

  Electronics Today International was a wonderful periodical; the Transcendent 2000 a fantastic synth. Don’t know about the Stereo 10w Amp though. (Author’s collection)

  Miss Gillian Gilbert. My beloved shows the world how crimping should be done. (Author’s collection)

  The Museum Panda: those sad eyes have seen it all. (Author’s collection)

  When I was young I would go and stand beneath these pylons and listen to them hum and fizz. One day I would follow the cables to who knew where. (Author’s collection)

  PLAYLIST

  At some point during the writing of this book, probably quite late in the night, the thought arose that it might be a good idea if it had a soundtrack of some sort. It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe a CD to go inside the front cover or something like that? Something that comprised the music that was the backdrop to my life. This turned out to be slightly more complicated than the initial idea suggested. So instead I opted for the simple and more up-to-date approach – the twenty-first-century equivalent of my teenage vinyl ‘wants’ list – the internet playlist.

  It’s okay, you don’t have to listen to it all – 77 songs is a lot. I would have put a LOT more in but Spotify hadn’t heard of some of my more esoteric ’70s’ listening material. Which was disappointing but not entirely surprising.

  I am not convinced that internet music streaming is entirely a good thing
for the future of music. But, hey, I’m an old vinyl-based bloke, so I would say that. The internet’s not going away, though, is it?

  There’s always a choice.

  You could always buy the records instead.

  But, nonetheless, here it is:

  https://lnk.to/StephenMorris-spotify

  In no particular order and, yes, I know it’s a bit drummy in places, but what did you expect?

  In my experience it sounds best using the random-play function, but that’s up to you.

  Enjoy . . .

  Can, ‘Oh Yeah’

  New York Dolls, ‘Jet Boy’

  Little Eva, ‘The Locomotion’

  Blondie, ‘Heart of Glass’

  David Bowie, ‘Sound and Vision’

  Popol Vuh, ‘Brüder des Schattens’

  Peter Hammill, ‘German Overalls’

  Sparks, ‘The Number One Song in Heaven’

  Wire, ‘Outdoor Miner’

  Joy Division, ‘As You Said’

  The Kinks, ‘Lola’

  Siouxsie and the Banshees, ‘Helter Skelter’

  The Doors, ‘The End’

  Dave and Ansel Collins, ‘Double Barrel’

  Doctor Feelgood, ‘Going Back Home’

  Todd Rundgren, ‘I Saw the Light’

  Sly and the Family Stone, ‘Family Affair’

  Harmonia, ‘Dino’

  The Damned, ‘New Rose’

  The Rolling Stones, ‘Street Fighting Man’

  Shirley Collins & The Albion Band, ‘The Murder of Maria Marten’