Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division

by Peter Hook

  “According to Ian’s letters to Annik, he and Barney were very depressed after this gig because of the sound. I don’t remember that. They had a few posters up advertising forthcoming films and I nicked a few, which we put on the wall in the practice place for inspiration. That’s where we got loads of our New Order titles from: they’re all old films. Very cheeky.”

  7 February 1980

  Joy Division play a Factory benefit (in aid of the City Fun fanzine), the Factory II, New Osborne Club, Manchester, supported by A Certain Ratio and Section 25.

  “I remember that when we came off Ian was dying for a piss so we couldn’t go back on and do another encore. He was hopping about trying to find a toilet but there wasn’t one backstage, so in the end we were going, ‘Oh, just piss in the corner,’ and he was going, ‘No, no, I can’t! I can’t piss in the corner! I can’t do it, I can’t do it.’

  Rob was going, ‘Fucking hell, Ian, you know, you’re supposed to be going back on,’ and Ian was running round like a fucking madman, holding himself.

  So in the end Rob went and got a pint pot and ordered him to go into a corner and piss into it so we could go back on.

  After an age Ian came back, saying, ‘Aw, thanks for that, Rob – I was desperate.’ But the pot had only a quarter of an inch of piss in it – something to do with his meds, I suppose.

  It was too late to go back on by then, so we didn’t. But I do remember that it was nice to be back in Manchester, just to be home. I was the only one whose car wasn’t broken into that night. I lived in Moston and knew the area, so I parked right outside the window of the pub opposite. I warned them all. But when everyone – audience included – came to leave they discovered that every single car round the club had been broken into.”

  8 February 1980

  Joy Division play University of London Union, supported by Section 25, A Certain Ratio and Killing Joke. Set list: ‘Dead Souls’, ‘Glass’, ‘A Means to an End’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘Passover’, ‘Insight’, ‘Colony’, ‘These Days’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Isolation’, ‘The Eternal’, ‘Digital’. This concert appears on CD2 of the September 2007 re-mastered edition of Closer.

  Mid-February 1980

  Debbie confronts Ian about Annik.

  20 February 1980

  Joy Division play High Wycombe Town Hall, supported by Killing Joke and A Certain Ratio. Set list: ‘The Sound of Music’, ‘A Means to an End’, ‘Colony’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘Isolation’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Disorder’, ‘Atrocity Exhibition’. Both concert and sound-check appear on CD2 of the September 2007 reissue of Still.

  “The reason that a lot of these gigs were so widely bootlegged was there were these two young lads – quite nice lads, actually – called John and Lawrie, who used to come and tape all the gigs then provide us with a cassette. We’d let them into the sound-checks so they’d do them too, which was quite nice of them – because really they were bootlegging you with your consent, weren’t they?”

  It was during this period that Ian’s self-harming episode occurred.

  21 February 1980

  Joy Division cancel their gig at Manchester Polytechnic.

  28 February 1980

  Joy Division play the Warehouse, Preston, supported by Section 25. Set list: ‘Incubation’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘The Eternal’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Shadowplay’, ‘Transmission’, ‘Disorder’, ‘Warsaw’, ‘Colony’, ‘Interzone’, ‘She’s Lost Control’.

  “We turned up on the day and everything that could go wrong went wrong. The PA was dreadful, our equipment was all over the place . . . Everything, actually, just went completely to shit. But for some reason we embraced it with humour, didn’t alaways happen, and it ended up becoming quite funny. You know the way it goes sometimes: when the more something goes wrong the funnier it gets? Well, it was like that.

  Years later Tony Wilson put out a bootleg of this gig because he loved it so much because you can hear everything going wrong. It was the beer pump – it kept cutting out the amps. Barney’s guitar amp went. Then my amp went. Barney came over and tried to plug into my amp and I was going, ‘You’re wasting your fucking time ‘cause my amp’s gone as well.’ Then the keyboards went off.

  Rob was in the background screaming, ‘Play, you fuckers, play!’ It’s on the bootleg, him screaming at us. Occasionally one of us would go to the mic and say, ‘Oh, sorry about this; this has all gone wrong.’ It just completely fell apart but the audience didn’t seem to mind, particularly. There weren’t that many of them there. There was a wonderful, glorious moment when some girl got up on stage while we were all busy trying to fix our equipment; we were all looking at her thinking, What’s she doing? She just went up to the mic, grabbed hold of it and said, ‘The coach for Blackburn is leaving in five minutes.’ That’s on the bootleg as well.

  We just couldn’t get it back then; we’d just lost it, you know, lost the whole gig. Complete disaster. So anyway, afterwards in the dressing room there was a great atmosphere, with everyone laughing and joking, but the promoter came back and was fuming. He said we hadn’t played and we could fuck off if we thought he was going to pay us. Then he stalked out of the dressing room.

  We weren’t having that. The dressing room doubled up as a food store and there was a freezer in there, so I kicked the lock off the freezer. Inside were about thirty frozen chickens that we took as wages. I remember Ian nabbed all these chickens to take home to Debbie – so I think he must still have been living at home with her then. He probably took them back as a peace offering: Sorry I’ve got another girl on the go, love. Here are some defrosting chickens.”

  29 February 1980

  Joy Division play the Lyceum, London, co-headlining with Killing Joke, supported by Section 25 and A Certain Ratio. Set list: ‘Incubation’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘The Eternal’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Isolation’, ‘Komakino’, ‘She’s Lost Control’, ‘These Days’, ‘Atrocity Exhibition’. This concert features on the Heart and Soul box set.

  March 1980

  ‘Licht und Blindheit’ seven-inch single (Sordide Sentimental SS33022) released: ‘Atmosphere’/’Dead Souls’. Produced by Martin Hannett. Limited to 1,578 numbered copies.

  5 March 1980

  Joy Division play Trinity Hall, Bristol, supported by the Passage.

  “Around this time Ian himself started to get very worried about the frequency of his fits, worrying that they would take over his life and that he would not be able to carry on working.”

  13 March 1980

  The second ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ session, Strawberry Studios, Stockport. Produced by Martin Hannett (working sporadically over a period of three weeks beginning 24 April). Tracks recorded: ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (single version), ‘She’s Lost Control’ (twelve-inch version).

  “Tony had visited us at Strawberry and again brought Ian a Frank Sinatra album. Tony tried to encourage Ian to emulate it here: I think he thought the combination of the timbre of his voice and this song would be perfect. I don’t think it ended up like Frank Sinatra, though; just sounds like Ian to me.

  At the time we all thought he was doing it to wind us up. But I know that in one of his letters to Annik Ian mentions how much he liked Frank Sinatra’s voice, so obviously not. But Christ, the recording of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ was a marathon. We were in the studio overnight on these sessions, everybody was exhausted and it still wasn’t done – we ended up finishing it in Britannia Row during the recording of Closer. There were loads of different mixes of it, too. Martin kept remixing it and must have done it ten to fifteen times; then Tony pulled the plug on him because it was costing so much money. Martin was never happy with it and kept searching, constantly, for the great mix. He tried different engineers but could never get the definitive mix. Funnily enough, I now don’t like the mix he eventually chose for the single. I like the one that’s got a dead-lou
d guitar overdub on it, a radio mix.”

  18–30 March 1980

  Joy Division record Closer, Britannia Row, London. The band stay in two flats, the ‘party’ flat, and the ‘intellectual’ flat, living the rock-’n’- roll high life on £1.50 a day. Tracks recorded: ‘Atrocity Exhibition’, ‘Isolation’, ‘Passover’, ‘Colony’, ‘A Means to an End’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘The Eternal’, ‘Decades’, ‘Komakino’, ‘Incubation’, ‘As You Said’.

  2 April 1980

  Joy Division play the Moonlight Club, West Hampstead, London, supported by Section 25, Crawling Chaos and John Dowie. Set list: ‘The Sound of Music’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Colony’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘A Means to an End’, ‘Transmission’, ‘Dead Souls’, ‘Sister Ray’.

  ‘Sister Ray’ features on Still, but is wrongly credited to the Moonlight Club.

  3 April 1980

  Joy Division play the Moonlight Club, West Hampstead, London, supported by A Certain Ratio, Kevin Hewick and Blurt. Set list: ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Glass’, ‘Digital’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Isolation’, ‘Disorder’, ‘Atrocity Exhibition’, ‘Atmosphere’.

  4 April 1980

  Joy Division play the Rainbow Theatre, London, supporting a unique Stranglers line-up along with Section 25, Fashion and the Soul Boys. Set list: ‘Dead Souls’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Shadowplay’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Decades’, ‘She’s Lost Control’, ‘Atrocity Exhibition’.

  4 April 1980

  Joy Division play the Moonlight Club, London, supported by the Durutti Column, X-O-Dus and the Royal Family and the Poor. Set list: ‘Transmission’, ‘A Means to an End’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘Day of the Lords’, ‘Insight’, ‘Interzone’.

  2–4 April 1980

  After an exhausting run of concerts Ian has a fit on stage. This comes shortly after an incident in which he wounded himself with a kitchen knife.

  5 April 1980

  Joy Division play the Malvern Winter Gardens, Malvern. Set list: ‘Disorder’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Atmosphere’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Isolation’, ‘Interzone’, ‘She’s Lost Control’, ‘Girls Don’t Count’, jam with Section 25.

  I met the band backstage. They were all very polite and friendly, apart from Hooky, who was being an arse. Ian was sat on his own. He seemed in good spirits, though looked tired and had a painful-looking shaving rash under his chin. He talked enthusiastically about the ‘new songs’ and actually thanked me (but I don’t know what for!). He spoke in a soft, high-pitched voice, which surprised me. Fond memories indeed!’

  Phil (fan), on joydiv.org

  6 April 1980

  Ian takes an overdose.

  8 April 1980

  Joy Division play Derby Hall, Bury. Set list: ‘Girls Don’t Count’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘Digital’ (all without Ian), ‘The Eternal’, ‘Decades’ (or ‘Passover’; both with Ian on vocals), ‘Sister Ray’ (without Ian). The gig ends in a riot.

  9 April 1980

  Following the Bury gig, Ian begins his stay with Tony and Lindsay.

  11 April 1980

  Joy Division play the Factory, Russell Club, Manchester, supported by Minny Pops.

  12 April 1980

  Joy Division cancel their gig in Bradford (venue unknown).

  12–13 April 1980

  Ian leaves Charlesworth and spends most of the week away from home, either with Bernard Sumner or with his parents.

  16 April 1980

  Natalie Curtis’ first birthday. Ian is absent, though briefly returns home before leaving for Derby on Saturday.

  18 April 1980

  ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ seven-inch single (Factory Records FAC 23) released. Produced by Martin Hannett. Sleeve designed by Peter Saville. Re-released on twelve-inch with a new cover (FAC 23.12 27.6.80). Track list: ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, ‘These Days’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (Pennine version).

  19 April 1980

  Joy Division play the Ajanta Theatre, Derby, supported by Section 25 and XL5. Set list: ‘Dead Souls’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Digital’, ‘Insight’, ‘Passover’, ‘Heart and Soul’, ‘Isolation’, ‘These Days’, ‘Transmission’, ‘She’s Lost Control’, ‘Colony’, ‘Girls Don’t Count’, jam with Section 25.

  “I remember that there was a bit of a weird atmosphere to this gig. Also we had a lot of equipment problems. The synthesizer in particular kept going out of tune – and I think if you listen to ‘Isolation’ on the live tape the whole thing’s out of tune – and it was really off-putting. The sound was bad, too, and you felt that Ian was unwell. So I really did get a feeling that something was wrong. With hindsight everything was falling apart.”

  19–20 April 1980

  Ian and Annik spend the weekend at a hotel on Rusholme, going their separate ways on Monday: Annik back to London, Ian home to Macclesfield.

  22 April 1980

  Debbie calls Annik at the Belgian embassy, warning her of her intention to divorce Ian and name Annik as co-respondent. Debbie and Ian’s parents become involved and Ian’s parents now learn about his suicide attempt for the first time. Debbie begins divorce proceedings.

  25 April 1980

  Joy Division cancel their appearance at the Scala cinema, London, because of Ian’s poor health. A Certain Ratio, Durutti Column and Section 25 play.

  “We’d cancelled but Ian still turned up at the Scala. He arrived about 1.30am and sat at a table on his own, writing furiously in a notebook while watching Kevin Hewick play. Three songs later he was gone. He hadn’t spoken to anyone. Kevin told me that Tony debuted Closer that night, playing a tape of the LP in between the live acts.”

  26 April 1980

  Joy Division cancel their gig at the Rock Garden, Middlesbrough.

  26 April 1980

  Annik leaves the UK for Belgium, then on to Egypt for a holiday.

  Late April 1980

  ‘Ceremony’ (though as yet unnamed) and ‘In a Lonely Place’ demo session, Pinky’s, Broughton. ‘In a Lonely Place’ later released in the Heart and Soul box set as ‘In a Lonely Place (detail)’.

  “People say that the recordings of these tracks were from TJ’s, but they weren’t. The only time we went into TJ’s during this period was to record the ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ video. Besides, we’d started taping everything by then, so there might be hundreds of those tapes – it’s just that bootleggers get hold of one of them and make out it’s the only one of its kind, which is what happened here: Rob lent a tape out to a fan and it got leaked, and then years later these songs are cropping up on bootlegs and now they’re on YouTube and whatever. Exactly where the recordings are from – whether it’s Pinky’s or Graveyard in Prestwich – is difficult to say but I do know this: they’re definitely not from TJs.”

  28 April 1980

  The ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ promo video is filmed at T. J. Davidson’s, Manchester. Directed by Stuart Orme. The video would be first shown on Granada’s Saturday-morning children’s show, Fun Factory, on 26 June 1980, introduced by Manchester DJ Ray Teret, who said: ‘Joy Division isn’t a female vocalist; it’s a band.’

  “That’s Rob Gretton’s hand you see pushing the door, and the ‘Ian C’ you see scratched on to the door originally said either ‘Ian C is a bastard’ or ‘Ian Curtis is a bastard’ and was scratched there by a girl who Ian had, shall we say, ‘spurned’ a while back, when we first started rehearsing there.”

  2 May 1980

  Joy Division play High Hall, Birmingham University, supported by A Certain Ratio. Set list: ‘Ceremony’, ‘Shadowplay’, ‘A Means to an End’, ‘Passover’, ‘New Dawn Fades’, ‘Twenty Four Hours’, ‘Transmission’, ‘Disorder’, ‘Isolation’, ‘Decades’, ‘Digital’.

  This was Joy Division’s last ever gig (it was recorded and later released on Still), and when we debuted ‘Ceremony’. Ian wrote very positively about the gig – ‘It was our
biggest crowd ever’ – while berating himself for forgetting the last verse of ‘Transmission’. He also said that the best number of the night was the new one, ‘Ceremony’.

  3 May 1980

  Joy Division cancel their gig at Eric’s, Liverpool.

  4 May 1980

  Ian is hypnotized by Bernard while staying at his flat in Worsley. The process regresses Ian to his childhood and then several lives before and leaves a marked impression on him.

  5 May 1980

  Ian moves back to his parents’ house.

  8 May 1980

  Joy Division cancel their gig at the Astoria, Edinburgh.

  9 May 1980

  Joy Division cancel their gig at the Albert Hall, Stirling.

  13 May 1980

  Ian goes home to see Debbie and Natalie. He has his picture taken with Natalie: this is the last photograph taken of him.

  14 May 1980

  Joy Division recording session, Graveyard Studios, Prestwick. Tracks recorded: ‘Ceremony’, ‘In a Lonely Place’. ‘Ceremony’ is later released on the Heart and Soul box set

  “I remember doing the session because it was downstairs in Stewart Pickering’s house in Prestwich, which was next to a graveyard. (Hence Graveyard Studios.) But Martin was in a weird mood and it was very rushed, the whole thing, and a bit of an unsatisfactory session, which is why it was never used for anything – nothing official anyway. But the plan, had everything turned out all right, was for these recordings to become the next single: the next record was going to be ‘In a Lonely Place’ and ‘Ceremony’. But, of course, this never came to fruition.

  I know a lot fans think the ‘Ceremony’ on the Heart and Soul box set comes from the same session as ‘In a Lonely Place’, but it doesn’t; it’s from this session. ‘In a Lonely Place’ is from a rehearsal tape and this isn’t and I’ll tell you how I know. Those drums are dead loud; it’s not ducking the vocal. So I’d say that’s a recorded version of a live rehearsal, because the drum sounds as fat as fuck but it’s not making the cassette-player compressor duck and that’s what had happened. That’s the one we did at Graveyard, I swear it, and I can do that in court.”