We were meant to be sounding Martin out as a potential producer – he’d seen us at Salford Uni the previous year and had been taken with the rhythm section’s ability to improvise through technical malfunctions – something that we were all becoming pretty adept at doing.
Lawrence was there because Rob was working on a way of getting the Ideal for Living distribution debacle resolved. He was hoping to persuade Tosh Ryan at Rabid to pick up the many unsold copies of the EP and distribute them. This was complicated by Rabid’s belief that we were probably a bunch of Nazis. The sleeve of the 7-inch did nothing to dispel that misconception. Rob’s plan was to re-press the EP as a 12-inch – which would sound much better – in a new, less controversial sleeve.
I took to Martin straight away. He was a man after my own heart: a sci-fi dope fiend and old hippie. He smoked Gitanes probably just to be anti-social. He reminded me of the sort of people I would end up talking to at gigs while trying to score.
We then set about running through the shortlist selection from our repertoire. Our favourite, possibly because it was the one we had only just finished and so still fresh, was the Germanic one. Martin wasn’t that taken with it and Rob wasn’t a fan of ‘Wilderness’ either so that left ‘Digital’ and the still slightly nebulous ‘Glass’. The choice was made easy by that simple process of elimination.
Next stop Cargo Recording Studios, Rochdale, which I’d heard of as being somehow connected with hippie legends and DJ John Peel favourites Tractor, who’d released albums on Peel’s Dandelion label back in 1972. So that for me meant it was cool, man.
On 11 October 1978, with our gear once again crammed in the Cortina and Hooky’s jag, we set off for Rochdale and straight into a can of worms.
The first problem was that Tony had negotiated the session with Cargo’s owner, ex Granada cameraman and So It Goes sound recordist John Brierley, and in the process may have given him the impression that John, and not Martin, would be producing. Possibly in exchange for some Factory involvement, in lieu of cash. This made things a little awkward from the word go. A phone call to Tony smoothed things over with John, but there was a bit of tension all day between him and Martin. This would turn out to be par for the course for any Hannett session. Martin seemed to thrive on tension, but we didn’t know that at the time.
‘Not got a Prime-Time, John? That’s a quality American device, you should get yourself one of those’ was Martin at his most helpful.
I’d taken the Synare 3 because, you never know, it might have been useful. Martin wasn’t too impressed.
A further inconvenience for John was provided by Martin in the form of his recently acquired black box. This was an early AMS DMX 15-80 Digital Delay (made just up the road in Burnley of all places), which would have to be wired into the mixing desk.
This futuristic device, with its glowing red digital display and keypad, looked magical. It was Martin’s pride and joy. We didn’t know it, but the future had arrived.
Neither did we know that this would turn out to be a blueprint for a method of recording that we would end up using time and again.
Martin had ideas – he wasn’t just going to record a song as well as possible given the time and resources available. He was going to add to it, process it, change it, give it a setting. He would refine the raw material and make it shine in an eerie light. What Martin did was to transform the song into a proper-sounding record. The trouble was that he didn’t seem to speak the same language as us. He spoke a kind of university techspeak, interspersed with odd bits of musical terminology – off beats/chords/bars – which, although we were aware of, we only vaguely understood. ‘Muso shit’ was the name Hooky and Bernard disdainfully gave it.
The handclaps on ‘Glass’ were our idea. Rob, keen to get on the record, was the first volunteer but the worst handclapper going. He never got any better even after years of practice, but always insisted on having a go.
Martin made some changes to the song arrangements, telling us to play that riff two more times before changing to the next part, which made no sense at the time but we gamefully did as we were told.
Ian liked the vocal sound that Martin got for him – it somehow sounded to me like he was channelling Elvis.
I think it’s fair to say that we thought that with Factory and Martin, we had found people who were on our wavelength (even if we couldn’t always understand them) and who probably weren’t just in it for the money.
We packed up and went home reluctantly. As we’d gone over the time we’d booked – another future tradition – Martin and Tony sorted out an evening’s studio time to come back and mix the two tracks (according to Martin, it was imperative to mix at night – for the vibes, apparently). Martin wanted to mix the tracks at Strawberry, scene of my earlier half-baked musical recording endeavour with the Folk Band Whose Name I Don’t Remember. I thought that might be difficult as Strawberry was a 24-track, and we’d just recorded on a 16-track machine.
‘Not a problem,’ he said. ‘We’ll change the head block.’
Martin insisted he could only mix in rooms that had been mixed in for generations – places with pedigree. Some mystical quality sonically imprinted within their walls.
We were all a lot happier with the end product of the A Factory Sample session than we had been with An Ideal for Living and the RCA record-that-never-was. I thought it sounded fantastic in a way I never thought it could. It sounded like the sort of record I would buy.
However, there still remained the homespun/bedroom indie method of actually producing the finished article. Peter Saville had designed a fancy double 7-inch sleeve in keeping with the original Factory poster for the Hulme gigs. In terms of Factory creations, that poster was ‘FAC 1’ and this was ‘FAC 2’. The sleeve required encasing in a plastic wrapper so, like the Ideal for Living sleeve-folding party, we were co-opted into a heat-shrink-wrap party at Factory HQ: Alan Erasmus’s flat on Palatine Road. Nathan McGough, future manager of the Happy Mondays, also turned up but he kept breaking the heat-shrink machine. (It turns out that there must have been many of these dope-smoking, finger-burning, sleeve-making sessions of which we were unaware. The number of people I come across today who say they were press-ganged into heat shrinkage is starting to rival attendees at the Pistols’ first Free Trade Hall gig.)
Malcolm Whitehead, a friend of Rob Gretton’s from his days working the bags at Manchester Airport, proposed the idea of making a film about Joy Division with his Super 8 camera. We would be following in the fifties/sixties tradition of bands making films – Expresso Bongo, Summer Holiday, A Hard Day’s Night – although the inspiration was to do something more like Godard’s One Plus One on the Rolling Stones rather than anything that Cliff might have appeared in. We, of course, loved the idea. Malcolm was easy to get along with and shared the same sense of humour.
The basis of this film was footage of us performing at the Bowdon Vale Youth Club on 14 March 1979. (As Bowdon Vale was just up the road from Altrincham, Malc’s place of residence, the venue was most likely his idea.) This would be intercut with other contemporary footage to form a ten-minute semi-documentary.
It is a very good representation of what we were like live just prior to Unknown Pleasures. We all look incredibly young and fresh-faced, and the flock wallpaper gives the place an authentic seventies feel.
Typically we weren’t happy with some of the additional footage Malc had edited in.
‘Fucking hell, Malc . . . Not Hitler! Jesus, you’ll have to get rid of that!’
Over the years, Mal com would revisit the film and send us the latest director’s cut. Although he did resolve a few of the film’s technical problems – playing at the wrong speed being the main one – he never did come up with an edit without the Nazi bits. Or, in fact, change the edit in any major way.
Malcolm was the founder and guiding light of Factory’s video department, Ikon, which put out a wealth of cool stuff in the halcyon days of VHS. I would spend many hours with him in the cellar at Tony’s house,
learning how to edit and make videos on the cheap.
In late 1978, Factory were not the only fish in the sea; Rob would weigh up our options, as managers do. In the course of sorting out the distribution of the An Ideal for Living 12-inch, which was released on 10 October under our own label, now called Anonymous, Rob had spoken to other labels/indie music-biz folk about exactly what our next step forward might be. There was Chris Parry, manager of the Cure, and his label Fiction, Bob Last, Rough Trade and Martin Rushent, who had been with Andrew Lauder at United Artists (Buzzcocks’ and my old hippie fave label). Andrew had set up Radar Records (a pseudo indie backed by Warners) and Martin Rushent set up a new company, Genetic, as a Radar spinoff.
I drove Rob down to London for meetings, and the upshot of talking to Martin Rushent and Anne Roseberry at Genetic was that we were booked into Eden Studios for a day to record some tracks with him producing. He was a veteran – a nice enough bloke, pretty tech-savvy – but nowhere near as mad-scientist-like as the other Martin, Hannett.
He was also suffering terribly with haemorrhoids on the day. Always a problem in the producing game.
Options duly weighed, Rob decided the best deal in town was with Factory. The great thing for us about doing this was that we wouldn’t be tied to Factory. The deal was simple: the revenue would be split fifty-fifty (Brilliant, I thought), there would be no actual written contract and the band could walk away at any time and take their songs with them. The band would retain the copyright on the songs. Unheard of! Perfect! After the Virgin and RCA/Sourgrapes debacles, this sounded like a sure-fire winner. No small print. In fact, no print at all. (Not strictly true as there was the infamous note signed in a pinprick of Tony’s blood.)
We would be based in Manchester (which Rob thought was great as he was never a fan of southern bastards). It was all upside for us.
It was the worst business model for a record label ever, but that was neither here nor there in 1978.
Tony summed it up best when he said, ‘The bands on Factory have complete freedom, the freedom to fuck off.’
As is the way with these things, it didn’t take long for the majors to get interested in this new indie thing – they scented a profit and bands began to get hoovered up left, right and centre. We, and that includes Factory, didn’t really take them seriously – sure the big guys had money, but it wasn’t about the money (it really wasn’t – oh, the folly of youth). Later, Warners wanted to sign Joy Division and, as Tony and Alan were busy that day, Martin Hannett and Peter Saville, as partners in Factory, were dispatched to Claridge’s in London to handle the negotiations. According to Factory folklore, the story goes something like:
‘We want a million, not a penny less.’
That was Martin’s opening (and closing) gambit. Peter, I suspect, agreed, possibly adding, ‘And complete artistic control.’
Bob Krasnow, Warners’ vice president, unsurprisingly choked on his scone, made his excuses and left.
Crazy Limeys, he probably thought as he hailed a cab. Who do these guys think they are?
No wonder the big labels always thought Factory were a bunch of Marxists.
Had the band been present or known anything about this meeting at the time, they would probably have said something similar, but for a million pounds, who knows? We might have joined Bob in the cab.
Whatever Factory was, it was not a record label in the traditional sense of the word. Berry Gordy probably wouldn’t have understood Factory.
Yes, Factory put out records, great-sounding records, great-looking records too. But it was the way that they did it that was the thing. They had a style that nobody else had. OK, maybe some of that style was borrowed – isn’t it always? – but the ethos was totally original.
TW (to Gillian Gilbert): Well, you see, the record business functions by securing your investment, which is to secure your talent. So you sign people for seven-year deals and stuff. But we’re only doing this for fun. In the end . . . I mean, it’s an old Jake Riviera thing, that’s all it’s about – fun. And you’re doing it for fun with integrity and stuff. Now, if we had a contract with you, what’s that gonna do? It means you’re signed to us. What happens if we all go off each other? You should be able to go away. So there’s no point in having a contract. As long as we’re all friends you’re going to stay; long as we’re not friends you’re going to go. Which seems the right way to look at going and staying.
Play at Home (1983)
20
THE NIGHTMARE JUST AFTER CHRISTMAS
So we now had a manager, we had caught the eye of Tony Wilson and both our 12-inch EP and A Factory Sample had just been released. Just when things are beginning to look up and the feeling that good times are indeed just around the corner gets a hold of you – this is when the gods intervene and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
Finally we had a gig in London. We’d had to change our name, but we could go down there and prove everybody wrong.
The cellar of a pub in Islington may not be the most auspicious of venues, and who in their right minds wants to go out on 27 December anyway? The dead time between Christmas and New Year. A Wednesday at the black end of the year 1978.
I was getting used to these marathon drives. Going down corridors of twinkling orange lights looking forward to the long straight fast bit just after Coventry on the way back. The start of the Midlands, the end of the South, that meant I was nearly home. At times, the drives were enjoyable. A hypnotic odyssey with Rob’s conversation and wit for company. Hooky had invested in a well-worn Transit. (Every band needs one: it’s another tradition.) Hooky drove the rusty van with Terry and the gear, and I had the Cortina with Rob, Bernard and Ian. Our regular roadie and Salford friend, Twinny – real name Carl Bellingham, though never used – would travel with him and Terry. A little bit of speed and a lot of fags to help the journey. The heater in the Mark III Cortina was a not a guarantee of toasty warmth at the best of times and, in the depths of a soggy English winter, to describe its output as a mild breeze of tepid air would be pushing it.
To placate my passengers’ requests for warmth, I had taken to carrying a brown nylon sleeping bag on the back seat to try and stave off the threat of hypothermia. Unzipped it would accommodate two at a pinch.
Things did not get off to the best of starts. Bernard was ill, suffering with the flu, and needed all the heat the Cortina could provide. He had augmented the back seat comforter with a sleeping bag of his own. Post-Christmas cheer was a bit thin on the ground.
What was it about London? It almost seemed as if there were some kind of psychic force field around the place, infecting us with some plague whenever we tried to reach its holy grail.
I think the rain stopped around Birmingham as me and my not-so-happy crew squelched our way south on the M6, Bernard groaning and moaning from the back seat, cursing the smoking bastards who disturbed his rest and threatened his health. He wound down his window a crack to vent the cigarette fog, making the car feel even more chilly and damp.
It was dark by the time we found the Hope & Anchor, our venue for tonight. Rob’s navigation had unerringly got us there, though whether by the best route was always a matter of dispute. We were relying on an old and battered A–Z from which a few pages were missing. We occasionally had to go round the houses to compensate for the vital missing pages.
‘The load-in’s down the hole,’ said Terry as we pulled up.
I thought he was joking but no, the gear had to enter the premises the same way as the beer barrels: down a metal chute into the depths of the Hope & Anchor’s cellar.
‘It’s going to be fun getting it all back out later.’
Whatever we had been expecting, we didn’t get it.
We played well enough considering Bernard’s depleted state, and the meagre crowd didn’t seem too dissatisfied. But it was one of those things that I’d built up in my mind, dreamed of, struggled for – this was the ‘big one’ – and when the day finally dawned . . .
&nb
sp; ‘Is that it?’
The gig could have been packed to the rafters, the audience could have cried for more, and it would still have fallen short of the imagination. Expectation always beats realisation, every time. Onwards and upwards though.
Bernard still grumbles about this gig. Apparently my overzealous (I felt ‘passionate’ would have been a better word) bashing of the ride cymbal caused him serious physical discomfort and torment. He has held a strong dislike and distrust of cymbals ever since and looks quite disgusted whenever I hit one.
We (well, Hooky, Terry, Rob and Me) humped the gear back out up a flight of stairs and through the punters still enjoying a pre-New Year’s drink upstairs in the bar, got back in the Cortina and hit the North Circular.
Ian was unhappy. It was his turn to moan and as the last few minutes of John Peel’s show struggled to be heard over the radio’s static, he’d found his rhythm. ‘Fucking bastards. Fucking, fucking bastards!’
Rob’s attempts to placate him only wound him up further.
‘Fucking cunts!’
By the time we hit the M1 it was getting a bit tedious.
‘Give us a bit of the sleeping bag, Ian. I’m fucking freezing here.’
Through the rear-view mirror I could see a tug-of-war in progress between Ian and Bernard, fighting over the sleeping bag.
Ian was in the seat behind me. I could feel him banging his knees and kicking the back of my seat. This was getting ridiculous.
‘Fucking hell, Ian, leave it out. I’m trying to drive here.’ The kicking in my back only got worse and more frequent. ‘For fuck’s sake, give it a rest.’
Then there was an animal snarl.
‘For fuck’s sake . . .
‘Steve, pull over!’ said Bernard.
‘Why? What the fuck’s up?’
Rob leant over the back of his seat to help Bernard.
‘PULL OVER!’
By the time I realised this wasn’t a joke and swerved the car onto the hard shoulder, we had just passed the Luton turn-off.
Record Play Pause Page 26
