Listen here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXwyE0IrA2M

If you know me at all, you’ll know I love Radiohead.  Thom Yorke, their front man, has this spectacularly ethereal voice.  And it conveys all sorts of different emotions.

Lyrics here, more below:

A tear in my brain
Allows the voices in
They wanna push you off the path
With their frequency wires

And you can do no wrong
In my eyes
In my eyes
You can do no wrong
In my eyes
In my eyes

A drunken salesman
Your hearing damage
Your mind is restless
They say you’re getting better
But you don’t feel any better

Your speakers are blowing
Your ears are wrecking
Your hearing damage
You wish you felt better
You wish you felt better

You can do no wrong
In my eyes
In my eyes
You can do no wrong
In my eyes
In my eyes
In my

In my eyes
In my eyes
In my eyes

Bearing in mind that this track is on the Twilight sequel New Moon soundtrack.  I have absolutely no idea where this music is used in the movie nor do I know the story well enough to guess.  That said, the lyrics do have something to say.

The opening bit is telling us that he is damaged.  He has problems.  Almost an apology for how he feels.  And an explanation for how he feels about her.  And because he thinks she is perfect, he is deluded on how things will go.

And as much as she is perfect to him, she is damaged too.  She doesn’t listen.  Even when she is being sold a pile of crap, she doesn’t see.  And despite this, he loves her.

As I listen to that voice, floating through my brain, I can feel the tension both in the music and the story.  Two people who may or may not be good for each other, blinded to the fact that they may not be good for each other.  You can feel them circling each other, pushing and pulling.

And listening to the opening, it almost felt like a dark nod to another band who did wonders with darkness and influenced a generation of bands.  That being Joy Division.  Especially during that opening sequence I felt like I was listening to Ian Curtis instead of Thom Yorke.  Just a bit of dark brilliance, understated and still being fully stated.

Give this one some time if it doesn’t grab you right away.  There’s more than meets the eye on this one.

Peter knows which way to go. And not only because his spaceship knows.

On his personal, newly established, music label Huvolla Peter Murphy has been releasing some Secret Covers, named after his latest concert tour. It started with the John Lennon classic Instant Karma, that was also used in a (JP Morgan) commercial.

Then came David Bowie’s Space Oddity. Peter added his special oriental feel; the one in which his CD Dust was already… covered. The distinct electric violin of Hugh Marsh re-appearing after Dust and Peter’s -incredible- live album Alive (Just For Love).

Next, Peter released the live and cracklin recording (with his band) of Joy Division’s Transmission, performed at the Highline Ballroom (NYC) in July 2009. I remember Bauhaus playing “Isolation” live during their last tour (ever), with Peter already copying some of Ian Curtis’ typical gestures.

Both as solo artist as with Bauhaus, Peter has performed on a number of occasions with Nine Inch Nails. He performed Hurt with Trent Reznor at a radio (FM live) session. I downloaded that one for free. Peter now released it as secret cover #4. And I bought it. Being a collector-fan and to support Peter.

Peter Murphy is a remarkable voice in today’s musical landscape, a position he rightfully gained by being an expressive, committed and original artist. Not because he’s god. Because there is no god.    But god.

Editors: una band inglese che si è guadagnata il rispetto e il successo con un album più che onesto come An End has a Start che partendo da sonorità molto 80s (qualcosa tra i primissimi U2 e altri gruppi “minori” come Big Country, anche loro prodotti da quel geniaccio di Steve Lillywhite) faceva però intravedere una linea di sviluppo, una voglia di “creare dal creato” che è alla base della filosofia del mashup (in questo caso) musicale.

Non mi aspettavo un album come In this light and On This Evening.
L’ho vissuto come un dietrofront rispetto al desiderio di crescita che avevo percepito tra le tracce dell’album precedente.

Questo lavoro non riesce ad andare oltre la citazione.
E a sorprendermi è anche il fatto che sia stato prodotto da Mark “Flood” Elllis (che ho amato per il suo lavoro con PJ Harvey), ma come?

Non so prendiamo il singolo “Papillon”…
un po’ Yazoo

(Don’t Go, gemma pop anni 80 realizzata da Vince Clark appena fuoriuscito dai primissimi Depeche Mode…è lui l’autore del tormentone Just Can’t Get Enough, non il raffinatissimo Martin Gore che poi ha firmato tutti gli album successivi) e un po’ New Order.

Ecco New Order, mi pare che Flood abbia operato un mix misterioso in cui ha assemblato il cantante Tom Smith (forse inteso come il nuovo Ian Curtis, mai abbastanza compianto cantante de Joy Division dalle cui ceneri nacquero appunto i New Order) e quel sound “tronico” figlio della scoperta di arpeggiatori e sequencers che all’epoca dominarono la scena. Mi ricordo che pensai seriamente che in fondo la chitarra sarebbe diventata presto uno strumento inutile)

Oggi invece vorrei parlare con loro, vorrei capire se davvero questo è quello che volevano fare. Produttori…brutta razza…

Perchè sotto sotto ci sono pezzi con una scrittura interessante, ad esempio Bricks and Mortar, ma la realizzazione, miodio, no dai, sono arrivato fin qua per dover ascoltare tutto ciò?

Ora io, oltre che essere appassionato di musica, sono un instancabile studioso delle nuove forme di comunicazione digitale,

adoro vedere prevalere la cultura contemporanea che prende il sopravvento e trasforma alla radice quello che noi abbiamo considerato regole.

La canzone è fatta con canzoni di altri, ogni cosa è modificata per somigliare il più possibile a chi la vuole. Il pre-esistente non interessa più di tanto.

Ma questa operazione qui io la trovo non riuscita, forzata, poco convincente.

Continuerò ad ascoltare questo album (mentre cercherò di scrivere una mail al chitarrista degli Editors ) ma qualcuno mi dica se nel 2010, in piena rivoluzione culturale/digitale ispirata da e al futuro abbiamo veramente bisogno di citazioni direttamente dal passato come queste.

Diskussionen om politiska sympatier bland popmusiker dyker upp då och då. För några år sedan lanserade Timbro och PR-killen Erik Zsiga en version i ett desperat försök att framstå som relevanta inför sina bidragsgivare.

Zsigas metod var att dels med hjälp av diverse hiphop- och punktexter behäfta “popvänstern” med våldsglorifiering, dels skuldbelägga alla som uttryckt den mest försiktiga vänsteråsikt och samtidigt tjänat pengar på sin musik. Borgerliga ledarskribenter som Per Gudmundsson och Peter Wennblad har å andra sidan försökt klämma in så skilda saker som den svenska DIY-scenen, 90-talsindien och Manchestervågen i en högerkontext, med lite olika argument.

Grundfrågan kvarstår dock – olika tricks åsido, varför är så få popband öppet höger? Till och med de glättiga engelska syntpopbanden på 80-talet visade sig vara vänster när man skrapade lite på ytan – Depeche Mode flirtade med socialismen i intervjuer och i naiva texter, Wham! stödde de strejkande gruvarbetarna (men dissade fackbossen Arthur Scargill) och Martin Ware från Human League gjorde socialistisk konceptpop med Heaven 17.

Gary Numan, en outsider redan i småskolan, väckte uppståndelse när han deklarerade att han röstade på Thatcher. Här i Sverige blev Lustans Lakejer utskällda för sin utstuderat borgerliga image, men den känns i efterhand mer som ett sätt att reta upp proggare och punkare i stickade tröjor än som ett äkta politiskt statement. Därtill var det alldeles för mycket verklighetsflykt.

Naturligtvis finns det drösvis med band i diverse subkulturer som integrerat extremhögersymbolik och ibland också -åsikter i sin image – inom black metal, neofolk och vit maktmusik. Men det är ändå något fjärran från den ideologiska liberalism som Zsiga och ledarskribenterna bekänner sig till. I Sverige framstår fortfarande Alexander Bard som en särling i det att han kombinerar en genomtänkt liberal politisk ståndpunkt (och på sistone en politisk karriär i folkpartiet) med en framgångsrik artistkarriär. Men Bard skiljer å andra sidan nuförtiden oftast noga på de två rollerna.

Tanken på ett band som imagemässigt går in för att hylla arvet efter thatcherismen och önska hårdare tag mot fackligt organiserade, arbetslösa och sjukskrivna känns mest som något lika utstuderat som norska black metalbandet Mayhems hyllningar till diktaturerna i Albanien och Nordkorea.

Frågan om popvänstern och avsaknaden av en pophöger diskuterades i P1 senast i dag. Per Gudmundsson, som enligt egen utsago driver en kampanj för att “skriva om pophistorien ur ett högerperspektiv” pratade med Martin Aagård, vänsterintellektuell kulturskribent och medlem i Doktor Kosmos, ett band som i sin studentikost “lustiga” proggighet kan få vem som helst att drömma om att starta det där högersvaret på Mayhem.

Aagard har adopterat popvänsteretiketten på samma vis som homosexuella gjort med sina nedsättande epitet och säger sig vara stolt över att vara popvänster. Gudmundsson efterlyste tydligare politiska etiketter på låtar som i största allmänhet handlar om “frihet” – trots att de bästa brukar ha udden riktad mot sådana som honom. Programledaren lyfte fram en gammal spaning utbyggd till en lång artikel i Bon härom året om att det blivit hippt med borgerlighet bland annat eftersom vissa band anammat en ironisk tennis- och seglarstil och eftersom en ny generation vänsterengagerade ungdomar har bättre klädsmak än man hade på 90-talet.

Inte så värst intressant alltså, och mest småmysigt när det egentligen var upplagt för en ordentlig fight. Är det något som genomsyrat popmusiken de senaste 50 åren så är det passion.

Jag tror dessvärre att utgångspunkterna för diskussionen hamnat helt snett. Per Gudmundsson har tidigare velat se högerdrag i Joy Divisions musik med huvudsaklig hänvisning till att Ian Curtis röstade på tories i det enda val han hann med, vilket naturligtvis är en otroligt banal iakttagelse. Och övriga medlemmar var vänster. I dagens radiodiskussion talades om bristen på plakattexter om skattesänkning och privatiseringar, också det ett banalt sätt att resonera.

Om vi istället betraktar popmusiken på samma vis som Fredrik Edin gjorde med film nyligen finner vi att det självfallet finns mängder av högerinriktad populärmusik: All denna musik som genom att inte på något vis gå emot den rådande ordningen i själva verket blir ett stöd till den. Och då menar jag självfallet inte att det som krävs är vare sig gammal och ny progg eller förutsägbart “arg” musik som Rage Against the Machine eller Atari Teenage Riot – en ljudbild kan också vara politisk, som Tobbe i The Embassy en gång så klokt uttryckte det.

“Popvänstern” skapades genom att Erik Zsiga lyfte fram vartenda förment vänstervridet citat han kunde hitta hos svenska kändisar, inklusive Cardigans-Ninas försiktiga avståndstagande från höga chefsbonusar och till och med högertjejen Linda Skugges krönikor. I själva verket lider Sverige av att popartister talar alldeles för lite om sina politiska åsikter, alternativt är genuint ointresserade. Och det fåtal som öppnar käften tenderar tyvärr att vara olika sorters proggare.

“I’m working class. Give me a gun and I’ll shoot all the Young Conservatives” sade Primal Screams Bobby Gillespie när bandet var som allra störst. Den sortens tydliga ställningstagande för något radikalare än ett regeringsskifte väntar vi fortfarande på att höra från någon svensk artist i hans position.

Mer om Per Gudmundsson, Martin Aagård, P1, proggare, popvänster, pophöger, Wham!, Primal Scream, Bobby Gillespie, Cardigans, Linda Skugge, Erik Zsiga, Peter Wennblad, Doktor Kosmos, The Embassy, Fredrik Edin, Rage Against the Machine, Atari Teenage Riot, Joy Division, Ian Curtis, Mayhem, Alexander Bard, Gary Numan, Lustans Lakejer, Depeche Mode, Thatcher, Human League, Heaven 17

Love Will Tear Us Apart es lo que pone en la lápida de Ian Curtis, cantante de Joy Division. Presa de ataques continuos de epilepsia que no le dejaban ni cantar y a punto de divorciarse de su mujer, que estaba harta de la vida errante del rockero típico, en 1980 se colgó de una viga de su casa, tras algún intento previo con barbitúricos.

Todo había comenzado unos años antes, cuando el grupo se llamaba Warsaw y se cambiaron el nombre por el de las prostitutas judías de los campos de concentración nazis: Joy Division. Tuveron problemas con eso y con su afición por la simbología y el vestuario nazi, pero al parecer era todo provocación.

Solamente sacaron un disco, el segundo, Closer, ya fue póstumo, y el efecto mortaja debió tener algo que ver con el éxito fulminante de este single que tenemos entre manos. Se supone a Joy Division inventores del post-punk, que viene a ser igual de transgresor pero usando sintetizadores que hacen ruidos muy raros y que pueden considerarse cualquier cosa menos punk.

A mí no me gusta. Ya lo he dicho.

When routine bites hard,
and ambitions are low,
and resentments ride high,
but emotions won’t grow,
and we’re changing our ways, taking different roads.
Then love, love will tear us apart again.
love, love will tear us apart again.
You cry out in your sleep,
all my failings exposed.
and there’s a taste in my mouth,
as desperation takes hold.
just that something so good just can’t function no more.
But love, love will tear us apart again.
love, love will tear us apart again.
love, love will tear us apart again.
love, love will tear us apart again.

El cine de Werner Herzog nos remite a menudo a dos ideas claves: la primera a historias sobre hombres fascinados por grandes gestas, emprendedores casi siempre aplastados por la naturaleza implacable; la segunda a Kaus Kinski, actor fetiche con el que se conoce más de un enfrentamiento durante los rodajes, pero cuya carrera resulta indisolublemente ligada a Herzog. Sin embargo, en Stroszek, auténtica obra maestra y posiblemente una de las películas más subestimadas de todos los tiempos, nada de  esto se cumple. Rodada en 1977, cuando el sueño americano todavía era un proyecto a imitar por muchos europeos, sitúa la acción en los suburbios de Berlín. Bruno S. (Bruno Stroszek), alcohólico, asocial y simplón, sale de la cárcel tras cumplir una de sus condenas  y conoce a Eva (Eva Mattes), una prostituta maltratada y hostigada por dos proxenetas, a la que le ofrece refugio en su apartamento en el barrio turco de la ciudad. Allí vive su amigo Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz), hombre de edad que sobrevive a  base de pequeños hurtos en puestos y supermercados.  Scheitz tiene intención de marcharse a los EEUU para reunirse con su primo y Eva convence al reacio Bruno a unirse al viejo para alcanzar juntos el sueño americano. Durante algún tiempo el trío parece comenzar a lograr su propósito: él trabaja como mecánico, ella es camarera en un bar de carretera, compran una casa prefabricada… pero pronto las deudas, las dificultades económicas, la alineación y el desconocimiento del idioma darán al traste con sus sueños, lo que les conduce a recuperar sus antiguos patrones de comportamiento.

Aunque la trama es invención de Herzog, gran parte del poder de esta película se debe al alto grado de verité con la que es construida. Todos los personajes, a excepción de Eva Mattes, son ellos mismos. No son actores profesionales y comparten sus nombres con aquellos a quienes están interpretando. Bruno S. es en realidad Bruno Stroszek, músico callejero que pasó su infancia maltratado en un horfanato,  y la mayoría de sus discursos  son improvisados en base a unas reglas genéricas de guión. Algo parecido sucede con el anciano Clemens, personaje excéntrico sobre el que Herzog había sido advertido antes de contratarlo: muchas de las surrealistas teorías sobre el magnetismo animal o el mesmerismo son cosecha del propio intérprete. Uno de los proxenetas tenía antecedentes y había cumplido condena por violencia, el otro albergaba en su experiencia haber ejercido de gorila para empresarios de dudosa ética. Los turcos de Berlín, los agricultores de Wisconsin, los cazadores, los camioneros, los policías o los subastadores son todos genuinos en su oficio, fueron contratados por Herzog para interpretarse a sí mismos  y es la única vez que participarán en una película. El resultado es una tragicomedia de tono eminentemente realista que, sin llegar al documental, nos muestra  personajes desgarradoramente humanos envueltos en un círculo de fragilidad y exclusión del que no pueden escapar, donde la lucha por la supervivencia se encuentra abocada al fracaso bajo el envoltorio de la sociedad capitalista más hostil y cuyos personajes se rebelan de manera constante ante lo absurdo del futuro que se les presenta.

La banda sonora, mezcla de folk, piano y percusión metálica, da el tono de la película. La música es una parte muy importante en todas la obra de Herzog, y junto a la utilización del contraluz, el travelling y una sugestiva fotografía conforman unos efectos que ningún otro cineasta imprime a sus trabajos. Stroszek comienza de manera muy lineal, plagada de personajes extraños, tranquilamente anormales, que deambulan sin demasiado sentido por las calles de Berlín. No apresura la acción ni añade episodios artificiales de suspense o acción, siquiera se entretiene en diálogos complejos o aleccionadores. Werner Herzog es siempre impredecible, no hay forma de saber adónde nos lleva.  Sin embargo, dosifica in crescendo con tal habilidad la carga dramática que logra hacernos partícipes de los sueños, las desilusiones de sus personajes, su desolación, su desesperación y sus miserias. La escena final es probablemente una de las mejores secuencias rodadas por el alemán y resume el sentido total de la película: animales bailando enjaulados bajo neones (cual atracción de feria) tras un cristal repitiendo, ajenos a su naturaleza, una y otra vez la misma acción mecánica. Tremenda metáfora de la deshumanización y la mezquindad: Eva vuelve a vender su cuerpo, Clemens a los supermercados y Stroszek, invadido por la cotidiana e intranquila normalidad que le ofrece el nuevo mundo al otro lado del océano, decide acabar con su vida en un telesilla. Como anécdota, Ian Curtis vería esta película antes de partir hacia su primera gira por Estados Unidos, pero jamás emprendió el viaje, porque esa misma noche se suicidaba en la cocina de su apartamento. Pero lo de Joy Division es… otra historia.

Meadows and his Free Photographic Omnibus

An interview with photographer

Daniel Meadows…

Ask Daniel Meadows where he is from and he will reply, “I really don’t know. Except that I am English.” His work as a photographer over the years has documented England at its most real, whether it was touring the country on a Double Decker bus in the 70s and taking portraits of the people he saw, or photographing Ian Curtis and Joy Division in 80s Manchester during their rise to fame…

Meadows was born in Gloucestershire in 1952. He studied at photography at Manchester Polytechnic from 1970-73. Interesting projects from that time include The Shop On Greame Street in 1972  as well as collaborations with renowned observational photographer Martin Parr with Butlin’s By The Sea in Yorkshire in 1972 and June Street in Salford in 1973.

In 1973 and ‘74 Meadows, a self-confessed hippy, started his Free Photographic Omnibus. As Meadows puts it himself, “Once upon a time I lived in a double-decker bus, reg. JRR 404, better known as the Free Photographic Omnibus. She was my home, my travelling darkroom and gallery. We were an unlikely couple; she with her crash gear box and temperamental ways, me with my bushy hair and homemade flares. But we got along okay and, during 1973 and ‘74, we travelled about making a national portrait of the English. We covered 10,000 miles shooting pictures and giving them away.”

Some of Meadows' Photobus portraits in 1973 & '74

The free spirit of the 1970s meant that Meadows didn’t take a record of who he was photographing; no name, no age, no location. Just a photograph for them, and a photograph for his own archive. Which was unproblematic until 25 years later when Meadows decided he wanted to find his previous subjects and re-photograph them for his book The Bus.

Famous for not only taking photographs for Joy Division’s album artwork, Meadows has also been celebrated for taking a rare, albeit accidental, shot of Margaret Thatcher’s handbag and untidy office at No. 10 in the 80s. Yet these days, Meadows says that he no longer takes any photographs. His work now lies in the world of research, with particular focus on the ways of exploring the depth and range of his photography archive through storytelling using multimedia. He was awarded his PhD in 2005 for his innovative work with photography and participatory media.

Meadows was the creative director of the BBC’s Capture Wales Digital Storytelling project from 2001 until 2006, a project which has been described as “the most ambitious of all the BBC’s user generated content offerings”. Not only is the method of Digital Storytelling a brilliant way for Meadows to showcase his archive of photographs, it also allows access to a more personal world where photographs can take on a new life and meaning.

A photograph that was used Meadow's exhibition There's No Such Thing As Society...

When Meadows gave his lecture on Digital Storytelling last week, I knew I wanted to interview him within the first 5 minutes when he showed a video featuring a beautiful Rolleiflex camera. Considering that Meadows is an award-winning documentarist and photographer, and has hung out with some of England’s finest musical talent, he seemed completely humble and, well normal. He says that he enjoys looking at other peoples’ photographs more than his own, quotes Bob Dylan in an American drawl, and was not at all patronizing when I had to take a photograph of him, with my far inferior camera skills. In fact he seemed genuinely interested in my Polaroid camera, and wanted to watch the photograph spring to life. As you’d expect, his office is wall-to-wall with photographs (some his own, some not) and photography books, and during the interview he was constantly moving from shelf to shelf to illustrate his answers with photographic evidence. He even has the souvenir books that he bought at a Bill Brandt exhibition in 1970 when he was just 18 and beginning his interest in photography…

10am Wednesday 11, 2009.

H: I’ll start at the beginning. What attracted you to photography in the first place, and was it something that you always wanted to do?

Daniel Meadows today...

D: “It wasn’t something I always wanted to do. There were two really big events I think.  Well there were three actually. One was that I was crap at everything at school. And if you were crap you were allowed to do art. You know, our education system is so bad that instead of encouraging you to be creative from the moment you enter school, they discourage it. So creativity was the idiots’ class. So when I failed exams they ended up putting me in the art class. Then they discovered I couldn’t paint, so they said why don’t you try photography, cos it’s kind of easy. The second thing was I saw a wonderful little film, a BBC Omnibus in 1968 called Beautiful Beautiful and there was a New York photographer called Bruce Davidson, he’s on Magnum photography, and he did a project called East 100 Street which is in Harlem. And we’d all been led to believe that Harlem was big, bad and dangerous, and, you know, full of black people. And here was this white middle-class Jewish man, with a huge view camera, play camera, photographing people in their homes. And he made beautiful pictures, and he said something that stuck in my head, which is, ‘I poise, not pose, people… People have an innate dignity and they will set themselves before the camera in a dignified way. And they will choose what they will give.’ I remember thinking, ‘Ah this is a different way of working. I like this.’  And the third thing, there was a very famous British photographer called Bill Brandt, who’s dead now, who’d been brought up in Germany but lived in England. He is one of the greats. And there was a big retrospective exhibition of his work in 1970 at the Haywood gallery, and I went there on a school outing when I was 18. And I remember thinking ‘Wow photography’s wonderful.’ He made these wonderful documentary pictures around Great Britain from the 30s onwards. What was lovely about Brandt was that he did documentary pictures which I loved very much, but he also did portraits. He did nudes; I thought that was pretty exciting. If you take photographs you get a passport to do all sorts of things, you meet famous people, women take their clothes off for you, and you get to study the world we live in and for me at 18 that seemed pretty exciting.”

H: Was it Bill Brandt then who inspired you to do the Photobus project then? The fact that he’d gone around documenting Great Britain?

D: “Well the inspiration for the Photobus was more Cliff Richard, I hate to say. How tacky is that? There was a film, probably the first film I ever saw, Cliff Richard, 1960 Actually it wasn’t the first film I saw, the first film was Snow White. But one of the first films I saw was Cliff Richard in Summer Holiday. It was 1961 and I was nine. Or it could have been 63 when I was 11. And he lived on a Double Decker bus. So I guess it was a mixture of that, of Cliff and Brandt and Bruce Davidson. But also the other missing connection there is this guy called Sir John Benjamin Stone who was a Tory MP in the Edwardian era who travelled England and tried to make a record of the English. He travelled about and he did lots of portraits, cos he was an MP he had an ‘in’ to photographing famous people. He was photographing major events. But his real enthusiasm was for dying, fading, disappearing, rustic festivals and so on, and there’s this picture Harvest Home Kern Baby of 1901. You could look at this picture for a million years and you’d never fathom what it is about. One of the things I really, really love about photography is that it describes things perfectly and it explains nothing. And that’s what I love about photography. There’s always some mystery. And so for me those two things are the things I learnt from Stone.”

Then and Now... Meadows re-photographed his Photobus subjects once he found them 25 years later...

H: Do you think you’d still be able to do something like the Photobus today?

D: “No. The Criminal Justice Act in, was it 1980? The one that the Tories brought in to beat the Crusties, makes it almost impossible. I mean the gypsies and travelers are given a very hard time. I mean it was hard enough living in a bus, parking up and so on in 1973 and 74. You wouldn’t be able to do that now.  It’s not possible in the modern world.”

H: Did it take you a long time to embrace digital photography?

D: “I was a very early adopter of digital storytelling. I ran a digital storytelling class here for undergraduates in the mid to late 90s and people thought it was pretty wacky. And when I first started teaching you lot, you know, mainstream journalists, about the coming of the digital age, we were very unpopular. I mean you were all very welcoming last week, but 10 years ago I used to get, you know, people used to complain, ‘Why are we having to learn all this rubbish?’ I was a very early adopter of all of that stuff. But, for me, the digital age is ultimately not about technology. Photography has always changed; every five minutes there are new innovations and there have been throughout the history of photography. So photographers are used to embracing innovation, which I guess it why I was kind of into it a bit early. But it actually wasn’t the photographic side of things that excited me, so much as the fact that we had some new tools that looked like opening out media to become a much more democratic activity. So that was, for me, the thing that I really liked about it, that you could tell your own stories and publish them and didn’t have to go through the filter of patronizing big media professionals who basically were setting themselves up as gatekeepers. And I would still argue that that is the case. We have too many commissioning editors and people in the way between good ideas and good television.”

Ian Cutis photographed by Meadows in Manchester, January 1980.

H: What’s been your favourite photography project of your own over the years?

D: “I did love doing digital storytelling at the BBC. Every time you ran a workshop, people would bring their photographs in, you had such a window onto other peoples lives, and for me that was kind of humbling, but also very exciting and intriguing. And I began to enjoy looking at other peoples’ pictures more than I enjoyed making new pictures myself. There are pictures that are a fantastic trigger to memory; you can learn to listen to people. A photograph is a great place to begin listening to people. If that doesn’t sound bizarre!

H: Has there been anyone in particular who has been your favourite to photograph?

D: “No, but I can think of some people I really hated photographing!  The problem with doing anything out on a limb is that you have to finance it. And whilst in the early days I did manage to get a bit of funding from the Arts Council when I did my bus project, most the projects I’ve done, I’ve just gone and done them, and then tried to sell them to get some money.  Throughout the 70s I was thinking up stories like the mental hospital story, and going and doing them and then selling them to magazines. But when I started having children and I needed more stable income I had a long period working in the film industry as a stills man, taking pictures in the film industry. And there were some actors who were just bizarre. They’d stand and pose in front of the video cameras all day, then when I’d come on, I’d be sent off the set. They’d do silly things, like when they were rehearsing, which is when you could get your pictures if you were intelligent and you’d work with the actor rather than against them. You could say to them, ‘Well I think we could probably get the stills during the rehearsal, but make certain you’re wearing the right costumes.’ And then John Thaw- Inspector Morse- I did some stills for him, he would come out carrying a newspaper and rehearse with a newspaper in his pocket, or he’d put a hat on that wasn’t in character, just because he couldn’t stand the stills man. And Alec Guinness always had me sent off the set when I worked on the film of Little Dorrit in the 80s. I’d always rather liked Alec Guinness’ acting but I have to say he was a very difficult person to work with.”

Joy Division photographed by Meadows in Manchester, January 1980.

H: Would you mind telling me about your experiences in the Factory Records days?

D: “Factory Records! Well, for a period in the 70s I worked as a researcher in television and even then, it’s quite interesting now when I look back at the experiments with photographs. There’s a little film I made where I work as a kind of TV reporter reporting on my own photographs as events, which is very like a digital story. Anyway, so I went to work as a researcher at Grenada TV and, you know, I learned a lot about how television was made, which was later extremely useful when I came to doing digital storytelling. Grenada had big open plan offices and for a whole, well one long summer I shared a desk with Tony Wilson. Well I mean the desk had about 13 or 15 people all around it and Tony Wilson was one of the people around that desk. He was then a presenter on Granada Reports, and I was working on an arts program called Celebration. And it’s difficult for you lot to imagine it, but television was just as difficult to get into in those days, but it was incredibly over-manned. You could sit around all week doing very little, then suddenly the bit you had to do you’d have to do it very well. There were far too many people, and the unions were very, very strong, and as we well know there’s a whole trade union history of what happened with that. And so there were times when Wilson and I were sitting around twiddling our thumbs and he knew about my ventures on the bus and stuff and knew I was a photographer. In fact I carried a camera around with me all the time, or camera bag all the time with several cameras in it. And he just used to say ‘Come on Daniel, I’ve got a new band or a new act’ or this or that, you know, and the arts program I was working on made a little film about the Factory shortly after it opened, Factory Nights Down In Hulme. So I went and photographed and made a documentary about John Cooper Clarke. I loved John Cooper Clarke. I still love him. And then Joy Division were getting going and he needed some pictures for Joy Division and stuff… “

H: You did some of their album artwork as well didn’t you?

D: “It’s difficult for your generation to imagine how kind of crap it all was. You know, you live in an age of digital artwork and stuff, with things produced to a very high standard, but at that time Wilson had really good ambitions for the style of Factory Records, that they should be well designed. And he used this young guy called Peter Saville to do all the design. But Wilson was also hugely informed by the Situationists, the French avant-garde movement. And one of his bands was called Durutti Column, whose name came from a Situationist group. The original Situationists, they were kind of radical freedom fighters in the Spanish civil war who basically went around killing the bourgeoisie. I mean they weren’t very pleasant! Anyway, there was a sweet little guitar player called Vini Reilly who was in Durutti Column, and he wasn’t very well, he had some depressive illness and he was physically very unwell. But he played this sweet, kind of angelic guitar, and Wilson thought it would be amusing to have a sandpaper record sleeve.  I went down to Wilbraham Road, Wilson’s partner in Factory had a flat down there, and I went to photograph Vini Reilly, for I think it was Sounds magazine, when the return of the Durutti Column album came out. I photographed him mainly downstairs, in the garden and in the porch by the house, and then upstairs were several of the members of Joy Division sitting around gluing together these sandpaper albums.  The Situationists produced not only a book but also a magazine that had sandpaper covers. And the idea was that it would destroy everything around it, so they made an album with sandpaper covers. I still have mine somewhere. But I actually glued one or two together that afternoon. But you know we were just young people sitting around, making things. And it became quite a legendary album, a) because it was a good album, and b) it talked about what Wilson was trying to do with Factory. I photographed Joy Division in the studio, and photographed them at a gig in Oldham, so yeah it was an interesting time.”

Joy Division producer Martin Hannett, photographed by Meadows in Manchester, January 1980.

H: Have you found that observing people and places through photography has taught you anything about people and places that ordinary people wouldn’t necessarily see?

D: “Well, as Dylan used to say ‘It depends what you mean by all those terms, man.’  Ordinary!” (Laughs a lot)

H: Ha, Sorry I know ordinary is a bad choice of word…

D: (More laughter) “No it’s not a bad choice of word. It’s a very good choice of word, I’ve been guilty myself of using the word ‘ordinary’. So it depends what you mean by all those terms, man. But obviously I’ve learnt a lot. I think the thing I’ve learnt most is how bad we are at listening to people. Journalists from big media tend to make their mind up what the story’s about before they go and shoot it and that’s a sadness to me because what it doesn’t allow for is serendipity, and surprise and wonder. The more I spend time with ordinary people, man, the more I realise how wonderful we are, and watching television today makes me think how crap we are. And in that gap is the place where I do my work. You know, I have such an intolerance for reality-based television, I mean it’s shite with a capital S. And it’s as though we can’t do anything now on TV without it having a reality element. And it’s shite cos it’s cruel, its fundamentally based on a cruelty that people are set against each other. It’s like the entertainment of the playground, we’re all gathering around to watch an execution that can be picked over by a media that’s gradually losing credibility. You know fewer people are watching television programmes. Like if a television programme gets five million viewers, the makers go ‘Hey we had five million viewers’. But I say wait a minute, we live in a country of 60 million people, that means 55 million people had the intelligence not to watch your crap programme… “

To find out more about Daniel Meadows, have a look at his website www.photobus.co.uk or his Cardiff University profile…

All photographs have been used courtesy of Daniel Meadows…

or, “How the Tories Taught Us to Dance by Taking Away Our Jobs…”  Well, maybe not.   Anyway, Hannah is back with another corker of a blog that she researched by talking to her Mum.  Your Mum must be pretty cool Hannah.  I hate to think what I would have to write about if I based it on conversations with my Mum.   Best not to think about it.  Over to you Hannah… 

So here goes the next instalment of my Mancunian musings:

This week, as I’m sure you’re all aware, Morrissey (the King of Mancs!), was described as ‘storming off stage’ after a bottle was thrown at him during a concert at the Liverpool Echo Arena. It made me think, this would never happen in his hometown. As a result, I’m dedicating this blog to all the Mancunians that have made us proud, and why the lyrics of Joy Division, The Stone Roses, The Inspiral Carpets, The Smiths; the list could go on, still resonate with me today, as a twenty year old who didn’t live through this era.

As I meandered down Oxford Road today, I popped into the Portland Bookshop. Admittedly, it was Peter Hook’s new book, ‘The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club’, which stood proudly in the window that lured me in. The Hacienda was not just another swanky city centre club to blow your week’s earnings on during the drunken debauchery of a Friday night, it represented a lot more than this; it represented a new era for Manchester.

Manchester’s reputation as the industrial capital of the North was ruined by Thatcherite policies, and Manchester in the late seventies and eighties was bleak and miserable. The Smiths’ ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’, ‘Please Let Me Get What I Want’ and ‘This is How it Feels’ by The Inspiral Carpets encapsulate these feeling perfectly for me.

The Manchester music scene largely seemed to avoid overt politics and certainly did not compare to bands like The Clash or Gang of Four. The one exception possibly being Easterhouse, from Stretford; a band that supported The Smiths and were aligned to the far left.

In spite of this, there is little doubt that there were huge amounts of political, economic and social unrest in the North of England during Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister. It is because of this that the Hacienda came to represent a new age of hedonism, hope and overwhelming optimism for the people of Manchester.

Walking through today’s regenerated and gentrified Manchester, it’s almost impossible to recall how dark and depressing the city was in the late 70s. The home of the industrial revolution was at a low ebb and the only people who believed any kind of revolution was now possible were the romantic idealists behind Factory Records.

As Luke Bainbridge, a journalist for The Guardian observed: “emboldened by the spirit of punk and an excess of civic pride, Factory’s founders, in particular Tony Wilson and Robert Gretton, believed in Manchester more than they believed in themselves.”

The Hacienda club, launched in 1982, was the physical realisation of their vision; and a vision for the people of Manchester. During numerous conversations with my mum (one of the very first members of the Hacienda) about this period, I have come to realise that the hype and excitement surrounding the Hacienda in NME; a magazine which she read religiously, was phenomenal. Perhaps because it captured the spirit that was needed for Manchester to turn itself around.

Unfortunately as Peter Hook explains in his book, Manchester in 1982, wasn’t quite ready for a New York discotheque. In spite of this, the book recognizes that the Hacienda was an iconic piece of Mancunian history. It’s conversational, colloquial tone traces the club’s history from the early years when it opened every night, despite the fact that it was often empty, through the euphoric years when it brought acid house to the UK, to its demise, dogged by gang violence.

What else came to symbolise Thatcherite Manchester then? Well, the de-industrialisation of the city did seem to create a flurry of working class creativity. The one good thing about there being so many empty industrial buildings was that it gave the bands formed after the famous Sex Pistols concert in 1976 somewhere to practice and later provided space for venues.

Dave Haslam, in his book ‘Manchester, England: the story of a pop cult city’, cites the hedonism and creativity of the infamous ‘Madchester’ music scene as a response to deindustrialisation and rapid decline of Northern cities during Thatcher’s time as prime minister. This creativity and sense of bohemian values seemed to be attack on the Thatcherite mentality and celebrated Mancunian pride and dignity.

In spite of the chaos that pervaded Manchester in the 1970s and 1980s, Ian Curtis echoed the feeling that The Hacienda subtly represented in his haunting rendition of ‘Atmosphere’, in the lines “Life rebuilding, Don’t walk away”.

This isn’t to say that the ‘Madchester’ music scene was wholly an attack on the destruction of industry and songs like ’24 Hour Party People’, ‘Step On’ and ‘Waterfall’ are merely classic anthems that will undoubtedly live in the hearts of Mancunians forvever; not because they chart a specific period of history, but because they will continue to fill the dancefloors for years to come!

This has been a great blog to write, and one last thought: Get Well Soon Mozza!

Hannah

Brilliant!  Rather than a last word, here’s a picture that I pinched from somewhere taken in the Northern Quarter, where else.

A voz suave arranha. Da garganta potente, a voz de um anjo invade a embalagem rebelde. A suave melancolia inunda nossos ouvidos. Senhoras e senhores, esse é Paul Banks. Vocalista do Interpol, banda nova-iorquina da safra indie dos anos 2000, Paul é facilmente reconhecido pela semelhança de sua voz com a de Ian Curtis (1956-1980), do Joy Division. Agora, o cantor tenta trilhar novos caminhos e lança seu primeiro projeto solo sob o pseudônimo de Julian Plenti.

Em Julian Plenti is… skyscraper, Paul voa sozinho, mas voa baixo – é impossível separar a sonoridade de cantor da sua banda de origem. Praticamente todos os elementos estão lá, inclusive a participação de Sam Fogarino, baterista do Interpol, que dá as caras em Games for days, o primeiro single do álbum (o clipe da faixa também conta com a fofa Emily Haines, do Metric, em um bico como atriz).

A jogada que parece preguiçosa, pode tornar-se genial se analisada por outro prisma. Depois de três discos de sucesso com o grupo, Paul Banks parece pronto para explorar o melhor de si, continuando em sua eterna cruzada pelos escuros caminhos do desalento. Com os pés fincados no rock ‘n’ roll, como não poderia deixar de ser.

JULIAN PLENTI IS… SKYSCRAPER
Julian Plenti (Paul Banks, do Interpol). 11 faixas (37 minutos). Matador.
***

¡Qué difícil es ser original cuando (casi) todo está inventado! Y si no, que se lo digan a Bernard Sumner y a su nuevo grupo Bad Lieutenant.

Pero no quiero que parezca que desprecio la carrera de Bernard Sumner, fundador de una de los grupos más influyentes de la historia, Joy Division y, tras el suicidio de Ian Curtis, líder de New Order, precursora del sonido Madchester.

Aunque también estuvo en proyectos como el supergroup Electronic, sobre el que ya me despaché a gusto hablando aquí. En fin, que la carrera de Sumner ¡Es un carrerón! Pero Bad Lieutenant era bastante prescindible en su hoja de servicios.

Sumner montó su nuevo combo este año junto a Phil Cunningham, ex New Order y el pasado 5 de octubre publicaron su primer LP, “Never Cry Another Tear”. La crítica musical dice que son un más-de-lo-mismo de New Order, pero para mí suenan más a Mónaco, el grupo de Peter Hook. Igual es porque el que fuera bajista de New Order era lo mejor de tenían los mancunianos.

Bad Lieutenant – “Sink Or Swim”

Monaco – “What Do You Want From Me”

Buzzcocks Interview– for Tommagazine.com

Pete Shelley Interview
By Nolan Giles

The Buzzcocks are punk royalty, emerging from the hiss and spit of the chaotic late-seventies slump, their songs ignited the youth of a nation. 30 years down the track, as the world slips into economic uncertainty once more, the Buzzcocks are still alive, kicking down doors and causing mayhem on their world tour. Lead singer, Pete Shelley believes the rebellious fire that burned so brightly in their heyday, isn’t quite so apparent in the music of today.

“I don’t ever turn on MTV, even when I’m in a hotel, I’d rather watch the foreign language channels than watch the shite they play on there,” he jokes.

“I mean my wife was playing an Interpol CD the other day and a couple of songs were alright… Just alright though, I wouldn’t give them too much encouragement!”

Shelley laughs down the phone line with the excitement of a musician enjoying the success of a debut album. You wouldn’t think this was a man who stood at the forefront of a movement that changed the landscape of music, so dramatically, so long ago.

Formed in 1975 The Buzzcocks were the first of Manchester’s legendary musical exports. They breathed ingenuity into punk music with their catchy melodies, driving, clean guitar sound and biting lyrics. Shelley’s words, which went against the political trend set by the Sex Pistols, were a satirical commentary on adolescence, love and the shitty human condition.

“It was something to inspire, instead of complaining about things you could go off and do it yourself,” he explains.

“Punk changed stuff so much it is hard to think of what the world would be like if it didn’t happen. It didn’t just effect music, the mentality can be seen on the fringes of art and design, it’s about making the culture richer, and every time that happens it should be applauded. At the time it was about writers, photographers and designers as well, we were extremely lucky to have a great designer in Malcolm Garrett. Our album covers were the kind of covers Franz Ferdinand wish they could do today!”

Although he enjoys taking the piss out of modern music, Shelley does see parallels in the DIY online ethos of bands today, and that of the punk mentality, but he believes it still takes something extra special for a band to succeed.

“Even though it’s possible for people to do things for themselves, unless you can attract people with what your doing it’s not going to connect,” he says.

“The hard thing is to get the message of what your doing across to everyone, and it must be very frustrating for a lot of new bands because of that. The internet allows you to get feedback, and get out your message, but the trick is to do it without becoming spam!”

In 1975, the internet was a thought as far away as the idea of America electing a black President. The Buzzcocks had to gain their popularity through a certain radio DJ, going by the name of John Peel.

“We were lucky because we had John who would play all our singles on the radio, meaning that people would hear about us,” he chuckles.

“We just popped records in the post and I think he was listening to absolutely everything because he was frightened of missing something. So all these bands were sending him cassettes, he must have had this huge pile of them but he listened to every single one, just in case he missed a really good track.”

John Peel is now regarded with the same amount of musical respect as the Buzzcocks, the musical interconnection that was apparent at that time in Britain is like nothing seen since. An example of this occurred in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall in 1975, where the Sex Pistols played a historic gig.

“Well it was exciting because we were putting on a concert, and our friends the Sex Pistols were coming up to play it. It was a bit disappointing because we didn’t have a bassist or drummer so we couldn’t play. I did meet Steve Diggle (Buzzcocks guitarist) that night though, Malcolm McLaren (Pistols manager) met Steve outside and said ‘are you a bass player?’ Steve said ‘yeah’ and so he brought him over. I was selling tickets at the box office at Malcolm came over and simply said, ‘here’s your new bass player!’”

It wasn’t just Steve Diggle that attended the gig that night, although the numbers were pretty small.

“Because I was on the door I must have seen everyone that was there, I think it has been counted as 42 to 43 people, but it is what those people came to do that became the stuff of legends.”

‘Stuff of legends’, is really an under-sight, among those 42 people in attendance was Morrisey, who went on to form the Smiths, Tony Wilson the founder of Factory Records, Mark E. Smith, lead singer of The Fall as well as the nucleus of people who went on to create Joy Division and then New Order.

The late Ian Curtis, Joy Division’s lead singer and a modern day cult figure, was a close friend of Shelley’s. Although he respects the man, Shelley reckons the reason for the recent resurgence in Joy Division’s popularity is down to one thing.

“It’s because they have had all the bloody films made about them!” he laughs.

“Ian’s just a normal guy really, he didn’t really stand out, I must have had many conversations with him, but I can’t really recollect one of them.”

The influence of the Buzzcocks’ music can be heard from the grit of Nirvana to the wit of Jamie T, and may be the reason why their music still sounds as fresh and raw today, as it did in the seventies.

“I don’t know why the Buzzcocks sound hasn’t dated after all these years, because its quite simple really, just two guitars a bass and drums, we just turn up the amps and let them distort a bit!” He jokes.

“To me it’s just a bit of punk and a bit of pop.”

This electrifying punk / pop combination is soaring into Brisbane next week as part of the can’t-be -missed, ‘Another… Bites’ Tour.

“It’s like it says on the tin, we’re just going to play the first two albums ‘Another Music in a Different Kitchen” and “Love Bites” back to back, exact track order, everything the same.” He explains.

“We did it in the UK earlier this year and it was received extremely well, a lot better than we ever thought it would. There were times when we had doubts but that is before we played it in front of an audience, and it all came together really well.  The songs take on new meanings sort of, you rediscover parts of them, its like your revisiting them and discovering something new. I mean some of those songs we haven’t played for many many years, and now we wonder why didn’t play them all the time!”

The tour rekindles fond memories for Shelley, of a time of discovery, when the band and the world were waking up to their audacious sound.

“Every song back then was a new experience you were always doing something new, different, lyrics and rhymes, we’d struggle through our guitar solos as well, but we’d always accomplish something,” he says.

“Each time then it was like opening the envelope.”

The tour is also a welcome break for Shelley of playing just this hits, although they do make for a pretty special encore.

“This is what the tour is showcasing, the fact that we did albums as well as singles. Things like ‘Ever Fallen in Love’, ‘Orgasm Addict,’ are always going to get the best reaction, the whole encore is choc-a-bloc with the hits so we get some good chants and sing-a-longs.”

The relentless 1978 work ethos, of releasing two albums and a single every two weeks has long since gone for Shelley. Now all that is necessary is to rock out the classics onstage to thousands of fans.

But there is one prolific aspect of being a Buzzcock that still remains…

“We’re partying just as hard as we used to, sometimes a lot harder! Although the hangovers are getting worse by the year, and closer together!”

Vi no site da SPFW e curti a dica.

O longa tem o roteiro de Matt Greenhalgh ( de “Control” – sobre Ian Curtis, do Joy Division), que adaptou do livro “Image this: growing up with my brother “, conta a adolescência de um dos maiores ícones do rock.

Ainda não tem previsão de estréia em SP, mas temos como ver no Youtube o trailer:

Mas se você quiser assistir um filme com muita música e que inclusive foi indicado ao Oscar pelo seu figurino lisérgico, ah, e com Beatles, claro, corra para locadora e assista Across the Universe:

There’s no shortage of books on Ian Curtis or Joy Division. At this point, everyone recognises Ian Curtis as a certified musical and style icon and he’s revered accordingly. It reached a point when Men.Style (RIP) labelled him as an ‘overinfluencer’. What makes this book different from the others is the fact that Kevin Cummins had captured them from their beginnings as ‘Warsaw’ to their heady heights. And, as you’d expect, there’s more than enough unseen images to make this worth a purchase. It is a first edition collectable copy though, so the £200 price tag shouldn’t be much of a shock. Pick this up over at Paul Smith.
via:selectism

Por lo visto va a ser cierto que la mente es un lugar extraño y que hay cosas que el cerebro hace a las que no se les puede dar explicación. Supongo que la vida también nos tiene guardadas cierto tipo de sorpresas y mejor tomárselas con humor que desesperar en el intento de comprender por qué nos tiene que pasar eso a nosotros precisamente en ese momento. Al final será la ironía y la risa la que nos saque de los hoyos que nos esperan en el camino.

La ironía y la música, claro, que para eso esto es un blog de música aunque a veces se nos olvide un poco. El viernes pasaron por Barcelona uno de los últimos grupos suecos que tan de moda están últimamente (cómo todo lo sueco y no me extraña) Lacrosse, una banda de buenoschavales de esos a los que se les reconoce a la legua. Como buenos suecos son especialistas en un pop luminoso, optimista y un pelín histérico, eso también, con una cantante admiradora de las coreografías de Ian Curtis y embajadora oficial del estilo nacional en Europa.

Podréis leer una crónica más exhaustiva y constructiva del concierto próximamente en Centralzine, permaneced atentos. Y ahora, como no, llega el momento de la necrológica, un espacio que según ha ido pasando el 2009 ha ido tomando peso en este blog. Esta vez le ha tocado el turno al entrañable y enorme actor José Luis López Vázquez, que entre otros clásicos protagonizó “La cabina”, “El pisito”, “La prima Angélica”, “Peppermint Frappé” o “El verdugo”.

Ian Curtis, in asymmetry

Beatlemaníacos de plantão, preparem seus corações. “Nowhere Boy”, filme do diretor Sam Taylor-Wood mostra a juventude do criador dos Beatles, John Lennon. A cinebiografia será exibida nesta quinta-feira, 29, no encerramento do Festival de Cinema Londres. E por aqui no Brasil infelizmente não há previsão de estreia.

O roteiro da obra foi construído por Matt Greenhalgh, responsável pelo filme “Control”, sobre Ian Curtis, do Joy Division. Matt se baseou no livro “Imagine: Crescendo Com Meu Irmão John Lennon”, de Julia Baird, que é meia-irmã de Lennon. O ator Aaron Johnson ficou responsável por interpretar o marido de Yoko Ono na juventude, quando era criado por sua mãe Julia, até a morte da mesma, e por sua tia Mimi.

Se você está curioso para ver um pedacinho, se delicie com essas imagens e vamos torcer para que o filme chegue logo no Brasil!

This is a feature I did for the Sunday Times in 2007

Joy Division

When Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis hung himself on the night of May 18^th 1980 few would have thought that nearly 30 years later his life would be getting made into a major feature film.

Released next month, ‘Control’ arrives with a whole host of critical plaudits. Directed by legendary rock photographer Anton Corbijn It was the most raved about film at Cannes film festival and looks set to be one of the classic rock n roll films. All the more remarkable because of the cult nature of its subject matter. Brilliantly filmed in black and white it is highly evocative of a very different era and captures the times perfectly and also  documents the short and tragic life of Curtis with some brilliant acting.

His band had released a critically acclaimed debut album ‘Unknown Pleasures’ on the late Tony Wilson’s Factory label and were on the verge of a breakthrough. The press and the band’s fiercely committed fanbase were enthralled by the group’s intense music and Ian Curtis’s deep, baritone voice and darkly romantic lyrics.

The Manchester based band came out of the ruins of punk and created a sound that was a key influence on post punk and Goth as well as setting the foundations for the whole Manchester scene before influencing every band from U2 to Radiohead from Emo to modern day indie. Its an influence that has echoed throughout the decades making them one of the most important bands of all time and a byword for any darkly mysterious music that dares to go deep into the heart of darkness.

After Ian Curtis died the band finally got their first hit single with ‘Love Will tear Us Apart’ and the second album, ‘Closer’ went top ten. They regrouped as New Order becoming one of the biggest UK bands of the next couple of decades whilst a legend that has been built up around their sensitive late front man.

Band mate and formidable bass player Peter Hook remembers the first time he and childhood buddy and guitarist Bernard Sumner first saw Ian Curtis.

‘It was at the Sex Pistols concert in Manchester in 1976. You couldn’t miss him. He had ‘Hate’ written on his back in big white letters.  You’d go over and say ‘hello’ to anyone because you had something in common with them- like having spiked hair and pants all ripped up. It was quite easy to strike up friendships at the time.‘

Peter Hook remembers a pleasant if intensely charismatic young man.

‘He was much more educated and middle class than we were, we were more rough and ready, more working class. Ian was more shy and quiet but he could be as wild as anybody especially when he had had a drink.

He was quiet and he was shy but when he would go on stage and go like the bleeding clappers! Which was shocking and inspiring at the same time.’

The band they formed, initially called Warsaw, were a rudimentary punk band but with a more somber twist. By the time they had changed their name to Joy Division people on the scene had started to take notice like the late Tony Wilson.

‘The first time I ever saw him he came up to me at Rafters and said ‘fuck you. You’re the bastard off the TV, you cunt.’ I asked him why he said that and he said it because I had never put them on the telly. He was really nasty, really confrontational. And this was when they were a completely unknown band. It worked. I put them on pretty soon afterwards.  I never saw him like that again in the 3/4 years that I knew him, he was this thoughtful schoolboy, an emotionally deep thoughtful schoolboy.’

Signed to Tony’s Manchester based label Factory in 1978 the band got critical acclaim as their music quickly developed. They started playing nationally and Ian Curtis began to show signs of a deeper illness with epileptic fits.

Peter Hook details the band’s confusion.

‘He was ill quite quickly from when we started and ill a lot. He was his own worst enemy, how can you tell the lead singer of a shit hot band to go to bed early and not to drink? As soon as the doctors told him to take it easy he rebelled against it – the more we told him the more he went for it and the more he turned into Iggy Pop on stage! His idol was Iggy Pop but Iggy was not epileptic! If we knew then what we knew know it would be so different but unfortunately we didn’t. ‘

There was one incident that Hooky remembers vividly.

“On the first national tour that we did supporting the Buzzcocks Ian had the longest fit. He was fitting for an hour and half- eventually we had to take him to hospital. We had to sit on him first. It was unbelievable, I was thinking, ‘Christ! He’s not coming out of this one’. Our roadie went and hid in the cupboard, he said ‘I’m not coming out he’s possessed by the devil that bastard.’ (laughs).

Ian was really shaking. It was frightening you’d think ‘shit, is it worth it’. But he wouldn’t let you stop. I think he thought what we had achieved was so huge to us at our time in life that if he stopped or let it go that it might never come back. He didn’t want to let everyone else down’

Bernard Sumner wistfully remembers his band mates descent into a very dark place.

‘The first time we realised that there was something a bit up was when he turned up at rehearsals covered in knife marks where he had slashed himself.  He had woken up and didn’t know what had happened. He showed us his chest with horizontal knife marks. We were going what the fucking hell have you done.’

There were some moments of intensity on stage as well.

‘He used to get pretty carried away onstage, pretty kinetic. At Rafters he started ripping the stage apart, ripping the floorboards and throwing them at the audience. I did think that was pretty unusual! People threw bottles back, which smashed onstage, and he dived in rolling around- kinda like Iggy Pop. ‘

Ian’s bouts of intensity contrasted sharply with his normal demeanour, as Bernard remembers.

‘He was the most polite person. Very, very interesting to talk to.  Very opinionated but not in a negative way. Not judgemental.

He was quite intellectual. He read William Burroughs and Nietzsche. Me and Hooky didn’t know what the fuck he was going on about half the time!

Just going by his lyrics Ian obviously had issues but to be honest with you we never really listened to his lyrics till he died.’

The band were recognised by the music press and growing fan base as the most important band of their era. Their serious music matched the mood of the post punk times. They were quickly seen as the escape route for punk and the future of rock.

At the same time the troubled singer’s life was fast getting complicated. The fits were getting worse, his was unsure of where to go with his music and his affair with Belgian journalist Annik Honore was causing the already married singer all sorts of guilt.

Time was quickly running out for the singer. His life was in crisis.

On the last night of his life ian Curtis was in turmoil. Before he hung himself there was a long phone call to the avante garde frontman of Throbbing Gritsle, Genesis P. Orridge. The pair of them had struck up a friendship in the past couple of years and there was talk of doing a project together.

‘I spoke to Ian on the phone that last night. He was singing ‘a song of mine about suicide called ‘Weeping’ over the phone. The tone of his voice was haunting. It was awful. He talked. He sounded anguished, frustrated and very depressed, a feeling that events were slipping out of control, I could just feel it straight away having been there myself. He didn’t say ‘I’m going to kill myself’ but it felt wrong. I tried to get in touch with people but technology was much more primitive then. I was calling everyone in Manchester desperately to go round and try and stop Ian but the people I was calling were not there, I was always angry that I could not get through.’

A couple of hours later Ian Curtis hung himself.

The underground music scene was shattered. The band was on the cusp of a breakthrough but Ian Curtis’ life had become too complicated.

Nearly three decades later this dark tale of a brilliant talent is about to be played out in cinemas across the country in one of the best rock n roll films ever made.

It’s a fitting epitaph to a brilliant and short career.