Pale and Interesting
Parents, be warned: This is what happens to a young man who hears "Unknown Pleasures" at an impressionable age. The milk-bottle white skin, the sullen expression, the black clothes are all outward signs of the "pale and interesting" youth. Before you know it he's doing the hard stuff like the first Velvet Underground album and reading William Burroughs novels. I know all this because for a time I was once such a youth. Not that I was particularly depressed or angst-ridden, I just had the usual arty young man's attraction to the dark and edgy. I must have seen "Taxi Driver" about 20 times, which in those days meant I actually went to the cinema to see it that many times, mostly at late night showings in shabby little arthouses with dirty, cigarette butt-encrusted carpets.
"Dark and edgy" was basically the zeitgeist back then – the whole country felt like a cigarette butt-encrusted carpet – and Joy Division's records were like black holes which had absorbed all the pessimism, uncertainty, and violence that built up by the end of the 70s. With "Unknown Pleasures" they answered Nigel Tufnel's question in This Is Spinal Tap:
It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.
For most other bands bleak angst was just a pose, something to wear with a big overcoat in your Anton Corbijn portrait, but with Joy Division it all sounded very real. Which, of course, it was. I still remember turning on John Peel that night in May 1980 and hearing him announce at the start of his show the news that Ian Curtis had died. I went downstairs with an empty feeling in my stomach and said to my mum "Ian Curtis is dead" and she said "who?" which I guess is fair payback considering my nonchalant attitude toward Elvis snuffing it a few years before. I don't think I found out that he'd topped himself until I read it in the next week's NME (oh, those pre-internet days. Waiting a whole week for news) I also discovered for the first time that he had a wife and kid which started me thinking maybe he wasn't just a tortured artiste, but a bit of a selfish prick too. In hindsight, his death neatly bookended the previous decade as if some sort of terminus had been reached. The 80s were beckoning and it was time to start dancing.
Now it all seems like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. They were the soundtrack for a country that has since been scrubbed, polished, streamlined and had it's rough edges swept under a designer carpet where they can't be seen. What does still sound astonishingly new is the production work of Martin Hannett, the Phil Spector/Lee Perry/Brian Wilson of post-punk. Have a listen to the 6 minutes of slow-burning menace of "Autosuggestion" from 1979. The dubby production is full of empty space but he manages to make it sound claustrophobic and suffocating with the dank atmospherics of a piss-stinking stairwell in a Manchester tower block.
This was recorded during the "Unknown Pleasures" sessions and first surfaced on the Fast Records 12" mini-album "Earcom 2" which, I'm very glad to say, is worth quite a pretty penny these days. I could put my daughter through college if a few more of my records appreciate in value like that.
Download: Autosuggestion -Joy Division (mp3)
Buy: "Unknown Pleasures" (album)
Buy: "Substance" (album)
6 Comments:
It's funny you should highlight Hannett's production. I have been listening to Joy Division's "The Complete BBC Recordings" a lot lately, and have really been struck by how different the songs sound from their LP versions. Hannett didn't produce the sessions, so the music has a stark clarity, and is much more up front and in your face. It's fascinating to hear.
Great post as usual...
Wonderful post, I was that same kid but in Illinois.
Hi Londonlee,
That was me too, except in Manchester.
Brilliant post.
Simon
x
i remember that factory label used have little epigrams written in the 45's.
bordering the paper.
i'll have to dig out my old a certain ratio,blurt, and joy division singles now.
one of the funnest nights of my time in london was a factory label showcase. somewhere
in camden town. all the patrons were dressed down down down. i was wearing leather
pants and a pink jacket from johnson's. "tourist", someone sneered when i strolled
in. when i told a drunken music fan that i was a new yorker, she brightened, "so
you know james chance!"
probably two of the three londoners who condescended to speak to me. in a year.
now i live in southern california, and miss being ignored.
love your post.
always great.
lizo
Johnsons? That was a great store.
I was thinking of doing a post on the decline of the King's Road and all the great shops there used to be down there. Now it's all chains and The Chelsea Drugstore is a bloody McDonald's!
I actually did not get into Joy Div until after Curtis died as a friend who had a record shop played me some early New Order track and I went backwards from that. I also has had that T shirt, I was already into Burroughs, Gysin, et al as I was into Throbbing Gristle in my attempts to be into music none of my friends knew, I was always trying to be ahead of the curve, with JoyDiv sadly I was behind it.
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