ROCK HALL SNUBS: UK MUSIC HALL OF FAME

Always a bit baffled by the annual shebang of the Rock Hall of Fame, not least as it cuts so little ice over this side of the pond. Or maybe it's sour grapes cos we don't have the equivalent. It isn't really the style, especially in the arts, or, more to the point, the standard style of UK arts critique; we don't like success very much, with most British music journalism based on cutting tall poppies down to size. Whilst things are slowly changing, many, like me, are of a vintage where were we lapped up the vitriol of the inky music papers, bigging up new bands and new sounds, ahead of then slashing them to the ground with a sneer of derision. Even now, if a band or musician I like is on a run or roll of success and adulation, there comes the stage where I refuse to buy, or even listen to, their latest, for fear they get cocky and feel they can just rely on my patronage. Ha, say I, that'll learn you, with all your gold discs and sellout tours.Something that must cause them no end of tears and lost sleep, I'm (not so) sure!

There is also a hefty slab of the Groucho Marx in my personal frame of reference, vis à vis "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member". Possibly why my address book is so slim, but it is an aphorism I sort of adhere to.

But then I read that we actually had had a UK Music Hall of Fame! It was set up in 2004, to celebrate the lifetime contribution any particular musician had made, regardless of their own country of origin, to music in the UK. Rather than being a bricks and mortar building or, even, a bona fide institution, it was actually a TV show. With the idea being that (pop) music began in the 1950s, electoral colleges were split into the then completed decades, 50s to the 90s. The first five founding members were enrolled automatically, presumably by the show's producers, with further membership up to the public, who would vote from a shortlist, again prepared by the show. The 50's shoo-in was Elvis Presley, the public offered Cliff Richard. For the 60's it was the Beatles by default and the Stones by virtue, with the perhaps brave decision to appoint Bob Marley for the 70's, the public vote going to Queen. Madonna and Michael Jackson got the 80's, Michael Jackson, perhaps surprisingly, the voted rather than the de facto, with U2 and Robbie Williams rounding off the selection, again in appointed and awarded order. I would argue less with the earlier years than the later, which is perhaps why, at the time, I gave it a miss and can't even remember it.

Queen with Paul Rodgers in 2004

2005 changed the format. This time a panel of sixty industry pundits were responsible. Looking to see who made the grade for this panel prove challenging, but the list of memberships awarded is an intriguing mix of the expected, with a few odd randoms chucked in for good measure. Aretha, Hendrix, Dylan, sure, who's quibbling, with the Who and Pink Floyd not any great surprise. Eurythmics, even, huge in their day, but solo Ozzy Osborne? Of course, there was a bumper awards ceremony, aping the US model, with initiates inducted by a gushing sponsor, and some musical interludes either involving inductees or lavish tributes thereto. Interestingly, the show was sold to and shown on US TV that year, with the award, induction and performance by New Order cut from the schedule. Presumably they cut too little traction with the US audience, but, taking the award for both Joy Division and New Order, I think them worthy contenders for the honour. I admire the courage of inducting them as much the cowardice of pretending otherwise.

Joy Division/New Order in 2005

2006 was altogether a glitzier one still, even if the nominees were still stuck mainly on the side of predictable. So Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin, James Brown, Brian Wilson, Prince. And Bon Jovi. (I have no issues with the band, but mind this is ahead of individuals like Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, and Neil Young. Surely, even they were pretty darn big stars in the firmament of fifteen years ago.) That years curveball went to Dusty Springfield, another pleasing surprise.

A possibly refreshed Rod Stewart in 2006

For no particular or obvious reason, there were no awards and no show in 2007, and, in the following year, Channel 4, who had been responsible, quietly dropped it. So the snub, for the purposes of the theme, was to the Hall of Fame itself, and never more has it been heard of again.

(In similar circumstances and, in the same sort of vein, the UK also had a museum of pop and rock, the National Centre for Popular Music, a big and glitzy purpose built project, located in Sheffield. It opened, with much fanfare, on 1st March 1999, closing down, in some ignominy, a mere fourteen months later. I think the failure of each of these ventures represents not a failure of a vibrant music culture on these shore, far from it, but maybe just a combination of snootily not taking such populist culture seriously, and the aforementioned hatred of any of those darn tall poppies..........)

Random link.

POSTHUMOUS: LOVE WILL TEAR US APART

A little over two years ago I wrote this, about the band New Order, proclaiming little love for their earlier incarnation as Joy Division, feeling unable to accommodate the spiky rhythms, spikier vocals and, spikiest of all, the odd St Vitus dance habitus of their late vocalist, Ian Curtis. (It is that easy, in my house, to build a prejudice: watch a couple of dodgy you-tubes and, pshh, gone from my life. Often forever.) Thankfully, I was taken to task for my self-imposed blanket ban on this much mythologised band, the mythology being there for good reason. A sound ticking off was administered, and I was sent to bed with copies of Unknown Pleasures and Closer to listen to, until I saw my senses. 

Of course, I had been earlier aware, and liked, the featured song. How could I be unfamiliar with it? I may not have necessarily heard the original, but the song had swiftly become a covers staple, a song reproduced across innumerable genres and by artists good, bad and indifferent. And, back when I did first hear the original, it seemed a poor relation, with too much treble and a droning monotone of a vocal, sung in a basement grumble. My poor cloth ears couldn't accommodate it, and it is only since that damascene night that have I been able to find the context to put it into a truer perspective.

Joy Division had come together almost as a whim. Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook, childhood friends, had attended a Sex Pistols show in Manchester. Invigorated by the anyone can be a star ethos, they reflexly decided to form a band, Hook borrowing money from his mother to buy a bass guitar the following day, Sumner a guitar not long after. At that stage there were other candidates for drums and vocals, the band getting through a run of drummers. The pencilled in original singer was offered a proper job and declined, leading to the time honoured british solution, an advert in the newsagent's shop window. Read by Ian Curtis, who knew of the others, he applied and was taken on in such good faith that an audition wasn't even required. At this stage the band were called Warsaw, in homage to David Bowie's Warszawa. Drummer issues continued and again the shop window posted their requirement, again with a single applicant, a school chum of Curtis's named Steven Morris. Thankfully this line-up gelled, and they were off, with a change of name becoming necessary to avoid confusion with the similarly named Warsaw Pakt, of whom little was ever heard again.

Whilst the band have a seemingly inextricable history with Tony Wilson's Factory Records, in fact it was less straightforward, with initial forays into work with other companies, with their debut, An Ideal For Living, having to be self-released. In the meantime, Curtis had approached Wilson, a prominent Manchester mover and shaker, whose day job was as a local TV news correspondent, and near goaded him into agreeing to showcase them on his music show. When he did, fulfilling that promise on 'So It Goes', his music show, he had them then contribute to Factory's first release, an EP, A Factory Sampler, produced by Martin Hannett.

Unknown Pleasures, their first LP, came out in 1979, with Hannett again on production duties, preceded, as was their usual, by the non-album single, Atmosphere. He jettisoned the sounds that they had previously been unhappy with, in earlier recordings, and gave them their signature sound, sparse and spare, with an air of clattering menace, where the spaces between were as important as the notes and rhythms. They were off the blocks running, selling out the first pressing, playing to increasing numbers of increasingly intense young men. A second record was to follow in the following year, recorded between tours that were beginning to draw a toll on the health of Curtis. He had sustained his first epileptic fit two years earlier, after a gig, Gradually the frequency and intensity had accelerated; by the tour of schedule of 1979/1980 they were near daily and often on stage, often unrecognised by the audience, his wild and flailing stage movements blurring and blending into his seizures. That his marriage was also in trouble, and he was conducting an affair, could not have helped his mental health, itself deteriorating alongside. 

The night before the band were due to start their debut US tour, he was found alone, having hung himself. This was the 18th of May, 1980, numbing his bandmates, who had never taken seriously the threats he had earlier made. Love Will Tear Us Apart was released a month later, the second album, Closer, a month later still. Each were successful, number 13 in the UK singles chart and 6 in the album chart, seen then and subsequently as a fitting memorial to the deceased singer. Inevitably, it being the way that premature death and distress can add only lustre to the career of troubled musicians, it set the residual band on their feet, if mindful of their responsibility towards him. That much was demanded of them by his fans. Intriguingly, Steven Morris has since admitted that, had Curtis not died, then the band would not, could not have continued. In turn suggesting, therefore, that the band the trio became, along with Morris's partner then wife, Gillian Gilbert, New Order, would not have existed. And they never stopped playing it.....

Love Will Tear Us Apart was re-issued on a couple of occasions, in1983 and again in 1995. On each occasion it performed well, scraping into the top 20 on each occasion, at 19.

There are a number of longer reads, many by Curtis's bandmates. This is the best, by Morris. A film about the life of Ian Curtis is due any time soon.

12"

JOE: WHO'S JOE? (New Order)

 

No, not, really not a snarky, snidey post at all, but a comment that might not have been out of place even as little as a year ago. And, had the forces of Agent Orange had their way, would be as true in another year. But, for sure, everybody now knows who Joe is. So what if the lyrics, clearly a companion song to Hey, Joe, don't fit the circumstances, never let that get in the way of a great song saluting a greater moment. And, if we disregard the main thrust of the words, and cherry pick the odd phrase, and disregard the new order New Order allegedly might have been celebrating with their name, yeah, it's an OK comment. Who listens to words anyway? And I can't really buy into conspiracy theories about Manchester pop groups. 

"There's a storm in the sky passing over"

Well done, America. Now how do we get rid of our own World Leader Pretend over here in the UK?

BASE/BASS: HOOKY

I am never quite sure whether I prefer New Order as a sound or as an idea. If it is the former, it is definitely the spindly treble of the bass that is a major component. If the latter it is the ridiculous posturing of Peter Hook, bass guitar round his knees, legs akimbo, somehow still managing to make contact with his strings.

In the day, I never really got baggy and Mad-chester; I think I was already too old, finding all the druggy Hacienda nonsense outwith my taste. But I liked the idea of Anthony Wilson and the whole Factory Records conceit. And I absolutely loved Fac. 73, otherwise known as 'Blue Monday'. (Factory records famously gave a catalogue number to much more than just their recorded releases, so that the aforementioned Hacienda nightclub was Fac. 51, its resident cat Fac.191 and Wilson's eventual coffin Fac.501.) Blue Monday was the single from the 2nd album by New Order, 1983's 'Power, Corruption and Lies'. I had been vaguely aware of the band, predominantly down to the acclaim and coverage given the earlier Ian Curtis helmed version of the band, 'Joy Division', ahead of his suicide. Much as I tried, I could never find any love for this band, expecting New Order to be the same. Probably through the addition of Gillian Gilbert's keyboards and programming, I found to my delight their electronica/dance influences far easier to swallow than the post-punk agitated spiky guitars and epileptiform (I know) ticcing of JD.

There are apparently abundant reasons why Hook developed his idiosyncratic style of, if you will, lead bass guitar. Firstly it was the allegedly dodgy equipment used, wherein the amplifier and speakers couldn't manage lower registers. However the second reason arose mainly from the sequencer and synthesizer driven patterns underpinning so many of the songs. Add that to the fact the guitar was almost a purely rhythmic instrument and it becomes apparent of the spaces left, crying out for counterpoint. Strangely I find the comparison is with the blues, say with B. B. King, his guitar replying in call and response to the vocal, so too does Hook use his bass to answer both the vocals and the main thrust of the the electronica. A human heart within the machine.

'Blue Monday' apart, I was probably fairly lukewarm about their offerings until the swansong, both  with and of Factory. This was 'Republic', and the run of singles emanating therefrom, notably 'Regret'. I adored this. At which point they split for 8 years. But, in no small part due to the flurry of re-releases and remixes released  in the interim, back they bounced, in 2001, with my 2nd favourite, 'Get Ready'. Even with a slight return to the more guitar driven earlier style, still Hook's bass remained as high in the mix as it sat low on its strap.

I sort of lost interest after that. That line-up seemed to peter out, even as the size of the by now stadium gigs became larger. It is clear there were internal frictions, predominantly between guitarist/ singer and self-appointed leader, Bernard Sumner, and Hook. Each have written about this extensively in the wake of Hook leaving the band, and the subsequent lawsuits as he tried to get some degree of payout for his participation in the sound, before, during and after. Involved in a number of side projects over the years, of late he has concentrated on his own band, Peter Hook and the Light, effectively a New Order tribute and covers band, albeit with his one vital and authentic ingredient. I have never seen New Order live, regretting that point, as, even as they continue to exist, somehow, for me, the focus has been lost. I would love, however, to see Peter Hook and the Light, and I hope I will.

New or newer?

My First Cassette: The Joshua Tree

purchase [The Joshua Tree]

In October of 1987 I purchased The Joshua Tree, so well matched for the most beautifully dark and moody time of the year in windy and wet-leaved Wisconsin. It was a 10-minute walk from the Exclusive Company record store on Main Street to my home on Hickory Street. I felt a foreign cool carrying home that cassette in the Exclusive Company’s famous black bag with silver writing. I had hoped I would bump into a girl who’d ask me what I bought at the Exclusive, and we’d open into a conversation about the hit songs. Of course at that time, nobody knew what else was on a tape unless you bought it and listened to it all the way through. That’s where the value was, of course: the surprises only you could access through the purchase.

Within the first year I had purchased The Joshua Tree, my first cassette and first music purchase ever, I probably listened to it over 100 times at night as I fell asleep. In this capacity, it was rivaled only that year by side one of New Order’s Power Corruption and Lies and side two of the Cure’s Standing on a Beach singles collection. I could only listen to one side because I had the kind of tape player that didn’t switch sides naturally and instead when it reached the end of a side it banged rather than clicked to a finish. If I had the energy, I’d wake up and flip it.  

I cried over getting dumped to this tape; I sprinted home with Sun Country Peach Wine Cooler on my breath to meet curfew listening to this tape, twisting the jack of my cheap headphones expertly to avoid it playing into only one of my ears; I psyched myself up before swim races listening to “Bullet the Blue Sky”, “In Gods’ Country” and “Where the Streets Have No Name”. I remember walking the five minutes to Sunday Night bible study feeling edgier from listening to it, ready to challenge my very friendly CCD teacher.  I get goose bumps now realizing how naïve and lame I must have sounded talking about how Bono didn’t stand for American politics nor institutionalized religion.

It took a couple months before I started fast-forwarding through the Joshua Tree in order to skip the hits and start with “Bullet the Blue Sky”.  Before the tape could bang to a stop, I’d get up and turn it over for the darker and more drifting side two, usually waking up again during the rolling “In God’s Country” and the harrowing “Exit”.

Bullet the Blue Sky, with Bono’s sudden grunts and groans, Larry Mullen Jr’s barrel-chested drum approach and the Edge’s thick guitar is audaciously akin to “Whole Lotta Love”. Even the melody is similar. In hindsight it’s also the tune that sonically, along with Bono’s spoken-word delivery (“…pealing those dollar bills/slappin’ em down ‘100’ ‘200’ and I can see those fighter planes…”), probably foreshadows 1991’s ultra-cool but tepid Achtung Baby.

Until this week I hadn’t listened to this nearly perfect album for over ten years and not until now did I realize how bluesy it is, almost a futuristic dark Americana sound. At the time I was mostly seduced by Bono’s conviction and the Edge’s guitar playing, which develops on the signature infinite guitar sound (originated by Michael Brook) that he started on the Unforgettable Fire. A lot of people had their hands producing this effort including Brian Eno, Flood, Daniel Lanois and even Steve Lillywhite. It’s a wonder it doesn’t sound disjointed.

Homonyms: Blue Monday

Bob Seger: Blue Monday (Fats Domino cover)

[purchase]

New Order: Blue Monday

[purchase]

Mondays really have a bad reputation and that plays out in musical titles. Of the many songs I know about Monday, not a single one is uplifting. There's Stormy Monday, Monday Morning Blues, Manic Monday, Rainy Days and Mondays, and of course I Don't Like Mondays. So I guess it's no surprise that there are two versions of a song called Blue Monday.

The first was a 1956 hit for boogie woogie piano bluesman Fats Domino. I'm using a cover of that song, though, by Detroit's own rocker Bob Seger, used in the soundtrack for the 1989 movie Roadhouse. His version doesn't deviate much from Fats', and after growing up outside of Detroit myself, I always like some Bob Seger!

The second is a synth pop club dance song by New Order (surprisingly, we've never posted that band before). It was the biggest selling 12" single ever in the UK, and various remixes, re-recordings, and covers roam the internet. From the book Manchester England: The Story of the Pop Cult City we find that "Blue Monday was really influenced by four songs…The arrangement came from 'Dirty Talk', by Klein & MBO, the beat came from a track off a Donna Summer LP, there was a sample from 'Radioactivity' by Kraftwerk, and the general influence on the style of the song was Sylvester's '(You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real'." Both the base and drum tracks were synthesized, and the choir was sampled from Kraftwerk, one of the first records to sample another artist's song like that.