Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence - ROBERT FRIPP.
Information is not knowledge;
knowledge is not wisdom;
wisdom is not truth;
truth is not beauty;
beauty is not love;
love is not music;
MUSIC IS THE BEST - FRANK ZAPPA.
I think we're a little happier when we have a little music in our lives - STEVE JOBS.
Music in the soul can be heard by the universe - LAO TZU.
Rock and Roll is fire, man. FIRE. - DAVID BRIGGS.
Music grips you, gets into your soul -
GEORGE MARTIN
Joy DivisionCloser(Vinyl - Factory, 1980 ) ***** Genre: Alternative rock Places I remember: Marbecks Records Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles:Atrocity Exhibition
Gear costume:Isolation Active compensatory factors: Mervyn Peake's prose is often grotesquely bleak and full of meandering cobwebby corridors of sentences. I'm sure Ian Curtis was a fan. Listening again to this album on a rainy day while reading Gormenghast was the perfect circumstance. The mood was right. Although that's not the only time to listen to Joy Division, a melancholy atmosphere does help. As does a working knowledge of Manchester in the late seventies. It was grim up north! Where do they all belong? Sadly, that was it for the troubled Ian Curtis. He committed suicide before Closer was released and the band retired the Joy Division name - re-emerging as New Order.
Joy DivisionUnknown Pleasures(Vinyl - Factory, 1979) *****
Genre: Alternative Places I remember:Marbecks Records (Auckland) Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles:New Dawn Fades
Gear costume: She's Lost Control Active compensatory factors: Everything about this record should be depressing - black unrelenting cover (where music is reduced to sound waves), songs without titles (and when they are revealled they are titles like Disorder, New Dawn Fades, Wilderness, She's Lost Control, I Remember Nothing) and a bleak history thanks to Ian Curtis' death, BUT, call me weird, somehow, I find this record curiously uplifting. Same curious thing happens when I listen to the blues. I have good memories of listening to it during my last few years at Auckland University - the surreal sounds suited my academic reach as I studied a potpourri of poetry and drama and novels for my masters degree in English. The bleak post punk Mancunian landscape was purely of my imagination. The mystery associated with the album - no band pictures (or even names), no song titles - gave it a deeply satisfying aura. I had to make all that stuff up in my head. Most definitely a case of unknown pleasures! Where do they all belong? Closer is coming.
Joy Division Atmosphere/ She's Lost Control(Factory 12", GOOD 39, 1980) Joy Division Transmission/ Novelty(Factory 12", GOOD 40, 1980) Joy Division Love Will Tear Us Apart/ These Days; Love Will Tear Us Apart(Factory 12", FAC 23, 1980) Joy Division must have one of the most distinctive sounds ever! Hook's melodic bass, Stephen Morris' drums, Sumner's guitar fills, and most important of all - Ian Curtis' vocal style - all make for an utterly distinctive, and compelling, sound. Of course, Curtis' suicide looms large over these songs - it's impossible for me to come at them without that terrible knowledge. Love Will Tear Us Apart takes on added desperation; Transmission sounds like, well, a transmission from beyond, Ian having broken on through to the other side; andAtmosphere, maybe the pick of the bunch, is just plain spooky now. This is amazing music. Like listening to blues legends like Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters - misery provides rich rewards for the listener in all three A sides. Hidden gems: no problem here. Novelty is a wonderful song that's propelled forward by Morris' drums, as is These Days with it's archetypal JD soundand She's Lost Control sounds like an A side even now.
Joy Division Komakino/ Incubation; As You Said(Factory flexi 7", FAC 28, 1980) This was a single released in June 1980 as a 7" flexi disc limited to 10,000 copies (amounts vary according to various sources) and given away free in selected record shops. I can't remember how I came by it. Being a fexi it's kind of a pain. I guess they were trying to make a 'statement' - I don't know - the disposability of a pop song maybe. Whatever - flexis have a very limited playing life. Apparently these tracks are from the Britannia Row Studios session for Closer, March 18-30, 1980 that didn't end up on the album. Not hard to see why really. Hidden gems: The B side consists of two instrumentals. Maybe a couple of songs that Ian Curtis couldn't put lyrics to? I'm not sure. Nothing special going on really. Hooky plays some nice bass runs on Incubation but it's a bit average as an instrumental. As You Said is some spacey noodling from Manchester's finest. New Orderish actually!
