Joy Division Page #3

The main reason for that was he adored Iggy Pop.

And they wanted a punk band.

A punk band.

I didn't know anybody other than...

"Oh, Ian's got a band."

He wanted us to do a cover version

of this Northern Soul record called

"Keep On Keepin' On",

which, when he played it,

we were quite impressed with it actually.

There is a stomping guitar riff in it.

Pick out your moment

You'll be interested, I'll bet, yeah

The engineer must have been pretty good.

I can always remember him

trying to get Ian to sound like...

James Brown.

Telling him to sing like James Brown.

He just got a bottle of whiskey,

plying him with whiskey,

and telling him to belt it out like James Brown,

and it's not the way.

Really, he just kind of got very fractious

and started yelping like a dog.

And then decided we'd best take him home.

Punk enabled you to say,

"F*** you."

But somehow, it couldn't go any further.

It was just a single, venomous,

one-syllable, two-syllable phrase of anger

which was necessary to re-ignite rock-'n'-roll.

But sooner or later,

someone was going to want to say more

than "F*** you."

Someone was going to want to say

"I'm f***ed."

And it was Joy Division

who were the first band to do that,

to use the energy and simplicity of punk

to express more complex emotions.

Seeing as how this is the program

which previously brought to you

first television appearances

from everything from The Beatles to the Buzzcocks,

we do like to keep our hand in

and keep you informed

of the most interesting new sounds in the Northwest.

This, Joy Division,

is the most interesting new sound

we've come across in the last six months.

They're a Manchester band,

with the exception of the guitarist,

who comes from Salford...

very important difference.

They're called Joy Division.

This number is Shadowplay.

To the center of the city

where all roads meet

Waiting for you

To the depths of the ocean

where all hopes sank

Searching for you

Moving through the silence without motion

Waiting for you

In a room with no window in the corner

I found truth

One time we started doing the Factory nights,

there was always this...

this kind of void that was the band,

then there was nothing,

and then there were some people sort of lurking.

And the second time, this sort of void

was kind of getting itself

sort of narrower and narrower,

so that eventually there was even

the odd person dancing.

Well, hey, we've got an audience now.

I sort of remember it was absolutely astounding.

It was unbelievably good,

and I felt so in awe of somebody I knew.

Ian's just that, and he starts like that.

It just seemed the very kind of,

like, Caesar.

And it was other-worldly.

And I'm thinking, "This is Ian,

who can buy flowers for his wife",

and he's up on stage, and it's...

totally inspirational and hypnotic.

And I'm... I'm...

I'm sold to it.

I've bought it, totally.

To the center of the city

where all roads meet

Waiting for you

To the depths of the ocean

where all hopes sank

Searching for you

I was moving through the silence without motion

Waiting for you

In a room with no window in the corner

I found truth

You would just be drawn into it.

It functioned like those shaman things do.

You're just kind of pulled into the moment.

They're a very interesting band about time

because they're very informed by the past.

But also, you're always propelled

into just a moment of present with them.

Time sort of stops.

In the shadowplay,

acting out your own death

Knowing no more

They were just absolutely stunning.

I couldn't believe it.

I've gotten real goose bumps now,

because I can remember it.

But not in me head, in me stomach.

This just got me there,

you know, just, whoa.

But I could only stare in disbelief

As the crowds all left

We were only originally going to have two songs,

and then do a short film

about what was happening

within Manchester with Anderton.

He was a very right wing

and very vociferous chief constable.

He believed he spoke directly to God every night.

He believed that God sent him messages,

and it felt really genuinely threatening.

It felt there was a bad moon rising.

You know, it felt

like there was bad sh*t on the way.

Well, there was, actually.

The sewers were up at the time.

What a great metaphor

for whatever the f*** was going on.

And then yet, the looming Factory thing

creating this consumerist fascist society.

And then we cut to, if you like,

the underground feel of the rehearsal rooms,

where it's almost like a resistance group.

That was the idea to get across,

that these... this was a resistance

through our own culture.

When Tony sat with Alan and I

for Christmas '78 and said...

"I think we might...

we could do a record from the club

for the bands that haven't got contracts yet."

This was just like terribly, terribly exciting.

Suddenly we had a producer,

and his name was Martin Hannett.

Why?

Right.

So what's the first thing you do for them?

Idea for Factory Sample?

I feel it closing in

I feel it closing in

The fear of whom I call

Every time I call

I feel it closing in

I feel it closing in

Day in, day out, day in, day out

Day in, day out, day in, day out

Day in, day out, day in, day out, oh

The lyrics of Digital are actually digital.

There's on, off, day in, day out,

day in, day out,

And they're switching.

It's also somehow weirdly related

to Curtis' persona itself,

which is, we know now, is bipolar.

On the one hand we have the lad

going down to the pub with his mates,

fooling around.

On the other hand,

we have the aesthete, who's reading poetry

and imbibing himself

with all kinds of highfalutin ideas

that he's going to be a romantic pop star hero.

Ian just looks straight into the camera

while he's smoking.

It's the eyes,

that slight translucency of his eyes,

looking into the camera

that sends a chill through people.

16... 17...

18...

20 and 21... we're getting there.

One was in silhouette, and there was one...

when they came slightly out of the passageway

and we got some sidelines.

Already by then

I've shot 2/3 of a roll of film.

And I'm conscious of the fact

that I didn't really think I had anything.

I'm walking up the bridge,

and they're waiting for me,

and I just felt they looked so bleak

and they were so un-rock-'n'-roll-like,

that I took two frames and then took

an upright shot of the same thing,

and that's all I did of that picture.

And that's, I guess, become, probably,

the most recognized Joy Division image.

The whole idea was to get your band

signed to a major.

I was sitting in the Band on the Wall

one Sunday night with Gretton,

who suddenly turns to me and goes,

"Why don't we do our first album with you

and then go to Warner Brothers?"

I remember, far from being, "Wow,"

it was like, "Are you sure?

"How much is that going to cost?"

"Martin says it will cost ten grand."

It cost 25, the bastard.

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