I am Peter Saville!!

Nice Monday bonus the Lauren Laverne show used one of my pics for their weekly mp3 download package. Which cheered me up no end . Won't quibble too much about the typography! Am thinking of a special version made for silver the manufactoring costs of which will cripple the BBC and will be delivered 3 months late in true Factory style.

My new favourite new band

Thieves like them.....
Delphic:

I’m not sure how I heard about them, they are young person’s band and seeing as I don’t listen to young person’s radio anymore I can’t have heard them there, anyway like the computer I’m writing this on and rain and communism they are from that there Manchester.

Once you hear them you won’t be surprised as they are New Order! Not actually but well have a listen.

Sounding like NO is no crime in my book as when asked the question “would you like tohear a new New Order record?” I have always said “yes” ever since ohh I don’t know 1983.

I am past caring if anyone else likes them (other than BLBW) nor do I see myself changing anyday soon. Maybe being a cold war child I’m used to them and us and forming opinions and sticking to them. I can’t be doing with people changing sides like floating voters, you’re a mod or a rocker, a Durannie or a spandie and Easty or a Take Thaty, copper or miner, so I chose New Order early and won’t change. I’ll put up with Barney’s double chin, Hooky’s tantrums, the odd single with Billy Corkhill from smashing cocking pumpkins, I’m won’t be changing any time soon..

So when cherubs like Delphic wander up with their bass and drums and that, fine! I liked faux New Order records when the Beloved made them, or Paris Angels, or Pet shop boys or Interpol, so more please.

For the record Delphic are more 1990 New Order with the Stephen and Gillian style “other two” synths and some top Hooky bass on “submission”. The do remind me of the “Paris Angels”. They have a great mix of old and new synth sounds, sounding modern oh I don't know, I've listened to them 20 times already and they are just wonderful. They have that thing to make you feel good you know energy, drama .

Delphic have a suitably oblique factoryesque website that tells you the thick end of shag all but you can get 3 songs from there which are great. If you like New Order have a listen if not, well so be it let’s not fall out unless you are a Leeds fans that is.

Go here for tunes and some obscure pictures and the odd tour date

Love Vigilante

North Country and Western:
I downloaded the new Laura Cantrell tunes today, bit of a first for me being the first time I’ve paid for a download. I only did it this way as there’s no cd. As far as downloads vs. cd’s go “a man needs something he can hold onto like 10 lld hammer or women like you” but needs must when....

Anyway my Luddite tendencies aside Ms Cantrell new song cycle is bunch of covers devoted to travel. The song I was destined to like is her version Love Vigilante by New Order which is excellent. LV is an already classic song rendered extra poignant by Laura's wonderfully distinctive slightly sorrowful voice. “Silver wings” is good too well worth a listen. I do like the way Laura Cantrell sings she has a wonderfully pure voice but with hints of country nasal twang (which sounds better than I’m describing).

I can remember the day I bought “Low life” it was this time of year and I wandered down town with some birthday money and after a quick check of the prices in woolies smiths etc, I headed to EGS records, past the cassettes and pictures discs and there it was in shining a matt white sleeve, Steven Morris’s angular face scowling through the semi opaque paper sheaf, to say it looked cool was an understatement. Anyway half hour walk home and straight to my room to put it on and it was a good as it looked. Brimful of classics like Perfect Kiss, Elegia and of course Love vigilante; a tale of a soldier's return from war and now it’s a country song, perfect!

I wrote the above last night and was thinking about what a tune to post, New Order songs are too obvious and easy to find, I thought of NO cover but couldn’t land on the perfect one. I was going to choose Frente version of “bizarre love triangle” but it seems to have spawned countless twee bedroom copiest on youtube, however I did find this marvelous artifact which renders my record buying memories redundant. It’s a recent reshooting of a video for Temptation starring Victoria Bergsman the lead singer of Swedish popsters the Concretes, it’s indie kid heaven, if only we’d been born French. Dancing in my bedroom was never this cool!

I wasn't a miner....but I know a man who was

Advent Calendar day 20


It’s Billy Bragg's 50th birthday today

On the sad news of Tony Wilson’s death a few months ago I mentioned that I have several foot of records he inspired, well the other artist with a high footage is Billy Bragg.

It’s Bills birthday today the DEC 20th and he’s 50, which means I’ve been a fan for 25th years (there are too many high numbers in this last sentence).

This machine kills Fascists
Much like Factory I’m not sure where to start; as I’ve said before BB was the first proper concert I went to see along with New Order. It was anti-apartheid gig in Sheff and it was great.
Next day I wore my “Soweto Don’t Mourn Mobilise” t-shirt to 6th form, I was stopped by a old gaffer in the street, who pointed out “tha alreet wearin’ that arand ‘ere, flower”. He may have had a point, but that sort of protest was in the air, recently a small band of us had listened to a frozen South African trade unionist round the back of the old court house and then had marched on Barclays. Just a few weeks earlier The Miners strike had just come to it’s bitter end, older friends at Uni were joining the peace camps at Greenham common. This is where Billy came in (and where for good or ill some people still place him) his first ep’s where a great mix of Punk and working peoples songs; I played his first single to death with its picture on the front of kids eating their jam tomorrow.

Have Guitar will travel
However what the media etc don’t mention having only taken a snap shot of BB is what he’s like live. In the 20 plus times I’ve seen him I’ve never seen a bad gig, often he’s the best thing on the bill (sorry!). The word raconteur gets over used but that’s what BB is, he’s perfectly aware he’s there to entertain and tells stories and jokes between songs, takes the piss out of other bands but mainly himself. He’ll tease his audience and point out the humorous side of the sometimes po-faced Union/socialist axis. He will also make serious points, normally about some forgotten local issue or sticky national campaign and because he’s won us over, what would be a lecture in the hands of Bono or what’s his name James Martin from Coldplay is just a serious and thoughtful counter point to the jokes about Blur eating kebabs.

Young and wild and warm and free
It’s almost a cliché to point out that he also writes loves songs, but it’s true some of his best work is about the day to day joys and lows of living from the redemptive power of soul music (Levi Stubbs Tears) to bereavement.

Here in no particular order are some of his highlights:

Best song about not having a snog at the school Christmas disco:
Saturday Boy.

Best song about losing your dad:
Tanks park salute.

Best song about a British road
A13_trunk road to the sea.

Best song to mention a cheese pavilion
Waiting for the great leap forward

Best song about astronauts
The space race is over

One of the best versions of Jerusalem
Jerusalem.

So Bill happy birthday and thanks for everything.

I was going to post a song but didn’t know where to start so here’s a jolly clip from a couple of Glastonbury’s ago. Sadly I think I went to see Mozzer instead (to whom Bill alludes) but here BB shows that socialists aren’t all worthy yoghurt weavers enjoy!

La Lucha Continua!

Here's a mad fan mash up

Love will tear us apart...

Control: Review:

Went to see the Anton Corbijn new film about Joy Division Control last night. It’s really good, far better than I thought it might be. Even though I know a great deal about JD/New Order et al I was fully engaged delighted and moved. One of the excellent tricks it pulls off is, is not falling into the trap that Ian Curtis’ death was inevitable. The sad things the film shows well, is that he did have choices and a future, if he could have got over what in most lives would be a medium sized blip his life would have fine. After all “rock star has more than one wife” is hardly news. It does come back to the whole “no adults” being around in rock it’s a bit glib and I’m not belittling depression or epilepsy but he really just needed a little support and perhaps a break from touring.

The other aspect of the film which is great is the recreation of late 70’s Britain, people have said it looks like another country but it looks familiar to me! Corbijn shows again the fact that 1960’s took a long time rolling out across Britain. Ian Curtis grew up in world were people still got married young mainly so they could have sex, where news from the “underground” came through hard to find books by William Burroughs or via Iggy and Bowie’s records and where having a girlfriend from Belgium is the height of exoticisms.

Obviously the film would have failed if the concert performances where poor but they are really well done, Sam Riley (as Curtis) inhabits his character amazingly well and from the many times I’ve seen New Order the actors playing Barney, Steven and Hooky look the part. One interesting thing is that Riley occasionally looks very like Steve Morris, (he was up his role in 24 Hour Party people!) This could be coincidence or maybe Steven Morris picked up some of Ian Curtis mannerisms?

So, a wonderful film, go and see it.

Extra points:
Don’t go to see any film especially Control at the Trocadero. Because:
A: they keep their prints in a bath full of sand, dust and horse hair.
B: they employ a one eyed projectionist with the DT’s
C: when you have a moving cinematic experience coming out into a garish hell hole full of video games and trinkets stalls fresh from a souk is a bit full on.

New Order will never escape the accusation of being rightwing if they go around picking Hitler’s secretary to play Ian Curtis’ girlfriend.

It’s evidently clear we now all live in Chicken Town.
John Cooper Clarke’s strident poem/rant appears in Control but also popped up strikingly and a little jarringly at the end of the Sopranos the other week.

Really Sad News

Tony Wilson
20 February 1950 – 10 August 2007

I don’t know what to say really, so here’s some examples of how much Tony Wilson and the bands he inspired, enraged and promoted have effected my life. Growing up in Yorkshire not the North West I’ve rarely seen him on local TV so that side of his life had little impact on me so what follows is was mainly about the music.

FACT 100: The first gig I ever went to:
The first proper gig (not someone’s school band) was an anti-apartheid gig at Sheffield City hall in around 1985. The two main attractions for me and BLBW were Billy Bragg and NEW ORDER. The London Gospel Inspiration choir where also on but were not my cuppa of tea at the time. I and BLBW had got seats in the balcony, (I don’t think we knew what stalls and circle meant). I remember sitting transfixed for 2 hours. Billy was a great, a one man punk band (I don’t think I’ve seen a bad gig by him)

Then New Order came on. People moshed, people danced and shouted, Hooky played his bass nearly on the floor. Barney tried to sing and play at the same time, I have feeling Gillian was a little hidden at our side of the stage and Stephen was a whirling drum machine in the centre. The whole thing was great, I was buzzing the next day walking to VI form in my “Soweto don’t mourn mobilize” t-shirt.

FAC 63: Britain’s most dispersed art gallery.
In a world of instant music the idea that people would stand staring at record sleeves for 10’s of minutes over a number of days before buying it may seem bizarre. But Factory Record's records sleeves were so wonderful, it’s not over top to say they were a little stack of modern art, freely available to anyone, in my case in the delightfully named Casa Disco. I would stare at the colour blind test inspired sleeve for Temptation for ages; it took me a while to see the title embossed in the cover.

I know Pete Saville designed the cover, as well most other one’s worth looking at since the early 80’s, but Tony Wilson saw his potential, put up with his whimsy and time keeping and encouraged the whole wonderful Bauhaus inspired modernism look of factory. These records where different, enigmatic, unobvious, it may sound pretentious but they were one of my entries into the whole world of art and design, of alternative thinking and ideas.

FAC 73: I remember spending some of my Christmas money one year on Blue Monday, my family were perplexed by this text less blank record that wasn’t an album and wasn’t a 7” single, that had the same track on both sides (one minus vocals of course, the Beach was my fave) my Nana's confusion made the record better in my eyes. You had to know what it was about, to be cool, to be on the inside. And yet Blue Monday got played at school discos, it sounded best in our chapel hall at the monthly under 16 discos. New Order played it live on TOTP and were rubbish and even that WAS COOL.


FAC 51: The Hacienda: I only ever went the once but it was at the height of Madchester. Unlike the rest of the club I was just very drunk. We went with some super cool friends who wrote fanzines and had a good night in the sparsest most expensive (to run) extended anarchist philosophical joke going. Afterwards we went to someone's flat and watched the sun come up sat on their slate roof.


FACT 14 onwards: Coming up up to date one of the best gigs I’ve been to, was the Durutti Column (Vini Reilly) at Ronnie Scott's a couple of Christmas' ago. (Wilson mentored and promoted Vini’s beautiful enrapturing music for years). We got to Ronnie’s in plenty of time but all the best seats seemed to have gone, so we sat at the side of the stage. When the band took the stage, Vini as always seemed so introverted and shy. Halfway through the first song he turned sideways and played the rest of the show directly for us, 15 feet away. There legendary drummer Bruce Mitchell even joked with us at the end, excellent!

So Tony Wilson has directly and indirectly influenced my life in so many ways: I have about 2 ft of Factory vinyl, I’ve travelled 100 miles to gigs, downloaded fonts, had dodgy hair cuts, even worn baggy flairs all because of his bands . My blogging name even alludes to a New Order song.

Whenever you saw Tony on TV he was funny, annoying, witty, stumbling, blunt and smart. He wasn’t afraid of intelligence but hung out with BEZ. This is all without starting on FAC 13: (dancing to Joy Division in the dark in my room)or FACDVD 424: “24-hour Party People” one of the best pop films ever made.

So my condolences go to his family and friends who have lost someone close to them and as for the rest of us, the world in general has just got that bit less interesting.
Cheers Tony and god bless

Factory catalogue.
ACR

SAT 11th Update

national noon news didn't cover TW death apparently the BBC think Big Ben being cleaned is more important. Nice film here though http://juderogers.blogspot.com/ . One amusing thing is that the fictional TW from Michael Winterbottom's film seems to be being mixed up with the actual man himself, the sort of post-modern collision that Tony would have enjoyed.

Sun 12 th update: FAC 183 bothsides!: Last night, played out to the clear darkening skies of Crystal Palace by the enviously gifted S and G. They even sound good acoustically

Sun 12th evening update: Here's Paul Morley on TW and Kevin Cummins on the visual side and a bit grumpy about the new Joy Division film Control