Record / CD / Tape
Joy Division
1980

Two bootlegs; probably got them through Record Peddlar, opposite Band on the Wall. They were good for that sort of thing. The black one’s called Warsaw and I’m pretty sure all this stuff got official releases further down the track. I also had a couple of bootleg E.Ps, one of which I brought to Legends and one of the D.J.s played but it was a bit of an education how something that sounded good on your home stereo could sound shite on a nightclub system ; reminiscent, eons later of the old c.d.s versus vinyl story.
I uploaded and wrote Joy Division stuff before, but they were a good band and each time I saw them they were different, and the music was changing and evolving. I think the best I saw them was at The Osbourne with A.C.R. and Kevin Hewick (?) ,who was a solo artist playing round the traps at the time.
On our way to The Apollo for a J.D. / Buzzcocks gig we were walking past the Old Poly where these people were doing a photo shoot outside. Anyway as usual, we inflicted ourselves on them , jumped into some of the pics and, as they were from the good ol’ U.S.of A., welcomed them to our turf. It was a band called The Motels who had one good song that I can recall . “Who’s Problem am I” which I think had a bit of a chart-topping popular success; and when they invited y’all to come back later and watch the band we said, no ta, we’re off to watch proper music...
We were sat on the balcony on the left side of The Apollo, right at the narrow pointy end near the stage. Well there was a bloke right in front of us filming the whole thing, so while he was recording the Joy D. Set it was really hard not to keep looking in the camera monitor even though the stage was just in front of us. The sort of reason I’m telling this is ‘cos many years later I was sat in a grungy bar on t’other side of the world and up on a small T.V. screen there was this footage of said band. Well being hardly corpus, never mind mentis at such wee hours of the morning , something struck me as kind of odd, till it slowly dawned on me that the footage I was watching (no sound, just Nine Inch Nails/ Butthole Surfers stuff on the dancefloor), was exactly what I’d been looking at through the camera at The Apollo all those years earlier. Tain’t no big thing ,but it was a bit like that peculiar feeling you (I) get when you look in a mirror when there’s other mirrors behind you and your trying to figure out, (usually when you’re pissed in a bar somewhere), if you’re looking at the reflection of you looking at you or it’s another one of your thousand reflections etc... till your head explodes and you have to go home....When the band finished the set at that gig it took ‘em about 5 minutes to figure out how to turn off the feedback coming through the monitors; I thought it was as simple matter of unplugging a lead...
When I heard John Peel tell of Ian. C.s demise I never really listened to that band again; it wasn’t the music ; I suppose it did just did kind of feel depressing,; not something I normally look for in a band. Still, a lot of their music stayed in my head , and on occasion I do hear stuff out and about and it still sounds good. I saw that film "Control" on D.V.D. not long ago but I didn’t really like it so much; I like a bit of humour inserted into me gritty Northern, Kitchen sink dramas; a couple of knock-knock jokes wouldn't have gone amiss and perhaps a cameo appearance by Vera Duckworth as herself, popping her head round the door, something like "what's up our Ian, trouble at mill...?I'll just put kettle on...."; needs some work and maybe the loan of a super 8 ....
As per usual, another complete ramble; .... ‘appy nooooo yeeaaar. Hope 2011’s gonna be as good as 2012. Sayonara tout le monde....