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4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
Hooky could have used a more judicious editor. I grew weary of the many retellings of on-the-road Joy Division pranks (late 70s, early 80s laddism) and the troubles of the cold, broken down gig van. Still, he wears his heart on his sleeve (and there are occasional jabs at the contentious present day Sumner/Hook relationship, a kind of indie version of the great Jagger/Richards divide), and Hooky offers the first insiders looks at what made Joy Division tick. Worth a read.
This book was very interesting to me since I was a teenage/early 20s punk/goth. It covers the Joy Division years and is by one of the band members. He has a very friendly, approachable, way to writing which kept me reading.
It also made me think of the young me...how at that age my friends and I would overlook people who were actually ill and take their word that they were okay. Just like the band member's of Ian Curtis did. One of my friends from that time in my life turned out to be schizophrenic. We had warning signs he was not right in his views on reality but we brushed them off as him being weird just to be weird. i do remember one time were I thought, "OMG! Something is seriously wrong with (him)." He ended up playing it off like he was just kidding and was okay so the moment passed and I never said anything to any adult older than myself. he ended up having a break from reality and trying to choke his brother to death because the voices in the tv told him to. It wasn't surprising even back then because then all the comments and weird stuff he said about "clones taking people's places" made sense and his brush offs in us asking if he was beings serious were lifted away and the truth exposed...and verified...by his actions.
One of my friends feels guilty that she (and all of us) never did anything to help this friend but I forgive the younger me who chose to see the situations leading to the incident as the friend being weird to be weird.When you are young, unless the person is hurting themselves or seems very upset, you don't take things seriously. You feel young and indestructible. You view your friends as that way too. So, you overlook obvious warning signs and bad consequences happen because of your young nativity.
Because of this, I totally got the situation with Ian Curtis and how the band members reacted to things up to his death. When you are young you take your friend's word that they are fine and overlook so so much.
This was a really interesting book and I totally recommend it to other fans of Joy Division or the punk scene in the late 70s/early 80s.
It also made me think of the young me...how at that age my friends and I would overlook people who were actually ill and take their word that they were okay. Just like the band member's of Ian Curtis did. One of my friends from that time in my life turned out to be schizophrenic. We had warning signs he was not right in his views on reality but we brushed them off as him being weird just to be weird. i do remember one time were I thought, "OMG! Something is seriously wrong with (him)." He ended up playing it off like he was just kidding and was okay so the moment passed and I never said anything to any adult older than myself. he ended up having a break from reality and trying to choke his brother to death because the voices in the tv told him to. It wasn't surprising even back then because then all the comments and weird stuff he said about "clones taking people's places" made sense and his brush offs in us asking if he was beings serious were lifted away and the truth exposed...and verified...by his actions.
One of my friends feels guilty that she (and all of us) never did anything to help this friend but I forgive the younger me who chose to see the situations leading to the incident as the friend being weird to be weird.When you are young, unless the person is hurting themselves or seems very upset, you don't take things seriously. You feel young and indestructible. You view your friends as that way too. So, you overlook obvious warning signs and bad consequences happen because of your young nativity.
Because of this, I totally got the situation with Ian Curtis and how the band members reacted to things up to his death. When you are young you take your friend's word that they are fine and overlook so so much.
This was a really interesting book and I totally recommend it to other fans of Joy Division or the punk scene in the late 70s/early 80s.
"He Said He Was All Right So We Carried On."
"I should call the book that, shouldn’t I?"
"Hindsight" would better fit Joy Division's more oblique reputation. Peter Hook's detailed account of the band's rise succeeds by reflecting more of the mundane reality and less of the myth.
"I should call the book that, shouldn’t I?"
"Hindsight" would better fit Joy Division's more oblique reputation. Peter Hook's detailed account of the band's rise succeeds by reflecting more of the mundane reality and less of the myth.
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Joy Division are one of the few bands whose music is timeless, but also massively representative of a particular time and place. Their music is a glorious reflection of the sparse concrete towns surrounding Manchester in the late 70s, bleak, but captured with a sense of real beauty. Peter Hook's basslines were part of that unique sound, bass pushed to the forefront, creating a greater sense of resonance, driving the melody, while the thin, reedy guitar tones added a splash of colour in the background. So, when contemplating the driving forces behind the music, what sort of lifestyle and vision led to such an intense artistic statement, you're unlikely to have thought you'd encounter an anecdote about Margi Clarke's tits. And now that anecdote is burnt deeply into my hippocampus, and will forever ruin my enjoyment of Joy Division's music. And I get the feeling that Peter Hook would be quite pleased with that.
You see, I never really bought into any kind of myth about Joy Division, the notion of a romantic suicide is quite frankly a horrible nonsense, and I really never cared that much about who the personalities behind any band were. The music stands alone. I'm not sure Peter Hook shares that sentiment, but he sure as hell isn't going to let anyone project their own mythology onto the band. This is Joy Division from the viewpoint of the van-driver, struggling with trying to earn a wage, kip in squalor, and getting bloody annoyed at the costs of a broken rear axle. It's a story of petty grudges, drinking piss, and fighting in under-attended gigs. And Margi Clarke's tits. It comes across as honest, to the extent that Hook actually points out that this is all his view on the time, and he's probably quite unreliable anyway. I get the feeling he'd be quite pleased I only bought this book because I saw it cheap in a charity shop in Didsbury, aside from the fact he made no money out of me. It seems very fitting with the whole narrative.
Whether this book is informative or not, probably depends on what you want to get out of it. The one interesting fact for me as a huge music geek, is that it seems apparently true that Ian Curtis was a friend of Genesis P'Orridge, and that they really did like Throbbing Gristle quite a bit. It lends a bit of credence to Gen's claims of speaking to Ian about forming a separate band, and talking about not going to America. Even so, Gen is one of the few people Hook speaks about in fairly positive terms, but he still doubts him on these points.
So, all in all, it's not massively well-written, but I wasn't expecting a bassist to be Nabokov. It's not massively revealing, as most of the facts are known, or certainly aren't surprising. But what it is, is engaging, and a nice change of tone from the usual self-regarding autobiography of a band. And I quite like it, for all it's rough and readiness.
You see, I never really bought into any kind of myth about Joy Division, the notion of a romantic suicide is quite frankly a horrible nonsense, and I really never cared that much about who the personalities behind any band were. The music stands alone. I'm not sure Peter Hook shares that sentiment, but he sure as hell isn't going to let anyone project their own mythology onto the band. This is Joy Division from the viewpoint of the van-driver, struggling with trying to earn a wage, kip in squalor, and getting bloody annoyed at the costs of a broken rear axle. It's a story of petty grudges, drinking piss, and fighting in under-attended gigs. And Margi Clarke's tits. It comes across as honest, to the extent that Hook actually points out that this is all his view on the time, and he's probably quite unreliable anyway. I get the feeling he'd be quite pleased I only bought this book because I saw it cheap in a charity shop in Didsbury, aside from the fact he made no money out of me. It seems very fitting with the whole narrative.
Whether this book is informative or not, probably depends on what you want to get out of it. The one interesting fact for me as a huge music geek, is that it seems apparently true that Ian Curtis was a friend of Genesis P'Orridge, and that they really did like Throbbing Gristle quite a bit. It lends a bit of credence to Gen's claims of speaking to Ian about forming a separate band, and talking about not going to America. Even so, Gen is one of the few people Hook speaks about in fairly positive terms, but he still doubts him on these points.
So, all in all, it's not massively well-written, but I wasn't expecting a bassist to be Nabokov. It's not massively revealing, as most of the facts are known, or certainly aren't surprising. But what it is, is engaging, and a nice change of tone from the usual self-regarding autobiography of a band. And I quite like it, for all it's rough and readiness.
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
dark
emotional
funny
lighthearted
sad
fast-paced
As a fan, I have to enjoy learning the many details in this book and Peter Hook keeps it light with anecdotes of raucousness. Yet, when the story of Joy Division ends with the suicide of Ian Curtis, I expected something more profound at the end of this book.
Hooky’s very casual style comes immediately across in these pages, almost as if he’s sat down next to you at the pub to tell you the story. He’s clearly someone who can be nothing more or less that who he is, which is both refreshing and a reminder of why he seems to fight with everyone else. His sense of self, and perhaps self-importance, is highly evident and makes one realize how necessary it is to get the story from many sources in order to acquire a fuller sense of what actually happened in those early years. Entertaining and quick, it’s a punchy (literally) tale of working class rebels whose talent sparked generations of angst-ridden boys and girls to explore their depressive natures with carefully concealed pride.
This was really a great insight into Joy Division, exactly like what I want a book about a band to be like. Honest, candid, just like sitting in a room with Peter Hook telling the story from his point of view. No mythologizing.