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Confessions of a Post-Punk Percussionist: Volume II

Every bit as entertaining as his first volume, drummer Stephen Morris’s second volume of memoirs picks up where Record Play Pause ended, chronicling New Order’s rise to super-stardom and the tensions that tore it apart.

After lead singer Ian Curtis’s suicide, the band faced an identity crisis. They toyed with being their label, Factory’s, house band. But playing other people’s music wasn’t for them. So they resolved to remain their own band, rechristened New Order. But who would do the singing?

Most of the duties fell to guitarist Bernard Sumner, with some songs sung by bassist Peter “Hooky” Hook. To allow Bernard to sing more, manager Rob Gretton suggested adding a fourth member to the group—Stephen’s girlfriend, Gillian Gilbert.

Shocked at first, the band warmed to the idea, and Gillian joined.

Gillian’s first experience of the recording process and Martin Hannett’s unconventional production techniques was our re-recording of ‘Ceremony’, starting what would become a New Order habit of confusing the record-buying public.

The quartet gelled and began accumulating new songs as Morris continued his fascination with bleeding-edge tech. One such piece of kit was the Clap Trap.

‘And what does it do?’

‘It makes clapping noises.’

‘And why did you think that might be useful? We’ve all got hands, even Rob.’

‘Well, I, er, um, thought …’

The device did not garner approval from my fellow musicians. They were immune to its charm and potential. The box would sit there clapping away to itself in what was, I finally had to admit, a particularly monotonous and annoying manner.

It could clap slowly or it could clap incredibly fast but… ‘Steve, it’s fucking useless.’

The band’s songwriting process also evolved. Without Ian to write the lyrics, the band took turns. Morris had a system:

I found two or three tins of Carlsberg Special Brew could be quite inspirational when it came to the composition of words. The deciphering of my scrawl the next morning, though, was a bit problematical. As to what these words were about or actually meant I had no recollection.

‘ICB’, ‘Chosen Time’, ‘Procession’, ‘Cries and Whispers’ mk2 and ‘Mesh’ mk2 were all products of my Carlsberg-fuelled scribblings.

Stephen’s early-adopter inclinations extended to home video. He purchased an unwieldy “portable” VHS video recorder and camera. While film-maker may not have been in his future, the gear had its use:

I was also building up a substantial collection of what I considered classic films taped off the TV and, of course, a selection of stuff in the ‘video nasty’ genre: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Spectre and Caligula along with a pirate copy of A Clockwork Orange were particular faves. Oh, and everything I could find by John Waters, Desperate Living being essential viewing. These were sourced as a rule from the central hub of eighties entertainment – the dodgy corner-shop video-rental emporium.

I bring this up because I didn’t recognize the Spectre title. Turns out it was the UK title for The Boogey Man which was shot, in part, in my hometown. Small world.

In other video-related affairs, Morris reveals the track “Video 5-8-6” came from an idea to show something on the video screens behind the band when they played Factory’s club, the Haçienda. So they padded the track ‘5-8-6’ out to twenty-two minutes, and Bernard, Gillian, and Steven cut together a video to match from a pile of cult VHS tapes, one of which was Alligator.

Over the years, the track now known as ‘Video 5-8-6’ or ‘Prime 5-8-6’ has become some sort of art thing rather than the musical accompaniment to a man being eaten by an alligator, which is always how I remember it.

As the 80s progressed, the band’s musical inspirations changed. Prog and rock gave way to Italian disco and USA house music. The era of the 12-inch dance track, but something wasn’t right.

I was listening to these tracks on a hi-fi in a tiny bedroom in a nice house on a suburban street in Macclesfield. The same way I listened to everything. Although this was very satisfying for nearly everything rock, psych, country, punk and prog, it was not the environment that the 12-inch extended dance mix was designed for.

Music had moved out of the bedroom and into the dance club. As New Order’s music changed to reflect this, Morris noticed a shift in the band’s audience.

In the very early days our audience seemed to consist largely of Joy Division fans come to pay their respects. Generally, these adopted the look they thought typified Ian Curtis (this they assumed from photographs of Ian and Joy Division): short hair and grey raincoats. They didn’t smile much. They were mostly men.

They had a look that said, ‘Sorry for your loss’ and ‘Why did he do it?’ Their number dwindled when Gillian joined the band, with a few diehards finally giving up the ghost after hearing ‘Everything’s Gone Green’.

‘It’s a shame really but they’re not…’

‘How dare they have fun in their grief and misery?’

I enjoyed annoying these people as a matter of principle.

But it was the acquisition of a key piece of tech, the Emu Emulator, along with the Oberheim DMX drum machine, that propelled the band to stardom.

To learn what the actual potential of all this new equipment was we set about writing a tune, as much another experiment as anything. It was inspired by the always inspirational Donna Summer’s ‘Our Love’, Shep Pettibone’s remix of Sharon Redd’s ‘Beat The Street’ and very loosely based on the arrangement of ‘Dirty Talk’ by Klein and MBO. We had a cup of tea and got straight to work. It took quite a while.

The result, “Blue Monday”, sold hundreds of thousands of copies and made Factory a little over a hundred thousand pounds. Contrary to the myth, Factory did not lose money on every copy.

Morris dispels another myth:

Another ‘Blue Monday’ legend is that it is the bestselling 12-inch of all time. An accolade indeed, but it’s open to question. Don’t let that spoil a good story though. Let’s just say it almost certainly is the bestselling 12-inch of all time and always will be, and move on.

The band’s ascension to super-stardom takes its toll. Morris recounts a layover in Thailand which saw him get drunk and pick a spiteful fight with Gillian, whose only crime was shocking the locals with her short skirt and dyed red hair. Meanwhile their drunk manager, Rob Gretton, insisted on buying the suit in the window of a shop, shouting at the proprietor, “How much for the suit, mate?” to which the owner, kept replying, “No ticket!” until their roadie, the soberest among them realized what was happening and turned to Rob.

‘Rob, we’ve got to go. It’s a fucking cleaners!’

Morris’s blow-up was due, in part, to the stress of touring, but also to the Haçienda, Factory’s ever-hungry money-pit. Determined buck trends, the operators kept the club open seven nights a week. Most nights, it went empty.

Another contributor was the band’s growing drug use. They worked with producer John Robie on “Shellshock” for the Pretty in Pink soundtrack.

It is widely acknowledged that cocaine may kill you, but you’re more likely to bore everyone else to death before it does. It will turn you into a self-obsessed, monstrous, gurning, yakking idiot.

Yes, friends, coke was a big influence on some of us at that time. Clean-living Hooky continued his long-observed abstinence. Even so it’s all over ‘Shellshock’. You don’t even have to listen that hard. The hyperactive bass drum is a dead giveaway – another side-effect of this very moreish chemical confection.

Later, when recording “State of the Nation“:

I ended up in the backroom with the local dealer, taking part in some kind of marathon snort-off. The winner of which got to munch on some genuine Colombian coca leaf for dessert. It was an insane gurnathon. Neither I nor the dealer could converse in any meaningful way – he just chomped and gurned while I grinned and twitched.

This drug use increased through the “Madchester” era, with Ecstasy sweeping through the dance hall scene. Crowds flocked to the Haçienda, but the only profiteers were the drug dealers. The thriving drug trade brought gang violence that proved the scene’s undoing.

Everything culminated with Factory selling itself to London Records to ward off bankruptcy, and the band going on indefinite hiatus.

Here, the story takes a poignant turn. Morris had spent his entire adult life in a band. His only responsibilities were recording albums, playing gigs, and touring the world. This led to a kind of arrested development and prolonged adolescence. With the band gone, he had no responsibilities.

Rather than flounder, as so many aging musicians do, he grew up. He married Gillian and got sober. The couple had a daughter named Tilly and settled into a quiet life on a farm outside Macclesfield.

Morris communicates his maturity with passages like this:

For the one thing that parenthood seemed to bring was an even greater acceleration in time passing: a day began to feel like an hour, a week seemed to only last a day, a year was gone before I knew it. Why was that? In the blink of an eye Tilly was running about the house singing and dancing, then the next minute she was off to school.

But, lest you think he abandoned his post-punk roots, he also bought a tank.

Learning how the thing worked was both frustrating and very satisfying, though probably not as satisfying as discovering that its gun had a range of ten miles, making Bernard’s house an easy target. Fortunately, ammunition was quite hard to get hold of. The Army are quite picky about things like that.

I wonder what would have happened had Gillian not joined the band. As the New Order ride ended, Morris found himself pushing forty, yet still not an adult. By this point, his generation had moved on, married, had kids, matured. Finding a partner would mean either an age gap or a maturity gap. But, with Gillian having ridden the same merry-go-round, when the ride ended, they weren’t alone. Two kids who found each other, made it big in music, and stayed together. How sweet is that?

In contrast, Bernard and Hooky kept being rock stars. Bernard had Electronic with Johnny Marr, and Hooky formed the apt-named Revenge and then Monaco.

This contrast played out when New Order reconvened for 2001’s Get Ready.

Morris and Gilbert’s second daughter, two-year-old Grace, suffered transverse myelitis, paralyzing her below the waist. The hospital visits kept the pair from most of the album’s recording and mixing.

The mature move would see Bernard and Hooky rally around their bandmates. Put the record on hold, and support Stephen and Gillian like family. Instead, they cornered Stephen about his and Gillian’s absences. Said Morris:

I agreed to take a pay cut for the record, as did Gillian, to compensate for our tardiness.

I love that record, but this taints it. For Bernard and Hooky, the band remained the priority. Reading between the lines, you can feel their resentment towards Stephen and Gillian that they didn’t feel the same. Morris doesn’t come right out and say it, but comes close:

Later came a phone call, again from Andy, explaining how Bernard considered the guitar-manship on the new songs to be beyond the capability of our current staffing levels. The combined efforts of Bernard and Gillian and the Akai DR16 hard-disk recorder would no longer be enough. We would need an extra guitarist to do the work justice in a live setting.

I may have been getting a little touchy or oversensitive here but it sounded to me very much like he was saying ‘Your wife’s not good enough on the guitar, is she? We’d be doing her a favour. Saving her the pain and embarrassment.’

This led to Stephen and Gillian deciding she would leave the band. Without Gillian, when the band convened for 2005’s Waiting for the Sirens’ Call Stephen’s growing perspective had him questioning his commitment.

Even as a kid my interests had been somehow involved in the business of running away, which continued through the teenage angst of upsetting the grown-up apple cart of respectability and conformist crap. Now here I was, hurtling headlong into my fifties. The party was becoming a job.

As the volume winds to a close, death claims the group’s surrogate father-figures. First their manager Rob, then Factory founder Tony Wilson. Morris, again showing us his growing maturity, reflects:

Growing old means going to an ever-increasing number of funerals. It’s life’s brutal way of reminding us that we are all running out of road. The gathering of a circle that gets smaller with each passing year, until there is no one left to remember what really happened.

Morris ends the story with Peter Hook’s quitting the band and its seeming dissolution. Gillian’s return and the band’s next albums, Morris teases for a third volume. But the audio book closes with a bonus interview where their now-adult daughter Grace (recovered from her illness) interviews her parents. Gillian proves a raconteur equal to Stephen and hearing their back-and-forth makes for an engaging listen.

Indeed, one gets the sense the pair couldn’t have made without each other. That, and their mutual relative lack of egos. Says, Morris:

If you could see us working in the studio together, and I hope to God you never have to, you would think that we were on the brink of imminent marital break-up. That plates are about to be thrown, china smashed, followed by a storming out of house and home.

It’s not always like that. Everybody rows sometimes, throws their toys out of the pram over some trivial nonsense. It’s being able to laugh at yourself and realise how ridiculous your behaviour actually is that’s the trick.

This is the rare first-hand rock memoir with a detached perspective. Granted, it means Bernard and Hooky are somewhat black boxes, as Morris’s journalistic approach avoids speculation into their thoughts or feelings. But his story proffers a visceral sense of being there, like a fly on the wall observing.

Like the first volume, it proves a better listen than read. Stephen’s self-deprecating humor remains a constant throughout the story, but the written word lacks his enunciation and emphasis, and his impersonations of Rob.

For New Order fans, it’s a must-listen, and I suspect fans of rock memoirs in general would appreciate it. I listened to it last year, but never got around to writing a review. Coming back to it, I planned to review it based on my notes, and thought I’d re-listen to a few chapters to refresh my memory. I ended up re-listening to the entire book, loving it just as much the second time.