Obvious A > B influences that're still worthy of respect.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Speaking of 'bongos', The Incredible Bongo band deserve a mention here. Covering and legitimately improving songs.

[buzby]

I have wondered how Hannett put up with Bongo especially (and I doubt he was too impressed by the drummer), but perhaps he was getting a big pay day out of it and decided to play nice.

Martin treated them just like he did Joy Division (i.e like tools to create the version of the song he had in his head), except without the deeper collaborative relationship he had developed with Ian. It's telling that on their first EP U2 got a co-production credit, but not on 11 O'Clock Tick Tock. It was recorded at Windmill Lane in Dublin over Easter 1980 just after Hannett had finished the Closer sessions (U2 had visited him at Britannia Row while the band were there to discuss the job), and just before Ian killed himself. He was in the frame to produce Boy as well, but was supposed to be going to the US to do the live sound for Joy Division's tour, so they went wih Steve Lillywhite.

In their 'U2 By U2' retrospective book, the band and Paul McGuinness had this to say about working with him:

The Edge: "We played Martin a demo of 11 O'Clock Tick Tock. He wasn't impressed with the demo, but he said he liked the song."

Bono: "Martin Hannett was a genius. He had worked with Joy Division, who were our favourite band at this time. He looked like Dr Who, and he was into technology. He had harmonizers and things we had never heard of."

Paul McGuinness: "He didn't think much of the facilities [at Windmill Lane], and there were some special pieces of equipment he made us rent from London and ship over." (Note: this was probably his trademark AMS DMX digital delay and the Marshall Time Modulator The Edge refers to later)

Larry Mullen Jnr: "He was asking me to do a click track... I wasn't sure if I could play in time with one. I must really have done Martin's head in. He listened to the track over and over again, constantly playing it back. I think he was highly medicated and as the session went on he became more and more incoherent. Despite his condition, he did a great job.

Adam Clayton: "Martin was sort of like a big, cuddly garden gnome. He was very laid back but, with hindsight, I think he was probably out of it all the time - there was a fair amount of smoking of dope."

Paul McGuinness: "Martin was pretty moody. I remember him coming out of the bathroom in my flat with a bottle of some kind of cough medicine. He said: 'Is this stuff legal in Ireland?' and promptly drank the whole bottle."

The Edge: "The mix took a while, as he had his own trademark drum sound, which was made by putting the snare drum through a period effects unit called a time modulator. I remember he carefully turned all the settings down to zero after he'd finished so our engineer wouldn't see what he had done."

Bono: "The record sounded more like him than us in the end, but it's brilliant and better for it."

Paul McGuinness: "Martin Hannett would have produced the U2 album [Boy] but he was committed to mixing the live sound for Joy Division in America. Then Ian Curtis killed himself and the tour never took place."

The Edge: "I think he was devastated."

[The Culture Bunker]

Mullen was no doubt pleased that he wasn't made to play each part of his kit individually, as Hannett was occasionally prone to insist on.

[buzby]

Mullen was no doubt pleased that he wasn't made to play each part of his kit individually, as Hannett was occasionally prone to insist on.

He would almost certainly have had to, as it was the way Hannett recorded drums so could get the separation to apply the individual effects to each drum (the snare on the track will have had to be recorded separately at least). That is why he would have had to play to a click track, just as Stephen Morris had to.

[The Culture Bunker]

You're probably right, of course. Just assumed Mullen would have mentioned it as it being a bit of a task for him (as Morris found it). A Certain Ratio really hated this method of recording drums, as they felt it removed all the funk out of Donald Johnson's playing.

Though I'm sure I read Steve Lillywhite did this with the Banshees' Kenny McKay, as he was incapable of playing a full kit in time throughout a whole song.