Hooky merchandise

[DJ Bob Hoskins]

Blimey, only just found out about this: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/get_your_hands_on_peter_hooks_personal_joy_division_and_punk_memorabilia

Irritatingly the dangerousminds article says the auction is to be held March 20th but it was apparently on March 2nd (i.e. today). You can view the goods here: https://bid.omegaauctions.co.uk/m/view-auctions/catalog/id/34?page=1

Nice that he's done this for charidee and all. Given the amount of books he publishes and tours with The Light he does I assumed he could probably do with the money (though that's complete conjecture on my part).

Damn there's some interesting stuff in there. I'm not a collector or anything but the thought of bagging some original lyrics, or test pressings, or the flippin' Synare drum from She's Lost Control..... even just as an investment it'd be worth it.

Interestingly the "Martin Hannett Recording Tapes" are listed as 'withdrawn from auction':

Martin Hannett's treasured collection of Tapes. These are out-takes from the 'Unknown Pleasures and Closer' sessions, he would take a copy of every tape we recorded on the 24trk and the stereo tapes too, and take them home. Somewhere there must be a huge pile of them. Rehearsal I think means us practicing in the Studio before we went for a take.

Does anybody (by which I mean buzby) know any more about these? Perhaps they failed to meet a reserve price or were snapped up by a record label or something?

[Pauline Walnuts]

Interestingly the "Martin Hannett Recording Tapes" are listed as 'withdrawn from auction':

Does anybody (by which I mean buzby) know any more about these? Perhaps they failed to meet a reserve price or were snapped up by a record label or something?

Maybe he's not the actual legal owner of the recordings, the physical tapes yes, but not the actual recordings on them, what with them being co-written recorded by Bernie etc. etc. So they can't be sold released etc.

[buzby]

or the flippin' Synare drum from She's Lost Control.

<Citation needed>
The original Synare belonged to Steve, and was stolen in the infamous NY tour van theft in 1980 (as the description for the item notes), meaning the item's title 'SYNARE MK1 SYNARE 3 SNARE DRUM USED ON JOY DIVISION INSIGHT & SHE'S LOST CONTROL' is disingenuous at best. Steve bought a replacement (he demonstrated it on the recent Stewart Copeland On Drums BBC4 doc) so this is basically just a Synare bought by Hook at some point, probably for when he was doing his Joy Divison full album concerts with The Light.

The same is true of the 'ORIGINAL MARTIN HANNETT AMS DBX 15-80S', which when you read the detailed description it has had the provenance challenged (by the bloke Hook bought it off!)

Interestingly the "Martin Hannett Recording Tapes" are listed as 'withdrawn from auction':

Does anybody (by which I mean buzby) know any more about these? Perhaps they failed to meet a reserve price or were snapped up by a record label or something?

Withdrawal from auction normally means it's either had it's provenance challenged, or more likely it's ownership is in question. A lot of the New Order/Joy Division mastertapes 'went missing' when Factory collapsed and there were rumours that someone had taken them and Hook later bought them (and that he was the source of lots of the contents that were leaked out like the Joy Divison In A Lonely Place rehearsals, which Natalie Curtis probably would have preferred to have never seen the light of day).

My guess is that these are possibly those tapes, and the ownership of them has been challeged by Centredate/Vitalturn/New Order Ltd (as JD/NO own all of their recordings and licence them for release), or by Martin Hannett's estate. The three tapes that were not withdrawn were all Cargo Studios (which Hook later owned) 1/4" stereo master tapes of unused material/mixes and sound effects.

One of the other withdrawn lots was Lot 8 - some lead guitar tuition books that belong to Bernard that Hook nicked when New Order cleared out their old rehearsal rooms. No prizes for guessing who contested the ownership of that lot.

In other NO-related news, Steve's book 'Record Play Pause' is out on the 15th of May.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Nice that he's done this for charidee and all. Given the amount of books he publishes and tours with The Light he does I assumed he could probably do with the money (though that's complete conjecture on my part).

I'm presuming he did alright out of the court case against New Order.

In other New Order news, there's a documentary about the making of Movement starting on 7th March on YouTube.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/oLykI_oKnbA

[buzby]

I'm presuming he did alright out of the court case against New Order.

In other New Order news, there's a documentary about the making of Movement starting on 7th March on YouTube.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/oLykI_oKnbA

Presumably in support of the Movement Definitive Editon boxset that's getting released next month, that includes an official release of the Western Works demos and the Cargo Studios Movement demos was well as a DVD with 3 hours of video, including the long-awaited release of the video from Hurrahs on the 1980 US tour, as well as the 1981 Granada Celebration and BBC Riverside broadcasts.

[PinkNoise]

I was keeping track of this over the weekend and was astounded by some of the final prices - £21,000 for a manky flight case? Fair play.

The original artwork for the Ideal For Living EP was pretty sweet, but I'm not sure I'd hang it on my wall in polite company.

You had to read the descriptions very carefully - as Buzby says, most of the original Joy Div stuff was nicked in 1980 (although didn't Steve Morris say some of his kit later turned up in New York after years of being passed on second hand?).

I had my eye on the Transcendent 2000 synth, but it turned out - like a few other things - to be a replica sourced for Hooky's lecture tour in 2012. Boo. I could build one meself.

The six string bass used on Closer was the original though - £15gs that went for.

I wonder if Hooky ended up with this stuff as part of the settlement with the Other Three so that they could keep the New Order name - some of it looks like it could have come from Rob Gretton's famous lock-up, particularly the live tapes.

The reels that were withdrawn appear to include material that had been unreleased - Hannett's early mixes for Closer which presumably ought to belong to the band's label.

Also thankfully withdrawn were Ian's love letters to Annik Honore - although presumably not for reasons of good taste as it seemed Hooky didn't give a fuck. One of them appears to begin "By the time you read this, I will be in America". I was a bit uneasy about the prospect of these incredibly personal items ending up in the possession of some Unknown Pleasures t-shirt-wearing cunt (such as myself).

[buzby]

The original artwork for the Ideal For Living EP was pretty sweet, but I'm not sure I'd hang it on my wall in polite company.

Something else that originally belonged to Sumner (produced while he was at Cosgrove-Hall). I'm not sure he would be that interested in having it back though.

The six string bass used on Closer was the original though - £15gs that went for.

I'm not sure it was - I'm pretty certain his original Shergold Marathon 6 got nicked in NY too ,and he had to buy another when he got home (as there was no way he could get one in the States). He's been hoarding them over the past 10-15 years too.

I wonder if Hooky ended up with this stuff as part of the settlement with the Other Three so that they could keep the New Order name - some of it looks like it could have come from Rob Gretton's famous lock-up, particularly the live tapes.

He ended up with most of it as he was the self-appointed 'curator' of the band archive. He was also the main interface with their road crew (mainly Slim and Dave Pils) and looked after the PA. and they made soundboard recordings of almost every show. Some of the other stuff, like Bernard's guitar books and the studio tapes, ended up with him through slightly more murky means.

The tapes from Gretton's archive were donated to the Manchester Music Archive by his family, IIRc.

The reels that were withdrawn appear to include material that had been unreleased - Hannett's early mixes for Closer which presumably ought to belong to the band's label.

The band don't have a label, they have their own company (which Hook took the others to court to increase his share of) which owns all their own recordings (the current iteration is New Order Ltd) and licences them to labels for releases. As such, he was attempting to sell material that didn't fully belong to him, which is presumably why they were withdrawn when this was pointed out.

Some of Hannett's personal mixes were sneaked out on bootleg releases around the time Hook walked out. I've always suspected he was the source of those too.

Also thankfully withdrawn were Ian's love letters to Annik Honore - although presumably not for reasons of good taste as it seemed Hooky didn't give a fuck. One of them appears to begin "By the time you read this, I will be in America". I was a bit uneasy about the prospect of these incredibly personal items ending up in the possession of some Unknown Pleasures t-shirt-wearing cunt (such as myself).

I did wonder if Deborah and Natalie Curtis intervened to prevent them being sold.

The majority of the items for sale seemed to be examples of modern licensed merchandise that he was presumably supplied with as part of the approval process. As for the other stuff, I've got no idea who would want to buy the CDRs of The Light's intro music or ones used in his shitty DJ sets.

I was thinking about this on the way home, and if one were being uncharitable to Hook (which I am usually wont to be, given his general dickheadedness over the past 12 years) I did wonder if this sale and the donation of the proceeds to charity was him being 'tax-efficient' as with the settlement of the legal case he has presumably come into a few bob and has now had the associated tax bill. A large charitable donation would also be able to be offset against that.

[a duncandisorderly]

I'm pretty certain his original Shergold Marathon 6 got nicked in NY too ,and he had to buy another when he got home (as there was no way he could get one in the States). He's been hoarding them over the past 10-15 years too.

people kept sending me ebay links a few years ago- all the same seller- for bits & bobs of studio gear purporting to have belonged to hannett- tannoy monitors, bits of test equipment, the odd AMS box with dymo tape on it, that sort of thing. I imagined it to be a ruse, to shift a load of junk with fictitious provenance, & steered well clear. in another six months, another shergold marathon sixer will appear via another outlet.

[edit]

well, waddya know, geezer's still at it:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/beam265/m.html?item=362454652975&hash=item5463fb182f%3Ag%3AUIIAAOSwnz9bvfL3%3Ark%3A8%3Apf%3A0&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

[buzby]

people kept sending me ebay links a few years ago- all the same seller- for bits & bobs of studio gear purporting to have belonged to hannett- tannoy monitors, bits of test equipment, the odd AMS box with dymo tape on it, that sort of thing. I imagined it to be a ruse, to shift a load of junk with fictitious provenance, & steered well clear. in another six months, another shergold marathon sixer will appear via another outlet.

[edit]

well, waddya know, geezer's still at it:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/beam265/m.html?item=362454652975&hash=item5463fb182f%3Ag%3AUIIAAOSwnz9bvfL3%3Ark%3A8%3Apf%3A0&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

That's Chris Hewitt: - http://chvintageaudio.com/. He was a friend of Martin as well as a gig promoter, sound man and ran a music shop in Rochdale called Tractor Music. He was friends with John Brierley and rented out the upper floor of his shop to him so he could set up Cargo Studios. In the mid 80s Brierley sold the studio to Hook who renamed it Suite 16. Hewitt and Hook go back a long way - Hook asked him to replace the shit sound system that was originally installed in the Hacienda, and they stripped the place out to sell off as memorabilia when it was getting knocked down.

A few years ago he bought the old Cargo premises back and set it up as a museum, and a lot of the stuff in this sale was on display there. He is also the person who contacted the auctioneer about the veracity of the AMS delay listing.

He's also a big Floyd fan, and bought the old WEM mixing consoles they used live in the late 60s. He sold one of them back to Dave Gilmour in 2016

[a duncandisorderly]

he's legit, then? because some of these listings seem to be years-old, & some of the suggested provenance doesn't hold up to close scrutiny. I cringed too at the "delia derbyshire" LP.

I once turned down a chance to buy a WEM bandmaster with a pair of column speakers because I thought £5k was a bit too much. this was in andy's, in denmark street, about twenty years ago.
they had belonged to some outfit called "spiders from mars"...

[ToneLa]

I once won Lee Mavers' guitar on ebay but the seller refused to honour it because someone contacted him privately....

Bought a new Martin with the money saved though!

[buzby]

he's legit, then? because some of these listings seem to be years-old, & some of the suggested provenance doesn't hold up to close scrutiny. I cringed too at the "delia derbyshire" LP.

I once turned down a chance to buy a WEM bandmaster with a pair of column speakers because I thought £5k was a bit too much. this was in andy's, in denmark street, about twenty years ago.
they had belonged to some outfit called "spiders from mars"...

At least some of his stuff is legit. I think he did end up with a fair chunk of Martin's stuff after he died, as he had few friends left by the end (he had sold quite a bit to fund his habit too). As you say though some of the provenance is paper-thin. The AMS Delay in Hook's sale being a case in point - it might have been owned by Martin at one point, but you can't say it was the one used on the JD sessions.

Like anybody who has been in the music gear (and now antique) business for as long as he has, there's bound to be a bit of truth embroidering when it comes to selling his stock.

[a duncandisorderly]

back to strawberry for a moment, I bought a fender precision off eric stewart that had been at the studio from when it first opened until 10CC sold up; I didn't know it was him selling it until I won the auction & he contacted me (using his wife's email account) to sort out the hows & wherefores. it came with a letter of provenance & several pictures of him playing it, though not from the 70s sadly.

in fact, I'm a little suspicious of celebrity guitar sales generally, because it seems to me that some semi-retired muso could easily turn a couple of grand profit on an old fender or gibson simply by flipping it & adding their own name to the paperwork even though they'd barely touched the thing. in the case (no pun intended) of my bass, I collected the thing from probably the most famous guitar tech in the north-west, who told me (over a decent cuppa) how he'd painted john lennon's rickenbacker black, & would I like to buy another precision that belonged to gary tibbs?

this bloke, & I'm really sorry about the pop-ups...

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/mystery-lennons-black-guitar-solved-5041022

[The Culture Bunker]

As an aside, do I remember right an interview in which Stephen Morris said his drumkit that was nicked in 1980 was eventually found by local plod somewhere in the Caribbean?

[buzby]

As an aside, do I remember right an interview in which Stephen Morris said his drumkit that was nicked in 1980 was eventually found by local plod somewhere in the Caribbean?

According to this interview he sad it was found in New York 18 years later when Rick Derringer caught the same gang of thieves nicking his gear after an NY gig and followed them back to the youth club that they used to stash their stolen gear.

[The Culture Bunker]

Fuck knows where I got the Caribbean angle from! Seems a bit strange to nick the gear and still have it nearly two decades later... maybe they were waiting till they could flog it to Hooky to use on his Joy Division cabaret tours.

[PinkNoise]

I'm not sure it was - I'm pretty certain his original Shergold Marathon 6 got nicked in NY too ,and he had to buy another when he got home (as there was no way he could get one in the States). He's been hoarding them over the past 10-15 years too.

Caveat emptor then - the description seems to imply it was the original - hey it has "1979" written in silver pen on the case so it MUST be legit.

https://bid.omegaauctions.co.uk/m/lot-details/index/catalog/34/lot/5574?url=%2Fm%2Fview-auctions%2Fcatalog%2Fid%2F34%3Fpage%3D2

The tapes from Gretton's archive were donated to the Manchester Music Archive by his family, IIRc.

Of course! The book of Gretton's notebooks was done by them.

The band don't have a label, they have their own company (which Hook took the others to court to increase his share of) which owns all their own recordings (the current iteration is New Order Ltd) and licences them to labels for releases. As such, he was attempting to sell material that didn't fully belong to him, which is presumably why they were withdrawn when this was pointed out.

Ah, thanks for clarifying - but they're licensing their recordings to Warner Music, aren't they? I can't imagine they'd be happy about a load of rogue Joy Division mixes being sold off either.

Some of Hannett's personal mixes were sneaked out on bootleg releases around the time Hook walked out.

I imagine the withdrawal of these tapes is to prevent another triple coloured vinyl edition of various mixes of "Decades" then.

I did wonder if this sale and the donation of the proceeds to charity was him being 'tax-efficient' as with the settlement of the legal case he has presumably come into a few bob and has now had the associated tax bill. A large charitable donation would also be able to be offset against that.

That would make a lot of sense.

[DJ Bob Hoskins]

Yet again I am floored by the depth of knowledge on display on CaB. Bravo everyone.

Also, based on what I've read above it seems I can safely return to my previously-held opinion that Peter Hook is a twat. I picked up a couple of his books on sale a while back (Unknown Pleasures and the Hacienda one) but I've kind of been dreading actually reading them, informative as I'm sure they are.

[buzby]

Ah, thanks for clarifying - but they're licensing their recordings to Warner Music, aren't they?

Yes, the current licensee for their back catalogue is Rhino/Warners (since 2015, when the bungled Collectors Edition remasters of their albums were put out). Before that it had been London/Polygram from when they first set up their own company (Centredate Ltd) post-Factory. London and it's Polygram-era catalogue were sold off to WMG in 1998 though.

Their new material is licensed to Mute, who are distributed by ADA/Warners in the US and PIAS in Europe.

[The Culture Bunker]

Yet again I am floored by the depth of knowledge on display on CaB. Bravo everyone.

Also, based on what I've read above it seems I can safely return to my previously-held opinion that Peter Hook is a twat. I picked up a couple of his books on sale a while back (Unknown Pleasures and the Hacienda one) but I've kind of been dreading actually reading them, informative as I'm sure they are.

The Joy Division one is fine - did he write that before the final fall-out with Sumner? It's the New Order one where the bitterness spoils the reading experience (plus too many tedious sex and drugs anecdotes).

[buzby]

The Joy Division one is fine - did he write that before the final fall-out with Sumner? It's the New Order one where the bitterness spoils the reading experience (plus too many tedious sex and drugs anecdotes).

Hacienda: How Not To Run A Club was 2009
Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division was 2013
Substance: Inside New Order was 2016.
He filed the lawsuit in 2015, but the trash-talking of Bernard and Gillian started before the JD book was published, after New Order reformed without him in 2011.

[Twed]

[jamiefairlie]

Presumably in support of the Movement Definitive Editon boxset that's getting released next month, that includes an official release of the Western Works demos and the Cargo Studios Movement demos was well as a DVD with 3 hours of video, including the long-awaited release of the video from Hurrahs on the 1980 US tour, as well as the 1981 Granada Celebration and BBC Riverside broadcasts.

Even better, it's actually the unbroadcast songs from the Celebration and Riverside sets that are included and these have never been circulated before now. It'll be the first time we'll have footage of them performing Doubts Even Here live.

[buzby]

Even better, it's actually the unbroadcast songs from the Celebration and Riverside sets that are included and these have never been circulated before now. It'll be the first time we'll have footage of them performing Doubts Even Here live.

It's only one of the two sessions from the Celebration recordings by the looks of it though. and it is £90 (or £120 if you buy the deluxe version from their online store that includes the reissues of the first 4 12" singles - both versions of Ceremony, EGG and Temptation).

[a duncandisorderly]

it was found in New York 18 years later when Rick Derringer caught the same gang of thieves nicking his gear after an NY gig and followed them back to the youth club that they used to stash their stolen gear.

ricky don't lose that drumkit

[buzby]

Caveat emptor then - the description seems to imply it was the original - hey it has "1979" written in silver pen on the case so it MUST be legit.

https://bid.omegaauctions.co.uk/m/lot-details/index/catalog/34/lot/5574?url=%2Fm%2Fview-auctions%2Fcatalog%2Fid%2F34%3Fpage%3D2

Just to confirm - in the 'Welcome to New York' chapter of his own book where he describes the van being stolen on the 1980 East Coast  US tour:

Rob made amends by making me and Barney use our credit cards to pay for new equipment. A trip to Manny's, a huge Aladdin's Cave of a music shop on 48th Street yielded, for Barney, a nice Yamaha guitar combo and Gibson 335 with 'second' stamped on the back of the headstock (although none of us could see why, but it was cheap at $550 so we kept schtum). I got a Yamaha BB800 for $431 but had a problem replacing my Shergold six-string bass. There was no equivalent in America. And no matter how hard I tried, the only one I could hire was a Fender version*, which I had to go and pick up from downtown Manhattan.

*later on he says it was a Baritone, rather than a Bass VI

[PinkNoise]

Just to confirm - in the 'Welcome to New York' chapter of his own book where he describes the van being stolen on the 1980 East Coast  US tour:

*later on he says it was a Baritone, rather than a Bass VI

Bloody hell.

I've not crumbled and ordered the "Movement" box set (yet) but I'd quite like to have the Western Works demos remastered (although they've been around in pretty decent quality for a few years now) and the Cargo demo of "Doubts Even Here" as an instrumental sounds nice. Tnere's a bootleg of it being played instrumentallly at a soundcheck, which is gorgeous.

In fact, I always quite liked the idea of "Movement" as an instrumental album - "Doubts Even Here" is a beautfiul tune, it's just Hooky's plummy vocal and Gillian's talky bit that spoil the atmosphere.

[bim sherman shirts]

Yet again I am floored by the depth of knowledge on display on CaB. Bravo everyone.

Also, based on what I've read above it seems I can safely return to my previously-held opinion that Peter Hook is a twat. I picked up a couple of his books on sale a while back (Unknown Pleasures and the Hacienda one) but I've kind of been dreading actually reading them, informative as I'm sure they are.

The three books are all highly enjoyable reads- he's very open about what a dick he could be in that era. Sadly he's still in denial about his past decade's dickishness, we'll probably have to wait for vol 4 for that.

[PinkNoise]

A message from Bernard and Stephen about those Ian Curtis letters:
http://www.neworder.com/newordernow/2019/3/5/a-message-from-bernard-and-stephen.html

Both Bernard and Steve were very disappointed that Peter Hook had decided to sell copies of the letters between Ian and Annik in his "signature collection" auction on Saturday. They considered them to be very private and personal correspondence. We had also been contacted by many people, some closely connected, who also expressed their unhappiness with this proposed sale. 

It was a relief to see that Peter chose to withdraw them from the sale, prior to Saturday's auction.
We noted that the money from the proposed sale was to be donated to The Christie hospital, so Bernard and Steve have personally made a donation of £1,500 to The Christie.

Although previously Annik had given permission for extracts to be published we hope that the entirety of the letters will remain as they were intended to be, private.

[jamiefairlie]

Bloody hell.

I've not crumbled and ordered the "Movement" box set (yet) but I'd quite like to have the Western Works demos remastered (although they've been around in pretty decent quality for a few years now) and the Cargo demo of "Doubts Even Here" as an instrumental sounds nice. Tnere's a bootleg of it being played instrumentallly at a soundcheck, which is gorgeous.

In fact, I always quite liked the idea of "Movement" as an instrumental album - "Doubts Even Here" is a beautfiul tune, it's just Hooky's plummy vocal and Gillian's talky bit that spoil the atmosphere.

Yeah I agree that the instrumentation and mix of DHE is stunning, a natural evolution of where JD were heading. I don't agree that the vocals are bad though, I think they fit the mood of the piece pretty well and, like a lot of Movement, are really just other sounds in the mix rather than traditional lead vocals.


Movement-era NO means such a lot to me. I was a JD fan (my brother had bought me Unknown Pleasures for my birthday in Oct 79) and I was hooked immediately, so to have it all yanked away so suddenly was distressing. It's hard to imagine now how hard it was to get any news on what was going on, Peel and the NME were pretty much it. I can't remember when I first heard they were carrying on but it was so important that they did so. Heard the Peel session and bought Ceremony and then saw them in Glasgow in early 81. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the atmosphere at that gig was quasi-religious. The desire in the crowd to have them be good and to succeed was overwhelming. I've never experienced anything like it again.


I'm looking forward to hearing the Cargo demos as well as the footage. The one thing I'd love to hear is the Beach Club debut from July 80, it apparently does exist. To write a clutch of new songs in the 6 weeks since Ian's death was quite remarkable.