Who was the best member of New Order?

[turnstyle]

Recently I've been reading Peter Hook's Joy Division and New Order books. If you haven't had the pleasure yourself, I recommend them - lots of talk about 'the process', juxtaposed with tales of drugs, sex and debauchery and a surprising number of anecdotes about doing big poos.

Needless to say, as they're written by Hook, he regularly sticks the boot into his band mates. Curtis escapes relatively unscathed, although his 'sensitive tortured artist' reputation does get a bit of reality check with some of the laddish tales in the book.

I didn't come to New Order until late, so I didn't see these relationships play out in real time. Are his assessments of Bernard, Stephen and Gillian, fair?

He doesn't ever paint himself as a saint in his social interactions, but when it comes down to work ethic, Hook makes the case that he was always the one up early and down the studio before everyone else (as they were up late 'smoking weed and watching 2001 Space Oddity'), as well as helping the roadies set up and pack away every gig while the rest of the band got pissed, driving the van, doing the washing up and making sure everyone had clean underpants (ok, maybe not those last two). In Hook's telling, every major mile stone in NO's career can be directly attributed to him.

Is Hook on the money?

[DrGreggles]

Stephen and Gillian seem nice enough.

[buzby]

Is Hook on the money?

No.

Being first up and into the studio and helping the roadies with the gear does not make you the best member of a band. He can write a bassline, but as his solo career has shown, he can't write a song (the only success he was was with Monaco, which was bascially a New Order pastiche with Dave Potts doing most of the songwriting and a passable impression of Sumner's vocals)

Don't decide after reading one side of the story. At least read Stephen Morris' two volumes Record Play Pause and Fast Farward. The second one in partular gives another perspective of New Order between 1981 and 2007, and despite all Hook's moaning and mudslinging, Steve and Gillian came off far worse during that period (Gillian in particular was treated horrobly in the period up to Get Ready's release, when she was forced to quit the band to look after her and Steve's seriously ill daughter, mostly because Hook needed the money from gigging to pay for his drug habit and alimony).

Sumner had always been a bit of a primadonna and pain in the arse, especially when performnig live. This is mostly due to his acute stagefright (he never wanted to be the frontman), when meant he would have to get off his face to go onstage with predictable results. On tour this meant he would be in a perpetual cycle of off his face duing gigs and the afterparty, and then wrecked for most of the following day, and hence missing most of the soundcheck.

Their manager, Rob Gretton, was the real mastermind behind the band. He was an ex-DJ so understood what the public would react to, and he also understood them as indicivduals, the creative tension between Hook and Sumner in particular, and knew when to step in to knock their heads together. Unfortunately he was the one who instigated the Hacienda, which became a giant millstone round the band and Factory's necks for the rest of it's existence, and swallowed up millions of pounds of the band's money, whixh was another source of friction in the band (Hook loved it, The Other Two were indifferent and Sumner realised it was going to swallow the band's royalties). Unfortunately he liked his substances, and during the band's commercial peak in the late 80s he took one trip/joint too many and was never the same afterwards.

This laft a power vacumn, and as Sumner was the main contributor to the band's songwriting and musical direction, he stepped in. This only exacerbated the existing tension between Hook and Sumner that dated back to the start of New Order (when Hook had really wanted to be the frontman, but got passed over because of his singing) and had been amplified by Sumner's success with Electronic compared to Revenge's critical and commercial failure (which proved Rob correct - nobody wanted to hear Peter sing, and he is a terrible songwriter).

When Rob finally passed away, his understudies Rebecca Boulton and Andy Robinson (the band's keyboard tech) took over as managers, but they never had the status Rob had and could do nothing about the clashing of egos, which eventually led to Hook walking out in 2007 and unilaterally declaring the band had split. His campaign of invective against Sumner started then, and when the rest of New Order reformed in 2010 with Gillian returning Hook then turned his ire on her too, as she had sided with Sumner, and with 75% of the original members they could use the name. There then came all the legal wranglings after they formed New Order Ltd and reduced his shareholding.

There was also the case of Hook's dodgy memorabilia auction a couple of years ago whe he passed off a load of tat as original gear, and was trying to sell stuff that didn't belong to him.

In short, Steve and Gillian are probably the best members of New Order. They have contributed greatly to the creative process (ignore Hook's bullshit about Gillian), put up with massive amounts of grief from both Sumner and Hook over the years but have still maintained a sense of perspective and are genuinely nice people to boot.

[The Crumb]

That lad that used to be in Marion

[jobotic]

I don't know much but I saw Stephen Morris give a talk about his book just in February last year (in what was probably a super spreader event, but we didn't know that at the time). He was great to listen to and when my brother and sister (bigger fans than I am) had their photo taken with him and Gillian afterwards they were all having a right laugh.

So I vote for them.

[the science eel]

Stephen, yeah. Nice fella and one fuck of a drummer right from day one (see the Granada JD film for proof)

[turnstyle]

KNOWLEDGE

Thanks Buzby, appreciate your insight on this buddy. Love reading your thoughts.

I'll definitely check out Stephen Morris' books, I'm sure his take on the whole thing is totally different. Hook's books are actually remarkably brazen and you can tell he still feels very raw about the whole thing, and he appears to have no qualms in burning most of his bridges, and those he keeps don't exactly reflect well on him (the bit where he talks about what great mates he is with Keith Allen springs to mind).

I get what you're saying about Hook being able to write a good bass line but not a good song. It's actually difficult to pick apart who wrote what from his books, although in most cases he claims he came up with a wicked bass line and the rest of the song fell into place. To be fair, he has written some incredible bass parts, and I'd argue that the bass in JD/NO songs is a much more prominent instrument than it is in most bands.

Regardless, it's one hell of a story, I look forward to digging in deeper with some of the other books (like Morris' that you mentioned).

Although I've always liked Joy Division, I never paid any attention to New Order (I couldn't tell you why). So I've been digging into their back catalogue recently, as well as some live performances. I don't think I've ever seen such sketchy performances from a professional band before. Actually, that's not quite fair. Morris is a machine on drums, Hook (mostly) delivers his bass lines, but Sumner always seems to play like someone who got told 5 minutes before he's in a band. Maybe that's the nerves/drinking you mentioned.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

The drummer

[Pauline Walnuts]

That bloke who wrote the lyrics for their first couple of songs, Iain or something.

[Johnny Textface]

Best at what?

[turnstyle]

Best at what?

Best at being in New Order, obviously.

Or another best if you like. Best falconer? Best cribbage player? Best resemblance to a discarded supermarket trifle.

[wosl]

Ian Curtis, which sounds absurd, but comes to seem less so the more you think about it.

[SweetPomPom]

I'd go and see Hooky & The Light over New Order these days but they were a perfectly balanced band in their prime, weren't they?

[wosl]

It's a bit of a shame they dismantled that anonymous/mystery image they had to the extent they did.  That cover photo for The Face showing a quarter of Stephen Morris' face was both a high point and a turning point.

[Johnny Textface]

Best at being in New Order, obviously.

I thought you meant musicianship or songwriting or singing or something.
I don't know how to rate it. Ian Curtis presumably doesn't count? This is difficult to rate.

[BJBMK2]

John Barnes

[wosl]

John Barnes wasn't even the best member of the England Italia '90 squad.

[holyzombiejesus]

Peter Hook isn't isn't even the best member of Monaco.

[Kankurette]

Gillian. I always wondered why she quit, didn't realise it was because her and Stephen's kid was ill.

[buzby]

Thanks Buzby, appreciate your insight on this buddy. Love reading your thoughts.

I'll definitely check out Stephen Morris' books, I'm sure his take on the whole thing is totally different. Hook's books are actually remarkably brazen and you can tell he still feels very raw about the whole thing, and he appears to have no qualms in burning most of his bridges, and those he keeps don't exactly reflect well on him (the bit where he talks about what great mates he is with Keith Allen springs to mind).

Keith Fucking Allen is one of the worst things to happen to the band. Getting Sunmer involved in the Groucho club gang almost killed him.

I get what you're saying about Hook being able to write a good bass line but not a good song. It's actually difficult to pick apart who wrote what from his books, although in most cases he claims he came up with a wicked bass line and the rest of the song fell into place. To be fair, he has written some incredible bass parts, and I'd argue that the bass in JD/NO songs is a much more prominent instrument than it is in most bands.

The role of the bass part becoming the melody in JD and NO came about by accident. Hook's first bass had a warped neck that buzzed if you played up the head end of the neck, and he couldn't afford real bass amp so when he played low down he couldn't hear himself. As Joy Division started to use synths, Sumner moved to playing keyboards (Ian was learning to play rhythm guitar towards the end) and so the bass became the melody.

Their songwriting process usually came from jamming in their rehearsal studio (initially it was Ian who would sit and listen for riffs and tell them if he thought it sounded good, and the songs would be built from there).As such, the bass melody would lbe an integral part of the process. Later on in New Order the tamming continued, but more and more song ideas started t obe written by Sumner, Morris and Gilbert at home that they woudld bring to the reheasal studio to work up. They recognised that Hook needed space leaving to fit his bass part in and wrote around that.

In the Technique era the songs were largely written in the studio (with a few exceptions - Dream Attack, for example, was demoed by Gillian at home). and they would get to an almost finished instrumental track and then Hook would jam along to that.

For Republic, Stephen Hague was brought in as a producer to act as a mediator between Sumner and Hook, and he was under great pressure to try and get an album out the door to try and save Factory's ailing finances. There was no material ready to go as they had all been working on their solo projects and Hague recognised that there was no time (or money) to spend in the studio endlessly jamming, and so he tried to instigate a more professinoal songwriting approach on putting down an album's worth of basic demo tracks and working on them as the ideas came. This put Hook's nose well out of joint as he couldn't really write that way, and Sumner had to be locked in the studio flat over a bank holiday weekend to conplete the process of writing the lyrics without distraction. Hague ended up getting songwriting credits on the album as he had to fill in when they had run short of ideas.

Although I've always liked Joy Division, I never paid any attention to New Order (I couldn't tell you why). So I've been digging into their back catalogue recently, as well as some live performances. I don't think I've ever seen such sketchy performances from a professional band before. Actually, that's not quite fair. Morris is a machine on drums, Hook (mostly) delivers his bass lines, but Sumner always seems to play like someone who got told 5 minutes before he's in a band. Maybe that's the nerves/drinking you mentioned.

New Order's haphazard live reputation up until the 90s was a combination of Sumner's stagefright-induced intoxicatino and using technology that was not really reliable enough for live performances. Unlike most synth bands of the era like OMD, Depeche Mode and The Human League who used pre-mixed backing tapes or samples off the master tapes, New Order's synth and drum machine parts were played back live from the same machines used in the studio via Gillian (and occasionally Stephen) and sequencers. These would regularly let them down. In the Technique era they started sampling off the master tapes, but it wasn't until their late-90s reformation that the started using playback to any great extent. IT was around that time that Sumner had statred to clean up his act and get a bit more porfessional (though the years of previous exhuberance led him to need an autocue to remind him of the lyrics). Ironically it was this point that Hook started to go off the rails.

[buzby]

It's a bit of a shame they dismantled that anonymous/mystery image they had to the extent they did.  That cover photo for The Face showing a quarter of Stephen Morris' face was both a high point and a turning point.

Their faces (in distorted form), the bands name and title appearing on the cover of Low Life were all port of them signing to Warners/Qwest in the US. Low Life was an attempt to 'play the game' for Qwest in an attempt to build up an audience in America.

Gillian. I always wondered why she quit, didn't realise it was because her and Stephen's kid was ill.

Their eldest daughter Grace was diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis at the start of 2001, towards the end of the Get Ready sessions. Stephen's dad had just died after 18 months sufferng dementia. Stephen had his royalty cut on the album because he couldn't attend all the sessions down in Bath becuase of his dad, and when their daughter fell ill Gillian was given the ultimatum of either doing the tour or leaving the band to take care of their daughter. After she was forced out she then had to teach Phil Cunningham her guitar and keyboard parts and how to run the sequencers, and put up with the band rehearsing at the Morrises' home studio.

[Kankurette]

Wow. I had no idea both Gillian and Stephen were treated so badly. (And buzby, you are a fountain of New Order knowledge.)

[checkoutgirl]

Intoxicatino should be a real world.

God I was pissed last night. I was intoxicatino.

[jamiefairlie]

Thanks Buzby, appreciate your insight on this buddy. Love reading your thoughts.

I'll definitely check out Stephen Morris' books, I'm sure his take on the whole thing is totally different. Hook's books are actually remarkably brazen and you can tell he still feels very raw about the whole thing, and he appears to have no qualms in burning most of his bridges, and those he keeps don't exactly reflect well on him (the bit where he talks about what great mates he is with Keith Allen springs to mind).

I get what you're saying about Hook being able to write a good bass line but not a good song. It's actually difficult to pick apart who wrote what from his books, although in most cases he claims he came up with a wicked bass line and the rest of the song fell into place. To be fair, he has written some incredible bass parts, and I'd argue that the bass in JD/NO songs is a much more prominent instrument than it is in most bands.

Regardless, it's one hell of a story, I look forward to digging in deeper with some of the other books (like Morris' that you mentioned).

Although I've always liked Joy Division, I never paid any attention to New Order (I couldn't tell you why). So I've been digging into their back catalogue recently, as well as some live performances. I don't think I've ever seen such sketchy performances from a professional band before. Actually, that's not quite fair. Morris is a machine on drums, Hook (mostly) delivers his bass lines, but Sumner always seems to play like someone who got told 5 minutes before he's in a band. Maybe that's the nerves/drinking you mentioned.

Have a look at the Nov 81 gig here, they were pretty tight that night and at their most intense. Some of Steve's drumming is incredible.

https://youtu.be/wkMOcex57aw

[jamiefairlie]

I think the point made by Buzby is very valid. In JD and early NO, Hooky's bass is the central propulsive/melodic element of the song, it locks into Steve's drumming to create the core. When they started to use sequenced bass patterns, he was reduced to noodling around the edges and they lost their that special element.

[The Culture Bunker]

Peter Hook's playing on those Joy Division albums is the reason I took up the bass when I was 16, but I think his style wasn't complete unique. People like JJ Burnel and Barry Adamson were playing in a similar fashion, though perhaps with a more technical edge. Steve Morris was the secret weapon, really - he must have had the stamina of a marathon runner to get through a set that had songs like 'Transmission' in it.

[Darles Chickens]

What's an example of an early NO track where Hooky carries the song?  Only really being familiar with later stuff (and Blue Monday), I've always thought of his bass as little more than a instrumental counterpoint, with the synth bass driving the rhythm. It may have been a kind of signature sound, but I've never really been that convinced that it was particularly "essential" (as shown by the whole of the Republic album).

Anyway, no way was Hooky the best member of New Order, he's a total dick.

[The Culture Bunker]

What's an example of an early NO track where Hooky carries the song? 

'Age of Consent' and 'Leave Me Alone', maybe?

[jamiefairlie]

What's an example of an early NO track where Hooky carries the song?  Only really being familiar with later stuff (and Blue Monday), I've always thought of his bass as little more than a instrumental counterpoint, with the synth bass driving the rhythm. It may have been a kind of signature sound, but I've never really been that convinced that it was particularly "essential" (as shown by the whole of the Republic album).

Anyway, no way was Hooky the best member of New Order, he's a total dick.

Ceremony, Homage, Procession, Dreams Never End, Leave Me Alone, Age of Consent, Mesh, Cries and Whispers, Truth

Republic is awful though, not just down to lack of Hooky mind.

[Darles Chickens]

Listening now...

Age of Consent sounds like a totally different band to the New Order I'm familiar with.

One of the YouTube comments says: "I'm so incredibly jealous of anyone who gets to hear this song for the first time. Because my first time with this song absolutely changed my life. You lucky people, you. Goodness."

I feel privileged.  And it's a great song.  Thanks!