version

Well-known member
not no chords ever

but definitely less often than you would usually find in a nominally rock band

Yeah, it actually makes She's Lost Control sound a little muddy in that clip to my ears. You get so used to these very stripped back lines and being able to clearly hear each element that it's a bit jarring to get those chords covering up the bassline.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
come to think, not strumming chords may be at the core of certain kind of cool guitar music

Can, JD

the opposite would be total chord

Spacemen 3's 3 chords good, 2 chords better, 1 chord best ethos
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
fascinatingly, not playing chords and only playing chords both seem to be ways to express that your favorite band is The Stooges
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
possibly the entire history of cool guitar music (by white people, anyway) resides in the dialectical tension of the no chords<->only chords axis
 

luka

Well-known member
I don't like pil they're too waffly. You don't have those clean lines of intent you get with joy division. They're not a real band, more a jam session between strangers.
 

subvert47

I don't fight, I run away
Joy Division.

How did you discover them? How did they connect/disconnect?

What do they mean to you and to the world?

I probably first heard them on Peel, which would be 1978/79 I guess. Not in time to pick up An Ideal For Living; I did get the Factory Sample EP. Anyway, for me it's all about Unknown Pleasures and Martin Hannett's genius spacious production. Forty years on, I still listen to that LP regularly. The two tracks on Earcom 2 are also excellent. (Whereas Closer is nowhere near as good, IMO, and I'd be happy if I never hear Love Will Tear Us Apart again.)

I saw them play at least a couple of times. They were more straightforwardly rocky live, where Barney was often quite the guitar hero. Just take a track like Shadowplay, for instance, and imagine that guitar line screaming out of a big rig. What made them unusual was Peter Hook's leading bass and their comparatively slower tempo (Steve Morris was basically a slowed down version of John Maher).

Yes, they were important at the time but not so much more than a lot of other groups. Late 70s post punk was an incredibly fertile period. Joy Division just have the dubious benefit of Ian's suicide giving them mythic status, a lot of which is now overemphasized retrospectively.
 

version

Well-known member
no one ever said he wasn't a sharp dude

Yeah, big fan of George. Always came across well and was apparently a genuinely nice bloke, paid off loads of random people's debts and all sorts and never made a big fuss about it like some celebrities do.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I started with New Order circa Blue Monday and worked backwards.

John Peel played the Joy Division Peel Sessions again in the mid 80s and that was a big deal for me.

They benefit from having a really small discography I think. One proper anthem, two decent albums. One iconic image for t-shirts.
https://thehardtimes.net/music/t-shirt-vendor-accidentally-uses-back-of-joy-division-album/

I listened to them a lot but I think I generally preferred New Order tbh.

"Touching From a Distance" the Deborah Curtis book put me off Ian a bit.

This is great:
http://seagullscreamingkillherkillher.blogspot.com/2005/12/joy-division-unknown-pleasures.html

And I hate it, but a suicide is just perfect for alienated youth.
 

martin

----
THE CHICKEN WON'T STOP
-< -< -< -< -< -<
-< -< -< -<
THE CHICKEN STOPS HERE



"New Dawn Fades" is the best song ever.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Just remembered that Isolation was alleged to be what inspired the woman who worked for Casio who wrote the drum pattern which gave us Sleng Teng too.
 
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subvert47

I don't fight, I run away
it was them and Public Image Ltd as twin leaders of postpunk

That is such bullshit – and I'd offer your own excellent book Rip It Up And Start Again as evidence as to why.

Incidentally, while I'm at it, re your piece in The Wire #427:

blissblogger said:
You see, growing up in the post-punk era, we were all indoctrinated with less-is-more.

What utter drivel!

I'm guessing, since you mention the Gang of Four specifically, that you're thinking mostly of Entertainment there, but that stripped back sterile production was very much atypical of their sound live or indeed on record. The earlier Damaged Goods EP is far more representative – and their second LP, Solid Gold, is just one massive crang fest.
 
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