Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division by Peter Hook

On 25 January 1978 four lads from Manchester performed their first gig under the name Joy Division. On 18 May 1980 their lead singer, Ian Curtis, committed suicide, bringing their career screeching to a halt. They later regrouped as New Order, wrote the biggest-selling 12" single of all time, founded the first superclub in the UK, wrote the only decent England World Cup football song, created The Killers (sort of) and broke up acrimoniously. Several times, although their latest split (in 2007) seems to be permanent. But it all began back in the late 1970s with four guys and their instruments playing in dingy, dark pubs in the north of England.

Joy Division are one of the bands that shook the music world. Formed after seeing a Sex Pistols gig and given early encouragement by the Buzzcocks, Joy Division rapidly eclipsed both bands in musical craftsmanship and critical acclaim, although commercial success eluded them for a long time. They only briefly tasted the fruits of success thanks to the success of the single "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and their second album Closer, both released after Ian Curtis's suicide. The band's influence was huge and long-lasting: Radiohead, Manic Street Preachers, Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Moby (amongst many others) were inspired by Joy Division and would cover their songs or perform alongside them in their later guise as New Order. Other bands, such as Interpol and Editors, would base their sound more directly on Joy Division, to great success.

The story of Joy Division is bound up in the story of Ian Curtis and the story of Factory Records, that great Madchester outfit which brought so many great musicians to public notice. It's a story that has, over the course of forty years, been mythologised to a great extent, with Ian Curtis held up as a tormented soul, a wounded poet and artist-genius too good for this world etc etc. This mythologising would be fine except for the fact that most of it was done by people looking on from the outside or long after the fact. It wasn't until 1995's Touching from a Distance, written by Curtis's widow Deborah, that a more thorough and human perspective was brought to events. Two feature films have also explored the period: Michael Winterbottom's Twenty-Four Hour Party People (2002) is good but its comedic elements and the fact it tried to cover the entire history of Factory in a limited timespan meant the Joy Division era was given relatively little coverage; Control (2007) is far more in-depth and intricate, but it focuses more on Curtis's marital problems than his life in the band.

Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division provides another viewpoint of the band. Bassist Peter Hook, always the band's most garrulous and painfully honest member, delivers a 300-page account of the band's history and does so in a readable and fascinating manner. Having been a Joy Division fan for over twenty years, I was pretty familiar with the story and thought that there was little else to learn. However, Hook's book is packed full of incidents and details that will be new to many readers. This is, after all, the first time we've had a book written by someone who was actually in the room when they decided to pick a new name, when they decided to recruit machine-like drummer Stephen Morris and when they played "Transmission" live for the first time at a sound check and stopped all of the other roadies and technicians dead in their tracks.

It's this inside perspective which makes the book a compelling read. Hook is a great story-teller but also a bit of a geek, having collected various Joy Division bootlegs and unauthorised recordings of gigs over the years. He provides a timeline mentioning every single gig the band played (where possible with setlists) and spends some time mentioning the gear he played with, such as the awful speaker which led to him switching to playing high notes so he could hear himself (and inadvertently giving the band their trademark sound). However, the majority of the focus is on the human story of the band and its curious internal relationships.

From left: Peter Hook, Ian Curtis, Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner.

Hook and Bernard Sumner founded the band, initially as Stiff Kittens and then Warsaw, in 1976 after seeing the Sex Pistols. They went through an early rotation of singers and drummers before recruiting Curtis and Morris. In early chapters it's very much Hooky and Barney versus the world, old school friends who taught themselves to play guitar and bass and achieved something special. But the long-simmering musical tensions between the two set in surprisingly early on. Hook admits that it was Curtis, initially solely and later in collaboration with visionary (but stark raving bonkers) producer Martin Hannett, who held the band together through these periods of tension and helped mould their sound into what made them so distinctive. The book's focus shifts gradually from the Hooky & Barney Show to being more about Curtis, whose maturing lyrical prowess and his growing ear for a memorable song led to him becoming a more and more important figure in the band.

A lot of the book is taken up by thoughts on the band and their musical direction, but also about their laddish tendencies: the juvenile pranks they'd pull on support acts or their willingness to chat up girls despite having wives or girlfriends at home. Joy Division have a reputation for being an artsy and doom-laden band, but on the road they worked hard and partied harder.

The book achieves a surprising emotional charge once Curtis is diagnosed with epilepsy. The flashing lights at their shows would often trigger fits right there on stage, but Curtis was adamant he didn't want to leave the band and demanded they keep playing. His bandmates would oblige. In the book Hook admits this was a titanic mistake, but their own urgent desire to escape their crappy jobs in Manchester and enjoy life on the road made them turn a blind eye to common medical sense. It's at this point you remember these guys were only in their early twenties when all of this went down, as was their manager. Hook admits to feeling guilty that they didn't do more to help Curtis, but it's also clear (from both this book and Touching from a Distance) that Curtis believed absolutely and utterly in the band and would not countenance leaving it under any circumstances. Ultimately the pressure of wanting to stay in the band, being stricken with a debilitating medical condition requiring a huge amount of medication and being in a failing marriage all took their toll.

The end of the book is abrupt, but then the end of the band was abrupt. In the opening months of 1980 the band recorded the album Closer and the singles "Atmosphere" and "Love Will Tear Us Apart". They'd recorded their first-ever music video and several appearances on TV. They hit a new level of critical acclaim and were booked to play a tour of the United States. They had a series of impressive new demos in hand (which would later become New Order's first few singles, including the magnificent "Ceremony") and they seemed poised to explode into megastardom. Instead, their lead singer hung himself at home whilst listening to an Iggy Pop record. The long-lasting appeal of Joy Division, beyond the fantastic songs, has always been that idea of a band forever trapped in that moment, with no bad songs or phoned-in albums to their name, poised forever on the cusp of greatness but having it denied by tragedy. It's a mythic image that even Hook cannot dispel with his down-to-earth stories of four mates having a laugh on the road.

But Unknown Pleasures (****½) is also a very human book, very funny at times, touching at others and mainly free of rancour (Hook saves that up - with interest - for its follow-up Substance, about New Order). It'll certainly make fans want to reconnect with Joy Division's back catalogue and check out Hook's thunderous live shows where he plays the albums by the band in full. The book is available now in the UK and USA.

Control

Control is the 'biopic' of Ian Curtis, the lead singer with the late 1970s rock/post-punk band Joy Division. Between 1977 and 1980 Joy Division were a number of bands who helped establish Manchester as a centre of musical excellence in the UK. They released two absolutely seminal albums - Unknown Pleasures and Closer - and a slew of hit singles and EPs, culminating in 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', which catapaulted them into the charts and set the scene for their first tour of the United States. But, on the eve of that tour in May 1980, Curtis committed suicide at the age of 23. A year later his bandmates reconvened, renamed themselves NewOrder, and went on to become one of the most successful bands of the 1980s. Control is Curtis' story.

Control is the first full-length film to be directed by Anton Corbijn. This is somewhat surprising, as Corbijn has been directing music videos for a quarter of a century, working with bands such as Depeche Mode, U2, Nice Cave, Bryan Adams, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mercury Rev and Coldplay, not to mention directing the 1988 re-release of the Joy Division song 'Atmosphere'. He is also a highly acclaimed photographer, responsible for the sleeve design and photography for, among others,U2's The Joshua Tree.

For this film, Corbijn chose to use his trademark black-and-white imagery. It may be a cliche - this is a dark and somewhat depressing film - but it works well, especially when compared to Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People which covers same of the same story in blazing technicolour. Still, I couldn't help wondering if perhaps Corbijn should have moved outside of his comfort zone and perhaps bled colour and black-and-white together as the film moves from the happy optimism of youth into darker and more suffocating territory.

The film opens in 1973 with Curtis still at school, showing him as a massive fan of David Bowie and falling in love with his first girlfriend, Deborah, whom he marries shortly after leaving school before getting a job working for the local unemployment office. He dreams of being a writer and a rock star, and hears about a local band called Warsaw founded by guitarist Bernard Sumner and bassist Peter 'Hooky' Hook, but they're lacking a singer. After catching a performance by the Sex Pistols, Curtis decides to join up, providing lyrics and taking over the microphone. A blazing trail of success follows: they change their name to the more successful Joy Division (the name of a brothel made up of Jewish women used by the SS in WWII, which immediately earns them the ire of some groups who accuse them of being Nazi sympathisers), get some performance slots on TV and record a successful debut album, Unknown Pleasures. Ian and Deborah also have a baby daughter. But, coming back from the band's first gig in London, Curtis is struck down by epilepsy. Unable to take the pressure of being in the band and in his job at the same time as suffering from his illness, he resigns from his job and Deborah has to bring in a living wage. During a foreign tour Ian meets and falls in love with a Belgian fanzine-writer, Annik, which complicates things even further.

A film like this lives and dies based on its performances and they are universally excellent. Newcomer Sam Riley gives a stunning performance of the haunted, intense Curtis. The only major criticism I have is that Curtis' sense of humour doesn't come through in his performance, but that may be more the fault of the writer. 24 Hour Party People and Deborah Curtis' book, Touching from a Distance, both make it clear that Curtis wasn't constantly down and depressed, but from this movie you don't get that impression. Deborah Curtis is played by the much more well-known Samantha Morton, who gives a sympathetic performance as the wife who is left behind when her husband finds fame (but not fortune) as a rock star. Another stand-out is German actress Alexandra Maria Lara (who was excellent in the 2004 movie Downfall), who plays Annik. Also of note is Toby Kebbell, who plays the band's infamously acid-tongued manager Rob Gretton, who provides much of the film's humour.

Control is a haunting movie consisting of stunning performances and a soundtrack to die for (the actors, impressively, actually play and sing all the Joy Division songs themselves). It makes for uncomfortable viewing at times, but is an engrossing piece of work.

Control (****½) is available on DVD in the UK at the moment. The US edition will be released this week.