Joy Division - New York, 1981: Ian Curtis (front), Bernard Sumner (back left), Peter Hook (back ctr.), Stephen Morris (back right)"In a sense, it all began with that Sex Pistols concert at the Trade Hall; if Hooky and I hadn't been there, who knows where we might be today." - Bernard Sumner, Joy Division in an interview with [i]Rolling Stone, 1985.
To borrow the quote, "You ain't whistling Dixie there." In a sense, Sumner's correct: it did begin there. Now, to be fair to the music gods, only 42 people showed up at the Manchester Lesser Free Hall to watch that Sex Pistols concert but when you consider some of the people who were there, it makes you wonder how the music gods could've missed that bit of history...
Inspired and emboldened by the concert, Sumner and close friend Peter Hook decided to join together and form a new band; as Sumner already had a guitar, Hook (or "Hooky" to his friends) decided to go out and buy a bass, as noted by Hook in an interview with NME back in 1987:
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Hook: After we saw the Sex Pistols that night in Manchester, we decided to try our luck at forming a band. Barney already had a guitar of his own, so I went out and bought a bass guitar to go along with him. Of course, the bass that I bought came with a speaker that was so cheap I had to turn the volume up really high just to hear my own bass. And of course, the reason I had to do that was because Barney played his guitar so bloody loud to start with that I couldn't hear myself playing.--Interview With Joy Division, 1987
However, they still lacked a few other parts of the musical puzzle that eventually became Joy Division: a drummer and a vocalist. While they started with drummer Terry Mason, soon dropping him from the band for various reasons, it wasn't until an advertisement at a Manchester record shop that the biggest piece of the puzzle came into place.
...A Riddle Wrapped In A Mystery Inside An Enigma...Quote:
Henry Rollins: The first time I ever met Ian was in D.C. in mid-1980 at the 9:30 Club, which back then was in the middle of Washington D.C. I was still with State of Alert at the time and we had just finished our set and they were introducing this English band named Joy Division and I went out and watched them and two things stay in the mind from that concert...one, that these guys know how to fucking play! and two, who the hell is that whirling dervish up there?
Years later, though, when I went to England, one of the first people I looked up and visited was Ian Curtis in Manchester; we had a very long visit and talked about a lot of stuff. Quite surprisingly Ian's a very friendly, well-spoken person. He just comes across to those who've seen him in concert as this unbridled mess of energy that just explodes out into the audience with waves of energy and passion; off the stage, he's quite the opposite. - A Mad Dash Of Music: Introspective Exhortations And Geographical Considerations 2008
Joy Division's Ian Curtis in concert at the 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C., May 1980Some regard him as one of England's premier independent and alternative music producers...some regard him as being one step removed from being England's version of Howard Hughes in regards to his introverted self and manic privacy streak, but whatever you say about him, Manchester native Ian Curtis has definitely left his mark on the British indie music scene.
While several mainstream British acts as The Police, Dire Straits, Billy Idol and others may have defined the Second British Invasion, a good swath of the music industry back in Britain will tell you that had it not been for Ian and Company back in the late 70's and early 80's getting their foot in the door of the American music scene, most of those other bands might never have made it in America themselves. Think of it in D-Day terms: if the Second British Invasion were the troops landing on the Normandy beaches, Joy Division were the pathfinders at the head of the line...
Born in Macclesfield, Ian's first contact with those who would eventually become a part of Joy Division was, like for the other 42 that night, at the Sex Pistols gig in Manchester...
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Ian Curtis: The first time I met Bernard (Sumner) and Peter (Hook) was in Manchester back in '76 when the Sex Pistols played at the Trade Hall; I was still trying to sort out what I wanted to do with life at the time and was trying to balance my day job, my music and my marriage and we got to talking about possibly forming a band but I guess nothing (ever) came of it at the time.
Then, one day, I'm walking down this street in Manchester; I'd just been to a City (Manchester City) football match and decided to stop in this record shop - Virgin Records, as I recall - and on the wall as you walk in there's this job board of sorts. I spent a few minutes looking at it and there's this paper from a band looking for a vocalist. Well, I knew I didn't have much of a chance if I stayed with my own band, so I grabbed the paper and when I got back to my flat, I called the number and asked if they were still looking for a vocalist. Bernard was the one who answered and he said they were, so I said, 'where do you want to meet?' - Ian Curtis, An Introspective, 2012
After a brief conversation, Curtis was brought into the band without having to audition; the core of what eventually became Joy Division was now set. Of course, of equal importance as we continue along is how they came up with the name Joy Division in the first place...
