Joy Division changed the face of music. The sound
of music. The meaning of music. Godfathers of the
current alternative scene, they reinvented rock in the
post-punk era, creating a new sound -- dark, hypnotic,
intense - that would influence U2, Morrissey, R.E.M.,
Radiohead and many others. The band's image, once
subversive and alienating, has become an internationally
renowned 'look' well documented by photographers Anton
Corbijn, Kevin Cummins and graphic designer Peter
Saville. Inspired by the attitude, energy and sound of
Punk, particularly the Sex Pistols, Peter Hook and his
old school friend Bernard Sumner started a band which
continues to influence popular music 35 years later,
uniting with a gifted lead-singer and lyricist, Ian
Curtis, and a brilliant drummer, Stephen Morris. With
some cobbled together instruments and a clapped out old
van, four young lads from Manchester and Salford shared
the same vision and created their own unique sound in
pubs and clubs first across the north-west, then across
the whole of Britain, until in 1980 they had released
two albums and were on the cusp of touring America. Then
Ian Curtis committed suicide leaving everyone around him
bereft. Best known for the propulsive bass guitar
melodies of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' Hooky was at the
heart of the sound that came to define an era and
inspire a generation. In the frank, no-holds-barred
style that has seen his previous book The Hacienda: How
Not to Run a Club hailed as one of the best music books
of 2009, Peter 'Hooky' Hook gives us the inside story of
life with Joy Division. He talks with eye-opening candor
and reflection about the suicide of Ian Curtis: often
seen as the "intellectual one", to Peter and the band he
was just "one of the lads" and the burden of balancing
his epilepsy and the demands of his domestic life only
really emerged when it was too late. He covers the
band's friendships and fall-outs; their rehearsals and
recording sessions; and the larger-than-life characters
who formed a vital part of the Joy Division legend: Tony
Wilson, Rob Gretton, Martin Hannett, and more.
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