Hooky reviews Barney's book

Oh dear...

Fookin' 'ell I didn't expect this. I thought he'd maintain his usual reserved silence or be nice about it. A rare chance to hear from Hooky. 'In 1993 he fell out with Steve and Gillian over an interview where they said they wrote most of Republic.' - If booze-addled memory serves me right, back then there was talk of The Other Two writing most of 'Technique' while the other two indulged their suntans on the beach. Who the fuck would want to take credit for that piece of shit anyway?

Michael Monkhouse wrote: ... back then there was talk of The Other Two writing most of 'Technique' while the other two indulged their suntans on the beach. Who the fuck would want to take credit for that piece of shit anyway?

Technique=piece of shit? Bold statement Quite right about Republic, though.

I have absolutely no interest in the opinions Neworder's previous bass player.

I've noticed recently that i've not had the "UNAUTHORISED ITEM IN THE BAGGAGE AREA" for some time when i've used the self service things in Asda.Bit odd..But hey ho.

But i have had really weird dreams lately.One dream i had involved Alison Goldfrapp stabbing and murdering a female singer in another band ( can't remember which band) and becoming a fugitive on the run.Very odd..But hey ho.

Bill wrote: I've noticed recently that i've not had the "UNAUTHORISED ITEM IN THE BAGGAGE AREA" for some time when i've used the self service things in Asda.Bit odd..But hey ho.

But i have had really weird dreams lately.One dream i had involved Alison Goldfrapp stabbing and murdering a female singer in another band ( can't remember which band) and becoming a fugitive on the run.Very odd..But hey ho.

huh?

😂

They're all in league ya know really. It's a conspiracy!

Actually feel most of Hooky's observations are fair here

M1 wrote: Actually feel most of Hooky's observations are fair here

Have to agree too - I am neutral and enjoy (new) New Order and Peter Hook and the light and have seen both play gigs (both brilliant).

I was massively disappointed by Barney's book in relation to New Order - it is mostly very superficial and no real deep insights at all, was looking forward to hearing about the making of all the albums and more references to playing live etc.. Better than nothing though I guess... :)

M1 wrote: Actually feel most of Hooky's observations are fair here

Yes but are they motivated by a desire to tell the truth or stir the shit?

Bernard could have ended up as Syd Barrett or danny kirwan , with the touring , leading the band, loss of love and loved ones , and partying , rendering him incapable of going on. I am grateful he survived and now enjoys his life. Since his about face he has been fabulous on about 100 songs. And I am 100 percent positive the new songs will be fabulous as well. Syd and danny luckily wrote fabulous songs before they could not go on. Songs by kirwan and Bernard I never tire of . Can't say that about anyone else in music

Hook's analysis isn't a million miles from my own and whatever the truth, Hook's book will almost certainly be better by being more factual, more technical and more humorous.

As far a Republicgoes - which isn't very far - I seem to recall at the time that Steve and Gillian worked on a lot of the album by day with Barney working with Stephen Hague at night and Hook only being called for on occasion. Much of the publicity at the time was not done by Barney.

Republicis the sort of album that was bought by people who were in the Brittanica Music Club and is one where any band member would want to disassociate it from themselves. Wilson made negative remarks about the album while it was being made 'by the inner circle' and Hook stated recently that it is 'not really a New Order album'.

Hook won't tour it, so Republicisn't worth a light, so to speak :)

JG wrote: For example, that Peter Saville tirade....anyone who's met PS will know he's the most polite and inoffensive guy you could ever meet. A real gentleman. If Hooky phoned up, PS is the kind of guy who might take a line to avoid a confrontation. Especially with a hot head like Hooky. Hooky was probably too drunk to remember it. And it did happen.

Surely then if you read the piece like you say you have, then you would have seen this:

so I phoned Peter. “Pete, I’m really sorry if I did this but I can’t remember,” and he said “No, I don’t remember it either. It didn’t happen and I’ll tell you why I think that. If we had fallen out we would have had to make up and that I would definitely have remembered.”

If it did happen (how can you claim that by the way, as I'm assuming you weren't there..) then why would Hooky make that up, knowing that his comments would be picked up globally? And thus could potentially land Peter Saville in hot water whilst doing so? It looks to me like he read that part of the book, genuinely could not recall it and was maybe embarrassed by it, called up Peter Saville to get the facts and Saville has told him it didn't happen, and must surely have given his permission for Hooky to quote him on it. But oh no it wouldn't be like Saint Bernard to make something up to sell his book & further enhance his apparent character assassination of Hooky now would it....

There are 2 sides to every story. Hooky's response here is very measured considering the circumstances & the lengths to which Bernard goes in his book to 'slag him off' as you Brits put it.

The apparent delusion is a bit sad, I agree - is Hooky genuinely not getting that Barney's apparently new-found happiness might just be due to the fact that he doesn't have to deal with Hooky any more..? Or is that simply not a possibility in Hooky's mind? He seems to imply Barney is pretending to be happy to make more money, which is a fairly paranoid position to take.

Curious to know just how exactly can he feel justified in being hurt at the spiteful and cruel treatment after the unfettered slagging Hooky has been slinging over the last few years. I've not finished Barney's book yet, but I've not yet read him calling Hooky a cunt or twatto yet.

Also, according to setlist.com, BL never played more than 3 JD songs in a set, more often they’d play just 2 out of 15 or so songs. OK, yes they'd do some NO stuff as well, but the point being made is that BL didn't rely solely on nostalgia or back catalogue when gigging - and every single Light gig relies entirely on nostalgia - not a single new note played in over 5 years. How can he counter that argument?

And for future reference - JG's info is invariably very good!

I'm going to stick my neck out hugely and predict that when New Order release their new album Hooky wont like it.

Republic isn't a terrible album and it has got some decent tracks, but coming from where they were in 88/89' with Technique they hadn't move their sound on much at all, infact they were starting to retread old ground and the album was the first one of theirs that contained tracks that simply weren't good enough ('Liar' is the must obvious one that springs to mind). It was far too conservative in it's approach. The choice of producer was made to keep the band together and 'get-on', whereas they needed a producer who could take them to another level - despite their internal issues - and was never going to be Stephen Hague. This conservatism sadly followed in the remainder of their London Albums, which were patchy and indifferent. A mixed bag.

New Order were tailor made for the 1990's, they could of released a sparser, electronic/ambient sounding album - still with bass - a bit of an update of their PCL era of their career, but they blew it with Republic. They went down the wrong path. To be fair to them, they went for the money after the strain of Factory and weren't focused enough as their were too many distractions, which was understandable.

The best Neworder album was the one they never made, which is why I regard Neworder much more of a singles band, kind of the opposite of their previous incarnation.

It will be interesting to hear what Hook states in his book regarding the end of Factory era, musically speaking, though obviously that's just one members opinion.

Can't Steve do a book as well? :)

The usual guff from Hooky but these days it would be unusual if not so. Every so often he comes out with a corker like "I have to admit that I only have myself to blame for this because it was me that started the whole bloody book thing in the first place. So typically I brought it on all of us." - so if anyone else should write anything in book format on the subject, they must be copying him? - or "The reason, in my view of events, I split the band was that regarding Bernard I came to a point where I could no longer tolerate his behaviour." - but the band is still there. Should that be split from the band - or are we to believe Hooky is the only one in step?

I still love Republic after all these years. It contains my favourite NO songs of all time. I even like Liar - (kind of a mischievous song, which contrasts with the melancholy, if that's the right word, of the rest) - which seems to me where the album got its name from, though maybe my imagination is on overtime there. Yet I never thought of it as an album with less of Hooky. To regard Republic as not a New Order album is like saying the sky would be better in another colour, or the atlantic should be narrower or something … it couldn't be changed, without changing so many other things, the idea is meaningless.

republic is most sophisticated, and the show in montreaux 1993 captures new order magnificently. bernard is stellar in his red plaid shirt singing ' temptation' and 'everyone everywhere' , etc. and if only they had played ' special'. those republic songs are ultra-modern cole porter/gershwin/ j mercer/wodehouse/kern/berlin/arlen styled wonders for the likes of nat king cole or ella . . meanwhile, i wish 'top gear' would approach bernard and peter , as the reflections of long trips over and beyond the pennines, or to brighton and back on the lambretta seem remarkable and almost tender . 'star test' featured bernard way back then, also.

keepitcoming wrote: republic is most sophisticated, and the show in montreaux 1993 captures new order magnificently. bernard is stellar in his red plaid shirt singing ' temptation' and 'everyone everywhere' , etc. and if only they had played ' special'.

They did play Special, it was edited out.

Republic is crap and we've had over twenty years to come to terms therewith. In the words of Gordon Ramsay, fuck it.

keepitcoming wrote: republic is most sophisticated, and the show in montreaux 1993 captures new order magnificently. bernard is stellar in his red plaid shirt singing ' temptation' and 'everyone everywhere' , etc. and if only they had played ' special'. those republic songs are ultra-modern cole porter/gershwin/ j mercer/wodehouse/kern/berlin/arlen styled wonders for the likes of nat king cole or ella . . meanwhile, i wish 'top gear' would approach bernard and peter , as the reflections of long trips over and beyond the pennines, or to brighton and back on the lambretta seem remarkable and almost tender . 'star test' featured bernard way back then, also.

bernard is god, he do beatifulll songs i love him was lucky enough to make a wanck in a pub bar while confusion was playing in the next room it was a fabulous moment. peter god too lovely beard i was blessed to hear him say fuk off to me heaven such a moment also gillian, gillian lovely girl she's so humble strong and magnificent and stephen too. sometimes i feel happy to live in a universe where I'm a leprechaun in leopard-skin Lederhosen, shrinking ever further whilst the furthermost eons of the galaxy swirl and furl and curl amidst the echoing walls of my psyche, only to crystallize into the faces of the Welsh rugby team discussing limpid lizards who then metamorphose into the thighs of my father's lurid Labrador snivelling rabes onto the canvasses of Hieronymous Bosch's demonic plague besieging the walls of Troy till the wooden horse explodes into a thousand tiny fragments splashing into the sun.

komakino wrote: As far a Republicgoes - which isn't very far - I seem to recall at the time that Steve and Gillian worked on a lot of the album by day with Barney working with Stephen Hague at night and Hook only being called for on occasion. Much of the publicity at the time was not done by Barney.

Republicis the sort of album that was bought by people who were in the Brittanica Music Club and is one where any band member would want to disassociate it from themselves. Wilson made negative remarks about the album while it was being made 'by the inner circle' and Hook stated recently that it is 'not really a New Order album'.

Hook won't tour it, so Republicisn't worth a light, so to speak :)

Hmmm... Feels like I've been here before but I got the impression Republic STARTED as a classic NO LP with Regret, Everyone Everywhere and Special... No coincidence that (some of) these were namechecked by Hooky in '92 and by Steve in '93 as the first and most significant tracks. No coincidence either they're the only ones played live, except for the singles which are kinda mandatory. But as they fell further and further apart it turned into a Hague / Sumner indulgence. There were rumours round the time that it was essentially a solo effort by one member and the member in question was hardly Hooky - journalists also commented on its closeness to 'Electronic' rather than 'Technique'. Strange cos I love 'Lec and fucking hate Rep. And I think Hooky said he will tour it... And that isn't as bizarre a prospect as you might think! Remove Avalanche as The Other Two and exactly half the songs were played on the '93 tour (Regret, RIAD, World, Ev Ev, Special). And while Hook's low is the final mix he spends most of the gigs singing rather than playing - in fact paradoxically, Hague's ideal of singing with bass around it is just right for The Light!

NotAMod wrote: (Republic) charted reasonably well too).

So do One Direction. Success does not mean quality.

Michael Monkhouse wrote: leopard-skin Lederhosen.

Surely a contradicition? Perhaps Leopard print lederhosen.

keepitcoming wrote: republic is most sophisticated, and the show in montreaux 1993 captures new order magnificently. bernard is stellar in his red plaid shirt singing ' temptation' and 'everyone everywhere' , etc. and if only they had played ' special'. those republic songs are ultra-modern cole porter/gershwin/ j mercer/wodehouse/kern/berlin/arlen styled wonders for the likes of nat king cole or ella . . meanwhile, i wish 'top gear' would approach bernard and peter , as the reflections of long trips over and beyond the pennines, or to brighton and back on the lambretta seem remarkable and almost tender . 'star test' featured bernard way back then, also.

Beautiful words.

But we know what you really mean to say is " I love Bernard so much, I wish to slice him open and wear his skin".

Debaser wrote:

Michael Monkhouse wrote: leopard-skin Lederhosen.

Surely a contradicition? Perhaps Leopard print lederhosen.

You're right. It made sense before.

Indeed!