Ian Curtis and Throbbing Gristle

As a major fan of Throbbing Gristle I was rereading Simon Ford's excellent history of the group "Wreckers of Civilisation" the other day. Anyway I came across a section detailing the relationship between Ian Curtis and Genesis P-Orridge (leader of TG) and I thought it might be of interest to the forum. The article reports on aspects of Joy Division that I have not seen discussed elsewhere - in particular it appears to offer a new perspective on Ian's behaviour within the group.

Here are the main points raised by P-Orridge :-

1. Ian Curtis started telephoning Genesis on a regular basis soon after the release of TG's "Second Annual Report" LP in 1977. Ian and Gen had lengthy discussions about music, militaria, trangressive acts, sociopathic tendancies, depression and isolation.

2. In December 1978 TG released their second album "Dead on Arrival : The Third and Final Report". Ian became particularly obsessed with the track "Weeping" which P-Orridge had written as a kind of musical suicide note about betrayal and hopelessness. On a personal note I also love this track - it has a similar intensity to the stuff Joy Division did on Closer.

3. Ian was impressed by TG's second single "We hate you little Girls" and it's arty packaging on the Sordide Sentimental label. Soon after Ian and Rob Gretton arranged to release Dead Souls/Atmosphere in a similar package on Sordide Sentimental.

4. After seeing Joy Division live at Hemel Hempstead P-Orridge was shocked by the intensity of Ian's performance. Genesis says he feared for Ian's life from this night onwards.

5. Ian was becoming increasingly frustrated by the musical limitations of Joy Division. P-Orridge claims Ian told him that he would prefer to be in a band like Throbbing Gristle who were "more extreme, more violent, less musical, free of styles, and more electronic and avant-garde".

Certainly in interviews New Order have said that the "madder" the music got the happier Ian was with it. I can understand how as a TG fan Ian was at times frustrated by the relatively conventional nature of Joy Division's music.

Genesis claims that Ian and himself planned to stage a joint TG/JD concert at La Palais, Paris, after which they would both announce that they were quitting their respective bands to work together. The gig did not come off as Ian killed himself before it could be arranged.

6. Ian called Genesis on the night of May 17th 1980 (the night he committed suicide) and started singing "Weeping" down the phone. Ian was desperate and said he felt trapped by Joy Division and the upcoming US tour. Genesis concerned by this started ringing everyone he knew in Manchester telling them that Ian was going to kill himself - no one believed him.

7. P-Orridge has never agained listened to "Weeping" and on the advice of Brion Gysin, would not talk or write about Curtis for the next 10 years. Genesis only broke his silence on the matter when Psychic TV released "I.C Water".

How much of the above can be believed is a matter of debate. Genesis could have easily invented all this with the benefit of hindsight. However, if it is true, only in part, it is fascinating stuff.

New Order have denied that this is how Ian felt - but then they would say that wouldn't they ? Don't get me wrong I am huge fan of both Joy Division and New Order. It's just that had Ian lived I could picture him working with Genesis but perhaps having difficulty imagining him doing vocals on "World in motion" !

Yeah but Genesis has become a sad parody of his former self (unlike chris and cosey)....

At least this was my impression when I saw a Psychic TV show in SF in the late 80's...

His concept of "avante garde" apparently had degenerated to a 15 minute drunken rant on how much bigger his penis was than everyone elses and that we would all be lucky to "blow" him....really lame....

Never bought or listened to another TG or Genesis Pudge song/rant again...sorry.

The only one I have a hard time believing is #6, that seems a bit much. Otherwise, I've heard for years that Ian was into TG and wanted some of that sound used on the JD records, and it makes perfect sense that somebody close to the project was aware of the TG single on Sordide Sentimentale and liked it well enough, especially the packaging, to make the JD single happen. Gen was indeed a mess in the late 80s and early 90s, between heavy drug use, the end of the 'acid house' gravy train, the breakup of his marriage and heavy legal problems in England that forced them to leave without any of their stuff. Nonetheless he is a major figure in 'industrial' with an interesting history going back to the late 60s, and he is more together lately so I'm told. When TG was around they were very well known and Gen especially always had a lot of other artists that he was close to and wrote tons of letters (he is considered a pioneer of 'mail art' and appears in every anthology of it I have seen). Now that I think about it, the semi-military uniform 'look' of JD, their record packaging, and the subject matter of Ian's mature lyrics, especially 'She's Lost Control' and Ian's more out there, howling vocals are all similar in sensibility to TG at that time. The label too, the name "Factory Records" isn't far from "Industrial Records", which did come first, and Factory as a surprisingly successful indie label for the 70s had to be aware of the example of Industrial, which did very well at that time (some of the TG releases sold more than 100,000 copies, with quirky, guerrilla promotion tactics and unusual packaging of radical, dark, arty music).

Originally posted by Hydrapelican Yeah but Genesis has become a sad parody of his former self (unlike chris and cosey)....At least this was my impression when I saw a Psychic TV show in SF in the late 80's...His concept of "avante garde" apparently had degenerated to a 15 minute drunken rant on how much bigger his penis was than everyone elses and that we would all be lucky to "blow" him....really lame....Never bought or listened to another TG or Genesis Pudge song/rant again...sorry.

You ought to check the internet to find what good ole' Genesis is doing these days... can anyone say deluded freak? Wow, I was blown away. The guy like started his own religion with himself as the central figure (of course) and can't find musicians to play with because we are too rooted in music fundimentals... like beat, rythym, time, notes... Dude is messed up. People who think that they have in their possession a knowledge of something that no one else can figure out are whacked. Especially thinking that you are the only to understand music is really whacked. Basically 99.9999999% of the world is wrong, and he is right. All I can say is, I am glad I never obliterated my mind with drugs. Kind of like Ozzy, but you can understand him, which makes it worse. I, for one, would not believe one word he said, unless it was confirmed by a reliable source (one actually still on our planet).

Also, to any of you who are massive TG fans, they just released the 24 Hours of TG box, and a whopper of a box it is. 24 discs, all approx 60 minutes, all live, list price is like $250+ US, I can get it Vertigo in GR for $170.

Wolfmann wrote "You ought to check the internet to find what good ole' Genesis is doing these days... can anyone say deluded freak? Wow, I was blown away. The guy like started his own religion with himself as the central figure (of course) and can't find musicians to play with because we are too rooted in music fundimentals... like beat, rythym, time, notes... Dude is messed up. People who think that they have in their possession a knowledge of something that no one else can figure out are whacked. Especially thinking that you are the only to understand music is really whacked."

I've gotta defend the man here. He has not had trouble finding people to play with, he played some gigs recently and has put out several CDs of new material. He has always had a rather manic, all over the place writing style with a lot of obscure references and his own 'lingo', but that's his style, it doesn't make him crazy. Some of his writings are kind of amazing. He is heavily influnced by Burroughs and Gysin, and knew and worked with both of them among many others. Being on the cutting edge is not the same as being insane or deluded, and not all of his statements are intended to be taken as deadpan serious linear commentary. Music that avoids conventional beat and harmony ideas is not such a new thing anymore, there is plenty of mainstream popular music that is mainly samples. TG, PTV and other projects of his have always been a mixture of avant garde music and popular, conventional forms (just like the early Velvet Underground), and there is a rich history of experimental electronic music that uses no conventional harmony, rhythm, structure or sound sources whatsoever, but I don't hear anybody calling Xenakis, Cage or Pierre Henry crazy.

"Basically 99.9999999% of the world is wrong, and he is right."

The creation of art is not a right or wrong proposition. If one style is prevalent at a time and place, and someone comes along at that time and does something else, they don't have to be wrong to do that, even if the prevalent style is very successful and totally opposite. Personally, I love it when someone comes out of the blue with something that not only is made differently or uses a different set of concerns or content then the mainstream, or the hip underground in his case, but also kicks ass doing it. We need more of that. Great art can and does come from different styles and backgrounds at the same time. Gen has proven himself to be a highly influential innovator many times.

I could not have put it better myself Teleharmonium !

I don't disagree with your comments at all. I love to hear that people are stretching the boundaries of music. I just don't like it when the "experimental" people think that they are getting it and the rest of us are missing it. Experimental music, or fringe music is fine. Heck, if you listen to IALP, it has a lot of very interesting and different elements. Those things make the song great, but NO doesn't see themselves as having a corner on the musical creation process for writing it. Music is very subjective, and there is a creator and fan for everything musical under the sun. Those who like pop are no less for enjoying that style as we are for liking NO's style as some who like rap as someone who likes totally non-linear experimental music. That's all I was really saying. Gen has always been successful at creating something that suited his way he heard music in his head. All that does is make him yet another music visionary in a long line of visionaries. Ian was a true visionary, in my mind. NO has had their visionary moments as well. It makes him different, not better.

Wolfmann wrote "I just don't like it when the "experimental" people think that they are getting it and the rest of us are missing it."

I know what you're saying, and I don't like smug, superior attitudes either, but I can understand it very well in that particular case because conventional music really does stay within a pretty narrow area for the most part. If you surround yourself with experimental music, and get used to the really wide and deep pool of ideas that it has, or actually if you surround yourself with almost any other type of music other than pop music, the pop stuff starts to seem really shitty and limited in comparison after a while. It's such a breath of fresh air to get away from 4/4 songs with drums, guitars, samples and rhyming vocals. People from the pop world often can't see how limited their view is, while people from the experimental side often can't see the diversity and value of even that limited area that pop works in.

Yeah, I can see that. It's much better when people realize that diversity is what makes the world great. If everyone played music the way Gen did, there would be no dance clubs, just flail clubs people thrashing their bodies around like Ian did. It looks interesting, but I don't ever want to do it. Also, tele do you like The Art Of Noise. They have been one of my favorite bands for near 20 years. Their first album "Who's Afraid Of" is in my all time top 20. "Into The Battle" is sweet too.

Somehow I don't see Ian leaving the band and joining forces with Genesis P-Orridge. Not so much because it would be an odd couple (it probably wouldn't be), but because Ian couldn't possibly just "quit" the group. I base this on the fact that he was unable to sever ties with Debbie, in terms of a divorce. He may have been emotionally unattached to her anymore, but he was still unable to make the adult decision to end the marriage. Based on this admittedly amateur assessment on my part, it seems a bit hard to fathom Ian making a break with the band.

Of course Ian was driven to suicide by his inability to break off the marital ties with Debbie, so it's not impossible to see similar stress pressed on him by his band's restrictions. Joy Division matured amazingly during their brief life-span, but I can see where Ian might have looked around him and found some band or artists that were far more advanced. Ian seemed easily frustrated in everyday situations, and from Debbie's description of his early life may have been a bit spoiled. He wanted things sometimes before they could be delivered (think to the episode where he blasted Barney for not getting JD on TV, even though he was just a lowly intern or whatever), and Joy Division's musical progression may have been too slow for him. However, i don't think Ian would just give up entirely. He was emotionally invested in the success of the band, just as he was emotionally invested in his marriage. The fact that he proceeded to destroy his marriage but still cling to Debbie to the point that he just couldn't break it off with her seems to raise a lot of doubt in my mind.

W - I'm not that familiar w/ Art of Noise, I kind of remember them but I never checked them out at any length. My girlfriend has some of their stuff, I'll ask her about it. I remember that thing they did with Duane Eddy (love that Gretsch guitar sound of his).

The Art of Noise LP "The Seduction of Claude Debussy" is excellent - there is even a Joy Division link with the involvement of Paul Morley.

Tele, just find their first album - "Who's Afraid Of" and start with that. If you like it, start progressing forward until their sound gets a little too normal. I love most of their stuff. If you want, I could send you an mp3 or two to get you started.

I know she has that one on vinyl, so I'd check it out that way, I am not a big fan of MP3s. No high end. Thank you though.

Now I've got TG on the brain. Classic GP-O in between song banter:

"If I could, I would turn my amplifier up loud enough to kill everyone in this room, including me."

"Just like the Bay City Rollers, and the Rolling Stones, all of our songs sound the same."

I've wondered in the past whether anybody from JD was in attendance when TG played the Factory, in '78 IIRC. You'd think so. I have a lot of the original cassettes of the TG live shows, but I don't have that one, that might be the one thing to motivate me to buy the 24 hours CD reissue.

Originally posted by Taboo # 7 Somehow I don't see Ian leaving the band and joining forces with Genesis P-Orridge. Not so much because it would be an odd couple (it probably wouldn't be), but because Ian couldn't possibly just "quit" the group. I base this on the fact that he was unable to sever ties with Debbie, in terms of a divorce. He may have been emotionally unattached to her anymore, but he was still unable to make the adult decision to end the marriage. Based on this admittedly amateur assessment on my part, it seems a bit hard to fathom Ian making a break with the band.

I also think that Ian would have had an agonizing time trying to share the spotlight. Wasn't he the leader? The one who "introduced" several (if not all) of the members of JD to Kraftwerk, Velvet Underground etc?

I don't think that these two egos could have shared the same stage any more than they would have shared their drugs...

I do agree with many of the links between JD and TG...just not sure how much of them are fact vs opnion...

I'm also kinda surprised that noone mentions the linkages between early Cabaret Voltaire (also very experimental...and from Manchester (I think?))

Much of their early music sounds a lot like early JD which isn't so odd when you consider that they played gigs together...

NO morphed into dance kings (at least to most of the population thats what they are known for)

CV morphed into the originators (and still kings) in my mind of what I like to call "pissed off disco" or "paranoia pop"....at any rate kinda interesting that they evolved along parallel lines...

Ok ....I want to correct myself

Cabaret Voltaire are from Sheffield tho the rest of the stuff I'll stand by as my opnion!

Listening to Hamburger Lady last night, it seemed like something Ian would love. I really believe this all could be true, but could group it into the "print the legend" stuff this site relies on.

would need some more info on this i think... somes kinda of farfetched and bizarre that Ian would feel "trappped" in such an unadventurous and unexperimental band like JD ... and that martin hannett and factory allowed no room for his experimentalism

if Ian really wanted such an artier TG type outlet beside JD, with or without the guys in the band, he could have easily found it, i would think

Hydrapelican, I wonder what you are referring to as the early CV that sounds like JD, I think you must mean their '78-79 era sound, which isn't all that early for them. Their really early stuff, from around '74-76, is much noisier and more abstract than anything JD did and is kind of like TG from the same time.

PFD wrote "somes kinda of farfetched and bizarre that Ian would feel "trappped" in such an unadventurous and unexperimental band like JD ... and that martin hannett and factory allowed no room for his experimentalism"

I think Hannett would have been into it, and that it would have been the other band members wondering exactly what they were supposed to do if they weren't going to play their instruments, and the sentiments of JD fans, that would have been the problem with Ian taking JD in that direction. Factory wouldn't have been crazy about it either but they would have probably stuck with the band regardless IMO. Look at the more experimental and industrial sounding JD tracks - such as Atrocity Exhibition, which could easily pass for a TG song except for the use of real drums and the overly hi fi sound. Maybe the bass is a bit too competent as well, but anyway, what do you think the reaction would have been to an LP of songs that were all like that ? I'd say people that bought a record like that based on hearing Transmission and LWTUA would have been disappointed and even angry for being 'misled'.

The tracks on the b-side of the Komakino flexi (Incubation/As you Said) were recorded during the sessions for Closer. These tracks do not sound a million miles away from some of Throbbing Gristle's experiments in sound. It could be that this was the kind of stuff Ian was pushing for.

I think you're right Teleharmonium - most JD fans would not have been happy with paying for an album of this kind of stuff. However, getting them on the b-side of a free flexi is a different matter. Joy Division probably thought they could get away with this stuff on a free flexi.

Also New Order's "Murder" (another heavily TG influenced track) was quietly released on Factory Benelux.

Those b-side songs are instrumentals and Ian barely played an instrument. the band frequently credits him with orchestrating them, encouraging their better musical ideas, but he certainly relied on them to play the music and express a lot of his ideas. I wonder what more he could have brought to the table collaborating with Genesis P. Orridge. I think he was very lucky to have found the serendipidous combination of talents that are Steve, Barney and Hooky, who all have an uncanny knack to play with a lot of depth and variety of both sound and emotional expression together. This is as important to Joy Division as Ian, and it's part of what made New Order possible.

a

argh, my spelling and grammar is getting regrettable in my old age.

well, it may well be true that Ian was conflicted and upset about his life in the months before his death, to overstate the obvious... maybe he was apprehensive about how he was becoming a "rock" star, maybe Ian wanted to be more arty and punk in spirit... but then, at the time Joy Division was still hardly all that "big" in the grand scheme of things, the singles "LWTUA" and "Atmosphere" and the album Closer became mainstream "hits" or "semi-hits" after his death. and Joy Division was the only real success for Factory at the time. the "Factory would not allow the experimentation" theory strikes me as odd, was Factory conservative in their risk-taking? in hindsight, if Ian had lived, they probably would have let him release an album with him burping irish folk songs if he wanted, just to exploit JD and keep him happy.

and it is hard to tell what Ian would bring to Throbbing Gristle type project

Originally posted by teleharmonium Hydrapelican, I wonder what you are referring to as the early CV that sounds like JD, I think you must mean their '78-79 era sound, which isn't all that early for them. Their really early stuff, from around '74-76, is much noisier and more abstract than anything JD did and is kind of like TG from the same time.

Well I guess you can split hairs with dates and all (BTW...I have a decent collection of CV so I am aware of their early stuff as well) but here is how I did the math...

1974 to 2002 (Kirk and Mallinder are still recording...not sure what Watsons up to...kinda lost track of him after the Hafler Trio) equals 28 years so the first 5 can all be considered early....and sound more similar to each other than they do to anything produced in the 80's....Specifically I had the sound of Mix up in mind (No Escape is a kick a** song btw)

another similarity is that both groups suffered a loss of their primary songwriter (Ian for JD and Watson for CV)

Originally posted by Adam Tate The tracks on the b-side of the Komakino flexi (Incubation/As you Said) were recorded during the sessions for Closer. These tracks do not sound a million miles away from some of Throbbing Gristle's experiments in sound. It could be that this was the kind of stuff Ian was pushing for.I think you're right Teleharmonium - most JD fans would not have been happy with paying for an album of this kind of stuff. However, getting them on the b-side of a free flexi is a different matter. Joy Division probably thought they could get away with this stuff on a free flexi.Also New Order's "Murder" (another heavily TG influenced track) was quietly released on Factory Benelux.

Actually I think that most of JD's (and even NO) were heavily influenced by and can be traced directly to The Jesus And Mary Chain....industrial pop god....and a little by Oasis.

Oh and if you are wondering about the time discrepancy...then you obviously don't know about the Time Machine...and you all thought that was a tank parked at Stephen's home...haven't you seen Back to the Future?!!!!

;)