The Superior Icon is on the Bottom

Ian Curtis: Way cooler than that dead pope guy.

Ian Curtis, Genius: 15 July 1956 - 18 May 1980

As you can probably tell from the title of this blog, I am a huge Joy Division fan. Which is actually an understatement. The reasons for which someone should listen to Joy Division are many. Peter Hook's groundbreaking use of the bass as lead guitar. Stephen Morris's unstoppable drumming with its perfect rhythm. Even Bernard Sumner, who gave us what was probably the world's first listenable feedback-based guitar playing.

But these are really reasons to love New Order, which I do. Joy Division was and still is Ian Curtis. The wealth of iconic photographs of Ian certainly add to the mystique. Anton Corbijn, one of the biggest names in rock photography and music video directing, moved to Manchester from the Netherlands in 1979 precisely to photograph the band, especially Ian. Even before his death, Ian Curtis managed to be a mythic figure.

Now the reason for today's embarrassingly earnest post. Ian Curtis hanged himself at the house he shared with his wife and daughter exactly 25 years ago today, only one day before he was due to leave for Joy Division's first American tour. Humbling is the fact that he was only 23, the same age I am now. A lot of famous people have committed suicide, but none have spawned the cult of tragedy that Ian Curtis's death did. There is not another music legend like him.

He was not a drug addict, or even a heavy drinker. He didn't trash hotel rooms. He was exceedingly polite most of the time, and very respectful of women. He wasn't at all flashy; the clothes he wore on stage were the same clothes he wore to work, having outgrown green hair and leather jackets in his teens. He came from what was then a pretty bleak and economically depressed area, and he was actually quite old-fashioned. He got married a month after his 19th birthday. He wasn't perfect. He especially wasn't an ideal husband. He was moody and would display brief flashes of self-destructive and aggressive behavior. In general, though, he was shy and well-liked. Music journalist Mick Middles has said that in interviewing hundreds of people about Ian for his book, nobody had one bad word to say about him. Those closest to him were very protective, especially manager Rob Gretton and Peter Hook, who once went into a rioting crowd with a broken liquor bottle because someone had thrown a glass at Ian as he was leaving the stage, basically, to go have an epileptic seizure. And the band got along exceptionally well. Even with all of their early successes, there were not the usual ego-centered conflicts. They truly were happy just to be playing in a band together and receiving mutual recognition. The members agreed that all song writing would be credited to Joy Division, not any individual member. The only sign of "lead singer syndrome" Ian ever really exhibited, according to Peter Hook, was his penchant to disappear with Bernard Sumner when it was time to unload the equipment from the van, as Peter Hook affectionately put it, "skipping off like two fucking fairies."

Ian was not a likely poster child for the post-punk movement, but he now personifies it. He owns it.

A journalist recently asked Peter Hook what he thought about the common notion that Ian Curtis wasn't as "rock and roll" or bohemian as members of other bands of the time, like the Sex Pistols or the Clash. He made some interesting points in response: Those bands were middle-class. We weren't. It was totally derelict in Manchester at the time. Ian had a real job. He had to feed his family. He challenged, "I think that makes him more rock and roll, don't you?"

I couldn't agree more.

But Ian was extremely charismatic and seems to have made an enormous impression on nearly everyone he had ever met. People were often disconcerted, because he could give what is now known by the band as "the stare," with his unnaturally light blue eyes, that would stop you in your tracks. His intensity on stage is legendary. The head of his record label, Factory legend Tony Wilson, said that Ian was the only singer or musician he ever saw who had to be on stage. His onstage "persona" was not a persona at all. Off stage, he was just one of the guys, working-class and unpretentious. But on stage...well, you really have to witness it yourself. If a grainy DVD transfer can leave such an impression, I can't imagine what seeing it in person was like.

And that voice. There have been a lot of baritone singers, but I can't think of another whose voice gets under your skin like Ian's. He was a triple threat--his singing, his lyrics and his charisma as a performer were all extraordinary.

Although he could play the guitar, playing one live was out of the question for most songs. He w as in another world up there, oblivious to everything and everyone around him, a jerky, possessed ball of energy. Band members have noted that he would get himself especially worked up singing the frantic single Transmission, the song most likely to trigger a fit. It wasn't something the band ever talked about. They knew it was more personal than he was willing to share with anyone, even his best friends. Despite this, his bandmates have revealed that he "found" many of their classic songs while they were fucking around in practice--"Hooky, shut the fuck up. That's it." And so was born the famous opening bassline of Isolation.

Jesus, I am starting to sound like Tony Wilson, i.e., pretentious. Sorry, but restraint is not in order for this particular topic.

Which brings us to the lyrics. The lyrics are just un-fucking-believable. They hold up just as well on paper as they do in the songs. They're sophisticated, emotional, evocative and everything you could ever want from a rock song, or poetry, or any kind of artistic expression. Every song, too. He never wrote a stupid, or even average, lyric. It is painful to think of what he would have done had he lived: there were suitcases full of his writing. The lyrics to New Dawn Fades are some of my favorite. They clue you in a bit to what it must have been like inside Ian's head:

A change of speed, a change of style.
A change of scene, with no regrets,
A chance to watch, admire the distance,
Still occupied, though you forget.
Different colours, different shades,
Over each mistakes were made.
I took the blame.
Directionless so plain to see,
A loaded gun won't set you free.

So you say.

We'll share a drink and step outside,
An angry voice and one who cried,
we'll give you everything and more,
The strain's too much, can't take much more.
Oh, I've walked on water, run through fire,
Can't seem to feel it anymore.
It was me, waiting for me,
Hoping for something more,
Me, seeing me this time,
hoping for something else.

Hmmm, so a loaded gun won't set you free. So you say. Tricky bastard. And this is from his early period. Here are the lyrics to my favorite JD song, Twenty Four Hours, which was written later and adds a sense of finality to the desperation that clearly inspired NDF:

So this is permanence, love's shattered pride.
What once was innocence, turned on it's side.
A cloud hangs over me, marks every move,
Deep in the memory, of what once was love.
Oh how I realised how I wanted time,
Put into perspective, tried so hard to find,
Just for one moment, thought I'd found my way.
Destiny unfolded, I watched it slip away.
Excessive flashpoints, beyond all reach,
Solitary demands for all I'd like to keep.
Let's take a ride out, see what we can find,
A valueless collection of hopes and past desires.
I never realised the lengths I'd have to go,
All the darkest corners of a sense I didn't know.
Just for one moment, I heard somebody call,
Looked beyond the day in hand, there's nothing there at all.

Wow. These songs, with their themes of surrender and indifference to living, were written before the age of 23. So young and already spent. Sometimes I feel guilty for extracting pleasure from Ian's pain. But it's a curious kind of pleasure. At times it will overwhelm you, but you keep coming back for more. I don't think there are many casual Joy Division fans. It sucks you in completely.

The substance behind Ian's lyrics was completely off-limits; he refused to discuss their meaning, especially with regards to how they reflected his own life, with anyone. Not his bandmates, not his manager, not his wife. In hindsight, it's more clear where he was coming from. But he hid his feelings very well. He suffered alone, and the fact that this was self-imposed makes it that much more sad.

So, we come back to the reason this date is relevant. His wife Deborah found him. She describes this in her biography of Ian, Touching from a Distance, and the chilling details of the discovery are not something you soon forget. No one really knows why he did it. He left a long letter for Debbie, in which he wrote that he wished he were dead, but didn't say he would actually do it. He was having an affair with an increasingly clingy woman he met on tour in Europe, for which he had been busted by his wife a couple of months before his death. He had been obsessed with death, and the romantic notion of the artist who dies young, from an early age. And then there was the much-publicized epilepsy. He was afraid to hold his daughter because he worried that he might have a seizure and drop her. In fact he was having seizures on stage at nearly every gig in the last 6 months of his life. His life as the lead singer in the most emotionally intense band of all time (I stand by this) was the polar opposite of the quiet life he should have been living in order to control the disease. But he couldn't give it up. The life he had longed for as a kid was slowly killing him. And it didn't help that treatment for epilepsy at that time was primitive at best, just different combinations of depression-augmenting barbituates and hope for the best.

It is difficult to articulate the appeal of Ian Curtis and Joy Division. You just have to listen to their music, look at the photographs (some of the most beautiful and unsettling you'll ever see) and get your hands on the rare video footage. Ian Curtis was the center of that band.

There is no way to overstate the enormous impact Joy Division had on popular music. Several music writers have argued that JD is the most important band of all time, because they hijacked punk, a huge turning point in its own right, and steered it in a direction that is voraciously imitated but never duplicated--all the energy of punk, but with actual substance and actual ability to play musical instruments, and especially the addition of mood and atmosphere as key elements of rock music. Every hip new band is derivative of Joy Division or New Order. Listen to Interpol, Bloc Party, or Franz Ferdinand. The list of famous musicians who revere Ian Curtis and Joy Division is crazy long. There is a Curtis biopic in the works, and apparently every big-name actor is salivating over the part. Amusingly, the producers have turned down actor after actor for various reasons: Too short, too lightweight, too American. Deborah Curtis and Tony Wilson have full veto power. It should be quality.

And don't forget the contributions of his bandmates, who provided the soundtrack for one of the greatest performers of all time. Give credit where credit is due--these four lower-class lads from Manchester single-handedly invented post-punk and changed music forever. But they couldn't have done it without Ian Curtis.

RIP, Ian. You are not forgotten. Here it is, 25 years later, and cynical bitches like me are transformed into fawning fan girls by your music. You were on the cover of Mojo last month. Every lead singer wants to be Ian Curtis. If any artist ever deserved this normally ill-advised kind of reverence, it's you.

Something to consider: Don't think I revere Ian Curtis because he died young and pretty. It's not romantic, it's tragic. Depression sucks, epilepsy sucks. I revere him because he was insanely, hypnotically talented and set the bar impossibly high for everyone else (except Morrissey, of course--what is it about Manchester that spawns so much good shit? But, that's a topic for another time). Like I said, total genius. I don't say this about too many people, because let's face it, I'm a big snob.

A link to a good BBC story marking the anniversary of his death:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4545719.stm

**Note: How do I know all of this stuff? Am I full of shit? I've read just about everything there is to read about Ian Curtis and Joy Division, including his wife's painfully honest biography. The truth is mind-boggling enough.

John Tierney: Dumbass

I will try to keep this relatively short, and I hope this will be my last post concerning the rash of particularly ridiculous conservative viewpoints in the New York Times lately. Of course, I think all conservative viewpoints are ridiculous, so I guess I should refer to these as laughable. My disdain for David Brooks is well-documented. He seems like a nice guy, but his reasoning is crap. But the newest conservative columnist at the Times, John Tierney, puts David Brooks to shame. I've read three of his columns so far, and his track record isn't good. The first column is a dialogue (yes, you read that right!) between Tierney and his good Peruvian friend "Pablo." Pablo is proud of the enormous pension that he will receive as a result of Peru's wonderful private pension plan! Tierney is sad, because his measly Social Security checks won't help him maintain the lifestyle to which he is accustomed. Putting aside the fact that Tierney surely won't be reliant on Social Security for his retirement, there is also the fact that SOCIAL SECURITY WASN'T DESIGNED TO KEEP OLD PEOPLE IN VELVET SMOKING JACKETS AND CUBAN CIGARS! The reason some of us are opposed to privatization is that radical conservatives/libertarians want to ELIMINATE the New Deal and the legacy of FDR. The libertarian Cato Institute, who advocates the exact plan that Bush is pushing down our throats, has not been shy about this, either. And what about dear Pablo? Are we supposed to believe that Peru's system is a shining example for the rest of the world? Funny, I've heard nothing about Peru's system except how corrupt and inefficient it is. But I guess that's the liberal media talking. Oh, and Tierney, the dialogue thing isn't clever, it's embarrassing. Leave the alternative column thing to hipster music critics half your age.

The next column was published the day after Bush's recent press conference on Social Security "reform." He takes everything that comes out of Bush's mouth via Karl Rove at face value and then proceeds to mock Democrats based on this assumption that everything Bush says is completely true. I'll pause here to let you snort with contempt. Behold:

"Democrats have good reason to be aghast at President Bush's new proposal for Social Security. Someone has finally called their bluff.
They tried yesterday to portray him as just another cruel, rich Republican for suggesting any cuts in future benefits, but that's not what the prime-time audience saw on Thursday night. By proposing to shore up the system while protecting low-income workers, Mr. Bush raised a supremely awkward question for Democrats: which party really cares about the poor?"

Let's review. Bush and the Republicans care more about the poor because he says so on prime-time television. Wow. OK!

Let's not even get into the various hidden and obvious reasons why Bush is full of shit on this. There are too many to count. Tierney's colleague at the Times, Paul Krugman, came out with a scathing attack on this humorous assertion within a few days. Maybe Tierney could take a few lessons from Krugman, who isn't even a journalist, for Christ's sake! He's an economist. At Princeton. Not only is he much, much, MUCH more informed than Tierney, a career reporter, he can also write a column that could get past my college editing professor. I actually felt embarrassed for Tierney, what with his extreme gullibility, the likes of which I haven't come across this side of NewsMax.com. The earnest title of this column? Bush as Robin Hood.

His latest column is titled Laura Bush Talks Naughty. This title is also without a shred of irony. He goes on to assert that Laura Bush really proved all those liberals wrong with her completely off-the-cuff (see, Tierney, irony isn't that difficult!) jokes at the White House press club dinner the other night. Why, it looks like she's not the prim librarian after all! She called herself a desperate housewife (god, how I love topical humor)! So many racy jokes! I can practically see Tierney fanning himself at this dinner. He goes on to use this performance as a metaphor for why the Republicans keep winning elections and why they hate Democrats for their "smugness." That smugness angle is so new, so fresh, John. The liberals at this dinner were experiencing what Tierney refers to as "cognitive dissonance" at such an unfamiliar sight. There is only one problem.

Laura Bush's totally hilarious jokes were written by presidential joke writer Landon Parvin. The same guy who wrote that charming routine for last year's dinner about Bush looking everywhere for those dang WMDs. Wow, you must be really embarrassed now, John!