Wordless Wednesday: Double Yellow Lines

Manchester Passion (2006)

Passion plays, the staged reconstructions of Christ's last hours, have been a ritual tradition of drama and song performed in Christian countries during Easter for centuries. In Gouda on Good Friday, 2011 a Dutch adaptation of The Passion, featuring well known Dutch language songs was broadcast on TV and has proved so successful that it has become an annual event ever since...but it all started, of course, in Manchester in 2006 with BBC3's Manchester Passion.

It's easy to dismiss something like Manchester Passion. With society at its most secular any attempt to celebrate traditional Christian values or approach the stories we have been told since childhood anew from an intelligent, contemporary stance has often been met with derision. It's a great shame really because, whilst I am not religious (I consider myself either agnostic or atheist depending on what mood you catch me in) the practice of faith and the stories told therein fascinates me. Manchester Passion sought to tell the story of Christ's betrayal and crucifixation live in the heart of the North West city on the evening of Good Friday April 14th via the songs that originated in that city; Morrissey, The Smiths, New Order, Joy Division, The Stone Roses, Oasis, James, M People and Robbie Williams provided the soundtrack to the key moments in Christ's final hours sung by an eclectic cast including Darren Morfitt as Christ, Keith Allen as the host and as Pilate and James frontman Tim Booth as Judas Iscariot.  

In between these dramatisations, cameras followed the procession of a giant specially made illuminated cross as it made its way from one end of the city to the other, with then North West Tonight anchor and reporter Ranvir Singh (now known nationally after ITV poached her for Daybreak and latterly Good Morning Britain) interviewing those accompanying it.

It's a great spectacle and, as a live event, was pretty flawless. Yes it's a teensy bit naff in places but that's perhaps to be expected. Through strong performances and those songs that set Manchester apart you can actually reconsider the stories that bored you during RE at school in a similar thought provoking yet entertaining manner as in Stewart Lee's excellent show What Would Judas Do? I defy anyone not to feel their spirit soar a little upon seeing Morfitt standing at the Town Hall clock tower singing 'I Am The Resurrection' to the wrapped audience down below in Albert Square.

Look out for Tony Wilson hovering by the burger van and Shameless star Chris Bisson as the ''Shameless criminal Barabbas'' Bez from the Happy Mondays was set to appear as a criminal in the van on the way to Pilate but bottled out at the last moment (he appears in the trails I believe) to be replaced by a Liam-alike. The whole thing is available to watch on YouTube.

At Christmas 2007, a Capital of Culture awarded Liverpool sought to tell the story of Christ's birth along similar lines with The Liverpool Nativity but that was shite and had more to do with Liverpool and its winning bid than it did with religion and so it has rightly been forgotten and consigned to the vaults. Unfortunately it's failure has meant that, unlike Holland, no such revivals of The Passion has occurred since - though Michael Sheen performed a 72 hour Passion in his hometown of Port Talbot, highlights of which appeared on BBC Wales and was similarly effective.

Wordless Wednesday : Love Will Tear Us Apart

Rapid Reviews : Chapter and Verse by Bernard Sumner

There's more than one side to any story and, when you consider the sheer number of people involved in the story of Factory Records, that makes for a lot of different angles.

Many of them are conflicting and perhaps the most famous of all the conflicting viewpoints is that of Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner whose bitter and acrimonious split as bandmates after a lifetime together (the pair met at school and were in both Joy Division and New Order, making up a musical partnership that lasted approximately 30 years) is still palpably felt to this day.

For his part, Hooky has written two books concerning his time with Factory; The Hacienda, How Not To Run A Club and Inside Joy Division. I've read both of these books and found Hooky to have a natural conversational approach to writing which meant these were easy and fun reads indeed. Unless of course you were Mr Bernard Sumner, who came in for a great deal of vitriol, venom and flak.

Now it's time to see things from Bernard's point of view with his debut autobiography; Chapter and Verse, New Order, Joy Division and Me

What is immediately apparent is that Sumner has none of Hooky's rough hewn 'Salford Oik' charm in his approach to writing. This is a more thought out, sensitive voice which, on reflection, makes you realise how incompatible the pair were.

It's a book that is in dire need of a better editor though. Tragically, Sumner's heartfelt writing style is almost immediately scuppered by lazy editing. Check out his comments on his mother, who suffered from cerebral palsy, and her strict maternal approach towards him, her only child, on page 15;

"To an extent I kind of understand the way she was with me. She felt trapped by her own disability..."

Now see what he says on page 16, just one page later;

"To an extent I understand the way she was with me....I guess she felt trapped by her disability..."

On the same page he goes on to say;

"I think she may have suffered from depression"

Fair enough. But he said this already on page 13;

"(She) Maybe even suffered from depression..."

At such an early stage in the book it really does hamper him and doesn't exactly bode well either. Equally Sumner's memory isn't perhaps the greatest and he proves to be something of an unreliable witness as he recounts how a reworking of their hit Blue Monday for an advert for the soft drink Sunkist in the 1980s was vetoed by their manager Rob Gretton meaning the ad never saw the light of day.

Except it did. I remember it well as a kid and it's actually on YouTube for all to see

He also offers, perhaps understandably, a completely different angle to some anecdotes Hooky has previously offered up in his books. One in particular being the time he left a Deep Purple gig because of a bad toothache. Hooky's version is that Bernard had the toothache and wanted to go home, but wasn't going alone and so, he made Hooky and the other friends there that night, accompany him, meaning they missed out on the gig. Sumner, in recounting this story, just says he left and makes no mention of whether the others stayed or went. Perhaps to hide his blushes?

I found his comment regarding Touching From a Distance the book by Deborah Curtis, widow of Joy Division's lyricist and frontman Ian Curtis, especially telling;

"I've read Debbie's book and, whilst it is the story of what happened, inevitably it is a view of events seen from her perspective, which was, understandably, not an objective one"

Why can't he understand that when it comes to both his own non-objective account of the New Order fallout and that of Hooky's? Because once he states that he goes on to give his account of what happened that led to the departure of Hooky from New Order. Now, if what he says Hooky got up to on occasions in the mid '00s is true then I can totally understand his frustration as it sounds like Hooky, both immediately prior to and immediately after a stint in rehab was a real pain in the arse. I don't dispute he probably was either. Yet interestingly in Hooky's rebuttal of Sumner's memoirs, he points out that a significant argument Bernard claims he had with Peter Saville never actually happened and, to prove it, he quotes Peter Saville as having no memory of this tiff either!

Overall, Chapter and Verse is a good read and nicely written but you do get the feeling that Bernard Sumner has a selective memory, especially given how many years he completely omits from the New Order story. He mentions getting up the noses of his bandmates down the years, especially at the height of their fame in the late '80s and early '90s but never once explores this divide with the same warts and all attention he gives the situation with Peter Hook. He discusses the hiatus with the band in the early '90s suggesting he wanted to try other things; that may be true but even I know that at that time he and fellow bandmates Steven Morris and Gillian Gilbert were hardly on speaking terms, which led to the husband and wife duo releasing solo material as The Other Two. So why no mention of that when he's happy to discuss his beef with Hooky?

But ultimately I think both men are highly likely to have equally selective memories and, after reading both accounts, I still just want to bang their heads together!

I believe Hook is now writing his account of the New Order years. Perhaps Steven and/or Gillian will write theirs and then we can gather a composite picture of what really happened?

Out On Blue Six : Saint Saviour

Beautiful and distinctive cover of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart from Stockton On Tees' angelic Saint Saviour

End Transmission

The Reckless Club

I don't know who is responsible for this wonderful mock up/art work so apologies that I haven't credited. But rest assured, it's superb!

New Wave Superheroes (and other business)

Fantastic art project from Butcher Billy at behance.net which takes post punk and new wave artistes and turns them into comic book superheroes

Other Business: You may recall how I said I had planned to serialise the novel I co-wrote in 2009 on this very blog, and indeed you may have read the first installment on Tuesday. Well regrettably, my scanner has crashed making transcribing the thing the only option. An option I don't really want to take right now as it'sjust too time consuming. Apologies for the prick tease *rolls eyes*

Out On Blue Six : The Other Two

The Other Two are a dance act and solo effort from New Order's husband and wife team Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert. 

They released two albums in the 90s, 1993's The Other Two and You and 1999's Super Highways

They also scored several TV shows including series 2 of Cracker and the pilot of Cold Feet for Granada, America's Most Wanted, and at the BBC, Making Out and Common As Muck (a series I loved as a teen and which I'm currently rewatching) So this is a bit of a Theme Time post too.

I love their music. Like New Order, and of course Joy Division before it, it perfectly encapsulates Manchester and the north at the time the music was released.

The riff on this one was used in the soundtrack to the BBC's excellent drama series Common As Muck

Whereas this track is essentially a remix of the theme tune for the BBC series but with lyrics

The origins of this one, Cold Feet, is self explanatory; coming as it does from their score for that show's award winning pilot/debut episode

End Transmission

Out On Blue Six : Joy Division

Continuing to rectify not playing some of my favourite bands often enough

End Transmission

In The Year Of Our Lord 1980

Antagonism between old Raging Bullring himself, Paddy Considine, as top cop Peter Hunter (based on John Stalker) and the rotten to the core local cop Bob Craven played by Sean Harris. The pair had previously played Joy Division manager Rob Gretton and lead singer Ian Curtis respectively in 24 Hour Party People

1980 another gripping 'chapter' in the trilogy, made all the more unnerving by the grafting of the real life Yorkshire Ripper case of the time and co-starring the great Maxine Peake. Anyone reading who enjoyed this film should check out the dramatisation of the real police squad's efforts to catch Sutcliffe entitled This Is Personal: The Hunt For The Yorkshire Ripper It's stupidly unavailable commercially, but again if you know where to look...

We Can Be Heroes

An occasional and random look at some heroes of mine. 

Number 1: Anthony H Wilson

Head of Factory Records, music innovator, businessman, club owner, zeitgeist rider and creator, journalist, writer, TV presenter and broadcaster, wit, intelligentsia, face of teatime news in Granada for a generation and Mr Manchester - proof that The North is better than anywhere else in the world. 

I love Tony and cried when he succumbed to cancer and I wasn't alone - an entire region, the music world and music lovers did too. A terrible loss.

One example of his wise words appears in the right of this blog. Examples of what he allowed to bloom musically appear everywhere daily.

Well I Never Thought I'd See...Joy Division and Mickey Mouse!

Was I the only one completely staggered, amused and bemused by the news that Disney had on the market a spoof T Shirt that mangled the iconic cover of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures with Mickey chuffing Mouse?!

Something beautiful created by geniuses for the intelligent and cultured

Something  bloody awful created by ignorant brain deads for ignorant brain deads.

It's caused such a fuss since the press got a hold of it at the start of this week that it's now been (rightly) pulled from sale.

I mean, what on earth was going through their heads? Do Disney even know Joy Division and their excellent music and history? Do they know Ian Curtis hung himself? Do they even know where the band got the name 'Joy Division' from? It's hardly cheery wholesome family fun is it?

Apart from all that, it has to be the most noxious godawful design that frankly insults the great original of the pulsar by Peter Saville.

Former Joy Division and New Order bassist and all round quick witted top bloke Peter Hook claimed in a press release that 'He'd seen some Mickey Mouse T Shirts in his time' (fnar fnar) and that he hoped Disney would be as happy for him to create his own Donald Duck T Shirt!

Mind you, this isn't the first time Joy Division has inspired some unusual merchandise and this one was actually sanctioned as official a few years back...

Trainers, really? Sadly yes, but even they are nowhere near as bad as some crappy misjudged cash in T Shirt!

Personally, merchandise wise, I think we'd all rather have and would get behind this...

Joy Division Oven Gloves by Half Man Half Biscuit. Joyous ;)




In other news; had another afternoon volunteering today. Visibly upset client suffered a panic attack and had to leave. Really broke my heart, felt so sorry for her. Hope she returns next week.