È il nazional-socialismo a funestare quella che si presenta come la prima registrazione demo (su vinile) della band di Macclesfield. Anno di registrazione 1978. La sola copertina, raffigurante un adolescente esplicitamente vestito in tenuta da gioventù Hitleriana intento a percuotere la membrana della propria inconsapevolezza, esprime ciò che il disco cerca di voler imporre in maniera totalizzante. Un cd che si presenta subito sbiadito, nelle sfumature che scorrono tra un basso colmo di ossessione, ed una chitarra praticamente denudata della sua stessa anima.
Quattro brani:
-WARSAW: la leggenda vuole che questo nome fosse stato scelto da Curtis inizialmente come nome della Band, in onore di David Bowie, particolare che risulta irrilevante all'atto dell'ascolto e dello studio di quello, che per quanto mi riguarda, è uno dei testi più oscuri che mi sia mai capitato di dover interpretare. "350-125 GO!!" Con questa frase, che introduce il pezzo, si rimane attoniti, quasi stupiti dalla freddezza della voce di Curtis. Un ordine, o meglio, l'Ordine. Ecco che cosa si è appena percepito. Questa sequenza numerica, inserita ingegnosamente, consisteva nel numero seriale di matricola assegnato a Rudolph Hess nel carcere in cui scontò l'ergastolo impostogli dal processo di Norimberga. Hess era il più acceso seguace di Hitler, scelto, non a caso, per le sue esplicite tendenze e manie verso il misticismo che tanto affascinavano lo sfortunato Ian. Il sound e la lirica proseguono rigidi, a tempo di marcia, impettiti da un overdrive talmente ruvido, da superare il significato di crunch sino a sminuirlo definitivamente.
-"NO LOVE LOST" aspira ad essere un vero e proprio nesso tra quella che è l'anima dei Joy Division e il loro occulto modo di spingersi oltre il "macabro". Il titolo di questo brano venne scelto e sradicato dal romanzo "La Casa delle Bambole" di Karol Cetinsky, romanzo che influenzò Curtis anche per il definitivo nome della propria band. La schiettezza delle parole di Ian è favolosa: vi appartengono il freddo, l'oscurità e la desolazione del lontano 1945.
-"LEADERS OF MEN" affronta in vece in terza persona la figura del leader, di colui il quale compito consiste nel risollevare una borghesia suicida da un baratro di povertà e frustrazione mediante l'aspirante "Ideale per Vivere". Qui la voce di Curtis sovverte in una melodia accentuatamene stonata, quasi come se intenta in una parodia wagneriana.
-"FAILURES" appare in fine in tutta la sua essenza come la risposta negativa che la registrazione pone l'intento di stimolare. Spezzata a tratti, quasi volutamente incompiuta si afferma nelle vostre membra la certezza che non si può tornare indietro una volta cominciato il viaggio: nessun futuro. Personalmente, ritengo che questa sia una delle molteplici perle che i Joy Division abbiano lasciato. Ricca di fascino come una propaganda, suadente e dispersiva come un comizio. Gelida come la canna di un mitra alla nuca.
Il 25 ottobre dovrebbe finalmente uscire nella sale italiane Control, il film che parla della vita di Ian Curtis e dei Joy Division. Il film è già uscito in tutta Europa da quasi un anno, precisamente il 5 ottobre 2007. Io l'ho già visto in inglese 4 mesi fa e posso dirvi che è davvero un capolavoro.
Queste sono le parole di Natalie Curtis, figlia di Ian, riguardo al film:
I was about three when my mum first told me that my father, Ian Curtis - who died when I was one - was a singer, but it just seemed normal, like having an uncle who was a tradesman or whatever. I remember hearing Love Will Tear Us Apart on the radio and realising he was known in some way, but I never thought of him as famous. When I was growing up, neither myself nor my mother were in the public eye, and Joy Division were more cult than mainstream. The first time I heard their album Closer, I thought it was out of this world. I assumed all music was done with that level of style and intelligence. As I grew older, it was a shock to discover not everything was that amazing. Initially I was dead against visiting the set of Control, the film about my father's life directed by photographer Anton Corbijn. Although it took my mother's memoir, Touching From A Distance, as a starting point, books are read in private, whereas a film is something much more public, an experience shared with an audience. When filming began in Macclesfield, I declined the opportunity to go. Macclesfield was somewhere I'd always associated with lush, green, rolling hills and I didn't want to associate it with a film about my father's suicide. Gradually my curiosity got the better of me, though; after all, I did study photography and am interested in film. Also, I felt that seeing the process would make it easier to watch the finished thing.
In July 2006 I went to Nottingham, where most of the film was being shot. I was on edge. It felt too weird. A bungalow had been given a 70s makeover to recreate my parents' engagement party. Of course, I've no idea how realistic it was, because I wasn't born. I first met Sam Riley, who plays my father, outside the bungalow. Sam looked really sweet with his 70s Ian haircut; as it was the pre-band Ian he was playing, he wasn't the Ian Curtis we all imagine. He felt a bit awkward at first, I think. But I had a sneaky cigarette with him, so when I saw that scene where Ian says, "You can't be in my gang if you don't smoke!" I couldn't help but giggle.
In between scenes, I was introduced to Samantha Morton, who plays my mother. Later that night we got a call to come along to a restaurant in some dark, trendy club, and afterwards we went to the flat where Samantha was staying with her fiancé. She held my hand as we crossed the road, just like my mum used to do when I was younger - I think the cast saw me as the baby of the set, because I am the baby in the film. Samantha didn't have on the Debbie wig when we met, but we talked until dawn about her role and I saw her notes - thoughts and reflections on how to play the character. She'd made them from my mum's book, but also from her own experiences as a mother. She had her daughter at a similar age to my mother when she had me. She also had a "Debbie playlist" - songs my mother would have listened to in 1980, such as Bowie and Durutti Column's Sketch For Summer, one of my own favourites. Every day before filming, Samantha would listen to the music to psych herself into character. Spending time with her had reassured me; I knew that whatever happened she'd do a damned good job, even if she didn't seem quite like my mother. Both she and Sam are in their late 20s playing my parents in their teens and early 20s, so they seem older. I think the film has made Mum slightly dowdier, too - I certainly don't remember her wearing such awful clothes.
It felt odder when they started filming the band scenes in a Nottingham pub that was supposed to be Rafters in Manchester, where Joy Division played. I've grown up with black-and-white photos of the band - probably what attracted me to become a photographer - but suddenly they were there in front of me in colour, in 3-D and uncannily accurate. Harry Treadaway - who plays drummer Steve Morris - had previously played guitar, but none of the others had played instruments before. They obviously worked hard at getting everything spot-on. Harry took me to lunch and told me he'd perfected his Macc accent by recording local lads in a bicycle shop. The "pretend Joy Division" even had banter and in-jokes like a real group, and called each other by their characters' names: Barney, Steve, Ian and Hooky.
We talked a lot about their roles; they were particularly interested in some research I'd done for the writer, Matt Greenhalgh. My father was diagnosed with epilepsy in January 1979, and looking into this for Matt gave me a real understanding of what he was going through at the time. There was more of a stigma attached to being epileptic then and people were a lot less well informed. My father also suffered from mood swings and depression. You read about mental health services being cut now, but God knows what it must have been like in the late 70s. There were loads of side-effects to his medication. It's likely that the epilepsy and the medication would have exacerbated the depression, although there was no provision for dealing with this.
People constantly ask, "Why did he kill himself?" To me it seems obvious - because he was really depressed. Bernard [Sumner, Joy Division guitarist] told me that my father used to drink before performing, which may explain his on-stage fits, because alcohol is a seizure trigger. Seizures can also be triggered by flashing lights, lack of sleep and stress. Ian's lifestyle and the tension caused by the disintegration of his marriage would not have helped. He did the best he could; he was just very ill.
I've never really felt angry at my father for committing suicide, nor was I emotional about it all being brought up in the film because it's been there every day for me, although I've not had a tortured life.
We had a lot of laughs on set, in the same way as Mum told me how there was always mischief around the band. One of my favourite moments was being an extra at the Bury riot gig scene of 1980. It felt strange shouting, "Fuck off!" at a pretend Alan Hempsall, the Crispy Ambulance singer who stood in for my father when he was too ill to go on stage, because I'd interviewed the real one in my research. I got caught up in the skinheads' fight and had a bruise on my foot for a month. The Strawberry Studios scene was special for me because I helped Harry discover how they made the famous drum sound in She's Lost Control. He explained that that "crrch crrch" sound was a combination of a syn drum and the sound of tape head cleaner being sprayed. It was a strange afternoon. Everyone was happy when it was all over, but I cried. Joy Division is not something that will ever go away for me.
At the wrap party it was interesting to watch the actors, who had felt like a real band to me, suddenly shaking off their characters. We were shown some rushes and the reality behind it suddenly hit me. There was a baby scene I found especially upsetting; everyone cheered and said, "That's you." I drank more than I normally would that night.
It was hard to watch the finished film, but it is just a film, after all. Toby Kebbell - who plays Joy Division manager Rob Gretton - is one of my favourites, but he's not how Rob was. Rob was always around, but in the last year of his life I worked in a nearby office and got to know him much better; he was so gentle and wise. I never heard Rob swear like he does in the film and there's a bit where he's mean to Alan Hempsall. Rob would never have been like that. I don't think the film captures how lovable Tony Wilson - the Factory Records boss who used his life savings to fund Joy Division's debut - was either. However, my mother and I agree with what Tony once said: if it is a choice between the truth and the legend, take the legend every time.
I miss Tony terribly and remember him arriving on set with his mad Weimaraner William bounding on to a scene and someone yelling, "Cut!!!" Four days after I saw the finished film, Tony died of cancer. So, a year after hanging out on set with a pretend Steve and a pretend Hooky, I caught up with the real ones, not at a glitzy film premiere but at a funeral.
I have mixed feelings about the film - I feel so excited for the band and the music, but repulsed by the idea of people watching a film about my family. It's probably the same for all those left behind. The band must have been very excited when the film got an ovation at Cannes, but it can't be comfortable watching people be very happy about sad things in your life. I felt sad reading recently that they said they feel guilty; but if anyone let Ian Curtis down, it was the NHS, not musicians too young to help.
Tony never got to see the film, but for me it is for him. It feels like Joy Division are finally going from being an enormous cult to a household name - just as Tony always believed they should. Additional reporting by Dave Simpson
Io penso che quando una band al livello degli Oasis si riduce a copiare vecchi successi come Five to one dei Doors, ci sia veramente poco da aggiungere. Premetto che gli Oasis li ascolto dai tempi di Definitely Maybe, che ho tutti i loro album e che negli anni 90 erano fottutamente grandi. Questa mattina, sono andato sullo space degli Oasis http://www.myspace.com/oasis e sono rimasto scioccato nell'ascoltare il brano Waiting for the rapture che già nel titolo mi aveva già fatto pensare a Waiting for the sun dei Doors. Va bene dico, cazzo ascoltala prima di giudicare. Non appena parte il brano un senso di tristezza si è impadronito della mia anima. Mi sono sentito inutile di fronte a queste misere operazioni commerciali. Copiare un pezzo di un'altra band è davvero disdicevole. Non solo. Cosa pensano gli Oasis che i fan sono tutti una massa di celebrolesi dal non accorgersi della cosa? Certo faranno milioni, vendendo i loro cd del cazzo e i loro brani su Itunes e facendo concerti, ma cosa rimarrà di loro nella storia della musica pop? Potevano essere dei miti, e per un certo periodo lo sono stati, ma hanno sbagliato tutto. Dovevano concludere la loro carriere già da Standing on the shoulder of giants.
Waiting for the rapture: http://www.myspace.com/oasis Five to one dei Doors: http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=zZls5ZH5ytA
