Week Five

Sitting with my back to the window of a third floor piso, listening to fountains and fans, the kids and grans. Starlings and satellite receivers interrupt the post-sunset pastels and the breeze brings fresh baked bread to my altitude.

Enough with amateur poetry. Here's what I've been up to. On Friday I said goodbye to nearly everyone I'd met over the last four weeks out here. We spent the day at the beach in the company of my €45 guitar, had some authentic but cheap food in a tiny Italian restaurant and headed for the back to the beach armed with cheap bottles of beer to finish the night before each going our separate ways the next morning. Aside from a brief interruption in the form of a rude, threatening immigrant who referred to himself as 'The Shark', I ended my stay in Barcelona on a high. Waking early the next morning, I packed my clothes, guitar and laptop back up and made my way to the bus station. On a side note my upset tummy returned with a vengeance, which wasn't helped by a Northern Irish kid a few rows behind; who chundered, evvvveryyywhere. After two hours on the bus, Nadine (a girl from the same program who's also working in the same place as me) and I made our way to the estate agents to pick up our keys before siesta time kicked off. So, our place is great. It's a family-sized flat with one spare bedroom and loads of space. I'm currently sat on the balcony writing this (no steal-able wifi, so I'll copy and paste later), which has a great view over the North-East side of the town. You can almost make out the sea in the distance...but its a long way off; more on that later! I had a wander around the town on Saturday afternoon, making mental notes of where all the supermarkets and cheap-looking bars are, but went to bed nice and early on Sunday, as I had to be up to catch the first 6.30 bus to Girona, to fly back for my graduation in Bangor the following day.

Shame I missed out on the Sunday evening over here though. As much as the Catalan people seem to hate the country they're in, I bet Spain winning the World Cup final would have made for a good night out.

Sparing you the details of my short stay back in the UK, I flew back even earlier on Wednesday morning, leaving me enough time for a nice long siesta before going to work at 5pm that evening. The place I'm working in and what I'm actually doing as work are notoriously difficult to describe. Its a government-funded company that tries its best to entertain kids during the summer months. In the main building itself there are classrooms, a climbing wall, a recording studio (which is where I come in) and various other entertainingment infrastructures. For this week though, the company's main task is sorting out the four-day festival down the road. So I've been on with that today and yesterday... putting up signs, moving tables, chairs, bins etc. The festival runs Friday through to Monday, so I'll be working every night, doing similar things and by the sounds of it, they'll let me get involved a bit more with the lights/sound stuff too, which'd be grand. With me just working evenings then, I got up nice and early this morning and made my way to the beach on foot. There's a bus every 45 minutes, but I was too stubborn; it looked such a short distance on Google Maps. After my massive walk and seeing that my belongings were safe under the watchful eye of a shirtless 40-something tourist reading the sun and sporting 'Yorkshire' and 'Sheffield' tattoos on his respective left and right arms, I donned my snorkel and mask and did, well, snorkelling, for the first time in a good few years. The water is incredibly clear up here and there's literally shoals of fish just swimming about. You'd think they did it everyday or something. I'm hoping to get hold of my mum's waterproof camera in the next few weeks so I photograph a few beneath the blue. Well that brings you about up to speed. More soon. x

What's New? What's Old?

What's new? Well, I've been sick as a parrot this week. What's old? England are out of the world cup and Spain are still in. En fin.

Aside from feeling awful for most of the week, I have still managed to get quite a bit in. I've been swimming in the sea a few times, and I've even found the strength to throw myself off one or two of the artificial concrete, yet razor sharp breakwater rocks at Barceloneta beach. On Wednesday I was driven up to Palafrugell, a small seaside town about an hour and a half north of Barcelona where I'll be spending the remaining nine weeks of the exchange program. I was looking forward to going, as I'd get to see where I'd be working, the sort of facilities they'd let me be in control of and the folk I'd be attempting to start conversations with. I should explain. I'll be working thirty-five hour weeks in this company, helping out and doing, well, whatever needs doing. Although I was feeling gosh-awful and the sun up to one of its old 'let's see how hot I can make it today' tricks, and the 'Catalan or English, but never Spanish' philosophy was unfortunately even more pronounced that I had expected, I really liked the whole set-up. I switched to Permanent Grin Mode when they showed me the recording studio they wanted me to be in charge of during August; imagine an evil genius in a room full of WMDs type situation...

On the drive back, things turned from Guatamala to Guatapeor (phrase of the week, meaning 'going from bad to worse'). I'd not eaten in two days, and I thought I could just about get one of those cereal-type smoothie yoghurts just to get some nutrients inside me. It wasn't staying down. I endured the rest of the journey without chundering but suffered a 'both-ends-at-once' (forgive the explicit detail) explosion as soon as I made it to the bathroom at home. 

I made it out to the pub on Thursday, which was a great little spot as reccommended by my teacher from the language school. Despite the great surroundings I was still a bit on the haggard side, and the atmosphere was somewhat ruined by a drunk, jealous and rude French girl. Let's forget about though, just look at the nice picture.

By Friday, I'd made a full recovery, thanks to a few heavy doses of Sulfintestin Neomicina and Ibuprofen, and thanks to the people that were sick of me moaning, who told me to stop being so stubborn and actually sort myself out.

Saturday saw the second out-of-the-sity excursssion. Poblet:

And Tarragona.

So that's that. Oh, and I went to this last night too. The bands were good, the crew controlling the sound weren't as good, and the local people, as usual, were great... more than anything I wanted to start up conversations with all the umpteen-thousand of them. One step at a time I suppose.

The Second Week

As the title suggests, I'm two weeks in to my 14-week stay in Catalonia. I'm currently blogging from a Barcelona balcony, though not very successfully, as the heat, humidity, motorbike noises and background radio adverts have still not sunk in as the ignorable norms of a Sunday morning. So, a brief run-down of my week:
School's school. Same old relationships, gossips, lessons, break-times, rapports, homework. To be honest I've missed it all, and I'll miss it again when my course is finishes, in another two weeks time. The compulsory excursions have been fun, not from a tourist perspective, but rather for the half-an-hour sit-down outside a bar in whichever part of the city we're left in. Tuesday made for a bad bar experience however. After studying Spanish now for 6 years or more (and having a degree in it) I like to think that when ordering a drink, I can successfully get across the message of what drink I want. Sitting outside a bar on Tuesday, I ordered a 'caña' (a half pint of the most standardly priced beer, or thereabouts) instead of  the usual 'cerveza' (you wouldn't go in to a bar in the UK and ask for 'a beer', its just not specific enough.). I felt sorry for the waiter having to put up with all us English folk trying to order something, he obviously had to deal with tourists quite a bit. On his return, the waiter brought back three half-litre bottles of a 'reserve' estrella damm, each costing six euros (the other two lads had also asked for 'cañas'.)  In all fairness, I should have told him to take the bottles back. I wasn't worthy of drinking such a fine beer with my unemployed status, and the waiter/establishment certainly wasn't worthy of my six euros. For whatever reason, we drank them and paid up. Our loss. Its not even a big deal. Why am I typing about it then? Well to be honest, it really grated on me that, from the waiter's point of view, I still fit in to this 'guiri' (northern european tourist) stereotype: I want the biggest beer possible. I want to spend as much money as possible. I want to speak as little Spanish as possible. I want to avoid Spanish culture at all costs. To an extent, I'll never be able to break that stereotype (for example, sarcasm is not such a large part of Spanish culture!), and, to an extent, the guy was only after a few extra euros, like everyone. Still though, it ground my gears.

Wednesday was the big night, la festa de Sant Joan. The best part of the Catalonian population staying out on the beach until it starts getting light, drinking, smoking, lighting fireworks and just generally being sociable.On a Wednesday. Great.

 So, after drinking a two-and-a-half litres of beer, an energy drink and a litre of wine, watching the sunrise, buying some churros and riding home on the metro watching everyone with heavy eyes, I'd had an incredible 10-hour night out, spending about the same amount of money as I'd spent the afternoon before, on a short but sweet, over-priced bottle of 'Estrella Damm Inedit'. Thursday, as you can imagine, was about as written off as my old Peugeot 306 was two years ago, when it was struck by a rather large badger. Barcelona was shut down on Thursday anyway, and everyone felt a bit sorry for themselves, not in the least bit helped by the sad news of the train accident just down the coast.

Yesterday I went to Montserrat, a monastery up on a jagged, weird-looking mountain about 40km from Barcelona itself. The monastery itself, having been rebuilt several times wasn't particularly photogenic, so the mountain made for a nice little panorama after climbing a good few hundred steps.

Today is the England/Germany football game, so I'll be contributing a bit more to the good old guiri stereotype by going to a bar, having a few beers, and swearing at the telly.

Day 2 in Barcelona

So here´s the bit where I start blogging more often. I´m doing a work placement called ECTARC. Its funded by the welsh goverment and they sort me out rather royally with an intensive Spanish and Catalan language course for the first four weeks and the remaining 9 weeks I´ll spend working withing the local government of the costa brava seaside town of Palafrugell. I arrived yesterday to 25 degrees of sunshine, a damaged suitcase, a relatively pain-free transfer and a´host-family´´comprising of a lonely, old, heavily-moustashed hairdresser by the name of Emilio. He´ll be looking after me, doing my washing and cooking for me for the next month or so. Today I´ve been studying in the International House language school, had my first Catalan lessons and my first Spanish class (which I have to admit, was a bit Noddy-Speaks-Spanish-Por-Primera-Vez, but, we´ll see how it all pans out). No pictures yet, but if all goes to plan, I´ll keep you, quite literally, posted.

I dropped the ball today...

...and I'm too tired to pick it back up

I got in my car and drove away

And I'm a coward

I sit here for hours

Avoiding the problems

I could easily solve

No good in, no good out

A tried and tested theory

Half awake by day, and at night the same

I'm itchy, bored and weary

Waiting to grow

But when I get there I know

I'll be wishing I was younger

I'll regret the marks

Left on skin and paper

But romanticise their occurrence

Joy Division Essay

Joy Division were an extremely important band in the stylistic development of popular music, following the initial punk rock explosion of 1977. In the wake of this explosion, Joy Division, though the band were only active for a total of four years, pioneered a unique style that had not been witnessed before, nor to an extent, has been wholly replicated since. This essay will first analyse the individual aspects of Joy Division's style that contributed to their overall uniqueness, and how those individual aspects were employed and adapted by later bands and artists.

Joy Division's style can be best assessed and defined in the band's work after August 1977, a significant month that saw the replacement of drummer Tony Tabac with Stephen Morris. The band, though called 'Warsaw' until early the following year, seem to have had significantly developed stylistically during the latter half of 1977, straying away from their previous punk-rock stylistics of the band's earlier formation. In an interview in September 1979 by Richard Skinner with frontman Ian Curtis and drummer Stephen Morris for BBC Radio 1, Curtis also notes his awareness of this apparent transition:

“(…) we changed a lot initially when we started playing, we couldn't really play to be honest. Very loose (…) it was August in 1977 when we really started getting out own particular way.”¹

In his study of Joy Division's 1979 Unknown Pleasures album, Chris Ott suggests that Joy Division's digression from punk culture did not necessarily involve just a change in music, but also a change in interests and ideals:

Simplicity, suspicion and selfishness were implicit in punk rock, and it proved its undoing, as the primary players descended into stubbornness and absurdity at breakneck speed; around them, bands jumped on the spiked leather bandwagon, using this new freedom as an excuse to exploit, smashing at their instruments in a self-absorbed bid for fame, money and girls. The band that became Joy Division grew disinterested in such uncreative chaos and aggression; whatever fame they strove for would be justified in their music.²

Simon Reynolds theorizes this transition as pertaining to a change in the musical devices used by, and the distortion of the traditional roles of, the individual members of the band:

Joy Division's originality really became apparent once they slowed down. Shedding punk's fast, distortion-thickened sound, the music grew stark and sparse. [Peter] Hook's bass carries the melody, [Bernard] Sumner's guitar leaves gaps rather than fills the mix with dense riffage, and Steve Morris's drums seem to circle the rim of the crater.³

In identifying the stylistics of Joy Division (such as those mentioned above by Reynolds) which have seemed to set them apart from previous bands and artists, tracing the employment and adaptation of these individual stylistics in the bands and artists that followed Joy Division allows us to analyse the band's overall contribution to the stylistic development of popular music. I attempt this brief identification in the following section of this essay.

One of the notable stylistic aspects of post-August 1977 Joy Division is that of Peter Hook's basslines. These basslines were often high up on the fretboard, one or two octaves higher than a traditional bass plater might compose in around that time. According to guitarist Bernard Sumner, Hook's unique playing style came about as a direct result of him not having a powerful enough amplifier to be able to hear lower frequency notes during practice: “I'm more rhythm and chords, and Hooky was melody. He used to play high lead bass because I liked my guitar to sound distorted, and the amplifier I had would only work when it was at full volume. When Hooky played low, he couldn't hear himself.”⁴ These high-range basslines became more prominent towards the end of Joy Division's career, with Hook eventually purchasing a six-string bass which allowed for an even higher range of notes. Somewhat counteracting Hook's predominant basslines, Sumner tended to use sparse, often single-note guitar melodies and riffs, which were so radically different from the punk 'powerchord'⁵ distorted guitar techniques at the time. The explanation for this phenomenon again may lie in Hook's poor amplification equipment, i.e. that, in trying to maintain his intended and preferred distorted tone, Sumner had few options but to resort to playing sparser guitar melodies and chords (than those which he previously used when mimicking a punk guitarist style), in order to still be able to hear Hook's contribution to the music. Martin Hannett, Joy Division's producer on their albums Unknown Pleasures and Closer, is also partly responsible for the development of Sumner's less predominant guitar style; Hannett often opted to reduce the presence of Sumner's guitar in the mix:

(…) on the album Hannett used one of his favourite devices - the Marshall Time Modulator – to surpress the guitars and other instruments. 'It just made things sound smaller,' says Morris.⁶

Another key aspect of Joy Division's post-August 1977 innovative stylistics is in that of the drumming style of Stephen Morris. As guitarist Bernard Sumner described in 1994:

“Steve has his own style which is different to other drummers. To me, a drummer in the band is the clock, but Steve wouldn't be the clock, because he's passive: he would follow the rhythm of the band, which gave us our own edge.”⁷

In addition to his unique 'passenger-seat' drumming style, Morris also used electronic drum machines in many Joy Division recordings, further adding to the band's futuristic, 'post-punk' style. Simmonds and Synare drum synthesizers, as well as a Boss DR-55 drum machine can be heard on tracks from both the band's studio albums such as 'Insight' and 'She's Lost Control' from Unknown Pleasures and 'Decades' from Closer. This opting to use drum machines was perhaps reminiscent of the 'Krautrock' music of 1960s and 1970s German bands such as Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk. The use of synthesizers and keyboards in Joy Division's music also furthers the idea of a 'Krautrock' influence (the music of Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk all heavily featured synthesizers). The most obvious example of this (and perhaps the most important example, when considering that the song has been the band's most successful and well-known release) is in the track 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', where the key melody or 'hook' of the song is carried by the synthesizer. It seems apparent that producer Martin Hannett was in part responsible for the inclusion of synthesizers and drum machines in the recording of Unknown Pleasures and Closer, and such decisions taken by Hannett were often against the band's will. Although this musical influence may be apparent, the band categorically denied such bands as being an influence on their music, insisting that: “(...) we haven't been influenced by what's been going on elsewhere really, we were apart from everything, we sort of developed our own particular way in our own environment.”⁸

Above all of these defining aspects of Joy Division's style were perhaps Ian Curtis' baritone voice, his pessimistic, personal lyrics and his erratic live performance style. On a non-musical note, it is also worth mentioning Joy Division's fashion stylistics. Continuing with their digression from punk culture as I have previously mentioned, Joy Division also broke away from the fashion norms set by punks: opting for plain fitted shirts, ties and tight-fitting trousers over the established punk trend of bondage trousers, ripped t-shirts, died/spiked haircuts and visible piercings. A parallel can be drawn between Joy Division and punk culture however in that both openly utilized Nazi associations and terminology; the name 'Joy Division' refers to a prostitution section of the Nazi army, and also on the artwork for the band's debut EP, An Ideal For Living (1978), which featured a Hitler Youth member banging a drum on the front cover, and a Nazi soldier pointing a gun at a Jewish boy on the sleeve.

Ian Curtis commuted suicide on 18^th May 1980, signalling the end of Joy Division. In the years since Curtis' death, many bands and artists, including those mentioned above, have employed or adapted certain aspects of Joy Division's style (which I have already discussed), and often cite the band as an inspiration. The following section of this essay presents examples of this.

The Cure were one of the first bands to adopt some of Joy Division's stylistics. Robert Smith, the band's only permanent member, established an emotional, pessimistic and occasionally nihilistic lyric writing style. The opening lyrics to The Cure's third album Pornography, 'It doesn't matter if we all die' are an example of this, and are extremely reminiscent of Ian Curtis' lyrical compositions. By the time of Pornography's release in 1982, the term 'goth' (or 'goth rock') was already being used to describe such bands as The Cure, Souxsie and the Banshees and Bauhaus. Interestingly enough, Joy Division were twice appropriated with the term several years prior to this: Martin Hannett described the band as 'dancing music with gothic overtones.'⁹ Tony Wilson, presenting his Something Else television programme (broadcast 15^th September 1979), also used the term in reference to Joy Division's music, '(…) unsettling, slightly sinister and gothic' in an interview with BBC Radio One DJ Paul Burnett and drummer Stephen Morris. 'Goth' became a music genre and youth subculture in its own right, with its musical stylistics firmly based upon those pioneered by Joy Division:

Standard [goth] musical fixtures included: scything guitar patterns and high-pitched post-Joy Division basslines that usurped the melodic role; beats either hypnotically dirge-like or tom-tom heavy and 'tribal' in some ethnically indeterminate Burundi-meets-Apache way; vocals either near operatic, harrowed, or deep, droning alloys of Jim Morrison and Ian Curtis.¹⁰

It seems then, that certain aspects of Joy Division's musical style actually contributed significantly to the creation of the 'goth' genre and subculture, making a significant imprint on popular music as a whole after the band's period of activity. Similarly, Joy Division's non-musical stylistics can also be found in goth aesthetics; the band's interest in Nazi imagery was reflected in promotional posters and album sleeves for London-based goth band Killing Joke. Leeds-based goth band The March Violets (the name derived from a Nazi reference to the Hitler-voting public of Spring 1934) also demonstrated this Nazi imagery and nomenclatural interest.

Scottish band Alternate Images also seem to have been among the first to adopt some of Joy Division's stylistics, particularly Sumner's guitar and Hook's bass style. As Reynolds writes of the respective 1981 and 1982 singles of Altered Images in Rip It Up And Start Again: 'The scratchy guitar figure on 'I Could Be Happy' and the twinkle-drone bassline of 'See Those Eyes' sound remarkably close to Barney Sumner's and Peter Hook's playing.'¹¹

Following Curtis' death, Joy Division's single 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' (which had already been released a month previously) reached #13 in the UK singles chart, the band's most successful release. The track is perhaps one of the greatest indications of the intensity of Joy Division's contribution to the stylistic development of popular music. 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' was voted the best single of all time by NME magazine in 2002.¹² The impact of the song (and in turn the stylistic influence of Joy Division) on popular musicians across the globe is extremely profound, with over twenty established artists and bands having either recorded or performed a version of the track, including acts as diverse as Bloc Party, The Cure, Broken Social Scene, Fall Out Boy, José González and Jamie Cullum. 'Love Will Tear Us Apart's importance to popular music is so apparent that Liverpool indie band the Wombats even referenced the song (both lyrically and via artwork) in their 2007 single 'Let's Dance to Joy Division'.

Ian Curtis' death itself and the untimely circumstances surrounding it appear to have also had a profound impact on a wide array of musicians, and this is often reflected in interviews, dedications and lyrical content. Robert Smith of The Cure for example, often dedicated the song 'Primary' to Curtis; Luca Prodan of Argentinian band Sumo, who was personally acquainted with members of Joy Division, released 'Divididos Por La Felicidad' in 1985 as a tribute to Curtis, to whom the song's lyrics directly refer: 'No importa lo que existió hace pocos años/los días felices se quebraron, pero así es la vida': 'It doesn't matter that he was alive until only recently/the happy days were cut short, but that's how life goes' (my translation). Also, U2 released a single entitled 'A Day Without Me' from their debut 1980 album Boy, which featured clear lyrical references to Curtis. U2's frontman Bono seems to have been greatly influenced by Curtis, seeing him as a role model figure; Reynolds quotes Factory Records label owner Tony Wilson as saying:

'Two months after Ian died, U2 were brought round to my office at Granada TV by this plugger looking to break them, and I remember Bono sitting on my desk saying how incredibly sorry he was about Ian's death, how it had really hurt him...how Ian was the number-one singer of his generation, and he, Bono, knew he was always going to be number two.'¹³

Joy Division's influence on U2 was such that the latter refused to work with any other producer other than Joy Division's: Martin Hannett. This relationship proved to be unsuccessful and short-lived however, due in part to Hannett's drug problems following Curtis' suicide, and U2 went on to be produced Steve Lillywhite and Brian Eno amongst others. Within the Factory records label to which Joy Division were signed, Durutti Column, another band from Manchester, recorded a tribute to Ian Curtis entitled 'Missing Boy', which appeared on the band's second album LC (released in 1981). Also on Factory records, although perhaps without intentionally dedicating their music to Curtis, were A Certain Ratio. Simon Reynolds notes vocalist Simon Topping's obvious Curtis-influenced style of lyric writing and vocal performance:

At times ACR sounded like Joy Division getting on the good foot: singer Simon Topping more or less cloned Curtis's baritone drone, while the lyrics hinted at dark drives and shadowy states of consciousness.¹⁴

Tributes to Curtis (whether intentional or not) appeared not just in the 1980s, but through to the present day. In 2008, American punk-rock band Alkaline Trio released 'Help Me' as a single from their sixth studio album Agony & Irony. The lyrics are directed at Curtis: 'You're up there/took the stairs to the stars all alone/You left all the lights burning but nobodies home/I believe they deceived your tuneful heart too long'. The artwork for the single also pays homage to the artwork of Peter Saville on the cover of Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' single. The song was inspired by photographer and film-maker Anton Corbijn's biopic of Ian Curtis, Control, which was released the previous year. Control seems to have renewed interest in Joy Division nearly thirty years after the band's period of activity. In an interview with UltimateGuitar.com's Carlos Ramirez, lead singer Matt Skiba says:

'I've always been a big Joy Division Fan and I was touched by the film. I thought it captured Joy Division and Ian Curtis' life beautifully. The sincerity of their music combined with their imagery and art is like nothing else. Everything about them was artistic and unique. Our artwork and song is a tribute to a melancholic beauty that can never be replicated.'¹⁵

The work of assessing Joy Division's stylistic contribution to popular music can be potentially complicated by whether or not the band or artist selected for stylistic analysis acknowledges Joy Division as an influence. For example, in listening to Alkaline Trio (a band who actively proclaim Joy Division as a significant influence on their music), stylistic similarities between the two bands are scarce: vocalist Matt Skiba certainly does not sing in baritone, the bass guitar rarely strays from low root notes, no synthesizers can be heard nor are the acoustic drums double-tracked with electronic drums. In complete contrast, Editors, a band who actively deny any Joy Division influence in their music,¹⁶ have released music tracks that heavily feature 'Joy Division-esque' tendencies. Editors' successful 2006 single 'All Sparks' perhaps best demonstrates this: lead singer Tom Smith replicates an uncanny Ian Curtis baritone vocal style; the track features a melodic, high-up-the-fretboard bassline which is reminiscent of Peter Hook's basslines, down to the tone of the bass itself: a Rickenbacker, like Hook's. Sparse, distorted guitar parts also feature throughout the verses of the track. Obvious Joy Division-influenced stylistics are apparent even in the band's fashion: vocalist Tom Smith, bass player Russell Leetch and drummer Ed Lay all opt for slim-fitted plain shirts, plain trousers and shoes in the music video to accompany 'All Sparks'. Although an artist or band may claim Joy Division as a stylistic influence, examples of that influence may be extremely weak or even non-existent (i.e. Alkaline Trio). On the opposite end of the scale, the band or artist may be unaware of their Joy Division influence or even completely deny it (i.e. Editors). These are two extreme examples of how a band or artist's awareness of a Joy Division influence can potentially be incoherent with the band or artist's music and aesthetics. Although many bands and artists fall in a 'middle-ground' between these two extreme examples (i.e. bands that acknowledge a Joy Division influence and parallels can be drawn between the two stylistically), this point proves that care must be taken when connecting a band or artist with Joy Division stylistically, based on their claim of a Joy Division influence. Such 'middle-ground' acts that have at some point acknowledged Joy Division as an influence and stylistic parallels can be drawn between the two include the Smiths, Bloc Party, Radiohead, Coldplay and Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante.

Joy Division have certainly played a key role in the stylistic development of popular music. Very few bands have had their music re-interpreted, re-recorded or re-mixed by by other musicians as many times as Joy Division, which suggests that the band have had a vast and profound influence on musicians from all over the globe; from home bands such as U2 and The Cure to Argentina's Sumo. Joy Division's impression on popular music stylistics also seems to be a lasting one, with present-day artists such as Alkaline Trio and The Wombats paying homages to Joy Division as many as thirty years on from the band's period of activity, and clear musical stylistic parallels can be drawn between the band and present-day artists such as Editors and Interpol. Joy Division's non-musical stylistics also seem to have left a lasting impression on popular music: traces of the band's fashion aesthetics can be found in Franz Ferdinand and The Hives.

Bibliography

Chris Ott, Unknown Pleasures, (Continuum, 2008)

Carlos Ramirez, Agony And Irony of Alkaline Trio, (http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/interviews/interviews/agony_and_irony_of_alkaline_trio.html , 09/21/2008)

Simon Reynolds, Rip It Up And Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984, (Faber & Faber, 2005)

Jon Savage, 'Joy Division: Someone Take These Dreams Away' in Mojo Magazine (July 1994)

Http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/story/editors-dismiss-joy-division-comparisons_20_05_2006

Http://www.nme.com/news/joy-division/13004

Discography

Alkaline Trio – Agony & Irony, (Epic, 2008)

The Durutti Column – LC, (Factory Records, 1981)

Editors – The Back Room, (Kitchenware, 2005)

Joy Division – Closer, (Factory Records, 1980)

Joy Division – The Complete BBC Recordings, (Strange Fruit, 2000)

Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures, (Factory Records, 1979)

Sumo – Divididos Por La Felicidad, (CBS, 1985)

U2 – Boy, (Island, 1980)

The Wombats – Let's Dance To Joy Division, (14^th Floor, 2007)

Filmography

Control, Dir: Anton Corbijn. Writ. Matt Greenhalgh, Deborah Curtis. Perf. Sam Riley, Samantha Morton, Toby Kebbell, Alexandra Maria Lara. (2007)

1Joy Division, The Complete BBC Recordings, (Strange Fruit, 2000) Track 11

2Chris Ott, Unknown Pleasures, (New York 2008) p.6

3Simon Reynolds, Rip It Up And Start Again: postpunk 1978-1984, (London, 2005) p.180

4Jon Savage, 'Joy Division: Someone Take These Dreams Away' in Mojo Magazine, July 1994

5A moveable chord consisting of the root note, the 5^th and the octave, usually with the root being played on either the low E or A string on a guitar.

6Simon Reynolds, 2005 p.185

7Jon Savage, July 1994

8Joy Division, The Complete BBC Recordings, (Strange Fruit, 2000) Track 11

9Simon Reynolds, 2005, p.420

10Simon Reynolds, 2005, p.423

11Simon Reynolds, 2005, p.407

12Http://www.nme.com/news/joy-division/13004

13Simon Reynolds, 2005, p.451

14Simon Reynolds, 2005, p.190

15Carlos Ramirez, 'Agony And Irony of Alkaline Trio', http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/interviews/interviews/agony_and_irony_of_alkaline_trio.html (08/21/2008)

16Http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/story/editors-dismiss-joy-division-comparisons_20_05_2006

Dear Mr. BBC,

The closure of BBC 6 Music is a contradiction of the director-general's proposal to broadcast 'inspiring' music (and drama and comedy). While Radio 1 and Radio 2 offer 'all-audience-friendly' music, I wouldn't describe the vast majority of what is played on 1 and 2 as being particularly inspiring, it is simply music that is designed to be sung-along or danced to, along with discussions broadcast that have the purpose of entertaining and informing, on Radio 1 and 2 respectively. 6Music features inspiring music and inspiring presenters who are real musicians and artists themselves. Listeners of 6music appreciate that a piece of music can be an art-form and something more than a 3 minute, tap-your-feet, sing-a-long moneymaker. Losing 6music would be a great shame and render my DAB radio useless. Surely 6music isn't so expensive to run? Maybe you could ask the gents over at TopGear if they wouldn't mind only going on 5 holidays this year as opposed to the usual 12?

Intros and Astros

Goodspawn,

It seems that you're reading my mind, or at least an electronic translation of what I have recently expressed through the QWERTYUIOP medium via my local interweb. Today, I had hoped was Mac day. It's not. It's Monday the 8th of February from the year two thousand and ten. The day where I had hoped to make the epic jump from micro-soft to mac-rosoft. Unfortunately, I need a special mac keyboard for that, so until tomorrow at least I'm still a-windowing. I felt the need to create this blog yesterday por the night, thinking that my new mac-type persona would also mean that my mac-type arty thoughts would have to make the epic jump from synapse to syntax and appear right here in this lovely digital format. So here they are, and this be the first. Throughout these bits and bytes there/they're/their might be some unconventional use of language. This is intended by me, not through trying to be a maverick or a revolucionario of language reform, but just to convey as close as darn!it to the subconcious sort of language I use in me noggin which often doesnay conform to proper language norms due to me not really paying attention in GCSE english, and above all the fact that I'm a twat. Undoubtedly this will make for difficult reading...so I suggest you don't read this.
I've no plan to create regualar entries because I have little discipline in such things, but there'll be spewings such as this every once in a while when I fancy a bit of a type. So maybe not every day, not every week, not periodically nor sequentially. Maybe rhythmically. Blogarhythmicly.
So hopefully I won't make these entries too organised. If they represent what I'm actually thinking at all they'll jump backwards and forwards in time and generally not seem to make any camel-eyelash at all. Divine.

I don't intend to offend (there's the makings of a rap in there somewhere) on this page. I don't really know who'll be reading this but apologies if you are. I don't think I'll put the link out in too many places; folk might think I were weird like, after glimpsing the spiced up/toned down thoughts that I'm a-thinking. Also I'm really sarcastic. Sorry. Not.

Enough waffle irons. Where's the beef?
A. The beef is here, and it consists of a platter or astrological sillyness.

Week ending on Sunday.

Aquarius, you're feeling/have been feeling/will be feeling excited as it's your birthday in the near future/past/now.

Capricorn, A tendancy to feel like corn will leave you capricious this week. January is your lucky month.

Virgo, One of Neptune's moons brings you....nothing. It's very far away, through the dark vaccuum of space. And you can't see it with a telescope at the moment because it's too small and it's on the other side of neptune to you and you can't afford a good enough telescope to see it with anyway. And you're too impatient to actually do some planet gazing. So no effect on you. Sorry.

Libra, No prediction I'm afraid. You'll just have to live through the rest of the week with the grim, petrifying uncertainty that something might, or mightn't, happen.

Taurus, I've got a feeling that for you Taurans, tonight is going to be a good night, that tonight's going to be a good good night. Museltof.

Gemini, Saturn's rings have a large circumference today, meaning that your waist will also have a large circumference today. So eat less. Or excercise more. But not both. Never both.

Leo, Jupiter alligns with Venus this week, (if you look at them from a random, unimportant area in some galaxy a certain distance away for a certain period of time). This means that every single one of you that was born between 23rd July and 22nd August in any year will definately all win the lottery tomorrow, regardless of whether you have actually bought a ticket or not.

Any other starsigns that I haven't mentioned, it's because my predictions are so accurate that if I wrote them down it would affect the leylines. So call me, it's really expensive, but it will definately change your life.