Bands touring outside the United Kingdom were obliged to detail every item of their equipment on a document called a ‘carnet’, then pay the value of it upfront as a bond to HM Customs. The band’s carnet would be stamped on each exit and entry point of the different countries on the tour, and when the band arrived back to Britain they presented the completed document and were refunded the money. If there were any mistakes on the form the bond was forfeit and prosecution considered. This was supposedly to stop the illegal importing of retail goods into America . . .
As ever the tour got off to a shambolic start, not just me and Ruth splitting up and then her being on the whole tour with us. No, it being the US, the cock-up involved our gear.
Before we’d set off, I’d told Terry, who had by now been promoted to tour manager, that he had to be extra careful with the carnet because there was no margin for error. The problem was that if you made a mistake, like if you missed out a bit of equipment, or mislaid or had an item of equipment stolen, and you couldn’t account for it when you were travelling, you risked getting your gear impounded and losing your money at home.
So anyway, me and Terry arrived at Atlanta airport to reclaim our gear after the flight, where we were dealing with this really sweet customs guy, who didn’t want any hassle. Like us, he just wanted to authorise the carnet and get on with his day.
‘What’s your name, son?’
‘Peter.’
‘OK, Pizza,’ he said to me,
‘No. Peter,’ said I.
‘Pizza?’ One last try, I thought.
‘Peder!’ says I again.
‘Oh. Peter!
‘OK, Peter, I just need to check it. What I’ll do is pick one piece of equipment, you show it to me and we’ll sign off the whole goddamn thing.’
I went, ‘Right, OK,’ thinking, Great. (So much better to do it this way than go through the entire ten pages of kit.) One piece of equipment – Wow! That was all he was going to pick in order to pass the whole bloody carnet.
He cast his eye down the list to pick something out at random.
‘OK, Peter,’ he said, ‘why don’t we try this Boss Dr Rye Thim?’
I swallowed. ‘Er, Boss Dr Rhythm?’
‘Yup,’ he said, ‘that’s what it says here. The Boss Dr Rye Thim. Let’s have a look at that, shall we – see if the good doctor is in?’
He chuckled at his own joke as Terry and I looked at each other, both knowing – a kind of telepathic knowing – that Terry had already dropped an enormous bollock. The Boss Dr Rhythm was the drum machine we used when we started in 1980, but we didn’t use it any more. Not on tour anyway.
But Terry had forgotten to take it off the carnet from the last time we came to America. And now the fucking Dr Rhythm was in – in our practice room in Cheetham Hill with its feet up laughing its dogs off.
The customs guy looked at us expectantly, pen hovering over his clipboard. ‘OK, Peter, have you got it so I can sign this?’
‘Sure,’ I said, ‘I think I know where it is.’
Inwardly cursing, Terry and I started searching through the cases, eventually picking out an old ugly hand-painted black plug-board complete with inbuilt trip switch and a dirty long lead on it – literally the only thing in all of our cases without a brand name on it.
‘Here!’ I said. ‘This is the Boss Dr Rhythm DR55!’ producing it like a magician’s assistant would, complete with arm flourish.
I looked at him, rictus grin, thinking inwardly, Please believe me! Please believe me! It’s a Boss Dr Rhythm. Please believe me!
He looked back at me. I smiled harder. Then, at last, he seemed to decide.
‘OK, Peter,’ he said, and ticked it off.
You’ve never see two people move as fast as we did then. Packing all the gear in the van in record time, waving goodbye to the guy and wiping lines of nervous sweat off our brows, I turned to Terry and said, ‘You fucking twat!’
A very, very lucky escape.
But the carnet escape wasn’t the main reason I remember that particular American tour. It wasn’t even what happened in Washington (which we’ll come to). No, it was the girls.
That tour of America in 1983 was when New Order discovered groupies.
We’d heard that American women were mad for it, and we couldn’t wait. But after the gig in Atlanta we all sat in anticipation of our post-gig bounty and nobody came in the dressing room at all. Nobody. Certainly none of the gorgeous girls we’d seen in the audience. What’s wrong, Atlanta?
So anyway, the next gig, Austin, was a great gig, Club Foot, run by Kerry Jaggers, who would become one of our oldest friends and colleagues. It was a wonderful venue situated downtown near to our hotel. We’d been out into the audience and it was full of Texan women and they were gorgeous. Hundreds of them, there were. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, I really did.
So anyway, after the gig, we were backstage rubbing our hands, twiddling our imaginary moustaches, all sat there going, ‘Right, come on, Terry, get the headaches ready, this is going to be mega, this.’
HEADACHE or HEADACHES:
A drink or drinks containing:
• Pernod (LARGE amount)
• Orange juice (small amount)
• Sparkling white wine (LARGE amount)
Another name we considered was ‘knicker-loosener’ but we preferred to keep it subtle. I mean, you really couldn’t shout, ‘Terry! Do us another knicker-loosener, mate!’ across the dressing room, could you? They’d think we were up to no good! Interestingly, you would be using the name again the next morning, as in, ‘I’ve got a right fucking “headache” this morning! Never again!’
But again, not a soul came back.
Oh man, this was fucking ridiculous.
We said, ‘Terry, you’re the boss, get out there and find out what’s happening.’
Five minutes later he returned with a hangdog look and, pulling at his wattle, said, ‘Bad news, lads. Ruth’s told security not to let anyone backstage.’
Fuck that. We weren’t having that. Rob got hold of this security guy and pushed twenty dollars in his hand. ‘Listen, mate, anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who wants to come backstage, you send them in, especially if they’re female. All right?’ Then I went to tell Ruth what I thought about her, too. I cringe now, thinking what a bastard I was. But no lie, within about twenty minutes, the dressing room was full of people, mainly female, and me and Barney were soon doing our best Terry-Thomas impressions, ‘Hel–lo. Ding dong. What’s your name? Let me get you a drink, my young lady, do you come from around here? Ooh, you’re gorgeous!’
And that was it. That was our downfall sealed. From that moment on, every gig was full of girls backstage, loads and loads of them. You could literally take your pick. It was incredible.
American women. God love them. Back in England it still felt like you had to be engaged and have a bottom drawer (ask your mum) before you could have sex with the girl of your choice. English girls held on to their virtue like it was a prize. Which it is, of course. Now that I’m older, I realise that. But when you’re twenty-seven, it’s a pain in the arse, because all you want to do is get your end away.
Not in America. American girls were all, ‘Hey, man, I love your accent, let’s go out!’ Their attitude to musicians, especially English musicians, was wonderful, so welcoming and friendly, and we were like pigs at a trough. Next thing you knew the crew were getting in on the act and everyone was just taters.
It was brilliant, completely at odds with our dour, arty image, but still brilliant.
It was at Austin that I met a girl wearing a Soviet red banner flag as a dress. She was a schoolteacher – we used to attract a lot of teachers, funnily enough – and we, er, ‘got on’ so well that she decided to fly to join us when we reached New York.
Great. Trouble was that by the time the band arrived in New York, I’d already met another girl in Toronto, and she’d decided to come to New York as well. So, when I arrived in the Big Apple, I had two girls coming to see me, plus Ruth, as we had taken to rekindling our liaison occasionally.
So when the girl from Austin turned up I had to tell the girl from Toronto that she was my girlfriend who’d come over from England to see me, and moved her out to stay with Dave Pils, after which I spent my time flitting between the two rooms, entertaining both girls. God forgive me . . . but it was mega.
Oh, my giddy aunt. No wonder I earned myself the nickname Brian Rix from Steve and Gillian. I mean, I’m not proud of it (not much) and I know it doesn’t cast me in the most gentlemanly light, but you’ve got to look at it from my point of view. For me, it was like rags to riches. Years and years of near-famine and then suddenly feast. Fantastic.
This was a very eventful tour and we even managed to squeeze in filming a video for ‘Confusion’ with Arthur after our gig at the Paradise Garage, New York. It was produced by Charles Sturridge, a friend of Alan and Tony. Charles actually lived at 89a, Palatine Road, the Factory office in Manchester, when he was directing episodes of my favourite soap opera, Coronation Street. He was also famous in England for directing eleven episodes of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited in 1981, and won many awards.
The idea for the video came from Arthur, and revolved around two great dancers he had befriended in the Fun House. The idea was to show their daily lives up to and including getting ready to come to the club. A nice concept, and as it didn’t entail much work on our part we liked it. They used footage from our Paradise Garage soundcheck and then filmed us walking around both the Paradise Garage and the Fun House (the walking-round concept that Electronic would use to great effect in all their videos later), with some footage recorded in the DJ booth with Jellybean too.
It went well. The night flew by and, before we knew it, it was finished and as we were getting ready to leave the club about half past seven in the morning somebody says, ‘Oh, where’s Arthur? Is Arthur not coming with us?’
‘No, no, he’s gone with his missus.’
We went downstairs and just as we were getting in the cab, I looked across the street to see Arthur and his missus parked up in his car, and they were arguing like fuck, really going at it.
Arthur was driving, but he was parked in a really tight spot. As they argued he was ramming the car behind and then the one in front, trying to get out of the space.
They never missed a beat. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but certainly got the gist. And then, as the whole street watched them, he screamed off up the road.
What a guy.
Then came the flight from New York to Washington.
What happened was that, as per usual, everyone got up late. Because me and Steve were driving the two hire cars the idea was that we’d drop everyone off at the departures gate, then return the cars to the rental office and come back in the bus to the terminal.
I said to Steve, ‘Put your foot down, mate, or we’ll miss the flight!’
We’d screwed the cars so much on the drive to the airport that the disc brakes were glowing red but, for the next leg of our journey, Steve seemed to lose any sense of urgency, drove like an old granny and made us so late that the plane with the heavy sleepers had left, and only Rob was there waiting for us.
‘You fucking daft pair of bastards,’ he said, ‘you’ve missed the flight. We’ve got another one in three hours . . .’
So we went to the bar, where they were offering breakfast for $1.99, or a double Midori cocktail, which is a melon-based vodka drink, for $2!
We looked at each other. ‘One cent difference? Oh, fuck it, shall we get a drink?’
We had three double Midori cocktails for breakfast, me, Steve and Rob – amazing start to the day.
Then Rob went, ‘Shall we have another?’
So we did, then another. Until we must have had about ten doubles each.
I don’t remember getting on the plane, but I remember being in a middle seat, and seeing double, and then seeing treble, and then beginning to throw up.
The passenger next to me was a large black lady and she started screaming until a stewardess came along, hauled me up and deposited me in the toilet. It’s only a short flight from New York to Washington, but I spent most of it sitting on the toilet with my head in my hands, groaning, wanting to die. Then, just as the plane began its descent ready for landing, I fell off the toilet (eat your heart out, Elvis) and got jammed in between the toilet compartment and the wall, my feet stuck against the door.
The stewardess pounded on the door. ‘Sir? Sir? Come out, we’re landing.’
I groaned so she tried the door but couldn’t open it because my feet were up against it. There was no way, in fact, that they were going to open the toilet door. So instead I just stayed in there, in flagrant contravention of just about every flight regulation in the book, while they landed, waited until everybody else had got off and then, with the help of Rob and Steve, I was coaxed/dragged out of the toilet.
I was still seeing three of everything. Even by the time we got to the gig venue, the Ontario Theatre, where they laid me out under a table, hoping I’d recover in time for the gig.
Which I did, sort of. I stayed under the table, sparkled, for the whole soundcheck, but then at about six or seven o’clock, I woke up, thinking firstly that I felt like shit, and secondly that I needed something to eat.
‘Have I got time to eat before the gig?’ I said to Ruth. (She was talking to me at this point, but not for much longer . . .)
She went, ‘Yeah, OK, no problem, go and get something to eat. Quando Quango are playing first.’
‘Quando Quango? How did they get here?’
Ruth said, ‘Ask Rob, he’s paying!’
So anyway, I went to get something to eat at a burger place near the venue where I got talking to a fan, a lovely girl, and I chatted to her as I ate, just about beginning to feel human again, when I was surprised to see this guy come running over.
‘Hey, are you out of the band?’
I went, ‘Yeah.’
He said, ‘They’re on stage, man.’
‘Nah,’ I said, ‘they can’t be on stage, not without me,’ thinking I’d only been gone a few minutes, but not factoring in that while I may have been on the road to recovery I was still technically pissed as a fart. Not only that, but I’d been doing the old Hugh Grant bit on the girl fan for ages.
Next thing you knew, Ruth came barging in, screaming, ‘WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE ON STAGE, YOU ASSHOLE! AND WHO THE FUCK IS SHE?’
Then, looking at this girl, and looking back at me, something obviously snapped. She’d had enough of my antics. She yelled, ‘YOU FUCKER!’ and gave me a mighty right-handed slap, then grabbed my arm, pulled me off my seat and dragged me back to the venue. I have to say, I fully deserved it.
Right through the front door we went, there was no one about, and straight into the hall where, sure enough, the band were playing ‘In a Lonely Place’.
As we ploughed through the audience towards the stage I thought how weird it was, watching my own band play (a bit like it is now, to be honest). It was like a dream because Rob was up there, playing the cymbals that I normally played.
I staggered on, not knowing what to do or say because all the rest of the group were looking at me and the audience were gawping too. So I just said the first thing that came into my head.
Which was, ‘Hello, shitheads.’
The audience didn’t like that. Tempers were already frayed. A few missiles were thrown and the bad atmosphere almost developed into a riot, and once again, at the end of the gig, I heard those immortal words, as the promoter strode up to me, jabbed a finger in my chest and announced, ‘You’ll never play in Washington again.’
We were back on the next tour.
Not long after that Anton Corbijn turned up. Anton is a photographer with whom we’d had a long association; his pictures of Joy Division in the Underground in London are legendary and he would eventually go on to direct the film Control about Ian.
Anton, who is a very nice bloke indeed, turned up to do photos of the band, while a guy from Sounds did the interview. We had a great time, with three days of sitting around, drinking, partying and generally chewing the fat – until we got to Trenton, New Jersey, where Anton had to say goodbye. We were sat outside on the grass and it was a lovely sunny day. Anton had packed away his gear and put it in a car bound for the airport, and he was just waiting for his journalist to arrive when suddenly he said, ‘I’ve forgotten something. What have I forgotten? I’ve definitely forgotten something. What is it? Shit!’
It was really bugging him.
We were puzzled. What could it be?
And then the blood left his face. He looked like Terry and I must have looked when the customs guy asked to see the Boss Dr Rye Thim. And he said, ‘I’ve forgotten to take any pictures.’
Oh.
Not only that, but his cameras had gone, so it was indeed panic stations. You’ve got to hand it to him, though, what he did was go straight to the garage across the street, buy two disposable cameras, each with twelve shots, then take us to a nearby funfair, did the pictures, and . . .
They turned out great, some of my favourites of the group in fact. I wish more photoshoots could be like that. Done in five minutes before you run to catch your plane home instead of the hours it normally takes of setting up lights and screens and taking Polaroids and all the other shit they normally do.
And that was it, we got our plane, I arrived home, collapsed onto the sofa, and my missus said to me, ‘How was it, then?’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘you know . . .’