Substance

‘This could not have happened at a worse time for Factory. As a group the Mondays were getting on very badly and why Tony decided to inflict them on Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, who were co-producing, is anyone’s guess. Shaun was now a full-blown heroin addict. I cannot for the life of me, after us going to Ibiza and messing it up, see how anyone thought this was a good idea. It was a disaster from start to finish. On arriving at Manchester airport Shaun dropped his supply of Methadone and ended up trying to scoop it up out of the broken bits of glass in the departures lounge. When they arrived in Barbados he was going cold turkey, and soon became completely hooked on the endless supply of crack available (as long as you had money), ruining himself and the record in the process. They eventually returned after six long weeks with twelve vocal-less backing tracks. The stories are legion and have been told at length by the Mondays so let’s leave it apart from this one, my favourite . . . After stealing all Nathan McGough’s clothes, the only thing Shaun could think of to sell was the leather settees out of the control room. The problem he had was getting them to the market to sell, so he stole the studio’s golf cart to transport them. After two trips he then sold the golf cart. Eddy Grant was livid.

‘Strangely enough, Shaun wasn’t the only one to fall foul of this particular hurdle. A friend of mine, let’s call him Towser, had gone on holiday and done exactly the same thing, locking himself in the toilet of his villa with some kid popping rocks through the window every so often. He only came out when he ran out of money. When he begged the dealer for more he was offered a deal: if he took these two guys up to the mountains in his rented Mini Moke to visit a friend of theirs, they would give him what he needed to last the holiday. He agreed, and drove them to a shack in the mountains where the two Barbadians said, “Turn round, we won’t be long.” He turned round. Then the two guys came out of the shack door shooting two revolvers at the interior, letting off round after round into it. BANG. BANG. BANG. Then jumping into the Mini Moke with a big bag of crack and money.

“You’ve never seen a Moke move so fast!” he said. “I was terrified.”

‘Back at the hotel the two guys offered him a huge rock. “No,” he stammered.

‘He was cured.’

‘I was right in the middle of my heaviest drug phase now, and I wasn’t enjoying our gigs, they were getting in the way of my drug-taking. I found out that my brother filmed this gig on Super 8. He called it Slugfest because while he was filming it, a slug walked across the table into the ashtray in front of him, and he wrote on the tapes, “Slugfest”. This place was a fucking rat hole. I remember that I went in the dressing room and the rest of them went out for something to eat and I just started on the drugs. I couldn’t resist it and ended up completely bollocksed, spending the whole gig watching the clock above the bar tick really slowly. It was horrible. The Salford lot turned up thinking it was a dance night and a huge fight went off at the door. I was so fucked I can’t remember what Oasis were like, to be honest. Wish our kid could find the tape. Every time I ask he says, “Oh, it’s in the loft. I must get it out!”

‘Strangely enough, Pottsy would get an audition to be the bass player in Oasis much later. Jonny Hugo arranged it for him, knowing he knew the songs anyway. Pottsy was a big fan. When he got there they played for a while and then went to the pub. Everything was going well, but Pottsy told me he thought Noel was too loud, drowning everyone out. So, being the first one back from the pub, he just turned Noel’s amp down. They started to play again, but almost immediately Noel stopped: “Who’s turned my fucking amp down?”

‘ “I did,” said Pottsy, “you’re too loud.”

‘He said Noel looked shocked but just turned it up again. They carried on, then Noel went for a piss. Pottsy seized the opportunity and turned his amp down again. When Noel came back he went absolutely ballistic. Pottsy was sacked before he even got the job.

‘When I asked why he did it, he said, “He was too loud. You can’t do that, it’s not fair.”

‘Also, they were playing “Wonderwall” and Pottsy suggested some “better chords”. You can imagine how that went down with the leader of Oasis.

‘David Potts, that’s why I love you.’

‘This was a comic book story by James O’Barr, first published in 1989. It tells the story of a man brutally murdered who comes back to life as an undead avenger. The comic is littered with Joy Division references. Even the two main characters are called Captain Hook and Sergeant Albrecht. It was to be made into a big-budget feature film and the producer wanted New Order to re-record “Love Will Tear Us Apart” especially for it, the idea being we had come back from the dead. There was a lot of money on offer, £50,000, but because we were recording Republic, Barney would not entertain it, saying, “We can only do one thing at once. This is too much. No.” The contradiction being he was doing Electronic at the same time anyway. This was such a great shame. The project was eventually passed to Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, who did a very straight version of “Dead Souls” by Joy Division. This was the first time I had heard this “We can only do one thing at once” mantra. I would hear it a lot from now on though.’

‘Deadbeat’	4.50
‘Cloud Nine’	4.52
‘State of Shock’ (12" edit)	6.26
‘Little Pig’	4.42

‘Deadbeat’ (Gary Clail remix 1)	4.54
‘Deadbeat’ (Gary Clail Remix 2)	4.37
‘State of Shock’ (L’Pool edit)	6.01
‘State of Shock’ (Paralysed mix)	5.16

‘Deadbeat’	4.50
‘Clou Nine’	4.52
‘State of Shock’ (12" edit)	6.01
‘Little Pig’	5.16

‘Touched by the Hand of God’	4.57
‘Temptation’	8.36
‘True Faith’	5.45
‘Your Silent Face’	6.05
‘Every Second Counts’	4.20
‘Bizarre Love Triangle’	4.39
‘Perfect Kiss’	10.05
‘Age of Consent’	5.20
‘Sister Ray’	9.21

TIMELINE THIRTEEN JANUARY–DECEMBER 1992

TIMELINE THIRTEEN
JANUARY–DECEMBER 1992