“We were so excited about going to America”
Ian saw Annik for the final time on Friday, April 25, at a Factory night held at the Scala cinema in London’s King’s Cross—where Joy Division had been due to play but pulled out. The following day, Annik was scheduled to leave the UK for an Egyptian holiday; by the time she returned Ian should have been leaving for America with Joy Division.
They left the venue in the early hours and returned to her flat so she could finish packing. Then in the morning they went to catch their respective trains, bidding farewell at the station. She never saw him again.
Meanwhile the band pressed ahead with plans to film a video to accompany the single release of “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”
We’d worked him nearly to death in March. Then we’d done quite a bit of working him to death in early April.
Ian had responded by trying to kill himself.
We’d paid him back with a debilitating riot and then at last—at long bloody last—we pulled some gigs. Every gig, in fact, that we could pull. We did it because of Ian, because he needed a rest.
But sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t the gigging break that did him in in the end. At least when we were playing we were away, our minds were distracted. With the gigs canceled and us staying close to home, Ian also ended up staying so much closer to the source of all his domestic problems.
Not that we were aware of all these troubles, the depths of his problems, at the time, mind you. It’s only recently, since the explosion of interest in Joy Division, you might say, and while I’ve been researching the book, that I’ve really started to get a clear picture of the kind of shit Ian was going through and the very short timescale involved.
At the time he kept it mainly to himself. As far as we were concerned he was dead excited about going to America, really looking forward to it. Yet you read about him telling people that he didn’t want to go. According to Genesis P-Orridge, Ian said he’d “rather die” than go on tour—and maybe he did say that, but not to us he didn’t: no way. With us, Ian was bang into the idea and maybe if he’d been spending more time with us, and less at home, and less talking to the likes of Genesis, then he’d have been buoyed up by it all. I think he’d have gone to America, where, looking at it, the schedule wouldn’t have been exhausting, and I think he would have loved it.
I’m not saying his problems would have gone away, of course. Just that they wouldn’t have been crowding in on him quite so much. I really think that if he’d made it to America he’d have lived.
Or maybe I’m just talking out my arse again. Barney always said that it was his medication that made him suicidal, and that could have happened anywhere—Macclesfield or New York.
Anyway, what else could we do but stop? Ian was exhausted, his illness getting worse. He had to rest. Even though, in a funny kind of way, he did the exact opposite: he was drifting between staying at his mum and dad’s and with Barney; he had Debbie and everyone on his case; he went to London to say good-bye to Annik, so was probably upset about all that. Then, a couple of days later, we were recording the “Love Will Tear Us Apart” video, and that seemed to take forever.
We’d arranged to film it in TJ Davidson’s, even though we weren’t really using it anymore. Looking for more basic comforts we’d ended up in Pinky’s near Broughton Baths (quite near North Salford Youth Club, actually, the second youth club I ever went to, with Barney; I got chased away from the first, South Salford) but it wasn’t big enough to make the video.
Now, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that we hated the whole idea of a video where you mimed or acted to the track. In fact we were never into it, all through New Order. God, you feel like such an idiot miming. So what we decided to do was hire a PA and a mixing desk, play “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” and record while we filmed, so the video would be a live performance of the song.
We set up for the filming with a long runway so the cameras could come in and out on a track, like a mini-railway. Then off we went and did a few run-throughs, trying to get the sound right. But we couldn’t, because there wasn’t a separate room in which to mix the sound. It was confused with the racket that we were getting off the instruments and through the amps. It didn’t really work, and the tape we ended up with, the soundtrack to the video, sounded pretty rushed and bad, to be honest. Nor could we overdub any backing vocals—or anything else, for that matter.
Even so, we were very happy with it as it happened. It was raw, dirty, and arty. We liked that: it was us all over, of course. As usual it never really occurred to us that anybody else might have a problem with it. If they did, well, that was their problem. Trouble was, hardly anybody we sent it to would play it. It got shown a little, but not nearly as much as we’d hoped, so it had seemed a bit of a waste of time.
Ah, but then we heard that it had gone down well in Australia, and of course we thought, Good on the Aussies. They’ve got good taste, they have. They know art when they hear it. And thus began an affection for our like-minded brethren down under.
It wasn’t until years and years later that we visited Australia—as New Order, of course—and discovered the truth. Somebody at the Australian record company had simply laid the actual record over the film, and it wasn’t even properly synchronized. It looked well dodgy, actually—well, we thought so. But this became the version that ended up being the “official” (for want of a better word) version. Now, of course, it’s perfect, capturing us at our youngest and freshest with a great soundtrack.
I suppose you could say it was yet another of those slightly questionable self-defeating decisions, to do the video that way: like insisting on performing “Blue Monday” live on Top of the Pops (which they’re not set up for) and seeing it go ten places down the charts as a result. But we didn’t care, not really. Our ultimate aim was just to be ourselves, to do things the way we wanted them done, and we’d insist out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Rob was always in our corner. Tony was always in our corner. You might call them mistakes but at least they were mistakes made on our own terms. Mistakes that then became legends.
A few days later we played Birmingham. We didn’t know it then, of course, but it would be our last-ever gig as Joy Division.
It was a good one too. We later released it on the album Still. Ian had a bit of a wobble during “Decades” but was fine for “Digital.” Even so, it was one of those gigs—like all of them were around then—where you were looking at Ian wondering if, or when, it was going to happen, and that was because it was now happening at every show. With hindsight you can look back and say he probably wasn’t going to be right at any gig, whether in America or outer space. Even so, the idea of canceling or rescheduling America never came up.
We were so excited about going, so wound up about it and desperate to do it. Ian, the fan of the Doors and Lou Reed and Iggy Pop and Burroughs, especially. I don’t care what Genesis P-Orridge says, he was looking forward to going. I mean, we had so much going for us then. The word was getting out that we were a great group to see live. We had “Love Will Tear Us Apart” up our sleeve. We were on the way up.
That’s what always gets me about what he did. Sometimes you can see just why he did it, and it makes a kind of sense.
Other times, it just makes no fucking sense at all.