This video is sponsored by Squarespace
For if you need a website for your independent business or band.
"Love Will Tear Us Apart" casts a mighty shadow on Joy Division's career
while the Manchester band recorded two studio albums,
alongside a host of singles, demos and radio sessions,
nothing seems to get as much hype as the song etched on Ian Curtis' memorial.
And because of that I won't be talking about that already canonized song
But instead a cut off their monolithic 1979 debut Unknown Pleasures.
One that best exemplifies Joy Division's devastating use of space,
their brooding, anti funk grooves and Martin Hannett's experimental production.
A song that inspired the next wave of post-punk and beyond
but also pointed to Curtis' end itself.
This is New British Canon
and this is the story of "She's Lost Control".
The seeds of Joy Division were planted in Manchester, England
Guitarist Bernard Sumner and bassist Peter Hook had separately it attended the Sex Pistols
infamous Lesser Free Trade Hall gig on the 4th of June 1976.
Tony Wilson, Rob Gretton and Martin Hannett, all importance of The Joy Division story
were also at the sparsely attended show.
The day after Hook bought a bass guitar for £35 having no idea how to play the thing,
Sumner though already had a guitar and the intention to form a band.
They hired Ian Curtis in December 1976 through a wanted ad
but having previously known him from various punk gigs around town he was recruited without an audition.
Stephen Morris was added to lineup after their first couple of drummers proved an ill fit.
While many claim their first moniker was Stiff Kittens
the band have on a regular basis refuted this was ever a serious suggestion.
Their first actual name was Warsaw named after the David Bowie track, "Warszawa"
This was soon changed to Joy Division in late 1977
due to fear that they may get confused with the London-based punk band Warsaw Pact
As well as the usual punk rock influences that all post-punk bands had, Ian Curtis was inspired by the Doors
and especially revered the live fast die young Rockstar ideal that Jim Morrison had epitomized.
David Bowie was also a touchstone but Curtis soured on him after he unwittingly survived into his thirties,
believing him to be a liar in relation to lyrics from the song "All The Young Dudes":
Curtis's fantasy of rockstar fames stood in stark opposition of his home life,
married in his teens, and, by the recording of Unknown Pleasures, he had become a father.
He would find this duality stifling and as his life went on
this juggling act became increasingly difficult to maintain.
Joy Division's early songs were ramshackle
from an admiration of the Pistols and not quite knowing how to play their instruments yet.
The young band preferred to dwell within provocative Nazi imagery
including the song "Warsaw" on there An Ideal For Living EP
that featured a concentration camp identification number as an alternative to a traditional count in.
But this EP also features their first step towards being a band of note in "No Love Lost":
With this post-punk space and groove that was not present in the first strains of UK punk
it will recalls moments of Wire's Pink Flag or Krautrock bands like Can and Neu!
By late 1978 the band has a manager in the form of Rob Gretton
and was signed to the Manchester based indie label Factory Records
run by local celebrity Tony Wilson.
But their luck was soon to change.
On the 27th of December 1978 the band went to London
for what they thought would be their first significant gig outside Manchester
supporting The Cure at the Hope and Anchor in Islington, London.
Contrasting their expectation the gig was at a small pub with only a couple of dozen attendees.
They left disappointed.
Driving back to Manchester, Curtis and Sumner squabbled ever sleeping bag for warmth
during which Curtis started to convulse.
After stopping allowing the episode to subside, the band raced to Luton hospital
where he was given some tablets and sent on his way.
It would be a month later that Curtis would be clinically diagnosed with epilepsy.
This would have a significant impact on him for the rest of his life and would directly inform "She's Lost Control".
Alongside Joy Division, Curtis worked as the assistant disablement resettlement officer
at Macclesfield employment exchange.
A year before his own episode he made young woman who would come in looking for work.
At one point she had an epileptic seizure while attending one of these meetings.
Her plight struck a chord with Curtis and how this lack of control
could be used to illustrate the theme of not having charge in one's own life due to external forces.
After she stopped coming in he assumed that she had found employment
only to later find out she had choked to death in her sleep as a result of a violent seizure.
By the time the band recorded "She's Lost Control" for Unknown Pleasures
the song wasn't just solely about her, but about Curtis and his worsening condition.
One of his fears was that he would meet the same fate
so he developed the ritual for post performance evenings.
If he hadn't had an episode caused by over stimulation
he and his wife Deborah would stay up until either he'd had a seizure
or they heard a change in breathing rhythm that could signal an impending one
before either of them would go to sleep.
The first public performance of "She's Lost Control" was on the John Peel radio show
on the 31st of January 1979 out there out there less than a week after being diagnosed.
Despite being hyped up in the NME since the previous year
this was also the first time the majority of the UK would actually get to hear Joy Division
due to a rarity of singles, touring and the band having not yet had any national television appearances.
An electronic drum pad was used on the track which they would continue to use in the live setting
It gave live versions of the song an extra discordant element.
For the drum beat, Morris was inspired by Phil Spector singles like "Be My Baby".
"She's Lost Control" opens side B of Unknown Pleasures
and is considered to be the album's centerpiece and Joy Division's most important track at that point.
With Curtis at his most manically arresting, Hook's signature high on the neck bass line
and the alien thwack of Morris's drums.
The studio version of the track was recorded at Strawberry Studios in April 1979.
It was produced by Factory Records' resident producer Martin Hannett
who had previously worked on the Buzzcocks hugely influential Spiral Scratch EP
as well as Jilted John's eponymous first single,
an independent record that had managed to reach number four in the UK charts in 1978.
His eccentric production techniques shaped the album.
He insisted that at least on the potential singles that each drum be recorded separately
so that he could mix each individually without bleed through.
This created an exceedingly clean drum sound that Hannett was able to tinker with to his heart's content.
This is why "She's Lost Control"'s drums sound so industrial and machine-like.
Curtis's vocals have also been altered sounding like they're being dragged down
like a strange force as hold on him which he is unable to fight.
Hannett's would state about Joy Division:
Morris expanded on his process to the Vinyl Factory:
The result was a lot different from what you would have heard if he'd seen Joy Division Live circa 79.
While Curtis and Morris admired the work Hannett had done,
Sumner and Hook believe he had softened their Punk heaviness
into something they felt would fit on a Genesis or Pink Floyd record.
Said Sumner to Mojo:
Hook has since been able to admit that Hannett helped shaped Joy Division's sound:
Beyond Joy Division Hannett and his methods have become shorthand
for overindulgence in post-punk production
even getting a shout out in the preamble to the Dead Kennedys "Nazi Punks Fuck Off".
As much as the album itself is an extremely significant piece of post-punk
influencing everyone from the Cure, U2, Interpol, The Killers and a whole lot more,
its cover is one of the most recognizable album covers of all time.
Its seminal waved lines are taken from an image that Sumner had found in
the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy.
According to Jen Christensen from the Scientific American:
Factory in-house designer Peter Saville chose to invert the image
making it white on black to evoke space
and to leave the name of the band and the album off the cover.
As Saville explained:
Despite being one of the most iconic t-shirt designs ever,
Joy Division never released an official version until 1994.
There's been many different redesigns and reinterpretations of that cover
including this gloriously blasphemous version by Chris Ott.
The most famous of these re-imaginings was by Disney whose sunshine brand image
contrasted severely with the Spartan doomy-ness of Joy Division.
The t-shirt was uploaded in January 2012 and lasted two days
before an onslaught of music bloggers pointed out the wrongheadedness of the piece of merchandise
and it was removed from their site.
Saville nor the band were asked for permission on the t-shirt design.
Peter Hook stated:
Alongside the recording of their second album Closer in March 1980
Joy Division recorded a new version of "She's Lost Control" to be released as a 12-inch single
on the flip side of non-album track "Atmosphere".
Back with Hannett at Strawberry Studios
the 12-inch version of the track was a lot more electronically focused and almost a minute longer.
The drum beat is augmented with the sound of an aerosol can, as dramatized in the film Control:
This version of "She's Lost Control" became one of the last things Joy Division ever recorded
as such the track bookends their career somewhat,
their first taste of national attention to untimely end.
The Unknown Pleasures version showed the band for who they were going to be,
post-punks that would inspire the future of popular music,
a greatly promising concept.
But it also highlighted Curtis's desperation and hopelessness in the face of a condition
that would further complicate his increasingly complicated dual existence.
A complication that would lead to his suicide on the 18th of May 1980.
While "Love Will Tear Us Apart" tells of his regret of his personal decisions,
"She's Lost Control" tells a sadder tale,
one that was not his decision to make.
Diagnosed with epilepsy he was no longer able to govern his own body,
he was unable to live his dual life.
Simply he'd lost control of everything.
Do you have a band? Want to influence an entire wave of popular music?
Don't know how to start impossible process of getting your band out there?
Then why not check out Squarespace.
Squarespace is a website building service that is ideal for independent businesses like your band.
As a band with Squarespace, you're able to embed audio streams of your tracks directly onto your site
with a beautifully integrated player and album art display.
You can also set up an online shop for your digital and physical music
as well as merch like t-shirts with your album cover.
Squarespace makes the process of creating your own business website super simple.
Not only are there templates but they are easy to edit using responsive drag-and-drop tools.
Let the people know about your band with a Squarespace website.
Head over to Squarespace dot com for our free trial
and when you're ready to launch go to Squarespace dot com right slash Trash Theory
or use the offer code "TRASHTHEORY" to save 10% on your first purchase of a website or domain.
Thanks for watching.
Be sure to like, comment and subscribe if you haven't already.
As I usually do I'd like to give the biggest shout out to all my supporters.
You're all awesome.
If you want to join them by supporting the channel it really does help
especially was such a copyright-claim-stricken channel such as mine.
Again Thank You and see you next time!