Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division by Peter Hook

Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division by Peter Hook

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A funny and often sad account of the band, covering the history of one of the most influential bands in alternative music. The whole history of how the band met to the tragic events of Ian Curtis's death is covered. There are early signs here too of the breakdown in the relationship between Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner, years before the break up of New Order. There are funny accounts of Hook always being the van driver and having to load the gear away at the end of gigs whilst the other band members sloped off. There are also stories of the pranks they used to play on each other as well as bands like the Buzzcock's who they supported in their early years.

Those who have read Hooks other book about the Hacienda will be pleased to see the chapters interspersed with a diary of events and he does a track by track review of Unknown Pleasures and Closer. I particularly enjoyed the details of how they recorded their songs in the studio. Martin Hannett had an often mad genius approach, making Stephen Morris take his drum kit apart and record each part individually. Or he would put in digital delays, keyboards and other effects. On one track Sumner had a sulk and wouldn't play guitar so he suggested to Sumner to record it and then play the tape backwards (Candidate). He would tell them to fuck off whilst he totally rearranged the tracks in their absence, and the other band members told Hook to go in to see what he was doing to their songs. They were not particularly happy with the finished recordings of Unknown Pleasures but eventually saw that he had helped produce a classic album.

Hook is honest about how Curtis suffered through the heavy touring they did that contributed to his more frequent epileptic attacks towards the end of Joy Division and his death. However, Curtis did not want to rest and at one point turned up to sing even though he had been given the night off. Hook describes how Curtis had two separate lives with his troubled marriage with Deborah and his relationship with the Belgian Annik Honore when touring with the band. One minute he would be joking with the band, the next minute being 'arty' with his girlfriend and friends like Genesis P Orridge from Throbbing Gristle. Hook argues that no-one really knew the real Ian Curtis so his death was a shock to everyone. The bands reaction was to continue to go into the studio and not really discuss it until years after his death.

Joy Division have always been a huge influence on me so I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As well as being a story about Joy Division it also covers some of the later years of New Order. The story of Joy Division has been written and it looks like the story of New Order will be next. Bring it on.

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Blancmange - Feel Me - Favourite - 12" Electronic Singles Vinyl Revival

Blancmange are still one of my favourite pioneering electronic duos from the 1980s. Recently the works of Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe have been revisited on last years The Very Best of Blancmange http://www.blancmange.co.uk/archives/645 . This single was the extended edition of Feel Me. It charted at the peak position of no 46 but their follow up Living on The Ceiling was their breakthrough single taking them to no 7. This is still one of my favourite tunes featuring guitar by David Rhodes and vocals by Madeline Bell and Stevie Lange. The B side was an instrumental. Produced by Mike Howlett. 1982 London Records.

WWW: Wonder - Robert J Sawyer - Review (Good Reads)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After reading the first two books in the trilogy I wasn’t sure how the story of Webmind and Caitlin Decker who discovered him would finish. I was worried that I might be disappointed by the outcome. Webmind is an artificial intelligence that evolved from the internet. Caitlin Decker is a young girl who was once blind until she was given sight by a device that she calls an EYE pad. The device was originally meant to fix problem with her sight that she had had from birth, giving her vision back in one eye but Caitlin discovers that she can actually see the internet itself.

These books ask the question of what would happen if there was a form of artificial intelligence running the internet? The US government security services do their best to shut it down after failing once before to close it down. Colonel Peyton Hume cannot see that Webmind is a force for good and uses all means necessary to eliminate it. China has already raised a firewall once before to cover up the outbreak of a virus and the killings of those infected to control the spread of the virus. They are seeking to make the firewall permanent again but they have a hacker in their midst who has already opened up holes in the firewall.

These series of books have some interesting ideas. There are many examples of the benefits of crowd sourcing: people coming together to write open source software, seek help in building new devices from off the shelf electrical parts and scientists sharing ideas. This book seeks to take it further by the idea of people making decisions instead of government. However, sometimes I think that Sawyer is rather too positive about the benefits of technology. Social networks have been growing stronger but can we rely on groups of people making decisions on important subjects that affect us all? E-democracy has been used to seek individual’s opinions in focus groups before but it doesn’t meant that everyone’s voice is heard as their representatives may just be interpreting the results to achieve their own ends. The recent Egyptian revolt in 2010 used social media to challenge the government and has been a positive force for change. On the other hand only those who have access to this technology can participate. Equally popular polls could end in controversial decisions such as capital punishment being re-instituted after years of informed debate and legal precedent outlawing it in most western democracies.

What would also happen if an artificial intelligence could find a cure for Cancer and other complex issues through the co-operation of scientists, doctors and experts? This could be a positive thing but I could also see there being a backlash by the multinationals that manufacture and control the supply of drugs and products in a capitalist free market. Software companies would equally be upset if an artificial intelligences started putting 'verified by Webmind' on safe searches instead of their own security software.

Robert Sawyer continues to speak about technology subjects across the world and has consulted for companies like Google and Motorola. He has managed to keep my attention over this series of books through the interesting characters he has created and I hope he continues to write more thought provoking future science fiction stories.

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Headhunters - Jo Nesbo

Headhunters by Jo Nesbø

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is not a Harry Hole story but its a real page turner. There are lots of twists and turns and its difficult to review a book like this without spoilers.

Roger Brown is a successful Headhunter by day and an art thief by night. He has the perfect opportunity to find out about peoples treasured art collections without them suspecting anything. Everything is going fine until he meets his match when he interviews Clas Greve. Greve knows all of the interview techniques turning the tables on his interviewer. He looks like the perfect candidate for the job. He is also in possession of a work of art that Brown sees as another challenge for him to obtain. So begins another art theft.

However, Roger Brown's world is about to change, turning his world upside down and putting his life in danger. Can he trust his wife Diana or is she having an affair with Greve? He soon finds that he needs all of his talents to survive as he becomes the hunted in a commercial conspiracy. This is the type of book I enjoy a thriller with unexpected turns. It was hard to put down and I love an unexpected ending.



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Science fiction roundup – reviews | Books | The Guardian

 Science fiction roundup – reviews | Books | The Guardian. "Watch out for those yankie zombies". The latest science fiction books are reviewed by Eric Brown, including stories about Airships, robot romance and the american civil war crossed with steampunk and zombies.

Island Records reggae refreshers sampler Volume 1

This is one for the teenagers. Before I phones, You Tube, and Facebook we used to have this thing called cassette tapes. The record industry has always been under threat from one threat or another but back in the 1980s cassette tape was seen as a threat to Vinyl. When the Sony Walkman first came out it was revolutionary. For the first time you could take your music with you. Nowadays MP3s have taken over but Vinyl and cassette tapes still have a place in peoples music collections (although most of my tapes are now mp3s). This week a friend shared an old reggae track on Facebook- Roast Fish and Cornbread by Lee Perry. However, after looking everywhere on the web then I couldn't find the old compilation that included this. Eventually after much digging through old boxes I found it.

In the 1990s Island records had released a number of old albums from their reggae back catalogue under a new label 'Reggae Refreshers'. This compilation was a taster of the various artists who had reissued albums in Islands Reggae collection. So here is a piece of music archaeology. From 1990 here is the track-listing for Reggae Refreshers Sampler Vol 1.

Side One

Night Nurse - Gregory Isaacs
Moulding - Ijahman
Street 66 - Linton Kwesi Johnson
Draw Your Brakes - Scotty
Babylon Makes The Rules - Steel Pulse
Hard Road To Travel - Jimmy Cliff
Burnin' and Lootin' - The Wailers
Tribal War - Third World

Side Two

Fatty Fatty - The Heptones
Funky Kingston - Toots & The Maytals
Roast Fish & Cornbread - Lee Scratch Perry
King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown - Augustus Pablo
Cokane In My Brian - Dillinger
Push Push - Black Uhuru
War Ina Babylon - Max Romeo
Door Peep - Burning Spear

Spitfire Women of World War II

Spitfire Women Of World War II by Giles Whittell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Although I was aware that female pilots had served in the Second World War, I did not know anything about the work that they did in ferrying aircraft in the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). This book tells the story of the brave women who flew unarmed aircraft from the factory to RAF bases around the country. This was a time when there was a shortage of pilots and factories were mass producing aircraft to fight against invasion and ultimately for the D Day Normandy landings. Not only were the women pilots paid 20% less salary than their fellow male pilots, but they also had to face the sexist attitudes of Male officers, pilots and aircrew who didn’t believe that women would make good pilots and in heir view should stay in the kitchen. At first they only ferried trainer aircraft like the Miles Magister and Tiger Moths but eventually they flew Hurricanes, Spitfires and four engine bombers.

Amy Johnson gets a lot of attention as she was the pioneering aviator who set records and was seen as a great inspiration for women aviators. She later tragically got lost in bad weather when ferrying a plane and bailed out over the sea. Before the War flying was the pursuit of wealthy men who could afford to buy their own aircraft, but women like the Olympic female skier Wendy (Audrey) Sale Barker loved flying and became the first ATA girl. Other women were breaking records and in the case of the MPs daughter Pauline Gower had gained 2000 hours of flying experience flying joyriders for 5 minutes in a flying circus. She was the first woman who proposed that women should fly aircraft in the war. Women like Freda Sharland were encouraged by members of their family who were already bomber pilots to join the ATA. She had many letters rejected but didn’t give up and eventually succeeded. At first the RAF insisted that the first women pilots should only be 8 and not the originally proposed 12. They became known as ‘the first eight’ and were mainly instructors. At first they flew trainers but they moved to Spitfires and Hurricanes after Pauline Gower argued why there was no reason why women should not be allowed to fly aircraft like Spitfires and Hurricanes.

The women volunteered from different countries like Maureen Dunlop from South America. She became a Picture Post cover girl after being photographed getting out of a Spitfire. There was a lot of unwanted attention when the press got to hear of women flying aircraft. Characters like Diana Barnato Walker worked hard but liked to party hard too, going up to London and being ferried back to the air base afterwards. For most of the surviving women this was something that they were proud to do and most of the women interviewed did not wish to brag about their time in the War. The writer covers some of the glamour but prefers to concentrate on the danger and loss of life, Diana Barnato Walker lost her husband when his Mustang crashed. Many men and women lost their lives when their planes failed and they often had to fly aircraft to the scrapyard. Often they had to fly with no instruments in bad weather. They had no pre training instead they relied on a ferry pilot’s manual the bible of pilots often flying a particular aircraft for the first time. It was a dangerous job with no radar so pilots often used to crash into hills or would fly above the cloud cover and hope that they were above ground level when they emerged. Lettice Curtis flew from Prestwick to white Waltham in bad weather and was met by male pilots who could not imagine that a woman could fly in such weather. One in ten women lost their lives during the war.

Hamble became one of two woman only crew bases. The American Jacqueline Cochran recruited 25 women pilots and took them to the UK. She was against the stuffiness of the British and was seen as abrasive, she later returned to the US to set up the Women’s Air Service Pilots (WASP). She had argued that women should be allowed to fight combat missions. Only Women in the Soviet Union were the first to be allowed to fly combat missions. Eventually women in the ATA got equal pay thanks again to Pauline Gower who convinced a woman MP in the House of Commons to ask Stafford Cripps about whether women would get equal pay to men, with the threat of a fuss if he wouldn’t. However, Men still wouldn’t believe that in the case of Mary Wilkins Ellis who was to pilot a Wellington bomber that ‘a little girl could fly a big aeroplane’. After the war this prejudice continued when demobbed male pilots blocked Women pilots ambitions to fly as pilots and not aircrew on commercial airlines. Eventually these forgotten women of the ATA got a Veterans badge in 2009 under then PM Gordon Brown. This book is a great history of the brave women of the ATA, and a testament to their selfless bravery and pioneering spirit,

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Things I Don't Want to hear again in 2013

Fiscal Tightening

Keep Calm and ........... (prefer Get Angry and Save Lewisham A&E)

Fifty Shades of ................  (although it did increase sales of printed books).

Pop Up (anything)

A&E Closure (or Fire Station Closure)

Any mention of Drought by the BBC (I blame them for the continual rain)

Getting on the Property Ladder (Renting is cool)

Onesys (or Meggings)

Any more variations on Fiscal Cliff - have already heard Pensions Cliff and Electoral Cliff as variations in 2013.

Gangnam Style