Half an Update...

The recent absence of blog updates does not mean hands have been idle by any means, and the drawings for the Seventies project have continued at a regular pace as will now be illustrated.

First of all, and continuing with the Northern theme that had been developing within the project, a double portrait drawing - also incidentally incorporating a still life element - from a source image that nostalgically recalls the early evening local television news programme that was broadcast into our homes in the north east corner of Wales, courtesy of the transmitters that brought us Granada TV rather than its Welsh equivalent (for which we required a special aerial adaptor that still proved unreliable). Thus are depicted two of the presenting team of ‘Granada Reports’ in its mid-1970s’ heyday, a young Tony Wilson as apprentice to the legend that was and remains Bob Greaves, with all fashions of the day on display.

Tony Wilson and Bob Greaves, 'Granada Reports' 1970s

graphite and putty eraser on 'Seawhite' cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

Next, the hip, young cultural gunslinger Tony Wilson is his other contemporary television presenting guise as more casually-attired host of ‘So It Goes’, introducing new music to the north west region, including a selection of the punk and post-punk bands from Manchester and environs that had been formed and developed in the wake of the Sex Pistols’ legendary appearances in the city in 1976. As ‘So It Goes’ fell victim to a notorious appearance by Iggy Pop at the conclusion of its second series, so Tony Wilson’s dissemination of the new sounds found other outlets, within ‘Granada Reports’ and also, of course, with the founding of Factory Records, both of which came to feature Joy Division as they grew and became such an icon of the time and place, and proceeded to transcend both as they remain synonymous with.

Tony Wilson, 'So It Goes'

graphite and putty eraser on 'Seawhite' cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

The recently-published volume of Paul Slattery’s photographic record of Joy Division at Strawberry Studios and around the town of Stockport on 28th July, 1979, features the source image for this drawing on its cover. ‘Here are the young men’ indeed, but creating some of the most powerful and resonant music of the era. If I’m absolutely honest, I didn’t acquire my first Joy Division record, the ‘Transmission’/’Novelty’ 7” single, until the February of 1980, after which obsession took hold, but the seeds of my devotion to them had undoubtedly been sown in my soul during the previous autumn, via the auspices of the John Peel radio programme (of course), so their inclusion in the project is entirely appropriate.

Joy Division after a Paul Slattery photograph

graphite and putty eraser on 'Seawhite' cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

More musicians pictured standing (and squatting) around can be found on the cover of The Stranglers’ (my very favourite group of the time) ‘Black and White’ LP, and this image, along with the band’s iconic logo, that I would have drawn/copied often then, forms the content of the next drawing which, in effect, illustrates one of the three music albums that I received as presents for Christmas 1979 (so we’re really pushing at the limits of the Seventies here!).

The Stranglers 'Black and White'

graphite and putty eraser on 'Seawhite' cartridge paper/30 x 42cm

The others were Public Image Ltd’s ‘Metal Box’, originally released as a collection of three 12” vinyl EPs contained within a tin canister (as very sadly I no longer own this object of desire, the substitute utilised as the model for this still life is in fact the reduced-circumstances and feeble impostor CD-sized version of the can, but I’d like to feel the spirit of the original can be inferred from the representation) - I have blogged about this on a previous occasion - and The Clash’s masterpiece double LP, ‘London Calling’, the front cover of which is faithfully reproduced in pencil here. In time, one learnt of the genesis of the latter artefact’s design, by Ray Lowry, in the artwork accompanying Elvis Presley’s debut album, and of such concepts and practices as artistic influence and postmodern ‘appropriation’, but I’m sure that wasn’t of particular concern to my 1979 self!

'Metal Box'

graphite and putty eraser on 'Seawhite' cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

The Clash 'London Calling' LP sleeve (front)

graphite and putty eraser on 'Seawhite' cartridge paper/42 x 30cm

Joy & Happy-ness

graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
original source: 'The Times' 2 05/09/08

This drawing being processed from an old original made topical through being used in a daily newspaper television guide to illustrate a BBC4 evening’s programming focussing on certain aspects of the Manchester music scene of the recent past. A pleasure indeed to have the opportunity to enjoy once again the excellent documentary ‘Factory: Manchester from Joy Division to Happy Mondays’ charting the history of the record label with particular emphasis on its leading lights Joy Division, New Order & Happy Mondays, & featuring fabulous anecdotal contributions from the main surviving players (including, at the time of its making, the late, great Tony Wilson): essential viewing, filled with any number of ‘madeleine moments’. Also a fascinating ‘Rock Family Tree’ focussing on JD-NO & the Buzzcocks, whose early music in particular endures with a delightful energy: the ‘Spiral Scratch’ EP truly was a seminal release, ‘Boredom’, ‘Breakdown’ et al.
And, positively spoiling anyone so ‘nostalgically inclined’, a compilation of BBC TV appearances by Manchester bands from the 60s & Freddie & the Dreamers to the present day with the Ting Tings, including a performance on ‘Something Else’ by Joy Division of ‘She’s Lost Control’ of such intensity (Ian Curtis & Stephen Morris particularly absorbed in themselves & their roles, Peter Hook & Bernard Sumner, also, studies in cool concentration), the sound exhilaratingly visceral, harsh, essential, the encapsulation of the power & purpose of the band that, as alluded to by Tony Wilson – that they simply had to be on stage, as an act of absolute necessity, making music, communicating their art – marked them out at their all-too-brief time & has subsequently ensured that they have endured, undiminished.

Soundtrack:


Belle & Sebastian 'The Life Pursuit'
Radiohead 'Kid A'New Order homemade compilation of singles & selected album tracks
Tricky 'Maxinquaye'

New Order sounded magnificent, as with Joy Division the passage of time since the music’s original release serving only to reinforce its majesty & quality. Interesting to realise too, just how strongly a band such as Radiohead have been influenced by JD & aspects of ‘the Martin Hannett sound’.

Out of Control...

What are they like..?


The not-so-great British culture of mindless disrespect continues to gather pace.


Coincidental to that saddening newspaper article, picked up a copy of the recent film 'Control' on DVD last week, at a price low enough to dispel the reservations I'd harboured about really wanting to watch this docu-dramatization of the short life & times of Ian Curtis, Joy Division, et al. At least I can say now I've seen it, should anyone enquire, but I must admit to finding the film ultimately disappointing. The cinematography, in monochrome, is beautiful, as one might expect of a work directed by the photographer Anton Corbijn, whose stark images of the band around the bleak wastes of late-1970s Manchester contributed in no small measure to the creation of the myth that grew, snowballed, around them: the whole, whose heart is the back street terraces of Macclesfield, is perfectly realised aesthetically, but this aspect of the film's art overrides all else, it seems to create a distance from any real emotional involvement with the characters & the central Curtis-young wife Deborah (& child)-lover (his) triangle, the dynamic of the essential art-versus-domestic life, dream-versus-duty narrative & its tragic conclusion, which, for all the 3 actors concerned's efforts, feels pretty passionless, cursory & entirely predictable (through familiarity, of course) in its unfolding, all else sketched very slightly around. Although it might be said that the claustrophobic, stifling ennui of the mundanities of daily working & domestic life within the wider context of the decaying industrial cities of the late-70s north of England is effectively communicated, for all that the story is factual, still the film, essentially dramatized documentary (based on Deborah Curtis's written account, 'Touching From a Distance'), somehow lacks the believability, the compelling intensity of fictions such as 'Room at the Top', 'This Sporting Life' & 'A Taste of Honey', of which, in its aesthetic at least, 'Control' is strongly redolent.
Were it not for the reminder of the goose-pimple inducing power of Joy Division's music, actually quite well captured in snippets of live concerts & TV appearances, as sung & played by Sam Riley & the other actors compromising the band, it would seem pretty pointless indeed: there's something very by-numbers about the result, somehow. A shame. And poor Tony Wilson, acted, caricatured again (see also Steve Coogan in 'Twenty-Four Hour Party People' - actually, an altogether much better & more enjoyable piece of cinema, even just the Joy Division segment, suffused with warmth & humour) in a manner that fails to do any sort of justice to the man himself, whose own construction of self was so much more complex & creative: that, perhaps, is one of Control's problems, that the actual people, such larger-than-life characters - also including the other members of Joy Division, their manager Rob Gretton, the producer Martin Hannett - (in) themselves, are so much more interesting than any dramatization, aestheticization of them could ever hope to be, even allowing for the fact that, in the story of 'Control' they are necessarily more minor players supporting the central triumvirate of the Curtises & Annik Honore - you really couldn't make them, or those times, their desperate urgency, the ferment of their creativity, up. See the BBC documentary on the subject of Factory Records instead, especially for the starring role played by the mighty & tragically-late Mr Wilson.