Peter Hook’s New Joy Division BookPerforming the Magic Bag in Ferndale with new group The Light
Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures hooks you right away with that game-changing bass groove, kicking off its first track. Nervy but brash, herky-jerky but still skimming along, that unmistakable bass belonged to Peter Hook, just one component of the post-punk icons who gave us one of punk’s best anti-love songs, the synth-centric “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Famously fronted by brilliant brooder Ian Curtis, with the comparably pioneering/raw styles of guitarist Bernard Summer and drummer Stephen Morris, the group’s story is detailed by Hook himself in the recently released Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division (Harper Collins). Hook’s group, The Light, play Ferndale next week to perform songs from the catalogs of Joy Division and New Order (the latter an equally iconic dance-pop outfit forged by Hook/Morris/Sumner after Curtis’ death in 1980).
Hook’s memoir Unknown Pleasures, came out last February. “
the punk ethic that had brought us into it molded the whole way we behaved,” writes the self-ascribed “working-class tosser from Salford,” recalling the days when they were first starting to break out amongst the punk breeding grounds of Manchester. That conversational style, with slices of zesty slang, can endear anyone less familiar with the band’s back catalog or mythologized beginnings beside the Buzzcocks and amid the Sex Pistols’ clamor.
Hook’s narrative is blunt, humble and resonates with reverence for his former band mates. His voice waves with a punchy cadence, sweeping the reader in with paragraphs kicking off sinuously: “So, anyways, what really happened was
” “
in Joy Division and New Order, it was always about playing without compromising your music. Doing that was the only success.” A bonus for big fans: his meticulous timelines dotted throughout, telling the tales of all Joy Division’s major characters.
Peter Hook & The Light play the Magic Bag in Ferndale on September 11 – with Slaves of Venus. Doors open at 8pm - $30.000 More info: the magicbag.com 22920 Woodward Avenue
