| Sunday, November 04, 2007 |
| Control |
We went to see "Control," the new Ian Curtis biopic, yesterday. Curtis was the singer of Joy Division, a gloomy post-punk band from Manchester; after he killed himself at the age of 23, his other bandmates went on to form the much-more-famous New Order. I have no idea if Kids Today have any idea who Curtis was -- or even New Order, whose career peaked in the 80s, for that matter -- but back when I was in college, Joy Division had a pretty big cult following. The first poster I made for my college radio show featured the rather grim but beautiful photo from the cover of Closer, and one of my fellow DJs had actually purchased a ticket to see Joy Division on their ill-fated U.S. tour (Curtis committed suicide just a couple of days before the band was due to leave for the States).
With its two-hour running time and downer of a subject, I don't think I'd recommend "Control" to anyone who isn't already a Joy Division fan, but for anyone who obsessed over their slim output (two LPs, a couple 12" singles and a handful of posthumously released outtakes and live tracks), it's a must-see. I don't listen to Joy Division very often anymore but the music is so familiar to me that it feels like part of my DNA. The actors who played the band members in "Control" actually played all the songs, and do an excellent job, even if Sam Riley's voice isn't quite as deep as Curtis's. I found the most illuminating aspect of the film to be the way it tied Curtis's lyrics to the things that were going on in his life at the time; it made me listen to the songs in a new way.
The film sent me back to a time that I'm sure most teens and 20somethings would find unbearably primitive. When I was in high school and college, back in the Pleistocene epoch, if I was curious about a band, I couldn't just surf over to their MySpace page or download some tracks on iTunes; it was much harder than that. I can't remember where I first read about Joy Division -- probably in Trouser Press or another adventurous rock mag -- but I do recall that I had to ask my friend James to pick up their "Love Will Tear Us Apart" 12" for me at a record store near his college since none of the shops in Grand Rapids carried import singles. The first time I played it, I vividly remember thinking that my record player must have been set at the wrong speed because Curtis's voice was so low and droney. Eventually, though, I grew to love it, and tracked down the rest of their catalog. The vinyl was packaged in cryptic sleeves with no photos of the band or, in the case of Unknown Pleasures, not even the song titles.
The funny thing is, I'm actually pretty glad things were like that when I was a teen. There's no aura of mystery and glamour anymore. I remember reading about how great the Velvet Underground were and ordering The Velvet Underground and Nico from a record store that advertised in the back of Rolling Stone, getting the package in the mail, putting it on the turntable for the first time and being blown away. The disadvantage, of course, was that no one in my high school was listening to the Velvet Underground or Joy Division, and if the Internet had been around I could have logged on and found a community of like-minded souls.
In case you're curious, as I was, what became of Natalie, Ian and Deborah Curtis's daughter who was only 1 year old when her father killed himself, she's a photographer. Here is an interesting article by Natalie about her experiences on the set of "Control," and Natalie's self-portrait. |
posted by 125records @ 4:15 PM  |
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| 2 Comments: |
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I think it was at the library at the University of Michigan where I spotted a copy of Closer. Intrigued, I picked it up (this would have been an actual LP record, for the benefit of any youngsters tuning in), checked it out, and brought it back to my dorm room. Didn't know what to make of it at first - but I was intrigued enough to tape it. (Again for the youngsters: this is how we did "file-sharing" back in the day.) But, same story: no idea who the band was, what they were about. I did find out, reading then as I did a bunch of music magazines (usually at libraries or bookstores, since I couldn't afford to subscribe). It took me several years to get the chronology straight, actually.
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I see t-shirts with the cover of "Unknown Pleasure" pretty often. I think Joy Division still has a legacy in the world of music today. I hope the movie comes to New Mexico sometime. It might be the once-every-3-months movie that I go see.
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I think it was at the library at the University of Michigan where I spotted a copy of Closer. Intrigued, I picked it up (this would have been an actual LP record, for the benefit of any youngsters tuning in), checked it out, and brought it back to my dorm room. Didn't know what to make of it at first - but I was intrigued enough to tape it. (Again for the youngsters: this is how we did "file-sharing" back in the day.) But, same story: no idea who the band was, what they were about. I did find out, reading then as I did a bunch of music magazines (usually at libraries or bookstores, since I couldn't afford to subscribe). It took me several years to get the chronology straight, actually.