variations on a theme: Martin Hannett part II, the music

As promised, some works that honor the legacy, genius and talent of the legendary Manchester producer Martin Hannett....



Martin piddled around in Manchester with several acts, helped establish the Manchester Musicians Collective in the late 1970s, did some booking and engineering, until falling in with Factory Records impresarios Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus in 1978. Martin was considered one of the label's co-founders, and envisioned himself becoming the house engineer and chief A&R man. He worked with most of the Factory roster until he left the label's employ in 1982, suing the label over lost royalties (and he was convinced Factory wasted everything opening the Hacienda, his idea was to spend it all on a Fairlight instead).

Martin was lost in the wilderness during the mid-80s, lost in a sea of drink and drug. Only occasionally did he pop up, most notably with the Stone Roses (complete nobodies at the time) to record a debut album which finally saw the "official" light of day in the late 90s as a semi-official release entitled Garage Flower. His work with the Roses was largely ignored/forgotten for two reasons: 1) it wasn't very good, frankly, and 2) the Roses were quickly moving on into a more melodic realm that dated even further what they were doing with Martin.

Surprisingly coming back into the Factory family via his work with Happy Mondays, Martin enjoyed a sudden resurgence of work and popularity, if you will, in the late 1980s/early 90s. Starting with the Mondays, Martin then produced several other acts that were drawn to him for his legend and genius, culminating with two Manchester acts New Fast Automatic Daffodils and The High, the last two acts he worked with until his sudden untimely death via heart attack in April 1991.

Martin was a genius. His legendary use of digital delay, coming milliseconds after the initial snare hit, has influenced hundreds of recording engineers to this day (see the entire Joy Division catalog for an example). An autocrat, he nevertheless encouraged the best work out of the acts he worked with (bar the Stone Roses as above), and his imprint on music, on Manchester, on a generation of music fans, will continue forever.

Onward to the music - that's what we're here for, right?

MARTIN: The work of record producer Martin Hannett
FACD 325
1991 Factory Communications Ltd.



01 BUZZCOCKS / Breakdown
02 SLAUGHTER AND THE DOGS / Cranked Up Really High
03 JOHN COOPER CLARKE / Suspended Sentence
04 JOY DIVISION / She's Lost Control
05 JILTED JOHN / Jilted John
06 A CERTAIN RATIO / Do The Do
07 ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK / Almost
08 U2 / 11 O'Clock Tick Tock
09 NEW ORDER / Everything's Gone Green
10 HAPPY MONDAYS / Lazyitis
11 WORLD OF TWIST / She's A Rainbow
12 NEW FAST AUTOMATIC DAFFODILS / Get Better
13 THE HIGH / More

Released in 1991, this album was Factory's celebration of his life and work. All proceeds went to his family - and if this album were still in print, I wouldn't have it here to download because of that.

-------------- analog loyalist's compilation ---------------

I was going to do the list-each-song-and-download-separately bit but I know how annoying RapidShare is so I made my own compilation instead. Single download gets it all!

"Produced by Martin Hannett"
compiled by the Analog Loyalist

01 JOY DIVISION / Digital (1978)
Side 1, track 1 of the Factory Sample FAC2. Martin finds it here.

02 A CERTAIN RATIO / All Night Party (1979)
Funky even without the original funky drummer DoJo.

03 DURUTTI COLUMN / Sketch For Summer (1979)
04 DURUTTI COLUMN / First Aspect Of The Same Thing (1979)
"Sketch" finds Martin inventing bird noises with various electronica, and "First Aspect" is Martin flying solo - he wrote it and performed it entirely alone.

05 A CERTAIN RATIO / Flight (1979)
I'm not certain the Joy Division comparisons aren't entirely due to Martin's signature production work here...

06 JOY DIVISION / Atmosphere (1979)
The first genuine classic here, the band thought this was the best job Martin had ever done for them. Beautiful, beautiful.

07 KEVIN HEWICK with NEW ORDER / Haystack (1980)
Factory sends the surviving Joy Division members into the studio shortly after Ian Curtis' death, to back fledgling Factory artist Kevin Hewick on a couple tracks. An audition, perhaps, for the vocal spot vacated by Ian and soon filled by Bernard Sumner? One never knows... New Order's first studio effort after Ian's death.

08 NEW ORDER / Ceremony (1980)
09 NEW ORDER / In A Lonely Place (1980)
Both sides of FAC33 straight from mint vinyl, New Order recording in New Jersey with Martin, before Gillian joined. Classics both, IALP is less thunderclappy compared to the remixed version on Substance.

10 SECTION 25 / New Horizon (edit) (1981)
Factory's Blackpool contingent, obviously JD influenced (or is it that Hannett sound?). I edited down the interminably long intro.

11 THE STONE ROSES / I Wanna Be Adored (1985)
Martin's lost years, the Madchester classic in its original form - Leckie's 1988 re-recording obviously perfected it.

12 HAPPY MONDAYS / WFL (Think About The Future) (1988)
Remixed by Paul Oakenfold, pure utter genius this track. Welcome back, Martin.

13 THE HIGH / Up & Down (1989)
Part of a series of demos The High recorded with Martin in fall 1989, this band was the last band Martin recorded before his April 1991 death. Nice jangly song, Andy Couzens presented this song to the Stone Roses while he was still a member.

variations on a theme: Martin Hannett part I

You knew it had to come, the PIT's tribute to Martin Hannett. Legendary producer. Oddball but genius. So strange that Factory Records founder Tony Wilson (Anthony H in his later years) stated Hannett's character in Factory biopic 24 Hour Party People was the strangest role Andy Serkis ever played, not Gollum.



I can't even begin to touch on the impact Hannett had on music I love to this day - and the impact he had on producers to this day as well. Genius behind the legendary Joy Division sound. The man who pushed modern technology to the forefront, meeting digital delay technology inventors on remote Pennine mountaintops at the asscrack of midnight to help them design what he heard in his head. The result? Joy Division's "Digital", so named for the digital delay effect he was so instrumental in using (and creating!).

There's two ways to tributize Mr Hannett here.

One way would be to do what I've done so far, post random songs by random acts.

The other way would be to post one of the various tribute albums that have been compiled to honor Martin since his untimely death in 1991.

I propose to blend both.

First, the tribute album Martin, released by Factory in 1991 to honor his indelible contribution to the music world.

Then, a couple random tracks not included on Martin that I feel were either criminally left off, or just cool tunes that he worked on, or just other random Hannett bits that I come across.

So watch this space. I wanted to pop an entry in here so as to not make you forget I've forgotten the blog already (life intrudes), I do plan to have something up shortly.

variations on a theme: Iain Burgess

edit: New post here with a much more comprehensive compilation of Iain's recordings, in light of his recent passing...

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Iain Burgess, for many years, was the "architect" of the Chicago classic punk sound in the 80s and early 90s. If your record wasn't engineered by Iain, it seemingly didn't exist. Virtually every Chicago punk/alternative band used him at one point or another.


Iain in 2003-ish, at his residential studio Black Box in France

Oddly there's little to no biographical information about him on the internets. I do know he came to Chicago from the UK, did a lot of production, and eventually moved to France to open his own studio. Steve Albini credits Iain for introducing him to a lot of recording techniques he uses today, especially about preserving the sound, presence and impact of a loud punk band playing in its element - live.


Iain in 1988 behind the boards at Chicago Recording Company, recording the Poster Children (see below)

Having searched the vast, wide web of the world, I do believe this is the first blogpost ever to spotlight Iain Burgess's works. Hooray!

So enough blathering - what about the music?

EFFIGIES / "Fly on a Wire"



(from the 1985 Ruthless LP Fly On A Wire, long out of print)

Chicago's Effigies were among the first postpunk bands to make a name for themselves outside Chicagoland. This is a terrific proto-indierock blast that shows how they've moved on from hardcore to something maybe more melodic.

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BIG BLACK / "Kerosene"



(from the 1986 Homestead LP Atomizer, currently available on Touch And Go on vinyl, and on CD as part of The Rich Man's Eight Track Tape)

From their first real full-length (not counting Lungs or Bulldozer), really, what else is there to do in tiny smalltown America than jump kerosene? Iain really makes the guitars scraaaang and that walloping piledriving drum machine hammer.

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DEFOLIANTS / "Mr. Spy"



(from the 1987 Pravda 7" EP Hang Ten, long out of print)

I saw these guys open for Naked Raygun at the Riviera, Chicago in 1989 and ever since been on a quest for Defoliants material. Even then you couldn't find the records, and even today the utter lack of Defoliants--age on the internets is disappointing. This is the only track I could find and it just doesn't do the memory of these guys live-on-stage justice. Think Dick Dale fronting a punk band. Amazing stuff.

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NAKED RAYGUN / "Soldiers Requiem" and "Vanilla Blue"



("Soldiers Requiem" from the 1988 Caroline LP Jettison, "Vanilla Blue" from their 1987 self-released 7", also on the CD issue of Jettison)

The torch-bearers of the Chicago punk scene, probably the band with the greatest national and international recognition. These guys were/are something else live, yet they never were afraid to themselves laugh at the whole spectacle of it all - even having John Haggerty's guitar lowered to him from the rafters at the Cabaret Metro. Amazing, amazing band, this lineup was their classic lineup that lasted from 1984-1989. 1989 saw Haggerty quit to form Pegboy (see below).

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POSTER CHILDREN / "Question"



(from the 1989 Limited Potential LP Flower Plower, currently on the band's own Twelve Inch Records label)

Formed at University of Illinois - Champaign/Urbana in the late 80s, this band really lived (and still lives) by the Minutemen "we jam econo" credo. This track is from their first full-length record and a great snapshot of the energy and spunk the Poster Kids carry.

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PEGBOY / "Through My Fingers" and "Strong Reaction"



("Through My Fingers" from the 1990 Quarterstick EP Three-Chord Monte, "Strong Reaction" from their 1991 Quarterstick LP Strong Reaction)

Pegboy was formed in 1989 after John Haggerty quit Raygun, joining up instead with his brother Joe on drums and two ex-Bhopal Stiffs on vocals and bass. Really, the only reason to listen to Pegboy is Haggerty's guitar sound, he's got one hell of a roar and his playing style is perfect for the music.

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JAWBOX / "Static"



(from the 1992 Dischord LP Novelty)

The first non-Illinois band here, Jawbox came from the Washington, DC Dischord scene and in fact J Robbins was former Government Issue - another key hardcore touchpoint band. Dischord and the Chicago Touch And Go scene shared a lot of friends, commonality and ethics and they cross-pollinated quite a bit. Here we have these guys traveling to Chicago to record with Iain, on their last independent record before skipping Dischord and signing to Atlantic.

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After the mid-90s Iain was relatively quiet production-wise, concentrating on building his own studio in France. There have been a a couple really fantastic records made there and with his assistance, including.....

NINA NASTASIA / "Superstar"



(from her 2003 Touch And Go LP Run To Ruin, recorded by Steve Albini and Iain Burgess at his French residential studio)

This Brooklyn, NY singer/guitarist is amazing - and this record is a perfect example of how you cannot pigeonhole Steve Albini's production style.

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Like these? Thoughts?