Chapter And Verse

I got Bernard Sumner's autobiography (Chapter And Verse) for Christmas. I haven't read it yet but have spent some time flicking through it. Bits of it sent me off towards the record collection and to Youtube. Which is where I found this piece of footage from thirty years ago.

January 1984 and The Tube is filmed live from the Hacienda. Onstage are The Factory All Stars who play four songs- 52nd Street's Cool As Ice, ACR's Shack Up and New Order's Confusion (all three together as a medley). Then Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart (sung by Caesar from The Wake). There are way too many people on stage, several singers and a multitude of musicians (including members of The Wake, Quando Quango, ACR, 52nd Street, Bernard from New Order and Marcel King). They all seem to be having a good time and yes, it is a bit shonky but it is very good fun too.



Later on the same evening and also on The Tube a young lady called Madonna will make her first British TV appearance, miming and dancing. There is a story that Peter Hook offered her some cash to dance in the dressing room but I'm sure that's not true.

Wake Up

Some old Factory music for Thursday from Glasgow's The Wake. It's against some kind of internet law to type the words The Wake without mentioning that Bobby Gillespie was a member (leaving in 1983). The Wake signed to Factory after Rob Gretton heard them, recorded at Stockport's Strawberry Studio (a Factory hangout), toured with New Order and released several singles and two albums through either Factory or Factory Benelux. Eventually they got fed up at Factory and left for Sarah Records splitting in the mid 90s. The Wake re-woke in 2009 and have an album scheduled for this year. There was a gig in Brussels in December 2009 with former Factory bands Section 25 and A Certain Ratio which sounds like the early 80s in a nutshell, but probably with fewer raincoats and less Situationism. This was a single in 1984, archetypal in it's own way, and has Durutti Column man Vini Reilly on piano. Rather nice really.

Talk About The Past