Latest / DISGRACELAND / New Order: Blood on the Dance Floor, E in the Bloodstream, and Inventing the 1980s

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New Order: Blood on the Dance Floor, E in the Bloodstream, and Inventing the 1980s · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:16
Speaker 1: New Order are insane. They hired a notorious crime family
0:21
Speaker 1: to police their Manchester nightclub when it became overrun with
0:25
Speaker 1: gang violence. Their manager did so much cocaine that he
0:29
Speaker 1: suffered a mental breakdown and fought eight police officers when
0:33
Speaker 1: they fitted him for a straight jacket. Their bass players
0:37
Speaker 1: struggled with his own drug habit that led to an
0:39
Speaker 1: undercover police sting and an arrest. At the height of
0:42
Speaker 1: the band's fame, they proved that a rock band could
0:46
Speaker 1: make dance music and actually become cooler in the process.
0:50
Speaker 1: And the musical hybrid that they created not only to
0:53
Speaker 1: find part of what the nineteen eighties sounded like. It
0:56
Speaker 1: remains great music, some of the best music of all time.
1:01
Speaker 1: Unlike that music I played for you at the top
1:03
Speaker 1: of the show that wasn't great music. That was a
1:06
Speaker 1: preset loop for my melotron called Bathtub Gritz MK one.
1:13
Speaker 1: I played you that loop because I can't afford the
1:15
Speaker 1: rights to Upside Down by Diana Ross. And why would
1:19
Speaker 1: I play you that specific slice of Round and Round Cheese?
1:23
Speaker 1: Could I afford it? Because that was the number one
1:27
Speaker 1: song in America on September twentieth, nineteen eighty, and that
1:31
Speaker 1: was the day that the Manchester band formerly known as
1:34
Speaker 1: Joy Division, played their first show in the United States,
1:37
Speaker 1: just months after the sudden death of their former lead singer.
1:42
Speaker 1: On this episode, Notorious crime Families, mental breakdowns, police stings,
1:48
Speaker 1: round and round cheese in New Order, I'm Jake Brennan
1:53
Speaker 1: and this is Disgraceland. Did they want weed pills? Coke?
2:27
Speaker 1: Paco could get them some coke. Paco hooked up all
2:30
Speaker 1: the rock stars when they came to the island, like
2:32
Speaker 1: Ronnie Wood. Fucking animal Ronnie Wood was. He did an
2:36
Speaker 1: entire gram in one line, just one hint of the
2:41
Speaker 1: body and you're off your tits all night. So what
2:44
Speaker 1: would it be? Paco waited for an answer. He couldn't
2:47
Speaker 1: say he was a fan of New Orders music, having
2:49
Speaker 1: ever heard it, but he was starting to like these
2:51
Speaker 1: four man cunions all the same because they're about to
2:54
Speaker 1: make him a few extra box. Peter hook aka Hooky,
2:58
Speaker 1: the band's bass player, quickly shook his head full of
3:01
Speaker 1: his shoulder length hair and response, Nah, they didn't want coke.
3:05
Speaker 1: The wanted the new drug they'd heard about, the one
3:07
Speaker 1: that was readily available here in Abiza. They wanted ecstasy.
3:11
Speaker 1: Paco was true to his word. He knew a guy,
3:14
Speaker 1: and then New Order were rolling deep. The drug came
3:18
Speaker 1: as advertised. It made music sound sublime and made late
3:22
Speaker 1: nights blur into early mornings. It made you fall hard
3:25
Speaker 1: for Bally Eric b that anything goes ethos of DJ
3:29
Speaker 1: culture that throbbed from every sound system on the island.
3:32
Speaker 1: When a DJ made a smooth transition from a hard
3:35
Speaker 1: hitting acid house jam into Queens and other one bites
3:37
Speaker 1: the dust, it felt like it was meant to be,
3:40
Speaker 1: especially when you were on e Everything old was new again,
3:45
Speaker 1: Everything's gone green. No wonder they called it ecstasy. You
3:49
Speaker 1: wanted a hug everyone, even strangers, even the people who
3:53
Speaker 1: were supposed to be your closest friends. But it gradually
3:55
Speaker 1: become the people you couldn't hardly fucking stand to be around.
3:59
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eight, eight years after they had risen
4:02
Speaker 1: from the ashes of Joy, Division redefined themselves and invented
4:06
Speaker 1: the sound of a new decade. The members of New
4:08
Speaker 1: Order hated each other well. Their drummer Stephen Mars and
4:12
Speaker 1: their keyboard player Jillian Gilbert were a couple, so they
4:15
Speaker 1: get along just fine, but specifically Hookey hated Barney. The
4:20
Speaker 1: feeling was mutual. Barney was Bernard Sunder, the band's guitar
4:24
Speaker 1: player and lead singer. Barney was a synth man, more sequencers,
4:28
Speaker 1: more drum machines, less of Hooky's trademark melodic bass. Hookey
4:32
Speaker 1: took great offense at what he saw as Barney's attempt
4:35
Speaker 1: to slowly stage a mutiny in the name of art.
4:38
Speaker 1: This drama, of course, both personal and musical, was what
4:42
Speaker 1: made New Order incredible. It's there and air, defining songs
4:45
Speaker 1: like Blue Monday, True Face Seems Like Us, and the
4:49
Speaker 1: perfect kiss yin and Yang. Hookey's bass, which he ran
4:53
Speaker 1: through a chorus pedal and played a high up on
4:55
Speaker 1: the neck, so high that people still mistake it for
4:57
Speaker 1: a six tern guitar, remains the perfect musical foil to
5:01
Speaker 1: Barney synthesizers. New Order proved that a rock band could
5:05
Speaker 1: be a dance band and not lose any of its
5:07
Speaker 1: cool When it came to losing one's actual cool. However,
5:11
Speaker 1: routine drug use was a great equalizer. Copious amounts of
5:15
Speaker 1: ecstasy made Hookey and Barney forget about their differences. It
5:18
Speaker 1: also made them forget about what they were in Aviza
5:21
Speaker 1: to do in the first place, make a new album.
5:26
Speaker 1: Three months later, and tens of thousands of pounds down
5:28
Speaker 1: the drain, they returned to their hometown of Manchester, England,
5:31
Speaker 1: with only one song called Fine Time to show for it.
5:35
Speaker 1: Tony Wilson, co founder of New Order's label Factory Records,
5:39
Speaker 1: saw the glass as half full. He later said that
5:43
Speaker 1: the band's time at Abiza was the most important working
5:46
Speaker 1: holiday they ever took because they brought the island's energy
5:49
Speaker 1: and technicolor musical palette back to industrial Britain. Bally Eric
5:55
Speaker 1: Beat became the template for the Hacienda, the local club
5:58
Speaker 1: the band co owned with Factory Records and Tony Wilson.
6:02
Speaker 1: At the Hacienda, Manchester became Manchester dungarees, baggy shirts, bandennas
6:08
Speaker 1: the omnipresent yellow smiley face. The Hacienda was where the
6:12
Speaker 1: legs of the Smiths, the Stone Roses and Oasis collided
6:15
Speaker 1: with acid, house music and rave culture. But a rejuvenated
6:19
Speaker 1: nightclub wasn't the only thing. A visa was good for
6:22
Speaker 1: the band's fifth studio album, Technique, which they finished at
6:25
Speaker 1: Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios put their Mediterranean Experience on Wax.
6:31
Speaker 1: Released in January of nineteen eighty nine, Technique was New
6:34
Speaker 1: Order's first album to reach number one on the UK
6:37
Speaker 1: charts and the US it peaked at number thirty two,
6:40
Speaker 1: their highest position to date, and with great success came
6:44
Speaker 1: great excess. When New Order tour to promote the record,
6:48
Speaker 1: they no longer traveled in cars and vans. They traveled
6:51
Speaker 1: in limos and planes. Every night ended with a rave,
6:55
Speaker 1: and people danced on tables, fucked in bathroom stalls. Cocaine
6:58
Speaker 1: and paranol made the rounds that you couldn't see straight.
7:01
Speaker 1: Just like back in the Visa, everything felt so goddamn good.
7:05
Speaker 1: You could close your eyes and forget about all the problems.
7:08
Speaker 1: You could actually believe that it was good to be
7:10
Speaker 1: in New Order. And for a moment, maybe it was
7:17
Speaker 1: Dominic Noonan knew at least one of the other guys
7:19
Speaker 1: standing across from him at the pub at a Shotgun,
7:22
Speaker 1: some punk from Moss Side or Cheatham Hill, maybe Salford.
7:25
Speaker 1: Little Twat thought he owned the place. He thought he
7:28
Speaker 1: owned any place he walked into, like the Hacienda Club
7:31
Speaker 1: that Nonon had been hired to protect and protect it
7:34
Speaker 1: he did. Even when he was somewhere else. Noonan could
7:37
Speaker 1: hear the dog barking outside this little pub. It belonged
7:40
Speaker 1: to one of these pricks that stood before him. They
7:42
Speaker 1: wouldn't stop bringing their gang violence to New Orders Club.
7:45
Speaker 1: It was Nonon's job to make them stop. He got
7:48
Speaker 1: an idea. He walked outside. The door swung shut behind him.
7:52
Speaker 1: The dog's incessant barking was suddenly silenced, and there was
7:55
Speaker 1: a high pitched squeal, and then nothing. Moments later, Noonon
7:59
Speaker 1: walked back inside. He held a machete in one hand.
8:03
Speaker 1: In his other hand the dogs severed head. He dropped
8:06
Speaker 1: the bloody head on the pool table. Noonon looked the
8:08
Speaker 1: guy with the shotgun in the eye. Stay the fuck
8:11
Speaker 1: away from the Hacienda, he said. For the next time,
8:13
Speaker 1: it will be a human head on this table. By
8:17
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, things had changed. The scene at the
8:21
Speaker 1: Hacienda had gotten out of control. A bigger profile meant
8:24
Speaker 1: bigger problems. Bouncers and patrons were routinely stabbed. Shots were
8:28
Speaker 1: fired in the club's foyer. A DJ was held at
8:31
Speaker 1: gunpoint and told to surrender his records, the cops did
8:34
Speaker 1: fuck all. New Order had no choice but to employ
8:37
Speaker 1: the services of the noonans and infamous Manchester crime Firm.
8:40
Speaker 1: For those in America, listening, crime firm is the same
8:43
Speaker 1: as crime family, just the English version, not crime family
8:47
Speaker 1: or gang crime firm. That's why I'm using crime firm. Okay,
8:50
Speaker 1: So Savior angry letters. Gang conflict wasn't the only issue, though.
8:55
Speaker 1: The Hacienda was hemorrhaging money had been for years to
8:59
Speaker 1: any free drinks. That's what happens when twenty four hour
9:01
Speaker 1: party people are given a business to run. Every time
9:04
Speaker 1: New Order had a financial windfall, their earnings were funneled
9:07
Speaker 1: directly into the club to keep it alive. And when
9:10
Speaker 1: rave culture hit, the very culture that New Order helped
9:12
Speaker 1: usher in, they found they could no longer give the
9:15
Speaker 1: booze away, and no one wanted to get drunk. They
9:17
Speaker 1: just wanted water, free water so they could stay hydrated
9:21
Speaker 1: while rolling on e ecstasy. The Hacienda was in serious trouble. Then.
9:26
Speaker 1: That meant the factory records, which effectively underwrote the club,
9:30
Speaker 1: was also in serious trouble. The four members of New
9:33
Speaker 1: Order were facing financial ruin. They were guaranteurs on the
9:36
Speaker 1: loans for both the Hacienda and factory, which meant that
9:39
Speaker 1: if the club or the label went belly up, they
9:42
Speaker 1: were personally responsible. Then they stood to lose everything, and
9:46
Speaker 1: there was only one way to save it all. New
9:48
Speaker 1: Order had to make a new record, a hit record,
9:52
Speaker 1: a record that was even bigger than Technique. Only then
9:55
Speaker 1: could they generate the kind of cash flow it needed
9:57
Speaker 1: to keep things running. It wasn't going to be easy.
10:00
Speaker 1: Barney was fucking off with Johnny Marraw, Morrissey's former foil
10:03
Speaker 1: and the Smith's on a side project called Electronic, which
10:06
Speaker 1: suited Hookey just fine, because now that all the Avisa
10:09
Speaker 1: ecstasy had probably worn off, he was back to hating
10:11
Speaker 1: Barney's guts like it was his job. Hookey knew they'd
10:14
Speaker 1: have to bury the hatchet one more time and figure
10:17
Speaker 1: out how to get along long enough to make something great.
10:20
Speaker 1: How the hell were they going to do that? Easy?
10:24
Speaker 2: Drugs, lots and lots of drugs.
10:49
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty five. Somewhere in England, Rob Bretton New Order's manager,
10:54
Speaker 1: squirmed uncomfortably in the passenger seat of the AUTI two
10:57
Speaker 1: hundred Turbo Quadra he had, the fucking cocaine was gone.
11:03
Speaker 1: That was the thing with Rob and coke. One bump
11:06
Speaker 1: was too much and two bumps were never enough. But
11:08
Speaker 1: he had a solution. It was coke and a tour
11:11
Speaker 1: bus just a few kilometers up the road. Rob looked
11:14
Speaker 1: over at Hookey sitting in the driver's seat and told
11:16
Speaker 1: him the floor. They're going to catch that bus. Fuck
11:19
Speaker 1: they were. The bus was long gone by now. It
11:22
Speaker 1: was a fool's errand. And that was the other thing
11:24
Speaker 1: about Rob and coke. You just couldn't fucking reason with
11:27
Speaker 1: him anymore. Hookey sank his foot into the gas pedal,
11:30
Speaker 1: shifted up a gear, and felt the out. He roared
11:32
Speaker 1: to life. The English Motorway stretched ahead. Hookey buried the
11:36
Speaker 1: needle with resentment. He didn't really want to chase the
11:38
Speaker 1: bus full of drugs, because at this point in his life,
11:41
Speaker 1: Hookey had little interest in those drugs. But at the
11:43
Speaker 1: same time, he didn't want to wait and find out
11:45
Speaker 1: what was gonna happen if Rob's nose went unpowdered for
11:48
Speaker 1: much longer. Another car came up quickly on the right side.
11:52
Speaker 1: It gained on them, a Jaguar not just any Jaguar
11:55
Speaker 1: driven by any bloke a cock shit the last fucking
11:59
Speaker 1: thing they need. The jag sped ahead slightly and then
12:02
Speaker 1: angled in front of the Oudie. Its tiles squealed across
12:05
Speaker 1: the motorway. Hookey slammed on the brakes. He brought the
12:08
Speaker 1: Oudi to a stop in the side of the road.
12:10
Speaker 1: Then he braced himself for what would happen next. The
12:14
Speaker 1: cop did the hole do you know how fast you
12:16
Speaker 1: were going? Thing? And Hooky did the hole I'm very sorry, officer,
12:19
Speaker 1: won't happen again. Thing. But then the cop let Hookey
12:22
Speaker 1: go with a warning. Strange even stranger. After the cops
12:26
Speaker 1: sped off, Rob wouldn't stop staring at Hookey. The fuck
12:30
Speaker 1: was the matter with him? He told him? I had dope?
12:32
Speaker 1: Rob said. Finally, Hooky couldn't believe his ears. He told
12:36
Speaker 1: who Rob had what? Rob pointed a shaking finger at Hookey.
12:40
Speaker 1: I was reading your lips, Rob said, He told that
12:43
Speaker 1: copper I had dope. That was the moment Hooky realized
12:46
Speaker 1: that Rob absolutely had a problem, and it wasn't the
12:50
Speaker 1: bust full of coke that they'd never catch up to.
12:54
Speaker 1: Throughout nineteen eighty five, Hookey and the other members of
12:57
Speaker 1: New Order watched as their manager descended into full blown
13:00
Speaker 1: drug addiction and full blown paranoia. Heavy drug use wasn't
13:04
Speaker 1: part of New Order's regular routine in nineteen eighty five.
13:07
Speaker 1: They drank, they did speed, they partied like the rock
13:10
Speaker 1: stars they were quickly becoming. But coke was their manager's back.
13:14
Speaker 1: Rob's habit was costing thirty five hundred pounds a week,
13:17
Speaker 1: money that would have gone straight back into the Hacienda's
13:20
Speaker 1: till if it wasn't busy going up his nose. It
13:22
Speaker 1: brought back bad memories of Martin Hennett, New Order's original
13:26
Speaker 1: producer entitled twat Martin Hennett. When the band went to
13:29
Speaker 1: make their debut studio album, Movement in nineteen eighty one,
13:32
Speaker 1: Martin refused to get to work until they found him
13:35
Speaker 1: a gram of blow. But he never pulled that shit
13:37
Speaker 1: when Ian was around. Ian, of course, was Ian Curtis,
13:41
Speaker 1: singer for New Order's former group Joy Division, dynamic frontman
13:46
Speaker 1: Doom and melancholy in his voice, a perfect match to
13:50
Speaker 1: the coldly detached sound of their instruments. Martin made Stephen
13:54
Speaker 1: Morris record each part of his drum sets separately bass drum,
13:57
Speaker 1: then snare, then high hat, take we have to take,
14:01
Speaker 1: until eventually the human performance was completely drained and they
14:04
Speaker 1: were left with the sound of a machine. Joydavision's new
14:07
Speaker 1: sound paved the way for a whole new genre that
14:09
Speaker 1: would become known as post punk before it eventually splintered
14:12
Speaker 1: off into new wave, gothrock and moore. But before all that,
14:16
Speaker 1: on the eve of Joydavision's first American tour in nineteen eighty,
14:19
Speaker 1: Ian Curtis hanged himself with a clothesline in his kitchen.
14:23
Speaker 1: The memory of their late singer hung over the band
14:25
Speaker 1: with a lead blanket. They could barely crawl out from
14:28
Speaker 1: under it. On that first tour of America, where they
14:30
Speaker 1: were still built as Joy Division or Pex Joy Division,
14:33
Speaker 1: or even used to be Joydavision, but they weren't Joy
14:36
Speaker 1: Division anymore. The name New Order reflected that a creative
14:41
Speaker 1: choice to start over. The name was also deliberately provocative
14:45
Speaker 1: with its inescapable Nazi connotations, just like how Joydavision was
14:49
Speaker 1: inspired by the name of a brothel in Hitler's concentration camps.
14:52
Speaker 1: Stephen Vue defended their choice of names explaining that they
14:56
Speaker 1: always sympathized with the victims, not the villains, but both
14:59
Speaker 1: Hookey and barn and he admitted to more than a
15:01
Speaker 1: passing obsession with the idea of fascism. Hookie acknowledged the
15:04
Speaker 1: quote certain physical sensation you get from flirting with something
15:08
Speaker 1: like that, That's a quote. Bernie, on the other hand,
15:11
Speaker 1: was fascinated with how beautiful art and design could emerge
15:14
Speaker 1: from a culture of hate. The cover art for New
15:17
Speaker 1: Orders singles and albums, created by Factory Records graphic artist
15:20
Speaker 1: Peter Seville, were inspired by the Italian futurist movement, which
15:24
Speaker 1: had its own relationship with fascism, in which, like Bernie's
15:27
Speaker 1: vision for the band, rejected the past and embraced the future.
15:31
Speaker 1: It was all part of an ambiguous aesthetic. The band
15:34
Speaker 1: members weren't identified on record sleeves, and they refused to
15:37
Speaker 1: be photographed. They gained a reputation for avoiding interviews. They
15:41
Speaker 1: opposed the cult of personality. But at the end of
15:44
Speaker 1: the day, New Order or a band, don't fool yourself.
15:48
Speaker 1: The bands are democratic. A dictator always emerges, and that
15:52
Speaker 1: person in New Order was Barney, because he was the
15:54
Speaker 1: one who stepped into Ian Chu's first, he wasn't a
15:57
Speaker 1: singer like Ian. His voice was fragile and saw where
16:00
Speaker 1: Ian's was more assertive and confident. But the more he
16:03
Speaker 1: did it, the more comfortable he became, and the more
16:06
Speaker 1: comfortable he became, the more he felt empowered to steer
16:08
Speaker 1: new order away from their past. On tour New York
16:14
Speaker 1: City in the early eighties, he heard and saw the
16:16
Speaker 1: future post disco Latin freestyle role in eight o eight's
16:21
Speaker 1: Chep Pettibone's master mixes on Kiss FM. When Jillian Gilbert joined,
16:25
Speaker 1: she played keyboards, as did the other members of the
16:27
Speaker 1: group with increasing frequency. Because guitar, bass, and drums, those
16:31
Speaker 1: were instruments of the past, synthesizers, triggers, pulse sequencers, drum machines.
16:36
Speaker 1: They were the next movement. At least Barney thought they were.
16:40
Speaker 1: To hookey. All these new devices were just a royal
16:43
Speaker 1: pain in the ass, So much time wasted on programming machines.
16:47
Speaker 1: Jillian worked for hours making a color coded chart of
16:50
Speaker 1: how the sequencer was programmed for their single Blue Monday
16:52
Speaker 1: and why. Because of the machine shot the bed, they
16:55
Speaker 1: had a blueprint to reprogram it. In all his years
16:58
Speaker 1: as a professional musician, it never felt less like one.
17:01
Speaker 1: Why couldn't they all just play, you know, like a
17:04
Speaker 1: proper band? Couldn't even be a proper banded soundcheck? Soundcheck
17:07
Speaker 1: was now devoted to troubleshooting drum machines and sequencers and
17:10
Speaker 1: finicky samplers that use floppy disc The setup alone was
17:14
Speaker 1: labor intensive, and if your name wasn't Bernard's Summer, it
17:17
Speaker 1: most definitely wasn't a labor of love. Still, as frustrating
17:21
Speaker 1: his New Order was becoming for Hooky, he couldn't deny
17:24
Speaker 1: that their song Blue Monday was a massive success, not
17:28
Speaker 1: just for the band but for Factory Records. DJs couldn't
17:31
Speaker 1: get enough of the seven and a half minute version
17:32
Speaker 1: of the twelve inch single. It's still often called the
17:35
Speaker 1: biggest selling twelve inch record of all time. How did
17:38
Speaker 1: it feel pretty fucking good man? His bass sounded pretty
17:41
Speaker 1: fucking awesome on it?
17:42
Speaker 2: Two.
17:43
Speaker 1: In that same year, nineteen eighty three, New Order released Power,
17:46
Speaker 1: Corruption and Lies, their second full length album and first masterpiece.
17:50
Speaker 1: Low Life and Brotherhood followed in nineteen eighty five. In
17:53
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, but Brotherhood reflected the division that had
17:57
Speaker 1: developed was in the band. One side of the record
18:00
Speaker 1: was a little more dance oriented, then the other side
18:02
Speaker 1: was a little more rock and roll. New Orders of
18:05
Speaker 1: Love for the music had once brought them together back
18:08
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty and when they lost one of their
18:10
Speaker 1: own and longed for purpose, longed for direction and the
18:13
Speaker 1: strength to carry on. But that was then, and this
18:16
Speaker 1: was now. Love couldn't fix this. Love created a divide,
18:20
Speaker 1: and love would tear them apart. We'll be right back
18:28
Speaker 1: after this. We're, We're, We're. By the end of nineteen
18:37
Speaker 1: eighty six, Americans had finally caught on to New Order,
18:41
Speaker 1: and they had some unexpected advocates to thank for that.
18:45
Speaker 1: Music legend Quincy Jones, best known for his work with
18:48
Speaker 1: legends like Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson, signed the band
18:52
Speaker 1: to a licensing deal. His lay of Quest was now
18:55
Speaker 1: distributing New Orders albums in the US. Meanwhile, John Hughes
18:59
Speaker 1: and Demi included New Order tracks on the soundtracks to
19:03
Speaker 1: their movies Pretty in Pink and Something Wild. The band
19:06
Speaker 1: was suddenly a hot UK import, which meant that temptation
19:10
Speaker 1: was harder than ever to resist. For Hooky, there was temptation,
19:14
Speaker 1: and there was frustration. It's hard to say where one
19:17
Speaker 1: ended and the other began. He was tired of arguing,
19:20
Speaker 1: tired of wrestling, was since he worried that this would
19:23
Speaker 1: be the last time his wife would believe all the
19:25
Speaker 1: lies he told her whenever he returned home from abroad.
19:28
Speaker 1: Of course, he didn't sleep with other women. He only
19:31
Speaker 1: had eyes for her. Wont bullshit. He knew that, deep
19:34
Speaker 1: down she knew, and yet she let him carry on
19:36
Speaker 1: the charade anyway, whether it was temptation or frustration. On
19:40
Speaker 1: this night in December of nineteen eighty six, almost ten
19:43
Speaker 1: years into the life as a professional musician and now
19:45
Speaker 1: in his early thirties, Hooky did a line of blow
19:48
Speaker 1: that would change his life forever, and not in a
19:52
Speaker 1: good way. Hooky saw firsthand what cocaine could do to
19:56
Speaker 1: a man, drove Rob Bretton to a full psychotic break.
20:00
Speaker 1: Rob attempted to fight off eight cops when they fitted
20:03
Speaker 1: him with a straight jacket. He was committed for a
20:05
Speaker 1: short period of time, after which he returned, and of
20:08
Speaker 1: course New Order welcomed him back into the fold, though
20:10
Speaker 1: he was never the same. But Hooky wasn't Rob, or
20:13
Speaker 1: so he thought. It was. Late in the after party
20:18
Speaker 1: in the Tampa nightclub was electric. The line went up
20:21
Speaker 1: his nose quickly, and then everything was on fast forward,
20:25
Speaker 1: like he had pressed that double arrow button on a
20:27
Speaker 1: VHS promote, and the tracking on the screen went all
20:29
Speaker 1: fluttery and herky jerky images scattered by. Some girl flirted
20:34
Speaker 1: with him, He flirted back. She disappeared, probably playing hard
20:38
Speaker 1: to get. Some kid took her place and said, hey, man,
20:41
Speaker 1: that's my sister. Leave her alone, Leave her alone. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
20:47
Speaker 1: Hookie gave the voice of the lift service and told
20:48
Speaker 1: him the fuck off. The girl came back and Hookey
20:51
Speaker 1: worked his Manchester term again, but once more she left
20:54
Speaker 1: and the kid was back, and he was screaming, Now,
20:56
Speaker 1: I told you to leave my fucking sister alone. I
20:58
Speaker 1: swear to God. Get a little nervous this time, but
21:01
Speaker 1: maybe this American kid was gonna nun him if Hookie
21:03
Speaker 1: got fresh. And when the girl turned up again, Hooky
21:06
Speaker 1: told her that they should go their separate ways. He
21:08
Speaker 1: didn't want to any trouble from her brother. She furrowed
21:11
Speaker 1: her brow. Look brother, brother, She didn't have a brother.
21:15
Speaker 1: Hooky saw red miserable, lying twat cock blocking Yankee fucko.
21:20
Speaker 1: Hookey found the kid in the crowd and made a beeline,
21:22
Speaker 1: and the coke sizzled on the back of his throat
21:24
Speaker 1: like an egg in the hood of a car in
21:25
Speaker 1: late summer. He grabbed the kid by his shirt collar,
21:28
Speaker 1: hit him without warning, and the kid crumpled to the floor.
21:31
Speaker 1: Hookey lifted his leg and stuck smood in the kid's throat,
21:33
Speaker 1: and the kid struggled on his back, his face going red,
21:36
Speaker 1: and then blew his arms, lashing wildly. When the club's
21:39
Speaker 1: bouncers finally pulled Hooky away and the kid grasped for air,
21:43
Speaker 1: the kid was thrown out. Peter hook was in fucking
21:46
Speaker 1: new order the ones hosting this after party. Hooky didn't
21:49
Speaker 1: need cocaine to tell him that he could do no wrong.
21:52
Speaker 1: But it didn't hurt. What did hurt was over indulging.
21:57
Speaker 1: Two years later, it was nineteen eighty eight. Hooky, like
22:00
Speaker 1: Rob before him, was officially an addict. In a hotel
22:04
Speaker 1: room in Brazil, last night of the tour, someone passed
22:07
Speaker 1: him a plate loaded with coke. Hooky hoovered it up.
22:10
Speaker 1: His brain went into overdrive. He rambled. All he could
22:13
Speaker 1: hear was the sound of his own voice, and the
22:15
Speaker 1: sun came up, and he found some more powder in
22:17
Speaker 1: the pocket of a jacket and snorted it. Someone was
22:20
Speaker 1: unconscious in a bathtub. Half naked girls walked by. Hookey
22:24
Speaker 1: was still fucking blabbering Jesus Christ. He needed a few
22:26
Speaker 1: hours of shut eye. It was back on a plane tomorrow,
22:29
Speaker 1: back to England, back to reality. His muscles spasmed, his
22:33
Speaker 1: head pounded, his mind raced, but his brain couldn't communicate
22:37
Speaker 1: with his limbs, and later that morning he needed a
22:40
Speaker 1: wheelchair to get on the airplane. All he could think
22:45
Speaker 1: about was how shitty he felt. He didn't want to
22:47
Speaker 1: think about everything else, like what Barney had recently told
22:51
Speaker 1: the band a new Order at the height of their
22:53
Speaker 1: burgeoning worldwide success about to reach heights they never thought possible,
22:58
Speaker 1: and Barney wanted to take a break, pursue other creative endeavors,
23:02
Speaker 1: work with other people. Hook he dealt with it by
23:05
Speaker 1: getting super fucked up, so fucked up that he thought
23:09
Speaker 1: he could never feel worse if he tried. He was wrong.
23:14
Speaker 1: August nineteen ninety one, Hooki met Stephen and Jillian at
23:19
Speaker 1: their farm in Michaelsfield to begin writing new orders next record.
23:23
Speaker 1: Their future was writing on it. Their club, The Hacienda,
23:27
Speaker 1: was overrun with gangsters and was in serious financial trouble.
23:31
Speaker 1: Ditto for their label, Factory Records. Their asses were on
23:34
Speaker 1: the line, but something was missing, some one was missing.
23:38
Speaker 1: Barney didn't show up, at least not at first, too
23:41
Speaker 1: busy with Johnny Marr. It seemed selfish to the rest
23:44
Speaker 1: of the band to leave them hanging in their time
23:46
Speaker 1: of need. But the other three carried on. They wrote,
23:50
Speaker 1: and the songs took shape. They sounded fucking incredible. Even
23:53
Speaker 1: more incredible was how the three band members felt. It
23:56
Speaker 1: hadn't felt this way in years. A true closeness, unbreakable bond,
24:01
Speaker 1: and not having Barney, their de facto leader, there to
24:04
Speaker 1: fuck it all up, that felt best of all, Barney
24:08
Speaker 1: had instructed them to work on new material, and he'd
24:10
Speaker 1: come at the end to add his vocals brilliant, So
24:14
Speaker 1: that's just what they did. But when Barney finally did
24:16
Speaker 1: show up, he didn't just add his vocals. He rewrote bridges,
24:20
Speaker 1: he rewrote choruses, he rewrote entire songs. In his book
24:24
Speaker 1: Substance Inside New Order, Hookey claims that Barney endeavored to
24:27
Speaker 1: write him, Stephen and Gillian off the album and effectively
24:31
Speaker 1: make a Bernard Sumner solo record. HOOKI got lucky when
24:34
Speaker 1: their producer later had him double back and had his
24:36
Speaker 1: bass guitar and a lot of the places where Barney
24:38
Speaker 1: had taken it out. Still, little mercies such as those
24:42
Speaker 1: didn't relieve the tension that continued to build up within
24:44
Speaker 1: the band. The highs were incredibly high, like in nineteen
24:48
Speaker 1: ninety when the band was tapped to record World in Motion,
24:51
Speaker 1: a song for the England national football team's FIFA World
24:54
Speaker 1: Cup campaign that made something that was universally meaningful, and
24:58
Speaker 1: it became their only number one song the UK singles
25:01
Speaker 1: Charm the song can't stay number one forever. The Loew's
25:05
Speaker 1: were waiting there when things settled down. You were made
25:08
Speaker 1: to feel like your opinion was no longer valued, like
25:10
Speaker 1: your input was no longer required, like you were disposable
25:14
Speaker 1: to make things worse. In late nineteen ninety two, before
25:18
Speaker 1: the band could finish their new album, Factory Records went bankrupt.
25:23
Speaker 1: Factory could have been saved, as it turned out, if
25:25
Speaker 1: their competitor, London Records had actually bought them, as was
25:28
Speaker 1: the plan, But when it was discovered the Factory didn't
25:31
Speaker 1: actually have contracts with its artists and that the artists
25:34
Speaker 1: owned their own work. London just waited for the inevitable.
25:38
Speaker 1: Factory quickly succumbed to its financial burdens, and London swept
25:42
Speaker 1: in to claim New Order for their own. Brilliant quote
25:45
Speaker 1: Tony Wilson, capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell. Republic.
25:51
Speaker 1: The Vand's sixth studio album, the one that had put
25:53
Speaker 1: Barney had even greater odds with the rest of the group,
25:56
Speaker 1: was released on London Records in the spring of nineteen
25:58
Speaker 1: ninety three. It was commercial success. The band hoped it
26:01
Speaker 1: would be helping to relieve some of their looming fiscal hardships.
26:05
Speaker 1: It was their second consecutive album to top the UK charts,
26:08
Speaker 1: and in the US it reached number eleven on the
26:10
Speaker 1: Billboard two hundred, led largely by its leadoff track and
26:14
Speaker 1: single Regret, which stormed the charts on both sides of
26:18
Speaker 1: the Atlantic. With The success came at a cost. Only
26:22
Speaker 1: one member of New Order loved the album when he
26:24
Speaker 1: listened to it, and the other three only heard frustration,
26:27
Speaker 1: disappointment and heartbreak. Stephen Morris later ranked it as his
26:31
Speaker 1: least favorite New Order album, simply because it brought back
26:34
Speaker 1: awful memories of an awful time. Hooky once again partied
26:39
Speaker 1: in order to block those awful memories out. He got
26:42
Speaker 1: high and danced to the Acid House soundtrack. At the Hacienda,
26:45
Speaker 1: he hung out with drug dealers, and they became close,
26:49
Speaker 1: so close that when one of them asked Hooky to
26:51
Speaker 1: be a guaranteer on the purchase of a phone for them,
26:54
Speaker 1: he gladly supplied his home address and credit card number,
26:57
Speaker 1: but not close enough for Hooky to know that the
26:59
Speaker 1: dealers were a big time, like a million pounds of
27:03
Speaker 1: dope per deal, big time, like the subject of an
27:06
Speaker 1: extensive undercover police sting, big time, and before Hooki knew it,
27:10
Speaker 1: the party would come crash into a halt in more
27:13
Speaker 1: ways than one. In hindsight, it was a horrible idea,
27:37
Speaker 1: but at the time it made perfect sense. Hooky arrived
27:41
Speaker 1: at the courthouse simply to offer his support. His drug
27:44
Speaker 1: buddies are on the hook for moving a ship ton
27:46
Speaker 1: of dope. You just don't let your friends hang out
27:49
Speaker 1: to dry, and it's time of need. So he attended
27:51
Speaker 1: their sentencing and witnessed as they all caught serious time
27:55
Speaker 1: in a Manchester prison. Strange ways, here we come outside
27:59
Speaker 1: on the court house steps. Hookie suddenly got that sinking
28:02
Speaker 1: feeling that he was headed for a similar fee. Three
28:05
Speaker 1: cops talked amongst themselves and motioned in his direction. Hookey
28:09
Speaker 1: felt the hairs on his neck go up, and then
28:12
Speaker 1: the cops began to move, first a determined stride, and
28:15
Speaker 1: then they got faster, and they were headed straight for him.
28:19
Speaker 1: And then he remembered, Fuck, it was the phone, that
28:22
Speaker 1: fucking phone. Drug dealers being drug dealers, they didn't tend
28:26
Speaker 1: to open bank accounts or credit cards, but they did
28:29
Speaker 1: have phones. And Hooky, in his fucked upstate, thought it
28:32
Speaker 1: was a good idea to purchase a mobile device for
28:34
Speaker 1: his drug dealing friends with not only his famous name,
28:38
Speaker 1: but with also his money. He underwrote the drug trade
28:41
Speaker 1: just as transparently as he underwrote the music business in
28:44
Speaker 1: Manchester's night life. Cocaine it's a hell of a drug.
28:48
Speaker 1: And the cops caught up to Hooky outside the courtroom
28:50
Speaker 1: and placed him under arrest for conspiracy to supply controlled drugs.
28:55
Speaker 1: They brought Hooky to an interrogation room inside the courthouse,
28:59
Speaker 1: and he was sweating, not because of the charges before him,
29:02
Speaker 1: but because he was carrying three grams of cocaine and
29:05
Speaker 1: a handful of speed stuffed inside his wallet. When the
29:08
Speaker 1: cops weren't looking, Hooky massaged his ass against the chair
29:11
Speaker 1: and slowly worked his wallet out. He grabbed it discreetly
29:15
Speaker 1: with his hand, and from behind his back, felt around
29:17
Speaker 1: inside until he located the baggies. He moved slow, no
29:22
Speaker 1: sudden movements. The table had a large base, thank fucking god.
29:25
Speaker 1: So again, when the cops weren't looking, he lifted the
29:28
Speaker 1: table up slightly with his knee and tossed the baggies
29:31
Speaker 1: safely underneath. No harm, no foul, thankfully. No harm, no
29:37
Speaker 1: foul was essentially the police department's assessment of the situation
29:40
Speaker 1: after Hookie was released on bail, and they actually decided
29:44
Speaker 1: not to search his home when they showed up. He
29:46
Speaker 1: was too fucking big, Hooky was. No drugs are They
29:48
Speaker 1: told him to stay out of trouble. It was like
29:50
Speaker 1: that time on the motorway all those years ago when
29:52
Speaker 1: he was chasing a coke filled torbus at illegal speeds
29:55
Speaker 1: and was let off for the warning. It was good
29:58
Speaker 1: to be Peter hook but it was no longer so
30:00
Speaker 1: good to be a member of New Order. The divide
30:03
Speaker 1: was getting wider. On August twenty ninth, nineteen ninety three,
30:06
Speaker 1: while touring behind the Republic album, New Order played the
30:09
Speaker 1: final gig featuring their original lineup at the Running Festival.
30:13
Speaker 1: It wasn't planned, but the band took some time off
30:15
Speaker 1: after that, But when they finally did reconvene at the
30:18
Speaker 1: end of the century, Jillian Gilbert decided not to continue
30:21
Speaker 1: on Hooky For one was shocked that he and Barney
30:24
Speaker 1: were actually getting along for once, even if that didn't
30:27
Speaker 1: last for long, And maybe it was an attempt to
30:29
Speaker 1: reclaim the things they'd lost, like Ian Curtis, or the
30:33
Speaker 1: collaborative high watermark of their mid nineteen eighties work, or
30:36
Speaker 1: the Hacienda Club, which finally followed in the Factory's footsteps
30:39
Speaker 1: when it shut down in nineteen ninety seven after a
30:42
Speaker 1: final year in which Hookie himself paid seven pounds a
30:46
Speaker 1: month to keep it open. For a band that defined
30:48
Speaker 1: the future, being tethered to the past did them no favors.
30:52
Speaker 1: But the future that lay ahead for New Order in
30:54
Speaker 1: the twenty first century wasn't the future of old who
30:57
Speaker 1: was riddled with less groundbreaking music and more calm conflict,
31:00
Speaker 1: more acrimonious splits, and even lawsuits that divide between rock
31:05
Speaker 1: and roll and dance music. It's now a permanent one,
31:08
Speaker 1: with Bernard Sumner carrying on the New Order name, while
31:11
Speaker 1: Peter Hook fronts his own band The Light, which performs
31:14
Speaker 1: many of New Order's classic songs. Barney and Hookey Forever
31:19
Speaker 1: torn Apart, such a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this
31:26
Speaker 1: is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is
31:44
Speaker 1: produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode
31:47
Speaker 1: can be found on the show notes page at disgracelamdpod
31:50
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31:54
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Speaker 2: The bad Man Man