As I clean up my hard drives, and poke through the big pile of CD/DVD-R's, I come across stuff. Sometimes I refile it, sometimes I put it in the "interesting, needs further thought" pile, and sometimes it goes straight into the blogpile, occasionally after some further audio mastering work.
Of late New Order soundboards keep edgeing their way into the blogpile. I push them out but you know, they're persistent little fuckers.
Perhaps it's to counterbalance Steve Albini. Hey! Albini's first real band recorded a session with legendary Joy Division and early New Order producer Martin Hannett, so the connection's not that far removed (although it has to be said that Hannett recorded Stations, Albini's band before Big Black, shortly after Albini left the band....).
Like an earworm, this particular gig featured today can't get out of my head.
One of the band's most legendary bootlegs, this June 22, 1982 soundboard recording from the Rolling Stone in Milan, Italy finds the band at perhaps their dubbiest (if that's a word, if not, I'm inventing it!). The dub effects are all over the map here, as if their sound guy had Lee "Scratch" Perry in one ear and the band's output in another - while on a load of draw on top of it all. About the only thing missing is Jah Wobble's throbbing deep lowfield bass. It's simply incredible. Not to mention the song selection is nothing short of stellar as well.
The highlight is their only known take on Sparks' "When I'm With You", featuring sequencers going haywire at the end (and more dub!) and Bernard moaning about their choice of encores.
Lyrical highlights: 2:04 "Thought this was in C!"; 2:20 "Never feel like feedback when I'm with you" to the sounds of howling feedback in the mix; 3:37 "This is why we don't do encores"; 3:55 "This is a bad idea". Then we get sequenced snippets of "The Village" and, at 10:45 as things drunkenly stumble to a close, a blast of Hooky playing the "Ceremony" bassline.
This also features one of the band's rare three-song segues, a stunning electroacoustic workout through 586->Temptation->Everything's Gone Green lasting nearly 18:35, all nonstop. Amazing.
Punters out there who have this gig may recall that "Everything's Gone Green" has a dropout at around 2:30 or thereabouts, losing nearly an entire vocal line (which would be about where the tape flip would be if it were recorded on a C-90 cassette). That has been fixed on this version. Punters may also recall that "When I'm With You" was missing the first couple seconds at the intro, which has also been fixed here.
This is the definitive version of this gig, so I highly suggest everyone - even if you only remotely care for New Order - download it. It's probably my favorite gig of this era as it's so transitional and clearly the band is struggling with their direction (do we continue the Joy Division sound, or branch out even further into this 586/Temptation/Everything's Gone Green electro motif, or scratch it all and listen to PiL's Metal Box for inspiration?). Of course we know how it would resolve, but it's a fascinating document of a band clearly struggling with their identity.
And as is becoming our trademark, it's featured in lossless FLAC for her pleasure ;)
NEW ORDER
22 June 1982
The Rolling Stone, Milan, Italy
special to thepowerofindependenttrucking.blogspot.com
01 Truth (fades in)
02 Dreams Never End
03 Chosen Time
04 ICB
05 Leave Me Alone
06 Denial
07 Procession
08 586 ->
09 <- Temptation ->
10 <- Everything's Gone Green
11 When I'm With You
Grab it here!
credit for artwork: Species
Posts
Many Thanks For This One.
ReplyDeleteA VAST Improvement Over What I Already Had.
Looking Forward To The Next Instalment Very Much!
Top Blog As Usual.
Best Wishes,
Mr C.
Thanks for this--just played it in the car and it's fantastic. It sounds as if Sherwood were at the controls. Actually, it really reminds me of their second Peel Session, which (although 2 years later maybe?) also sounds like they're trying to figure out how much dub their electro should encompass.
ReplyDeletethefxc: Their 2nd Peel Session was broadcast this same month, June 1982 - so you are spot on with your comparison. It reminded me much of the same thing too. As I read elsewhere, it is very strange how they debuted Too Late and Turn The Heater On on that Peel recording, then played When I'm With You here, all of which never were to be heard again....
ReplyDeleteAlso interesting that the next gig they did was 4 days later back at the Hacienda and apart from the same 586-Temptation-EGG ending, the set was almost entirely different (but also had quite a lot of echo
ReplyDeleteHeh...I was only two years off on the Peel Session date; I'd assumed they recorded it after PC&L.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting moment in New order's history--perhaps this is the path the would have followed if they didn't discover American Electro. I'd love to hear demos/rehearsals from this period. Thanks again for posting this!
Dear Analog Loyalist, I'll tell you the truth. Ilove you somuch. If you were a girl I would foock night and day, non stop, ooh, yeah, ooh, yeah, Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for posting this! Haven't listened yet but already grateful.
ReplyDeleteI remember getting this on vinyl back in 1989 and just being amazed at how crazy the show was. I'm gad more people are getting to hear it.
ReplyDeleteLink seems to be gone ... alas. I played my vinyl version of this - called Blue Monday with a beautiful sleeve - to death. The CD version is sometimes called Chosen Time.
ReplyDelete