Stephen Morris - Fast Forward: Confessions of a Post-Punk Percussionist: Volume II

Confessions of a Post-Punk Percussionist

Volume II

STEPHEN MORRIS

CONSTABLE

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Constable

Copyright Stephen Morris, 2020

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-47213-255-0

Constable

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Little, Brown Book Group

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To Mum, Dad, Amanda, Les, Flo and the Gilbert sisters

I get on the 747 at JFK with the rest of my weary bandmates. Down the umbilical tunnel with its smell of aviation fuel, carrying passport, boarding pass and far too many bags.

Me and Rob start jostling our way towards the tail end, as far to the rear as we can go. The back of the bus, the place where childhood trips to Chester Zoo had once seemed such a lark.

See, it wasnt a dream

Past what might be the stairs to the exclusive and quite possibly mythical upper deck. The place with the promise of orgies. Up there a nightclub or at the very least a bar are rumoured to exist. Terry Mason, our approximation of a tour manager, claims to have seen it once, but its a definite no-go area for the overloaded economy traveller.

We apologetically carry on pushing and shoving our way to the back of this flying charabanc. All the way down to the budget smokers haven in the jumbos rear end, where once the stylised illuminated cigarette is extinguished, we can spark up and cough and tipple the night away.

Seatbelt securely fastened at all times because you never know, and with our luck you certainly dont.

The screaming-engine dash down the runway. The lurch and tilt as the ground falls away

The red-eye to Heathrow.

Stuck in the middle row with the elbows of my fellow nicotine enthusiasts intruding on either side. The tiny metal ashtray half full of debris from my scratchy tangerine seats previous fag-smoking, gum-chewing occupant. I dont care. Ive just seen the sun go down on New York City.

Well, I think Ive just caught a glimpse of something that looked like a Manhattan sunset through the Boeings porthole, and thats something I never thought Id see. Im feeling romantic, so yeah, I dont care if it was actually only the reflection of the planes navigation lights through the glass. Im on my way home to my mums Sunday special. Dried-up beef and watery gravy.

I forgo the dubious pleasure of renting the painful plastic stethoscope earphones. Tired and emotional, Ill take in the fake airline glamour and just sit here and smoke, wallow and wonder.

Why does everything we touch turn to shit?

Maybe Im being a tad hard on myself there, I mean things hadnt been that bad, had they?

Only twenty-two. Still a young man really. Id got myself into a fantastic post-punk band purely by my dubious ability to bang the drums in a convincing and regular manner. That band Joy Division they were called had gone on to make two fantastic one might almost be forgiven for coming over all NME and using the old hack term seminal classic albums. Then, to use another popular clich, poised on the brink of reaching the dizzying heights of who knew what sort of success, our vocalist, lyricist and friend Ian had taken his own life.

Theres more to it than that, obviously, but the bare bones are there.

That left the three of us me (Stephen, but you can call me Steve), the drummer, Bernard Sumner, guitar and keys, and Peter Hook, known to all as Hooky, bass along with Rob Gretton, our somewhat unorthodox manager, in a bit of a spot.

We now have more problems than we had when we began this transatlantic excursion and even less of an idea how to solve them. But we are stoic northern bastards, not the sort of folk to let a little thing like a tragedy of epic proportions dissuade us from following our haphazard path to rock greatness. Oh no!

Following Ian Curtiss suicide, wed picked ourselves up, changed our name well, the bands name from Joy Division to New Order, and set out on a short tour of the east coast of America. Here we had been outsmarted by New Yorks wise guys, who had divested us of all our worldly goods. The greater proportion of our uninsured musical equipment had been heisted away overnight in a metaphorical puff of smoke. The last remnants of our former incarnation ripped from our grasp.

Ever get the feeling that someones trying to tell you something? Like maybe think again, reconsider. Youve had fair warning: turn back now. Abandon this life of darkened clubs, loud music and semi-professional late-night drinking and drug taking.

The trouble is, even though we are undeniably in the shit up to our necks, we are having such a fabulous time of it that we just laugh and wonder how much worse things can possibly get.

We have found ourselves doing the one thing wed always dreamed of and we arent going to give up that easily. We are awkward like that. Awkward and perverse. But better than that, we are great, we are exciting and, most of all, interesting to boot.

So, when this plane finally lands, more shit is going to happen.

Me and Bernard looking serious. Boston, September 1980

In the immediate aftermath of Ians death, our biggest problem was the somewhat obvious question of what were we going to do about the, er dare I mention it?

The singing.

A scant three or four weeks (if records are to be believed) after Ians suicide and still raw and numb with that rabbit-stuck-in-the-headlights emptiness and uncertainty, that death tends to bring the well-meaning idea arose that, like falling off a horse or bicycle, the best way to deal with the grief-struck was to remount the steed and carry on.

Itll give them something to do. Take their minds off it, says the well-meaning advocate, along with the old faithful, Life goes on.

There is, of course, some sense in all of that but it never feels like it. Some sense and Factory Records our artfully anarchic label are not exactly cosy chums at the best of times.

Given the allure that tabloid tales of wild sex parties featuring popular rock vocalists could have, it is one of lifes mysteries that the most difficult post to fill in the beat combo of the 1980s was that of lead singer.

I had discovered early on in my teenage attempts at starting a band that the guitarist position was numero uno in terms of attracting applicants, followed by various instrumentalists descending in popularity to bass player then drummer.

Saw players also could be hard to find, but it would always be the singers that were thinnest on the ground.

Perhaps it is the degree of exposure thats to blame. The feeling of nakedness. The musicians all have their instruments to hide behind, the singer is unprotected with only a microphone stand to deflect the gob and flying bottles of disgruntled punters. It seemed to me a little too raw and daunting.