The lucky few that managed to get tickets to the Peter Hook event at Urbis were treated to a highly entertaining and extremely candid interview by Paul Morley ("You know so much now I'm going to have to kill you all...").

Billed as a conversation predominantly about The Haçienda, Morley quickly abandoned the usual format of talk-followed-by-audience-questions with the request that questions be asked at any point during the proceedings - which led to two hours of chat about every aspect of Hooky's career, only a relatively small proportion of which covered The Haçienda itself.

Although marred by the inevitable, occasional anorak question, a number of revelations followed:

- New Order have recently had a fractious band meeting (outcome not revealed).

- The upcoming 'remastered' Joy Division albums are not actually taken from the original album masters - which have been 'misplaced' - and so are slightly different mixes from the originals.

- Early TJ Davidson Joy Division could only afford six hours of rehearsal time per week (four on Sunday, two on Wednesday), and would usually write one new song per session.

- Transmission was written in the week preceding the Mayflower 'Emergency' gig.

- Sam Riley (Ian Curtis in the upcoming Joy Division film 'Control') and Alexandria Maria Lara (Annik Honoré in the film)have enjoyed a (ahem) close relationship.

- Hooky actually chose the artwork that the 'Movement' album cover was based upon due to Peter Saville having a headache.

- New Order lyrics - up to 'Technique' - were written by the whole band.

- Martin Hannett had difficulty coming to terms with the lack of an Ian Curtis in New Order, didn't seem to like the other band members' vocals and, on one occasion, made Bernard go through 43 vocal takes before being satisfied with the result.

Among the small audience on the night were Larry Cassidy (SXXV), Andy Spinoza (SpinMedia) and Twinny.

Many thanks to Andy Brydon for the guest list and Alex for looking after the camera!

FAC491, the (must see) Urbis 25th anniversary Haçienda exhibition, is showing daily, 10:00-18:00, until 17th February 2008.

Labels: Joy_Division, Larry_Cassidy, New_Order, Peter_Hook

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