The Ian Curtis memorial thread

Gone, but never forgotten.

(Ian deserves two memorial threads)

Ian Curtis's memorial stone stolen

Poor show.

"It remains baffling and leaves you asking 'Who?'

I really think Macclesfield Borough Council spokesmen should be better briefed about their musical heritage.

Pete Townsend has a good alibi.

Oh and this: Ian Curtis' Gravestone Stolen

Oh, whoops.

Easily done!

Is he the only famous person to ever have come from Macclesfield???

I expect Macclesfield residents to chip in on this one.....

Mr Methane and Peter Crouch are both from Macclesfield, according to Wikipedia. How much more famous can you get?

Oh yeah, and I for got about the Macc Lads.

Jesus, what giants that small town has produced!

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/video/?bcpid=1586371503&bctid=1646075702

30 years ago

RIP

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SvsaNpaytxU/S5JglvgJuXI/AAAAAAAAHpM/vWJaq_TWhFY/s400/2010-02-17Bunny-2-23.jpg

Joy Division inspire school symphony

And an exhibition will include items such as letters, posters and set lists.

It will include a handwritten note from Curtis about the group's acclaimed second album Closer, in which he wrote: "This LP is a disaster."

lol, he was pretty much always wrong about everything.

Christ, it does not feel like 30 years ago.

What the hell is with that shirt...?!

xp

There's a bit in the Joy Division doc (I think) where Wilson imagines Curtis crossing paths with Mark E on their way to their respective workplaces. I expect it's a reference to that. Or it's from Hong Kong.

it's a thing

http://www.metalinsider.net/site/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/bob-marley-jimi-hendrix-t-shirt11-300x300.jpg

The Joy Division / MES one was a legit mistake by a Thai factory though

It was? Excellent!

Taking the dude's headstone was straight tacky, but its pretty sweet about that symphony. Perhaps a seance with Mahler is in order as a consult. I would like to think Joy Division would not have made it as far down disco-droid road if Mr. Curtis had survived.

Listening to "Dead Souls" right now. The force of this seems never to decay.

It's what he would have wanted...

http://www.salfordstar.com/images/l/peter-hook-poster.jpg

a friend pointed out this morning that peter hook is kinda the ray manzarek of his generation now

harsh but fair imo

I know people need to eat (and drink) but Hooky's just a embarrassing these days.

just embarrassing

He came across as someone I'd like to go down the pub with in that docu.

Did they ever recover or replace the headstone?

it's been replaced. it's now a headstone for Bernard Sumner

rip

i loved your band dude

Likewise. Joy Division is a very important thing in my life. They're another one of those bands that comes along & renews one's faith in music.

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r262/solemndance/cleantee.jpg

roffle

loooooooool

you monsters
(lol)

LOLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!

http://animatedalbums.tumblr.com/post/589366997

it's been replaced. it's now a headstone for Bernard Sumner

That got a hearty real-life chuckle from me. Good on yer!

OK, I want one of those.

that Hebdige book is so good. I found a copy lying in the street decades ago, having never even heard of it, and was amazed at how well thought out it was.

in the late 70s/early 80s? who did this? the sex pistols were on a huge night-time talk show with a member of the crew wearing a swastika. what was comparable in the US at the time? I can't think of anything.

One of their fans, you mean?

granted punk wasn't as big here as it was in the UK at the time, but you didn't see the NYC or LA contingents (such as they were at the time) running rampant with this imagery like the UK did

'Running rampant' lol.

Dick Hebdige OTM, nothing to do with Ian Curtis's dad.

dumb question, but how deep was the knowledge of the holocaust back in the '70s? i mean how all-pervasive was the awareness of it at the time, vs now. obviously people knew about it, they knew about the cost since the histories and the statistics and what not were out there, but at the same time back in the '90s i certainly remember knowing people who weren't fully aware of the details of its execution and the true horror of Nazi evil til much later than one would imagine. like til they saw Schindler's List or something.

i wonder if it felt a bit more abstract and removed then in a weird way? This isn't to excuse ignorance, i'm more wondering about how aware people were at the time of the full scope.

multixp, what about these guys. Given that half of the band were Jewish, I suspect it's because they thought it looked cool rather than any attempt at provocation and zero chance of any genuine identification with them.

https://botw-pd.s3.amazonaws.com/styles/logo-thumbnail/s3/0018/9377/brand.gif?itok=rGTpQ4ja

Curtis seems to have gone a bit farther than the armbands and fashion statements though - the name of the band, the lyrical references, the EP sleeve, the anti-immigrant Tory politics. By contrast with an avowed idiot like Sid Vicious it seems like in Curtis' case there was maybe more there. idk.

KISS logo is a stretch as a Nazi ref imo.

xp

more like an SS logo...

https://p1.liveauctioneers.com/368/76396/39963210_1_x.jpg?version=1&width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&quality=50

One of their fans, you mean?

yes, this was what I meant by "crew", as in "entourage" or "gang of supporters"

but the lyrics aren't sympathetic so much as a morbid curiosity. I never read the wife's book so didn't know about the voting, but I don't see that showing up in the music.

yes I am familiar with the SS emblem thx

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kiss-nazi-logo_us_577430ade4b0bd4b0b13779c

yes, this was what I meant by "crew", as in "entourage" or "gang of supporters"

And that counts as the band putting Nazism 'front and centre' does it? Not to mention all the other leading UK punk bands who were doing the same?

how many pics of Sid wearing his swastika shirt do you want me to post

like are you seriously arguing this was not a thing in UK punk at the time, I am confused

xp i don't think it's a stretch, which at the same time doesn't mean Kiss are sympathizes. just morons.

do you want me to google "Siouxsie Sioux swastika" for you

KISS are definitely morons lol

xp

from the pdf I linked:

British punk was not being particularly innovative on this score, and its penchant for
swastikas can be directly traced to the early American punks, and in particular, I’d suggest,
to Dee Dee Ramone, who grew up in postwar Germany and became fascinated by the Nazi
paraphernalia such as gas masks, helmets and machine gun belts that still littered the former
battle fields in the German countryside.

Yes, I am arguing that this was nowhere near as big a thing as it seems to be in your fevered imagination.

that's horseshit, Dee Dee never wore a swastika or any other Nazi regalia onstage, and it sure as hell isn't on any of the Ramones LPs or posters or artwork. And they have a grand total of two songs about Nazis, one of which came out much later and is decidedly anti-Nazi

where were these early American punks with Nazi shit on, that did not happen

Asheton is like the lone standout, and even that wasn't really in public afaik

obligatory "not all punks" quote:

Activist, artist and punk chronicler Caroline Coon recalls rehearsals for the 100 Club's first punk festival in 1976. Malcolm started handing out swastika armbands he'd had made. Siouxsie of the Banshees put one on right away and some of the Pistols seemed ready to follow suit. Aghast, Rhodes blurted out that if anyone wore swastikas onstage, they couldn't use the Clash's instruments as planned. The Clash backed him up. The gig went on. No swastikas.

so it was far from accepted, even back then

How big does it need to have been? Several of the big name UK punk artists (Vicious and Rotten, Sioux, Capt Sensible, Poly Styrene, Billy Idol) clearly made use of swastika imagery, which a quick GIS will probably turn up. 4xp

I would also argue/question that UKs response to nazis and world war II was very different than the states. I mean, we hear a lot about the greatest generation, but I feel like maybe we had a lot less baggage. We went over there, kicked as and came back to word domination and domestic peace. The brits post WW2 had the results of the blitz and greatly diminished world power. No?

It's not that clear because I've never seen Capt Sensible, Poly Styrene, Billy Idol making us of swastika imagery - not saying that they didn't.

regarding the American punks, also from that pdf, sorry it formats a bit weird:

The hardcore punks The Dead Boys, for example, presented The Ramones with Nazi Mother’s Crosses
as gifts for helping them to settle into the city: this was the new band’s way of showing The Ramones
that they belonged.
And it didn’t stop there. After one gig the lead singer of The Dead Boys, Stiv
Bators, is said to have shaved a swastika into a fan’s pubic hair with a razor, then led a naked
rampage round the Chelsea Hotel, draped in a Nazi flag and carrying a whip while singing
the song ‘Springtime for Hitler’ from the Broadway musical
The Producers.

I imagine all the Nazi memorabilia in the US had been bought up by Hell's Angels anyway!

https://www.punk77.co.uk/graphics/swastika/damnedswastika.jpg

https://www.punk77.co.uk/graphics/swastika/poly.jpg

Re Idol, there's this but I didn't find the actual interview: http://rockdirt.com/billy-idol-interview-turns-icy-after-nazi-confession/12330/

I did not know that about the Dead Boys (who I’ve never listened to tbh). Interesting! I doubt Joey was stoked about getting an iron cross lol

Cps

Xps

I guess that's actually Styrene's friend who's wearing the swastika there, tbf.

Well, first of all, I don't think that's Capt. Sensible. Secondly, that looks like Chrissie Hynde wearing the swastika, Poly Styrene is the mixed race woman in the middle. THirdly, and I hate it to seem as if I'm defending these idiots but Siouxsie and Billy Idol were not big name punk artists when they were traipsing about wearing swastikas - they weren't even in bands.

(xp) I think it's Chrissie Hynde!

Two other sources on Sensible fwiw but yeah, I was hasty about Poly Styrene:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=tAKSNLj1wGEC&pg=PT150&lpg=PT150&dq=captain+sensible+swastika&source=bl&ots=BJs7unYs5M&sig=D05bVD7zms-5Xa-a7dwUZqi5WWQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijubLo8dTfAhWr6IMKHan_AWUQ6AEwEHoECAIQAQ#v=onepage&q=captain%20sensible%20swastika&f=false

https://books.google.ca/books?id=4GN8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT129&lpg=PT129&dq=captain+sensible+swastika&source=bl&ots=wd9eLslbXj&sig=zFrgY66_X0ZvRenNQBCdPfRJypU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwijubLo8dTfAhWr6IMKHan_AWUQ6AEwD3oECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=captain%20sensible%20swastika&f=false

lou reed's iron cross hair.

I don't know about Capt. Sensible, seems out of character for him, my point was that this was not 'running rampant' on the UK punk scene and was mostly confined to the Sex Pistols and their early entourage - apparently encouraged by McLaren in a spirit of epater les bourgeois.

So where does JD fit into that schema?

Lou Reed said that iron cross haircut was supposed to be a flower lol

Joey Ramone being Jewish would seem to be a knock on his Nazi cred

THirdly, and I hate it to seem as if I'm defending these idiots but Siouxsie and Billy Idol were not big name punk artists when they were traipsing about wearing swastikas - they weren't even in bands.

― Never Turn Your Back On Virginia Woolf (Tom D.), Friday, January 4, 2019 1:43 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also I understand what Tom is saying, there was a point when "punk" was what? 200-300 ppl in London?

(xp) McLaren was Jewish and he was, apparently, handing out swastikas to all and sundry.

So where does JD fit into that schema?

I think partly a clumsy provincial stab at what various arty-farty London poseurs and provocateurs were up to, partly a more morbid interest in a dark subject and, possibly, an interest in the ideology... from Curtis.

I can't really see Hooky reading Mein Kampf tbh.

he'd do lines on it though

Didn’t the Skids also get into some bother for using nazi imagery for the Days In Europa sleeve? Also they had a record called Strength Through Joy and their logo in the early days echoed the SS insignia

“The Aryan thing?” says Jobson. “I thought that sleeve looked great – but I was probably, I dunno, 18 then. But is it in the songs? I don’t think it is. I mean, there’s a song called The Olympian and there’s a sense of Europe… To be fair, I think what had happened is that we’d gone to Europe. We’d gone to Amsterdam and it was such a modern place. Britain during the 70s was still kinda like, post-war, even London – you almost felt like you were still on rations. But Amsterdam felt modern. You had all these Bauhaus buildings and everything – and then you’d go to Germany and it had all been rebuilt and was sparkling and exciting. It made a big impression on me that there was this other place out there that was full of excitement and possibility and much more about the future than the past.”

interestingly, there's a bit about pre-Bromley Contingent UK punks and Nazi fetishism in this Clash bio I just started reading (Marcus Grey's "The Last Gang in Town", which is ok but hardly great, frankly). I had never heard of this London SS nonsense, but Grey frames the Nazi-dabbling as being tied to Bowie/Stones positioning Nazi imagery as both decadent and transgressive, specifically cites Guy Peellaert and Cabaret. Also notes that it was engaged in by Mick Jones and Bernie Rhodes, despite their Jewish heritages.

Sad to read how afraid he was of being mocked by audiences for his epilepsy on the upcoming american tour. Hadn't heard that before. I like to think he could have had a long and healthy life but I don't know how much the best treatment and attention could have done.

I had childhood epilepsy and luckily grew out of it and my son has it as well - it's a lousy deal and being on the deck in a post-ictal daze and not knowing wtf the has just happened is not a good feeling. But I don't think Curtis would have been a particularly nice person if he was still here, his politics sucked arse - he might have even been a prominent covidiot if he was still here now! Pure conjecture like, but I don't think he would have aged like a fine wine.