B (7:37)

Must we be put down when we try to get away? Why must we all grow when we could just plain play Good things in life are free Cover everything that's true Only one thing wrong with that what if the fight I don't use I.

A (7:51)

Joy Division when they were still known as Warsaw. And that's taken from a long misplaced demo tape recorded on July 18, 1977. The next big date in Joy Division history was in August when they finally found a permanent drummer. His name was Stephen Morris and it's a good thing he worked out because he was the Only guy who replied to Warsaw's ad for a drummer in a local music magazine. Now that the lineup was complete, it was time to start getting serious about releasing a record. Ian told his bank manager that he needed £400 to buy some dining room furniture. But when the money came through, it went straight towards the recording and pressing of 1,200 copies of the first Joy Division record. It was ready by July 1978, and so was the band's new name. Warsaw was always getting confused with a London metal band called Warsaw Pact. And rather than get into some kind of fight, they just thought they would change their name. But to what? Now, remember what I said about Ian having a fascination with Nazi Germany. He had read a book published in 1971 called House of Dolls by a guy named Carol Satinsky. It's all about life inside a concentration camp. And if you skip through the text, you'll find this passage at the last table where the camp doctor and the master callifactress were waiting. The fate of each girl was sealed. There the die was cast as to which of the sections of the camp she would be sent Labor Division or Joy Division. The Joy Division was where women were forced to do sexual favors for Nazi officers on leave. I mean, how dark is that? So after one last gig as Warsaw on New Year's Eve 1977, Ian Curtis, Barney Albrecht, soon to become Bernie Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris became Joy Division, officially. From the 4 track 7 inch EP entitled An Ideal For Living. This is Joy Division with a song called Warsaw. Once the Ideal For Living EP was out, which by the way, featured a picture of a Hitler Youth kid banging on a drum. Joy Division was ready to start another project. They tried recording an album for RCA records in early 1978, but that didn't work out and the whole thing was scrapped before anything significant was accomplished. Then came a really strange break. On April 14, 1978, Joy Division entered a local Battle of the Bands competition at a place called Rafters in hopes of landing a record deal. Among all the producers and label reps attending that night, there was this guy named Tony Wilson. Tony hosted a TV show called so It Goes, an alternative version of the weekly top of the pop show. Ian believed that Tony definitely needed to know about Joy Division. But instead of being all polite and respectful, Ian just slammed the guy, complete with a very angry, very insulting letter. You would think that Tony would blow off this Manchester punk as some sort of drunken job, right? Well, no. Wilson was impressed by Ian's cheekiness because he immediately agreed to book Joy Division on his show. When they made it to tv, their performance impressed another guy, Rob Gretton, the person who would become Joy Division's manager. And then another weird thing. Soon after that Battle of the Band show, one of Tony Wilson's relatives die, leaving him a modest inheritance. And what did he do with that money? He started a record company called factory. And in January 1978, he issued a record featuring material by some of the new bands on his label. One of them was Jordyvision. And here's one of their songs from that Factory Sampler album. This is called Digital. Joy Division from a compilation known as a Factory Sampler, which was released in January 1979. At this point, Factory Records was just a dumpy little independent record company. But because Tony Wilson was also a TV personality and a born self promoter, some of the right people paid attention. Joy Division got more and more gigs and were getting prepped to record their first full album. And things were looking up. Except for one thing. Ian was not a well man. In fact, things had already begun to change with something that happened just after Midnight on on December 27, 1978. That story is next. Ian Curtis of Jordavision wasn't really what you'd call a sickly kid. But he did have his health challenges beyond what happened to him after ingesting stolen prescription drugs. For example, he was allergic to sunlight. He had something called Poliformis light eruption. If he spent too much time in the sun, an itchy burning rash would pop up on exposed skin. In Ian's case, his hands would swell up like big red balloons, and once they did, he'd have to have them bandaged up for a couple of days. He was afraid of foam rubber, which was a little strange. He was also prone to Jekyll and Hyde mood swings. At the party celebrating his engagement to Deborah, he threw a drink at her when he thought that she was flirting with his uncle. When he was in the band, the other guys would often be faced with something they called alter Ian times, when he'd do some seriously strange stuff, like kicking in a door or getting into a fight. And there was something else. When he was a teenager, Ian and some of his friends went to a gig in Manchester featuring a band that used a strobe light on stage. And after watching it for a while, Ian collapsed on the floor. The security guards thought he was just another dumb kid on drugs and roughly escorted him to the door. In 1977, when Ian was still working for the Civil Service, part of one of his jobs was to make sure people got the health benefits that they were due. And this is when he learned something about epilepsy. And after some on the job training, Ian became something of an expert on the subject. And then came that night, December 27, 1978. The members of Joy Division were in their van on their way home from their first ever gig in London at a place called the Hope and Anchor. It was cold and the flu was making its way through the band. The show had gone badly, all that travel. Four hours there and four hours back for a payoff of £60. About halfway back to Manchester, Ian started grabbing at Barney's sleeping bag. Then he started lashing out, punching at the windows of the van. Stephen pulled over and they managed to help Ian ride things out. This was Ian's first confirmed epileptic seizure. He was taken to the hospital and released. And when Ian went to see his doctor, he just kind of shrugged and put Ian on a waiting list to see a specialist. But the seizures continued and came more frequently, sometimes up to four a week. They were very violent and very scary. Ian finally got to see a specialist a few weeks later. This is January 23, 1978. He was prescribed a series of anticonvulsive drugs. When one prescription didn't work, Ian would try another, and another, and another. His case was serious. One doctor wrote that his life would be ruled to obsolescence by his severe epilepsy without serious and strong medications. And originally, Ian took this seriously. He joined the British Epilepsy association and was initially willing to talk about his condition. But as time went on, he became more withdrawn about the subject. While the drugs worked somewhat, they never really eliminated the attacks. In fact, they made his mood swings even more severe. And people around him began to wonder what was making him more unhappy. Was it the epilepsy or the antiepilepsy drugs? And then there was the matter of Ian's dancing. Now, wait, I need you to hear me out on this. When Joy Division played live, Ian would dance in a very herky, jerky sort of way, almost as if he was being electrocuted or something. Was he dancing or was he suffering another seizure? It was honestly, sometimes hard to tell. And finally, more people began to notice that Ian's lyrics and poetry were becoming darker and more depressing. Ian used to carry a plastic bag full of notebooks everywhere, and whenever the mood struck him, he'd just sit down and write. And as these lyrics were mated to music, Joy Division's sound turned even more somber and dark and depressing. And Just about everything was written in a minor key.

B (16:24)

And she turned around and took me by the hand and said I.

A (16:38)

Joy Division and she's lost control. A song Ian Curtis wrote when he saw a woman fall victim to an epileptic fit not unlike his own. By early 1979, the original punk rock scene had pretty much burned itself out and we entered the era of post punk, a time when it seemed like a new sound and attitude came out every day. It was stuff that could have only happened if something like punk had come first. Joy Division was perfectly positioned to take advantage of this. They found that there was an audience for their brand of dark, moody, depressing stuff. When Ian appeared on the COVID of the NME in January 1979, wearing a dark raincoat, Die Hard fans started attending gigs dressed the same way. Then the BBC came calling. Four songs were recorded for the John Peel show on BBC Radio 1. The session took place on 31 January, and the tapes were broadcast on Valentine's Day. And from those tapes, this is transmission.

B (17:34)

Dance, dance, dance, dance dance to the radio Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance to the radio.

A (17:46)

After that appearance on the BBC, the next thing to do was make a full and proper album. So in April 1979, Joey Division booked some time in Strawberry Studios with producer Martin Hannett. Martin, there's no other way to say this was a wacko. A genius, but a certified wacko. Not only did he clean up the band's sound, but he's the guy who found that distinctive drum sound. He'd do radical things like completely rebuild Stephen Morris kit and then reassemble it on the roof of the studio and record him playing up there. He added echo and reverb and sound effects, isolating each of the instruments to get an intimate yet cold, detached and distant sound. There's even a production term for this now, cold intimacy. And to get the right performance, he'd have the band record standing together in a studio with the lights down very low. I have a CD filled with sound effects and audio outtakes from those sessions. Here, for example, is an attempt to find the proper synth tone. The recording of a creaky elevator. It was all very lo fi, very atmospheric and very urgent sounding. It was gloomy, it carried a sense of alienation and just did not sound like anything else that was happening in 1979. Tony Wilson, the head of Factory, was so thrilled with the results that he put up £8,500, all the money factory had to press up 10,000 copies. And when the album came out, all the reviews said Two that it was the most radical post punk record of the year and that it was a masterpiece. The name of the album was Unknown Pleasures.

B (19:38)

Getting out of hand on the 10th floor down the back stairs into no man's land Lights are flashing, cars are.

A (19:48)

Crashing, Joy Division and Disorder from Unknown Pleasures, one of the most important post punk alternative records of all time. One of the most striking features of the album was the COVID design by Factory Records in house art director Peter Saville. It was black, with almost no text anywhere. The front featured a strange picture that looked like a drawing of a mountain range or something. But actually that image was found in an astronomy book. Depending who's telling the story, the diagram was found by either Barney or Stephen in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy. It was originally black on white, but Saville reversed it to be white on black. But what is this? It's a graphical representation, what's known as a ridgeline plot of 100 consecutive pulses from a pulsar known as CP1919. It can be found at the center of the Dumbbell Nebula in the constellation Vulpecula. This was the first pulsar ever discovered. The genius is in its simplicity. Pulses of power coming out of the dark. And it really stood out in the record racks. And today, it's one of the most iconic Albemart images of all time. It launched a million T shirts, too. There was even a clothing line based on this. Launched in 2003, Unknown Pleasures captured the mood of Manchester that summer. It was very hot, the economy had gone very bad, and many people were out of work. And to make things even worse, the city's ancient sewer system had begun to crumble. So in addition to the heat and humidity and smog, there was always that smell. The album was almost an immediate success, and the first pressing of 10,000 copies sold out almost instantly. But there was something else requiring Ian's attention. A new daughter named Natalie. He loved his baby, but he was afraid to pick her up or even touch her for fear that he would have a seizure and hurt her. And you really couldn't blame him. As Joy Division's popularity increased, the more gigs they played and the harder they worked, the worse and more frequent the attacks became. For example, after a particularly tough stretch of gigs in May 1979, Ian suffered four grand male seizures in one night. Plus his moods were becoming more and more erratic. He and Deborah went to the doctor again, but that wasn't much help at all. They felt that something was wrong with this guy. Good guess. The doctor who was supposed to be treating Ian for epilepsy and depression, shot himself several weeks after that appointment. October 16, 1979, was another important date in Joy Division history. And it was nothing to do with the band, the music or Ian's health. But it was an event that changed everything for Joy Division. For Ian and his family, that story is next. By October 1979, things were not going well between Ian and Debra. He was moody and unpredictable and his epileptic seizures were coming more frequently. At the same time, no one really knew when it was a real seizure or if it was one of those times when Ian faked it just so he could manipulate people. He was also mixing his prescriptions with a lot of drugs and alcohol, a very bad idea, which only made things worse. Plus, it had become an unwritten rule among the members of Joy Division that wives and girlfriends were no longer welcome at gigs. On October 16, 1979, the band played a gig at a place called Plan K in Brussels, Belgium. This is where Ian met a woman named Anick Honore. She looked a lot like Suzie sue of Susie and the Banshees, if that helps. This encounter led to a full blown affair. Once he got back to Manchester, he'd often tell Deborah that he was going to a soccer match or down to the pub for a pint, when in fact he was slipping out to meet Anak, who by now had moved to London and was working at the Belgian embassy. When the group left on a European tour on January 10, 1980, ANAK toured with him and when Ian was in London, he would stay with Anik. Debra knew all about the affair, so you can imagine what home life was like. Add in the money problems. Like I said earlier, it was so tight that they could no longer afford to keep the family dog. You might imagine how awful things were. But as bad as it was at home for Ian, things were going very well for joy Division. Between March 18th and 20th, 1980, they started recording a new album that would eventually be called Closer. Thanks to coaching from producer Martin Hannett and Factory Records head Tony Wilson, Ian's voice had become deeper and richer. Why? Because they made him listen to a lot of Frank Sinatra records. The consequence of this was a more haunting delivery. It also made Ian sound more authoritative. When he sang of pain and alienation, you believed him. Meanwhile, there was a new single in the stores. It was called Atmosphere.

B (24:40)

In Silence. Don't Turn Away In Silence.

A (24:53)

Once the Closer album was finished, Joy Division embarked on a series of grueling gigs. During the first week of April 1980. The band played sometimes two gigs a day, and Ian was not well. Things were getting worse. The pressures of making the album, the current tour, an impending North American tour, his failing marriage, guilt over not being a good father, his demanding mistress, the alcohol, the drugs, the late nights, the bad food, his epilepsy. It was a little too much. It got to the point where he couldn't fall asleep until he had a seizure. He was taking a drug called Caramel Zeppelin along with phentobarbital, but they were making his mood swings even more unpredictable. So. Hmm. On April 4, 1980, during a show with the Stranglers at a London venue called the Rainbow, Ian suffered three attacks during the first five songs of the set before collapsing entirely. The band would have stopped the set sooner, but as I said, it had become impossible to tell whether Ian was having a seizure or just dancing in his trademark herky jerky way. Three days later, Ian purposely overdosed on his epilepsy medication. He was taken to the hospital in time, where he had his stomach pumped. And although this was clearly a suicide attempt, I mean, he left a note and everything, the psychiatrist who examined Ian that night at the hospital declared that he was not suicidal. Go home, he said. In hindsight, this would have been a very good time for a break. But no gigs had been booked and the band had contracts to fulfill. So after staying overnight in the hospital, Ian was taken directly to the next gig, a place called Derby hall. This was April 8, 1980. Ian was so shaky that he was only able to sing two songs and the crowd freaked out. Five people ended up being taken to the hospital after a mini riot. Ian himself got sicker and more depressed. Then he announced he was leaving the band. He was going to move to Holland to open a bookshop. But then a day later, he acted as if he hadn't said a thing. Debra wanted a divorce, so Ian moved out, eventually settling in with his parents. And here's something very, very strange. Joy Division guitarist Bernard Sumner decided to hypnotize Ian, who, believe it or not, is pretty good at this stuff. When he put Ian in a trance, he regressed into a previous life, a 17th century French peasant who lived in a hut and who was on his deathbed. The final Joy Division gig was held on May 2, 1980, at Birmingham University. The show was recorded, and here's what it sounded like that night. Okay, you hear that cheering? The crowd is reacting to Ian fainting. They thought it was all part of the act. But the truth is, as we listen to this, Ian's having another seizure. Still, he was able to come back for an encore. That was it for gigs for a while, because on Monday, May 19, Joy Division was scheduled to leave for a North American tour. And there was every indication that this was the tour that was going to make them famous. The good news is that over the next two weeks, Ian didn't have any seizures. He actually seemed to be in a pretty good mood. But at home, things were still ugly. There was the impending divorce from Debra and Annie was demanding more from him. The rest of the band was seriously definitely worried. But they still hoped that things could be okay after all. Ian said as much. I'm fine. On Thursday, May 15, Ian hung out with Peter playing pool in a local pub. The next day, Peter dropped Ian off at his parents house with instructions to start packing because they were going to be on a plane to America Monday morning. On Saturday the 17th, Ian was supposed to go over to Barney's place so they could go water skiing. But Ian bailed, saying that he wanted to rest up. Okay, fair enough. There was a really cool movie on TV on Saturday night that he wanted to see. And I wonder if he mentioned that he and Debra were going to talk about dropping the divorce after she finished her bartending gig at a wedding. Debra also offered to spend the night with Ian, knowing that he was pretty anxious about the North American tour and that anxiety could trigger another seizure. But when she went to the house on Barton Street, Ian had changed his mind. I want to spend the night alone, he said. And don't come back until the morning before I take the 10 o' clock train into Manchester to meet up with the rest of the band. So she left and spent the night at her parents house. Once she was gone, Ian sat down to watch his movie, a 1977 film entitled Strozek. It's all about a musician and a former mental patient who travels to the US and is unable to decide between the two women in his life. During the movie he drank several cups of very strong coffee and chased it down with a shot of whiskey. Then with pictures of his wife and baby daughter sitting on the table in front of him, Ian began to write a long note to Deborah. And he wrote all night. When he finished, the sun was starting to come up. It was the morning of Sunday, May 18. After he was done, Ian went over to the stereo and put on his favorite album, the Idiot by Iggy Pop. Then he went out into the garden and got himself a length of rope from the clothesline. And as the sun came up And Iggy sang. Ian hanged himself.

B (30:29)

Night clothing. We're Night clothing Club. We're an ice machine.

A (30:48)

It was Deborah who found him. A few hours later, an inquest was held into Ian's death. The official verdict was asphyxia with ligature around the neck, age 23 years. His body was cremated and it was Deborah who selected the inscription for Ian's headstone. Laid in Macclesfield Cemetery, it reads, Ian Curtis, 18, 5, 80. Love Will Tear us apart. Love will tear us apart. The Joy Division single, released about three weeks after Ian's death. Ian had written the song sometime late in the summer of 1979. There are actually several recorded versions of that song, because the band couldn't decide on which one they liked best. There was an odd suicide pact among the members of Joy Division. The deal was that should any member leave for any reason, Joy Division would be broken up. So once Ian was gone, Peter Hook, Barney Sumner and Stephen Morris kept their word. Joy Division was retired and work was started on the next project, which would eventually be known as New Order. Several years later, they would write a song called Blue Monday, a song all about Monday, May 19, 1980, which is the day after Ian died. And almost a decade later, another Manchester band tried to counteract all that gloomy by naming themselves the Happy Mondays. Since that day in May 1980, Joy Division has become legendary. Album sales, radio air play streams. There are hundreds of bootlegs in circulation, and one of the best rock biographies you'll ever Read is a 1995 book written by Deborah Curtis called Touching From A Distance. The title is taken from a line in the song Transmission, and it's tough to underestimate Joy Division's musical influence. Their sound and style contributed to everything from the development of goth to industrial music to emo. And of course, there's the work of New Order, who helped transform alternative music in the 80s and into the 90s. They showed that rock could be emotionally powerful without resorting to melodramatic tropes. You could strip things down to just the essential instruments and still sound powerful. They showed how you could be intellectually serious in a dark way. In retrospect, their music is a study in mental illness and also at attempts at control that lead to emotional paralysis. And people noted the power in their visual identity, especially with that Unknown Pleasures album cover. This is timeless stuff that has been discovered again and again and again over subsequent generations. Remember that list of artists at the beginning of the show? The tortured artist image of Ian was a big part of this myth building and the fact that the band released just two albums is important too. Joy Division is forever frozen in time. With everything concentrated into those two records, there was no opportunity for them to grow stale and boring. Joy Division was an amazing band. Ian Curtis was their heart and soul. It's just so tragic that he was in so much pain. There are still many unanswered questions about the death of Ian Curtis. Why did he do it when he did it? Was it an accident brought on by a mix of drugs, an emotional spur of the moment thing? And what would have happened to Joy Division if they completed that North American tour? We'll never know. While the rest of Joy Division reinvented themselves as New Order, Deborah Curtis has moved on too. She lives in Northern England with a new partner. Natalie, Ian's daughter, is now a photographer living in Manchester, and she's a big Manchester City fan, just like dad was. Meanwhile, the fascination with Joy Division continues. The albums and songs continue to be popular. There's an excellent box set called Heart and Soul. They were a big part of the movie 24 Hour Party People, which is excellent. There's a feature film on Ian's life called Control, Directed by famed U2 photographer Anton Corbin and executive produced by Tony Wilson. Then there are all the books written about them. And the last I heard, some people still want to turn the house at 77 Barton street in Macclesfield into a Joy Division museum. And incredibly, Joy Division, like I've been saying, is just chapter one. The other three members of the band continued as New Order and they became one of the most influential British bands of the 80s. It's fascinating and mysterious stuff. If you want to know where a lot of today's music came from, it's definitely worth knowing more about Joy Division. In fact, if you want to understand much of what we listen to today, you need to know about what this band did. And that is the big deal about Ian Curtis and Joy Division. There are hundreds of ongoing history episodes available for podcasts. Just download and go. There's my other podcast, Crime and the Music Industry, where true crime and music collide. I'm on most of the social media platforms. My website is ajournalofmusicalthings.com where you can also subscribe to my daily newsletter and all emails should go to AlanLancross Cat Technical Production for this show is by Rod Johnston. I'm Alan cross. Welcome to Survivor50 February 25th on Global. We chose you to represent 25 years of the greatest adventure on television. It's the biggest season ever. The twist is gonna open up Pandora's box. Now I see Zach brown on survivor. Welcome to Survivor. Mr. Beast feels bit a little little like high school reunion meets a massacre. Survivor 50th season Wednesday, February 25th on Global Stream on Stack TV.