It's mid 82 and my "Indie" mates all have this single by a band called New Order...it's got a great cover....but I'm not really interested in hearing it because all my "Indie' mates have it and it's probably a load of jangly guitar stuff.....and I'm too busy listening to my synth stuff and getting into German music (electronic stuff...not Schalger or beer swilling, lederhosen oompah stuff!!). so I leave it a while and one night I get played side one of FACT50 New Order's 1st album Movement and yet again I'm intrigued by the cover and I like what I hear.....go on then...play me Temptation...wow!! what's the B side like?....wow...brilliant.... that was it... hooked or more appropriately ...."Hookied".
FAC73.... as the label says
So, at this point I've started looking back at the previous Factory releases and the collecting has commenced. March 83 - New Order release Blue Monday and ofcourse that resonates my octaving bassline sensibilities....Art, Music, Design....I'm on a roll. Not much in the way of Factory gigs (compared to some of those Indie mates who pissed off and left me in Crawley whilst they went to Manchester to study alcohol intake and Hacienda partying!!). But I got to see a few.....I developed a bit of an obsession with The Wake and their album Here Comes Everybody.... melancholy Juno guitar pop and to this very day I still rate their single Something Outside as one of the finest Factory Anthems ever........
I missed out on the Brixton gig with James, New Order and The Wake, the tickets failed to turn up, so we went to see SPK at The Venue instead... I don't mind... I like my metal bashing industrial stuff and it'll be a gig I'll never forget (you wouldn't forget some Australian lunatic swinging a masonary ball on a chain above the crowds head...would you??).....but I got to see ACR in their Sextet mode and this is the point where I felt sorry for some of the old school raincoat brigade Factoryheads.....there was still a degree of great post punk guitar orientated stuff leaking out of Factory, but the dance side was really interesting.......even before Blue Monday (you have to use 03/84 FAC73 as a pivot in all things Factory), A Certain Ratio's 1982 (FACT 65) I'd Like To See You Again album even comes with a warning on it's inner sleeve.
So at this point we are getting a smattering of dance orientated releases and my fascination discovers a production team called BeMusic.....all members of New Order and the occasional input from Donald Johnson (Drums and Bass from ACR)....DOJO BeMusic!! Ofcourse, New Order weren't strangers to named producers at this point..having used Electro Legend Arthur Baker on Thieves and Confusion. So to see Jellybean Benitez on the front with the names BeMusic and Donald Johnson...you know you've got something special...and yes...Cool As Ice is special....it's electro soul/funk at it's best and you know what? It's still crminal how 52nd Street were overlooked during the BritFunk trend around this time (Freeze etc).
Jellybean Benitez (he who Holiday'd with Madge) restructured on my 12"!!
I apologise...(Both 52nd Steet vocalists have now passed Beverley and Diane), this video (as frustrating as it is) show's what it was like recording at the time...yes that's Stephen Morris at the desk...You don't have to watch all of it... it's supposed to make you realise how much of a pain it used to be and how fragile those tapes used to be. I got to see 52nd Street a couple of times and liked how they were using a Roland SH101 as their sequencer live... it worked well..... Oh...and a quick footnote......as a DJ, I've tried to play both Cool As Ice and Can't Afford out numerous times in my career.....and they always clear the floor... I don't know why... they shouldn't, but I've watched and warned other DJ's about it...to only witness the same thing... weird eh??
I initially used to buy my New Factory releases from Our Price in Crawley, they knew me well and used to give me a call when something new had arrived... it didn't matter what it was...they knew they had a sale off me. One afternoon in March 84, I get a call.... we got a new album on Factory...we can't work out who it's by....but it's bloody brilliant...you'd better get here before one of us takes it home. I get there in about 30 minutes and I walk in to these pounding 808 electro beats...I ask the guys about the Factory album and they say...yeah...this is it!!!
Anyway...it's another piece of sublime Peter Saville art and I get it home and I'm in Roland bliss...this is NOT the Section 25 I'm used to (even if they were using Bernard Sumner to program sequencers on Sakura (Fac66)......From the Hip (FACT 90) was a shock...a complete shock of the new, it was perfect....production and programming by Bernard Sumner and a corking 12'" remix by both Bernard and DOJO..... they toured it in the US during 85 and blew the socks of the electro kids. From The Hip is still one of my favourite albums to this very day....it's stood the test of time and yes...I'm lucky to have experienced that Shock of the Knew Noise......
FACT 90 later FBN 33
In August 84, I was lucky to attend a week of Factory Gigs at Riverside Studios...all of them great, all of them different. My favourite night being Section 25 and The Stockholm Monsters. I managed to record all the other nights (for my own personal pleasure!!), but on this night I was spotted with my tape recorder and had it confiscated until the end of the gig...grrr...luckily there are a few outtakes on the SXXV So Far DVD available through LTM HERE
Yes...it made me laugh...I know!!! Also at FAC 121 Peter Saville was showing proposed artwork for the 86 New Order album Brotherhood and all the singles to go with it...we were still yet to be stunned by Low Life, it makes you wonder why it took so long to realise that artwork, but that's a genius for you...... or is this my failing memory..... nah.... I've got the confused evidence in all the Factory sites.
The sounds of New Order are prevalent on so many BeMusic productions....... The Royal Family and The Poor's "The Temple of the 13th Tribe" (FACT95)....who???? I hear you ask..... weird stuff admittedly, but this album is full of beautiful programming, beats and synths and ofcourse bass by Hooky.... Thick Pigeon's - Too Crazy Cowboys..... another obscurity has some of the most fantastic Gillian/Stephen synth strings you'll hear outside of any New Order album.....HERE
One thing that does make me wonder (Back to Wonder..again)....if Stephen, Hooky and Barny were carrying that TR808 around to different studios and bands all the time, over a space of about 3 or 4 years, surely at some point someone overwrotesomeone elses patterns...hmm...maybe that's another chapter to be covered by Hooky??......Even Section 25 retrofitted some of the sounds on their original TR808......decades before this......
So as I continued to spend my money on Factory, Factory Benelux and Les Disques Du Crepescule (James Nice will confirm that I still do). I remember buying classics like Nyam Nyams, Peter Hook produced and programmed Fate/Hate (FBN28) and Red Turns To's Deep Sleep (FAC116) produced by Stephen Morris and plugging them to death......and plugging them again whilst wondering if Mirrors had even heard of this stuff..... come on now...what do you get if you shove Red Turns To, Abecedarians and Nyam Nyam into a blender and shake it out in 2011??
Uncanny eh??
I've made a habit of continuously buying all those Factory compilations that have come out on LTM and that's after I regularly contributed to a Japanese Website about all BeMusic orientated productions ...way back in 2002.... don't ask.... I have no record of it anywhere...... I'm still going to rave about the genius of New Order and their solo production techniques....I still have all the original vinyl and I don't plan to get rid of it.....so coming out in Feb 2017 is the Ultimate BeMusic compilation..... New Order presents BE MUSIC (FBN60).... it's not all the Factory dance hits, it's got some 21st century synth swagger on it too...Factory Floor, Marnie.... a 3 disc CD set or single Vinyl album...perfectly curated (as always) by James Nice.... great liner booklet notes...insights from the artists and BeMusic themselves....this really does highlight how important New Order and Factory Records were and still are.....
Check it all out and buy it on Factory Benelux HERE
Try it...I know you'll enjoy it....I have been for a few decades now.....