Turn Down The Music and Read: Chapter and Verse
Have you ever had two friends get in a fight, and you find yourself with this sort of guilty schadenfreude as you gobble up the details of how it started and who’s to blame? If you’re a Joy Division/New Order fan, there’s your motivation to read Chapter and Verse: New Order, Joy Division, and Me (Thomas Dunne Books) by Bernard Sumner. Sumner is the guitarist who stepped into the lead vocal role after the untimely death of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis. The book itself is clearly the counterpoint to bass player Peter Hook’s critically acclaimed Unknown Pleasures, which told the band’s story from Hooky’s side of the stage.
Given the public and long-standing acrimony between Sumner and Hook which has resulted in two separate bands who tour playing New Order and Joy Division songs (I’ve seen the Sumner-fronted version,) it was no surprise that Unknown Pleasures had an anti-Sumner bias. Now Sumner’s having his say. I think we can all presume that the truth lies somewhere in between.
Because any band will have been covered in the music press in real time once it reaches a certain level of popularity, for me the test of good music memoir is what it reveals about the early years, and how much the curtain is drawn back on emotions and relationships that were made intentionally opaque to the press. In this regard, Chapter and Verse delivers. Sumner paints a picture of a childhood in Salford, near Manchester, that wasn’t idyllic but was nonetheless happy, and does such a good job of it that when he mentions that a national newspaper ran a headline story on “The Biggest Slum in Britain” about Salford, you’ll think – as he apparently did as a child – wait, how can that be? They had scooters, and bonfire nights!
By the time he emerged from Salford, Sumner had met Peter Hook and they’d started the band that would become Joy Division, so I couldn’t help but think of the descriptions of various people and events in Hook’s book as I came upon them in the Sumner version. In tone, Hook is the unapologetic prankster who likes to take the piss, while Sumner comes across as serious, measured, and self-aware. The place where the narratives align almost perfectly is in relaying the events that lead up to the suicide of Ian Curtis, as is the palpable sense of guilt and regret that the surviving musicians – who, after all, were barely out of their teens when it happened – still carry.
But after that point, the differences become more stark. Sumner seems to have embraced forgiveness and personal accountability – admitting, for instance, that his fascination with synthesizers that led to a song like “Blue Monday,” which required barely any human intervention to perform, may have gone a bit far.
But he’s quick to add that “Blue Monday” is the best selling 12” single of all time, so sorry not sorry. And while talking about the New Order-backed Haçienda nightclub in Manchester, about which Peter Hook wrote his book How Not To Run a Club, Sumner can’t resist mentioning that “a certain ‘Mr. Haçienda’ was rarely, if ever, seen there; he was never part of that scene and never demonstrated any interest in dance music whatsover…” The entire closing chapter is a spike over Hook’s volleyball net.
Actually, let me rephrase: the place where the narratives of the two books align almost perfectly is in the snippy asides aimed at the guy who used to play his instrument four feet away. (No wonder drummer Stephen Morris married keyboardist Gillian Gilbert. They probably bonded together in their neutrality.) I imagine Hook is already sweating over his laptop on Unknown Pleasures 2: Sumner’s Book Was Rubbish.
Chapter and Verse is loaded with pictures and, for the first time, the transcript of a hypnosis session that young Bernard performed on young Ian, which made me feel super queasy to read because should people be hypnotizing other people like that? I’m leaning no. But for a New Order fan, you may be interested to learn that Ian was called Justin in a previous life.
The book is a worthy addition to the canon of ’80s music memoir and a must-read for New Order/Joy Division fans. And guess what? I’m giving away a copy (thank you, Thomas Dunne Books!) For a chance to win, leave a comment below with your favorite New Order/Joy Division song. I’ll use Random.org to choose a winner on Tuesday, November 10 at 5 pm PST.
And I’ll leave you with my favorite, which I now know Sumner wrote as a bit of an experiment when he was inspired by cheesy country music. Well, that was the music of my childhood.
Related StoriesTurn Down the Music and Read: Girl in a BandTurn Down the Music and Read: The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten SongsTurn Down the Music and Read: The Jesus and Mary Chain – Barbed Wire Kisses
