Pure Punk Picks
Transmission – Joy Division
I think of Joy Division as a great band and an important one, as one of the creators of goth music.
My guess would be that Siouxsie & The Banshees would win the prize for first goth band but according to the internet- it’s a three-way tie between Siouxsie, The Cure and Joy Division.
For me, Joy Division inhabited a sound that was surely post punk as they were punk in spirit but also, truly something new.
There was a grimness in the material, an intensity in the sound and a bleakness in the lyrics that no other band had before them.
Okay, I guess I agree. We have to put Black Sabbath out of our minds right now and I recently read that The Doors were the first rock band referred to as “goth” in 1967, and I can see that with their often serious sounding music and words.
And yes, I love The Doors as well as the other bands already mentioned. Ian Curtis, the singer for Joy Division, reminded me of Jim Morrison more than any other singer then and to this day, with Ian’s deep baritone and somber, intense delivery.
And damn! I almost saw this band live! Ian committed suicide, unfortunately, on the eve of what would have been their first American tour and one of the dates was at The Rat, and I certainly would’ve been there if it had taken place.
This song starts with a throbbing, staccato bass riff- similar but different from the usual Ramones eight note bombardment. This sounds more like a broken up, static radio transmission. It is soon met with an excellent, echo-y, melancholy guitar line really not that far off from , guitar licks by other bands at the time but unique in how it drifts from higher and lower registers while some great, energetic, surf rock tom-tom rhythm beats strongly underneath it.
But what comes next is a bit surprising. It’s Ian’s low, foreboding voice- melodic but somehow threatening, as something dangerous is in the air.
“Radio, live transmission.”
This song starts out strong and hard and only grows with intensity and urgency as it goes on. It builds in emotion and power and passion.
“Listen to the silence. Let it ring on…we could have a fine time living in the night. Left to blind destruction… And we could go on as though nothing was wrong.” These lines read me as a sort of recipe for the decadence and
the destruction and the dying that went on in the late seventies, early eighties punk scenes.
When the chorus arrives and exhorts us to “Dance, dance, dance to the radio.” It’s not at all like some lame disco song begging us to get out of our seats and dance. There’s a frantic, paranoiac quiver in the voice that suggests a frantically anxious, desperation in his plea.
And after the second verse the voice moves up an octave in an even more emotional, anguished appeal.
“Well I could call out when the going gets tough. The things that we’ve learned are no longer enough.”
Joy Division’s last album is called “Closer” and this song is not from that album, that album was released two months after Ian’s suicide and it was their second album release.
Along with Lou Reed’s “Berlin”, they are by far the two most depressing albums I know of, but they are also two of the best albums I’ve heard in my life.
Though I encourage everyone NOT to listen to these albums now, if you’re having some trouble in these most troubling times.
I want to acknowledge that Joy Division was an eye opening band for me. They were totally unique towards what I had experienced before and left an impression on me that I can’t put into words though, of course, I flail away as usual, trying the best I can.
“No language, just sound, that’s all we need to know to synchronize love to the beat of the show. And we could dance.”
(Slimedog)
