New Order split up ?

[invisible Pole]

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/art ... 1003583537

Hook: New Order Has Broken Up

Legendary English rock act New Order has broken up, according to a post from bassist Peter Hook on his MySpace.com site. "I'm relieved," he wrote. "Really hated carryin' on as normal with an awful secret, so let's move on, shall we?" Hook made similar comments in an interview last Friday on XFM, telling host Clint Boon that he and singer/guitarist Bernard Sumner were no longer working together.

New Order, which also included drummer Stephen Morris and guitarist/keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, formed in 1980 following the dissolution of their prior band, Joy Division. That act's lead singer, Ian Curtis, committed suicide on the eve of an American tour.

New Order went on to become one of the most influential acts in modern music, fusing synthesizers and dance beats to rock structures on classics such as "Bizarre Love Triangle," "Blue Monday," "Age of Consent," "Ceremony," "Temptation," "True Faith" and "Regret."

The group went on a five-year hiatus beginning in 1993, but reconvened for new studio albums in 2001 ("Get Ready") and 2005 ("Waiting for the Sirens' Call") that introduced its music to a new generation of listeners. New Order's last show was in November in Buenos Aires.

Curtis is the subject of the upcoming film "Control," the score for which was performed by New Order. The movie will premiere May 17 at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

As for Hook, he guests on the debut album from Perry Farrell's Satellite Party, due May 29 via Columbia, and has also formed a new band, Freebass, with former Smiths bassist Andy Rourke and Stone Roses/Primal Scream member Mani.
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[Chrille]

Just sorry I never caught them live. I had a feeling they were tired of New Order though.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Manc bass superband!

Well it ain't the first time, but maybe it's the last. A fanatical friend reckoned they were at their most disappointing on their last tour, and the last LP was probably the worst since Movement, though hard to compare. Like the title track, though. Get Ready was great though, and it was great to see them at that time. Real fun.

Can't wait to read about Control and then eventually see it. The email service I signed up to months ago has provided not one email. I wonder if it will be any good. Was happy to pick 24hourpartypeople for a fiver in my local supermarket. Has some good bonuses - deleted scenes and interviews.

[invisible Pole]

Control has just premiered at Cannes festival and first reviews are coming in.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jh ... ontrol.xml

Beautiful people, secret lives

[....]
People here are still tut-tutting over Wong Kar Wai’s beautiful but trifling My Blueberry Nights. They’re also swapping notes over Dutch director Anton Corbijn’s feature debut Control, a biopic of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, who killed himself at the age of 23 in 1980.

Corbijn, best known for his moody monochromatic photographs and videos for bands such as U2 and Depeche Mode, has said, "If I only ever make one movie, Control would have to be it." Curtis is a revered figure in rock circles, and this film, based partly on a memoir written by his wife, certainly doesn’t go out of its way to debunk him or to play fast and loose with historical facts in the way that Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People did.

Sam Riley, who played Mark E Smith in that film, is extraordinary in the title role. In the performance scenes he almost channels the singer, the way his eyes seem to be sinking under the heaviness of gravity, capturing his jerking, possessed movements that resemble those of an anorexic power-walker.

This is definitely a film about Curtis rather than Joy Division. Yet it would have been good to learn more about how the four-piece got together, and how Curtis moved from being the Bowie- and Ballard-loving adolescent with glam-rock cheekbones to the singer he became.

The first words he says are "Existence: what does it matter?", but the film only gestures to the idea of him as auto-didact, a possible failing given the way it raises and then quickly abandons the issue of why the band adopted a name associated with Nazi war crimes.

Instead, the Curtis presented here is one who might have been played by Laurence Harvey in a kitchen-sink drama from the 1950s. He’s a serious young man, ambitious and twitchy, laid low by small-town values and his child-bearing wife (Samantha Morton). The film is especially revelatory in its detailing of Curtis’s affair with Belgian Annik Honore (Alexandra Maria Lara), a figure who has previously refused requests for interviews.

Control is beautifully photographed and framed, and features a dynamic score by New Order (the band that emerged from post-Curtis Joy Division), as well as a superbly foul-mouthed portrait of band manager Rob Gretton by Toby Kebbell (after the singer has an epileptic fit on stage, he cheers him up by telling him: "It could be worse; you could be the lead singer of The Fall"). What’s more, any film which has a beautiful Belgian woman utter the line "Tell me about Macclesfield" has to be worth watching.

-- Sukhdev Sandhu

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/art ... 1003587112

Ian Curtis Biopic Premieres At Cannes

A small film about a short-lived rock star is making a big splash at Cannes. "Control," the story of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, who committed suicide at 23," marks the feature-film directing debut of rock photographer Anton Corbijn and features a star-making performance from British unknown Sam Riley.
[...]
If the enthusiastic reception in Cannes is any indication, Riley can give up the day job. He is riveting as Curtis, an intense, charismatic performer who often appeared remote offstage.
[...]

[Otis Westinghouse]

I just can't wait to see this, and if the portrayal of Curtis is at least half-convincing, I'm going to obsess big-time over the DVD.

I recall Mark E Smith playing himself in 24hpp ('Hiya Mark', Tony Wilson says to the present-day MES in the queue at the Haç), but this is because I was looking at that scene on DVD.

Doesn't look like it will be on release till Sept/Oct. Hope it's a 15 as my 14 year old, chip off the old block that he partly is, is dying to see it too.

[ReadyToHearTheWorst]

Channel 4 news did a piece from Cannes on Control, including a clip. The lad does indeed do a remarkable impersonation. Am looking forward with immensity.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Wish I'd seen that.

This Observer review makes me salivate even more:

"Control marked the film debut of fashion photographer and pop video director Anton Corbijn. It won't be his last, as this is an impressive work about Britain, bands and Ian Curtis who died in 1980 at the age of 23. The film premiered here in Director's Fortnight on the eve of the anniversary of his death.

It's a long film about a short life, but it's beautifully performed - Samantha Morton is, as ever, dynamite in the role of his suffering wife Debbie (the film is based on her painful book of their time together) and Sam Riley is startling, capturing the singer's sweaty, jerky marching dance and the heavy-lidded eyes. Plaudits must also go to Tony Kebbell as the band's energetically foul-mouthed manager Rob Gretton.

I admired the way Corbijn subtly evokes the it's-grim-up-north cinema of old but actually shoots the film in a tender, softly lit monochrome. There are many artfully composed shots, isolating Curtis and foreshadowing his mental decline while the scenes of the band on stage in smoke- and beer-filled clubs are superbly atmospheric. Thankfully, a smart script also keeps the humour content high. Only in the final third does the film become repetitive and indulgent, losing its emotional thread as it tries to show love actually tearing Curtis apart."