Substance: Inside New Order

by Peter Hook

Overview

In this final installment of his internationally bestselling three-part memoir—including The Hacienda and Unknown Pleasures—British rocker Peter Hook focuses on the 1980s New Wave and Dance Punk scene and the rise of one of the most influential bands of the Second British Invasion: New Order.

1980. Resurrected from the ashes of Joy Division after the suicide of its lead singer, Ian Curtis, New Order would become one most critically acclaimed and important bands of the decade and beyond. With their hits "Bizarre Love Triangle", "Perfect Kiss", and "Blue Monday"—the biggest-selling 12-inch single of all time—Peter Hook and company quickly rose to the top of the alternative music scene. Widely regarded as the godfathers of electronic dance music, their sound would influence Moby, The Chemical Brothers, The Postal Service, The Killers, and other acts that followed in their wake.

Hook tells the complete, unvarnished story of New Order’s founding and evolution; the band’s experiences in the New York City club scene and rapid rise to international fame, its impact on house music, techno, and rave; and its eventual rancorous dissolution. Full of Hook’s "gleefully profane" (Entertainment Weekly) humor and vivid, witty storytelling, Substance is the most important and certainly the most controversial part of his story, emanating with drugs, booze, and sex.

Complete with timelines, discographies, gigographies and track-by-track analysis, and exclusive photographs and archival images from Hook’s personal collection, it is the definitive, comprehensive history of New Order and a compelling snapshot of the '80s cultural scene in all its neon-hued glory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062307989
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	12/26/2017
Pages:	800
Sales rank:	430,909
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Peter Hook was born in Salford, England, in 1956. He was a founding member of Joy Division and New Order, and now tours both bands’ music with his new group, Peter Hook and the Light. He also DJs, promoting Fac 51 and The Haçienda Classical concerts around the world. He lives in Cheshire, England, with his wife, Rebecca, and children, Heather, Jack, and Jessica, and their dogs, Wilma and Bo.

Table of Contents

Introduction xiii

Ten things you should always do when you form a group xiv

Prologue: 1985 1

'Turned out his cure for jetlag was the biggest line of coke I'd ever seen.' 2

Part 1 Movement

'One genius and three Manchester United supporters' 10

'This is New York' 17

'This is a rock band, let's stick with the guitars and drums' 30

'I had a stalker' 32

Timeline One: April 1980-December 1980 34

Ten things you should never do when you form a group 42

'Anything to keep Rob happy…' 43

'Feels like I've been here before' 51

Movement Track by Track 56

Timeline Two: January-December 1981 63

Ten Best Bass Riffs 84

'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil' 85

'Temptaion' EP Track by Track 89

'The noise attracted scumbags like a magnet' 95

'But then twatto returned…' 101

'Marooned in the middle of puke' 109

'She went off like a firework' 115

Power, Corruption and Lies Track by Track 121

Timeline Three: January-December 1982 124

Ten Best Hotels in the World 137

'Arthur was fucking bonkers… I loved him.' 138

'OK, pizza' 149

'Go and have a holiday, Judas' 158

Timeline-Four: January-December 1983 161

Ten Best New Order Songs 176

'Love is the air that supports the eagle…' 177

'One look at the books was all it took' 182

'We'd made something very special' 188

'He went absolutely berserk when he saw the video' 200

Low-life Track by Track 207

Timeline Five: January-December 1984 210

Top Ten Best People I Never Got to Play With, Sadly 222

Take us back to Hong Kong, Pedro' 223

'It was the highest room-service bill in the history of the hotel' 233

'I'll be writing about that in me memoirs' 241

'Go on, go on holiday, you twat' 246

Timeline Six: January-December 1985 254

'The trouble with you is…' 270

Part 2 Brotherhood

'Just a gnat's whisker' 280

$$$ 292

'We weren't really a Smash Hits kind of group' 294

'That was how I ended 1986' 299

Brotherhood Track by Track 302

Timeline Seven: January-December 1986 305

Ten Best People I Did Get to Play With 322

'My knee was in the video' 323

'Make-up wearing, miming bunch of flouncing jessies' 345

'I want to work with other people' 350

Timeline Eight January-December 1987 354

'Get it out of your system, darling' 368

'Jetlag, Pedro' 387

Technique Track by Track 393

Timeline Nine: February-December 1988 396

'It's a New Order gig, this, not a Revenge gig' 403

'This was the tour that broke us' 407

'Turns out the chiropodist was a New Order fan' 410

'Off my face - every day - repeat till fade' 419

Timeline Ten: January-December 1989 427

'Gascoigne, will you fuck off!' 444

'Shit concept, shit music, shit everything else' 452

'We are having to remove you for your own safety' 454

The Stone Roses deserve a chapter to themselves, so here we go 462

Timeline Eleven: January-December 1990 473

Ten Most Interesting Medical Problems I Got Working in a Band 484

'In among all this madness…' 485

Timeline Twelve: January-December 1991 494

'There was trouble brewing…' 498

Timeline Thirteen: January-December 1992 509

'Blink and you miss us' 517

Timeline Fourteen: January-December 1993 532

Top Ten Bass Cab Messages 543

'We needed binoculars to see Noel Edmonds' 544

'Marry in haste, repent at leisure' 546

'Judas' 566

'I wish I could thank that cleaner' 572

'Fingers of God' 575

'Thick as Thieves (Like Us)' 577

'Back to the Real World' 581

Get Ready Track by Track 588

Timeline Fifteen: July 1994-November 2000 591

'A crowd of adoring Goths' 622

Timeline Sixteen: April-December 2001 632

'Grandmaster Flash being marched out by a copper with a machine gun' 644

'The idea was that I'd hide in the bushes' 652

'Refuelling the whole time' 657

'Something had got corrupted along the way' 664

'The clarity can be blinding' 671

The rift widened…' 681

'I should have smelled a rat' 687

Timeline Seventeen: January 2002-October 2007 692

Epilogue 723

Acknowledgements 725

Picture Credits 727

Bibliography 729

Index 731

Editorial Reviews

02/06/2017
In this lengthy but never boring memoir, Hook (Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club) covers the highlights and lowlights of performing in the new wave band New Order. After the suicide of Ian Curtis, the charismatic front man of Joy Division, Hook and the band’s other remaining members formed the equally iconic New Order. Though it was different in terms of sound and feel, New Order was equally acclaimed and influential. In lesser hands, Hook’s attention to meticulous detail could be a recipe for a ponderous, sleep-inducing tome, but his lively prose and wit keeps readers bouncing through the book. Sordid tales of drugs, groupies, and debauchery, such as the time the band released a donkey into the Pogues’ dressing room, balance out the gear minutiae, stories behind classic songs such as “Blue Monday,” the ups and (mainly) downs of running a club, songwriting, and losing millions of dollars. Hook breaks up the narrative with random lists (“Ten Most Interesting Medical Problems I Got Working In a Band,” “Ten Best Bass Riffs”). The often egotistical Hook still manages to be a charming and funny storyteller. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

As raw, undiluted, and fitfully funny as its predecessors… It’s an unapologetic rock memoir, concerned less with legacy and more with what really went down...the book is a marvelous success. A well-written and brutally honest remembrance of the glory days of rave culture.” — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

As raw, undiluted, and fitfully funny as its predecessors… It’s an unapologetic rock memoir, concerned less with legacy and more with what really went down...the book is a marvelous success. A well-written and brutally honest remembrance of the glory days of rave culture.

Stephanie Garber

2016-12-19
Life after Joy Division: an insider offers a comprehensive history of New Order.Now entering a new phase as the elder statesman of electronic dance music and the "Madchester" music scene, Hook (Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division, 2013, etc.) provides an extremely thorough history of his legendary follow-up group, New Order. As raw, undiluted, and fitfully funny as its predecessors, this spiritual sequel starts by asking a difficult question: "Do we need to go into the circumstances of Ian's death?" The answer, as it turns out, is no and yes. No, because it's been covered, and yes, because Hook never fully recovered from the death of Joy Division's doomed frontman Curtis, not to mention the consequential years of drug and alcohol abuse. The stories are entertaining, though, opening with producer John Robie assaulting "Hooky" in front of Molly Ringwald at the premiere of Pretty in Pink in 1985. In the following pages, Hook describes the making of hits like "Blue Monday," "Bizarre Love Triangle," and others as well as his dynamic and difficult relationships with his band mates, particularly vocalist Bernard Sumner. Even triumphs like headlining the Reading Festival are dismissed with casual abandon: "International rock star = bollocks." Along the way, Hook offers anecdotes, timelines detailing recording sessions and performances, "geek alerts" commenting on instruments and recording gear, and sly asides—e.g., "Ten Most Interesting Medical Problems I Got Working in a Band." The author also offers a visceral depiction of the druggy music scene with stories about bands like Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses, who "deserve a chapter to themselves, so here we go." It's an unapologetic rock memoir, concerned less with legacy and more with what really went down: "the idea being to bring you the most complete and truthful record of life inside New Order as is humanly possible." By that standard, the book is a marvelous success. A well-written and brutally honest remembrance of the glory days of rave culture.

Kirkus Reviews