Joy Division

'Genuinely funny: indeed, the story will… keep you entertained for a very long time' Sunday Times Joy Division changed the face of music. Godfathers of the current alternative scene, they reinvented rock in the post-punk era, creating a new sound - dark, hypnotic, intense - that would influence U2, Morrissey, R.E.M., Radiohead and many others. This is the story of Joy Division told by the band's legendary bassist, Peter Hook. 'Hook has restored a flesh-and-blood rawness to what was becoming a standard tale. Few pop music books manage that'Guardian 'An honest, enthusiastic account … It's a window like no other into the reality of life in this most aloof of bands' METRO 'An immense account of Joy Division's rise…Having read Hook's book, you'll feel like you were the fifth member of the band' GQ 'A bittersweet, profanity filled recollection… If you like Joy Division, you really have to read it' Q Magazine 'Hook lifts the lid on the real Ian Curtis' NME 'He's frank, incredibly funny, and isn't shy'Artrocker

The only in-depth biographical account of the legendary lead singer of Joy Division, written by his widow. Includes a foreword by Jon Savage and an introduction by Joy Division drummer, Steven Morris. Revered by his peers and idolized by his fans, Ian Curtis left behind a legacy rich in artistic genius. Mesmerizing on stage but introverted and prone to desperate mood swings in his private life, Curtis died by his own hand on 18 May 1980. Touching from a Distance documents how, with a wife, child and impending international fame, Curtis was seduced by the glory of an early grave. Regarded as the essential book on the essential icon of the post-punk era, Touching from a Distance includes a full set of Curtis's lyrics and a discography and gig list.

The SUNDAY TIMES Top Ten Bestseller#1 Book of the Year, UNCUT#1 Book of the Year, ROUGH TRADEBook of the Year, MOJOOver the course of two albums and some legendary gigs, Joy Division became the most successful and exciting underground band of their generation. Then, on the brink of a tour to America, Ian Curtis took his own life.In This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else, Jon Savage has assembled three decades' worth of interviews with the principal players in the Joy Division story to create an intimate, candid and definitive account of the band. It is the story of how a group of young men can galvanise a generation of fans, artists and musicians with four chords and three-and-a-half minutes of music. And it is the story of how illness and inner demons can rob the world of a shamanic lead singer and visionary lyricist.

*** The definitive collection of the Joy Division photographs of Kevin Cummins, including interviews with Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris. A ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR A LOUDER THAN WAR BOOK OF THE YEAR "Lovers of Joy Division, revel in Juvenes! Dazzling... Glorious..." LOUDER THAN WAR The iconic images captured by Cummins - from snowy bridges and dark rehearsal rooms to electrifying live performances - helped to define Joy Division and cement their place in music history. Originally published in an ultra-limited run of just 226 copies, Juvenes is a book with legendary status. Now comprehensively updated with new material and images that have never been published in a book before, this new edition will allow fans to own it for the first time. Also containing insightful and moving essays from the band's family, contemporaries and fans including David Peace and Pat Nevin, Juvenes is a striking, poignant celebration of a truly special band. With a foreword by Ian Rankin. "Whenever I picture Joy Division, it's through Kevin Cummins' camera lens. Never before or since has one photographer captured a band's story so well." TIM BURGESS "I first saw Kevin Cummins' photographs of Joy Division when I was a music-obsessed teenager. The stark black and white shots captured perfectly the austere and serious nature of the music. Look at this book and dream a new future into being. God knows we need one." BOBBY GILLESPIE

Joy Division's career has often been shrouded by myths. But the truth is surprisingly simple: over a period of several months, Joy Division transformed themselves from run-of-the-mill punk wannabes into the creators of one of the most atmospheric, disturbing, and influential debut albums ever recorded. Chris Ott carefully picks apart fact from fiction to show how Unknown Pleasures came into being, and how it still resonates so strongly today. EXCERPT The urgent, alien thwack of Stephen Morris' processed snare drum as it bounced from the left to right channel was so arresting in 1979, one could have listened to that opening bar for hours trying to figure how on earth someone made such sounds. Like John Bonham's ludicrous, mansion-backed stomp at the start of "When The Levee Breaks"-only far less expensive-the crisp, trebly snare sound with which Martin Hannett would make his career announced Unknown Pleasures as a finessed, foreboding masterpiece. Peter Hook's compressed bass rides up front as "Disorder" comes together, but it's not until the hugely reverbed, minor note guitar line crashes through that you can understand the need for such a muted, analog treatment to Hook's line. Layering a few tracks together to create a six-string shriek, Hannett's equalization cuts the brunt of Sumner's fuller live sound down to an echoing squeal, revealing a desperation born of longing rather than rage. This is the way, step inside.

Bernard Sumner pioneered the post-punk movement when he broke onto the scene as a founding member of Joy Division, and later as the front man of New Order. Heavily influencing U2 and The Cure while paving the way for post-punk revivalists like Interpol, Sumner's has left an indelible mark on punk and rock music that endures to this day. Famously reluctant to speak out, for the first time Sumner tell his story, a vivid and illuminating account of his childhood in Manchester, the early days of Joy Division, and the bands subsequent critical and popular successes. Sumner recounts Ian Curtis' tragic death on the eve of the band's first American tour, the formation of breakout band New Order, and his own first-hand account of the ecstasy and the agony of the 1970s Manchester music scene. Witty, fascinating and surprisingly moving, Chapter and Verse is an account of insights and spectacular personal revelations, including an appendix containing a complete transcript of a recording made of Ian Curtis experiencing hypnotic regression under the Sumner's amateur guidance and tensions between himself and former band member Peter Hook.

So this is permanence, edited by Jon Savage with a foreword by Deborah Curtis, presents the intensely personal writings of one of the most enigmatic and influential songwriters and performers of the late twentieth century, Joy Division's Ian Curtis. The songs of Joy Division, infused with the energy of punk but seeped in a resigned longing, were born of Manchester in the late seventies - a once flourishing industrial city in decline. They were the songs too of Ian Curtis's inner tragedies, as he battled depression, epilepsy and debilitating stage fright. Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980, on the eve of the band's first American tour. Interspersed with the lyrics are previously unpublished facsimile pages of Ian's notebooks, which throw his highly emotive lyrics into fascinating relief and cast light on the creative process of this singularly poetic songwriter.

"Mick Middles was the first journalist to interview Joy Division for the music press and formed a close association with the band. Lindsay Reade was a co-founder of Factory Records along with her then-husband Tony Wilson. Together they have revisited the legend of Ian Curtis and produced the first full-length account of this troubled man's life, work and relationships in the midst of the unique explosion of pop energy that hit Manchester in the late Seventies"--Cover.