Peter Hook is lucky that Joy Division had Stephen Morris behind the drums. Peter got away with listlessly twanging away through a chorus pedal because the drums were rock solid. I think a lot of Peter's aggressively Mancunian divorcee-Dad bluster comes from the fact that deep down he knows he's a crap bassist who got very very lucky.
There's a glib, pseudo-intellectual streak about Joy Division's music that annoys me. They were crap at their instruments (except Stephen Morris), but were picked up by a producer who gave their rink-a-dink garage band sound a big spacious, dark tonality that made them sound brooding and experimental. Parallels are often drawn between Joy Division and genuinely gifted German bands of five years previous, such as Neu!, Cluster et al.
And all of this is before we discuss the clumsy dabblings with Nazi imagery to try desperately to give themselves a bit of an edge.
Erm, no, he's reeeeeeeally full of himself. Like there was one interveiw (recent, like within the last decade) where he listed off how "even" his son was starting to notice and remark to him at the sheer number of bassists in popular bands today who owed him or were ripping off his style. Sure, they say that behind every superiority complex is an inferiority complex, but still. Also the nerve of that dude to do some of the shit he does (riding off the back cataloge via endless covers with his current 'solo project' band and remixes; his DJ tour which sucked and where he just kept getting the crowd to jerk him off).
The point is, he wasn't the first to make bass a lead or melodic instrument, nor did he write the songs. I fell into a similar style (and according to lore, for similar reasons), but In addition, and higher in priority, I give credit to Steve Severin (who is similarly leady/melodic, just not all the time like Hooky; some songs need to go another way) and Reggae in general, among others. Steve is much more my kinda bassist; quiet and unassuming (the bassist with mystique, to borrow and modify a phrase)- rarely spoke in interviews, but when he did it wasn't bullshit; (co)wrote many of the songs (including lyrics, a la Dee Dee Ramone) and was the peacemaker in the band (see Siouxsie mad at Robert Smith when he left the band to focus on The Cure - Steve did The Glove side project with Smith after that).
Morris was pretty solid as a metronome, but you could see (in the BBC footage and other vids) that the 2 hand 16ths on the high hat had him riding the edge of the cliff as regards his ability (which is fair enough; keep that up for a 40 minute set). Props to him that he never tumbled and gave us those offbeat rack tom hits in the bargain, but Steve had Budgie, who, hands down, is a better drummer, easily more versatile (see also his time with The Slits) and makes crazy shit look like he's barely trying. This is a guy who blew Stewart Copeland's mind enough to comment publicly/on the record about it, which is saying something.
I love Joy Division, but it's got little to do with them being great musicians or people, and I've never been one for the cult of celebrity; the whole was definitely greater than the sum of the parts in that case. Also, a lot of credit needs to go to Martin Hannet (compare the proper albums to the live/BBC stuff). I just wince every time someone comes along pumping Love Will Tear US Apart, because it's their worst song and overplayed at that (relatively to the rest of their catalogue).
