Now then, I understand that New Order have fans as rabid in some ways as some other Mancunian bands I could mention and that this statement may set a few of them off but…I think all you really need by New Order is this compilation and maybe a copy of “Love Vigilantes”. There, I’ve said it.

My preferred New Order period is the early days when they sounded like a better recorded Joy Division with a worse singer. On this album that would be side 1,  “Ceremony”(which does appear on Joy Division’s “Still” performed at their final gig in Birmingham), “Everything’s Gone Green” and “Temptation” which are quite superb. 

Side 2 begins with what is, I suppose, New Order’s signature tune, the one everybody knows, “Blue Monday”. I like it if I hear it, it’s not something I’d reach for very often if at all.  In 1986 the band I worked for (you know who, right ?) we’re invited to open for New Order in Birmingham as their manager knew New Order’s notorious manager Rob Gretton (Happy Mondays were also on the bill, first time I came across them). As we walked into the venue through the foyer we could hear “Blue Monday” being “played” but not sung. When we got into the venue it was still booming out but…there was absolutely nobody on the stage. That kinda put me off them, knowing that so much of what they did wasn’t “played”.

Later on this comp there is “True Faith” which I like and I’ve already expressed my liking for “Love Vigilantes”. Over the years I’ve met and really enjoyed being around Peter Hook. A few years ago we went to see him and his band The Light play a gargantuan Joy Division/New Order set in Wolverhampton. I gotta admit for the majority of the New Order part of the set I went into the bar in the next room. Which is why I offered at the start there that all you really need by New Order is this compilation and maybe a copy of “Love Vigilantes”. 

So why do I even own it I can hear some of you ask ? Well a copy like this one, a UK 1st issue with the embossed sleeve, is quite the valuable item these days. This one came to me via the shop and has been, shall we say, partied. So I took it home for a good clean and some TLC and couldn’t bring myself to sell it for the pittance I’d get for it, so it stayed here with a few others at Russ’s benevolent home for misused LP’s, I get ‘em out and give ‘em a spin every now and again and we’re all very happy with the arrangement.

Everything’s Gone Green - https://youtu.be/Aaf-eqg8dvo?si=56WtwdOuUrsu0dXZ

If you’ve ever wondered what it is, this, dear reader, is Krautrock. It was a label jokingly given to German underground music of the early 70’s by the Melody Maker, and it stuck. To the point where leading German band Faust recorded a track titled “Krautrock” (https://youtu.be/m5-_c2VFxhQ?si=Z4WchY3OmVU3N0Zj).

After the Second World War Germany was split in two with the East overseen by Russia and the Allies of the USA and the UK overseeing the West. American music arrived with the GI’s stationed in West Germany. By the time we get to the late 60’s the American music the German “heads” had picked up on was that of the Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, the weirder more experimental end of things. Ally that to the experimental, electronic “classical” music being made by Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne and you have an altogether different set of influences being applied to Germany’s underground and progressive musicians than on those elsewhere in the west.

The result was the bands to whom Melody Maker applied the somewhat disparaging sobriquet “Krautrock”,  including (but not limited to) Faust, Amon Düul, Ash Ra Tempel, Cluster, Popol Vuh, Harmonia, Can, Kraftwerk and, of course, NEU!

NEU!, as far as this album is concerned, were a duo from Düsseldorf consisting of guitarist Michael Rother and drummer Klaus Dinger both of them recently departed from Kraftwerk. Producer Conny Plank (who would go on to produce records by Ultravox and Eurhythmics because of his work with Krautrock) was also instrumental in the construction of NEU!’s first 3 albums (“NEU!”, “NEU!2” and “NEU! 75”).

NEU!’s sound was built around Rother’s pulsing, rhythmic, effects laden guitar playing and Dinger’s minimal drumming. Dinger’s style, a simplistic 4/4 pattern, heavy on the kick drum and with few fills, that never lets up, has become so influential it earned its own name, “the Motorik”. If you can’t imagine what it sounds like have a listen below or think of anything by Stereolab who have fashioned n entire career out of it ! The music is largely instrumental (there is a vocal on final track “Lieber Honig” (“Dear Honey”) but it’s more of an effect than actual singing), rhythmic and features sound effects, there is a somewhat startling pneumatic drill at one point and the sound of a boat rowing on water elsewhere. Rother’s guitar playing does get beautifully melodic in places, have a listen to “Weissensee” (“White Lake”).

The key track on “NEU!” is the first one, “Hallogallo”, a 10-ish minute groove-fest of pulsing, hypnotic guitar riffs and that relentless Motorik beat pushing everything along. Have a listen below, it really does tell you everything about NEU!

NEU!’s first 3 albums are rightly regarded as landmarks in German music and their influence is widespread. It’s rumoured Bowie originally wanted Michael Rother to play guitar on “Heroes” but some crossed wires meant he never received the request. I spent years avoiding any contact with  Krautrock, seeing it merely as a branch of the dreaded Prog, which I was very wrong about,l. Music like this had a huge influence on Punk and Post Punk. But thanx to the persistence of my dear friend Phil Barlow and Julian Cope’s seminal tome on the subject, “Krautrocksampler”, mine ears were opened and NEU! were a real gateway for me.

Hallogallo - https://youtu.be/zndpi8tNZyQ?si=BcCBm5m22u9ZE1Jd

Right then, enough of messing about with these alphabetically out of sync pieces (there are a couple more to come tho'), shall we get back to the alphabet ? Back in December we finished the M's, halfway through our  ABC's, so today we'll pick it up at N...

More music I’m sure I discovered listening to the John Peel Show. It would have been the single “Furniture Music” I heard first followed shortly by the second single from this album “Revolt Into Style”. All this would have been in early 1979, I had absolutely no clue that Bill Nelson had a history. I may have heard the name Be Bop Deluxe but knew nought of Nelson’s connection to that post-Glam/Prog-lite outfit. At that time Harvest Records, who Red Noise were signed to, to me meant The Saints, The Roxy Live abum and Wire and not their uber Prog past. As far as I was concerned Bill Nelson’s Red Noise were a new New Wave band making bloody good singles.

But this was a band in name only. After losing creative control of Be Bop Deluxe, Nelson paid the members of his new band as session musicians, he was definitely in charge here. As an example, the drummer on half of this “New Wave” album is Fairport Convention’s Dave Mattacks ! Fans of Be Bop Deluxe hated it, prospective fans of the New Wave who knew who Nelson was avoided it due to his past with Be Bop Deluxe, his record company Harvest were asking themselves “What's wrong with Bill? Why's he doing all this crazy music?”. I guess it was those, like me, who knew nothing of his past that just heard the music and got it. 

I ate up the two singles and the live B-sides of “Revolt Into Style”. I didn’t get a copy of the album until around 10 years ago but still think it’s a great record that sounds like all sorts of other stuff that was emerging in 1979, put it on a list with the likes of Ultravox! and Tubeway Army, rock bands making futuristic music with heavy use of synthesizers. As a result of liking this I even bought a Be Bop Deluxe album (“Drastic Plastic” which Nelson had envisioned as the first Red Noise album but was talked out of it by his management) and a Bill Nelson solo album (“Quit Dreaming And Get On the Beam” which he’d started to write as the follow up to this one) so I got something of an education out of it too. If you’re unaware of Red Noise but are a fan of that NewWave/Post Punk sound then click the link here and tell me you wouldn’t have fallen for this too, ignorance was bliss.

Furniture Music - https://youtu.be/gm3OgLHALAU?si=_ab6FBESm7NuC4gH