Try Listening To The 12″

Watching the predicto-fest that was the Brits the other night, my mind started wandering half-way through the Pet Shop Boys Lifetime Achievement Award set. Even in all their badly-mimed, poorly edited megamix glory, I have to say that I like the Pet Shop Boys, but I couldn’t help thinking that, had they not been so contrary, difficult (and split up), New Order would’ve been up there getting their backs well and truly slapped by all manner of minor celebrity instead.

Here are the young men

Of course, being contrary and difficult is exactly what maketh the band. Famous for leaving the big hits off the albums (in a give-the-fans-value-for-money kinda way) they never fail to irritate, infuriate and infatuate me in equal measure. My formative years as a beer drinker in training were soundtracked by 3 12″ records – Talking Heads ‘Slippery People’, Simple Minds‘ ‘I Travel’ and New Order‘s ‘Blue Monday’ (naturelement). To this day I can still tap out Blue Monday‘s opening bars with 2 Bic pens on an empty can of Tennents. When I hear it, I still get flashbacks to being 15 and drunk in a pal’s house (or even worse, a pal’s loft. Try getting out of one of them after 2 cans and a packet of dry roasted peanuts!)

I’ve mentioned this previously, but if you’re new here you won’t know, so I’ll mention this again. I was too young to fully appreciate the full majesty of a prime New Order. I got into Blue Monday and worked my way backwards. Then I discovered Joy Division (via Paul Young, ouch). But I digress. RS McColl’s in Irvine had the best record department I’ve ever seen. Essentially a paper shop that sold sweeties, you could travel backwards in time if you went into the back shop. Rows upon rows of vinyl. Crammed into whatever space was available. Apparently the shop never returned anything to the record companies. You could buy anything there. The wee woman who worked in it knew the stock like the back of her hand and she could tell you exactly where something was in the racks too. There was a loose consession to alphabetical order but you’d never find anything by that method. The best records were found by accident, possibly because someone had found it before you and stashed it somewhere until they had enough money to buy it. The wee woman was also very generous. Once I realised they sold New Order 7″s and 12″s, I was never out of the place. I quickly realised that if you wanted more than one thing, she’d knock 50p or £1 off the total price now and again. I eventually bought the entire New Order section from there and I think it cost me about £8.30 in total. A slight exaggeration, but you get the idea. I used to have to sneak the records home in my school bag cos my mum would go mad if she caught me “wasting” money on records. Subsequently, most of my New Order records have buckles and bends in the corners of the sleeves. Silly me.

Don’t worry, the music’s coming

Last year, New Order were the latest act to get involved in that great fan-fleecing racket, the Deluxe Edition. I can’t help but think that this would never have happened under Tony Wilson or Factory Records patronage, but major labels like the smell of cash and they know how trainspottery fans can be. New Order’s back catalogue from ‘Movement‘ up to ‘Technique‘ was re-released with all manner of b-sides, remixes, alt. versions and associated album release singles included on the second disc of each album. Movement included an alt version of ‘Ceremony‘ from 1981. I’m not 100% sure about this, but I think this slightly out-of-tune version was re-recorded after Gillian Gilbert joined the group. I’m sure New Order scholars will keep me right on that one.

This disc also featured 2 versions of ‘Temptation‘ (not the shiny, better-known version from Substance and Trainspotting, but the original cold, clattering Manchester funk version.) The 7″ version has an abrupt start (if that makes sense) and fades out rather quickly as well. The wee message scratched into the run-out groove on the 7″ read, “Try listening to the 12″“. So I did. I liked it better. But it also started and ended kinda funny. The 12” run-out read, “What do you think?” At the time of release, rumour had it that you were supposed to splice the 7″ version to the 12″ version for one long continuous mix. Almost impossible to do with a BSR Music Centre in the mid-80s, but these days with free, easy to use software like Audacity, this could be quite easily tested. Anyone fancy trying it?

One minor trivial, trainspottery fact. That scream you hear after 52 seconds of the 12″ version is the sound of Peter Hook and Rob Gretton running into the vocal booth to stick snowballs down the back of Barney’s neck just as he’s about to start singing. S’true!

The biggest selling 12″ record in history

Power, Corruption and Lies is enhanced with the addition of such behemoth non-album tracks as Blue Monday, Confusion and Thieves Like Us. What an album that would’ve made! My 12″ of Blue Monday has the unusual quirk of being labelled incorrectly. The side that says ‘Blue Monday’ actually plays the b-side, ‘The Beach’, and vice-versa. Now, that used to really confuse me at the afore-mentioned parties when I’d play ‘The Beach’ instead of the a-side. It seemed I was the only one who owned a wrongly-labelled record. Anyway, I’ve now heard The Beach a million times more than anyone else and I love the phased, processed drums, synthetic Kraftwerk-aping vocals (listen to ‘Uranium’ from 1975’s ‘Radioactivity’) and elastic band bassline as much as I love the a-side. Have a listen.

‘True Faith’ remains my favourite New Order track. Like many of it’s preceding singles, it has also played a part in soundtracking my formative years. I bought the 12″ remix version (above) on the Isle Of Man the day after a particularly memorable and highly personal experience on a park bench in the Douglas Gardens with a girl from Liverpool. Yep! The original version is by far the best, but the 9 min + Shep Pettibone remix is worth a listen, if only for realising just how much those Lifetime Achieving Pet Shop Boys lifted every bang, crash and production technique from it. Nice rinky-dink Chic-esque guitar riffs in it now and again though.

On initial copies of the 4CD ‘Retro‘ box set that came out 4 or 5 years ago, you got a 5th CD of bonus remixes etc. Included on this disc was the mega-rare Pink Noise Morel edit of ‘True Faith’. It sounds very much like the last track of a remix single (ie, no’ that good) but I’ve included it here for curio value.

‘Run 2’ (a re-recording of the track ‘Run‘ from ‘Technique‘) got the band into a bit of bother with American country-folky John Denver. He claimed they stole his melody from ‘Leaving On A Jet Plane’ and the band ended up withdrawing the single. 20,000 were pressed up and distributed. Today selling half that amount would keep you at number 1 for a month or so, but in 1989 record sales were far healthier and New Order’s chart positions not as lofty as they might’ve been. ‘Run 2’ captures New Order at that thing they do best – uplifting yet melancholic music with a great hook. Maybe John Denver had a point…

Another thing. The last time I saw New Order (Glasgow Barrowlands, 2002) I had a tap on the shoulder during ‘Run’. “Sorry pal, but I cannae see for you.”

Pat Nevin! (Google him if you’re none the wiser)

And now the ironic part…

After being released last year, people started complaining about the sound quality of these Deluxe Editions. There were accusations that some of the tracks were mastered onto CD from the vinyl originals instead of the master tapes. Nothing new in this of course. My original CD copy of ‘Kind Of Blue’ has a comforting fluffy sound between blasts of Miles Davis’ trumpet. I like it like that. It takes me back to an era I wasn’t old enough to experience first time round. Even those lovers of lo-fi The La’s have fallen victim of this. Last years ‘Deluxe Edition’ of their debut album (I live in hope) featured tracks that were copied from an old C90 tape that someone at the record company had found behind the sofa, even though the master tapes were made available to them for remastering purposes! It seems the cheaper option was to dub from the old TDK. And there’s the rub. Fleece the fans by getting them to shell out for hard-to-find material but do it as cheaply as possible. New Order quickly withdrew all the re-released albums, making them something of a collector’s edition (if not Deluxe Edition) and until they are re-re-re-released (gently down the stream) some time later this year, the above tracks’ll have to do. Or you could try eBay of course. It doesn’t bother me. I think they sound magic just the way they are.