Ian Curtis died on this day in 1980. A collection of audio, video, and links are posted below in remembrance.
Curtis' life was featured on the BBC program Great Lives in 2008. Host Matthew Parris, British poet Simon Armitage and Peter Hook discussed Curtis' life, musical impact, and his final days. During the show, Hook played a short snippet of an unreleased version of Ian Curtis singing "Love Will Tear Us Apart" recorded by Malcolm McLaren. Stream the episode of Great Lives below - more info on the episode is posted here.
Curtis took his own life the day before Joy Division were scheduled to leave England to come to America for their first tour. The full Joy Division North American tour itinerary isn't officially available to view, however this website attempted to piece the tour together using Rob Gretton's notes, club ads, and other scraps of info. FYI, there was a Detroit date scheduled for May 26th at Bookies.
An excellent documentary on Joy Division simply titled Joy Division was released in 2007. The film includes interviews with Curtis' band members as well as key players like Peter Saville, Anton Corbijn, and Tony Wilson, among others. The full documentary is available to view on Hulu.
In 2005, the Anton Corbijn-directed biopic Control was released. Watch the full film on Hulu.
Here's another documentary on Joy Division titled Joy Division: Under Review. The film is "unofficial" and does not include interview footage with any of the surviving members of Joy Division/New Order, though it's still worth watching.
BBC interview with Ian Curtis and BBC Joy Division performance:
Joy Division Here Are The Young Men
Compilation of live appearances
A collection of "remastered" audio of all available Joy Division rehearsals
Finally, several Joy Division bootlegs are available to stream/download from A Means To An End blog.
Published May 18th, 2014 @ 7:36 AM