Ian Curtis

Childhood and youth

Ian Curtis is born in 1956 in Old Trafford, Manchester, with the Hospital Memorial. It grows with Huddersfield, periphery of Macclesfield, in England. He will however live the major part of his life with Macclesfield even, where he follows courses to the King' S School . At 15 years, it makes an overdose. After the removal with his parents, he forgets drug. Its size: 1m75. The studies never really interested it: there will remain only a few weeks with St-John' S College. Its hopes rest on the music. It grew by listening to the Who, the Velvet Underground, the Stooges… But it especially sticks to a side more Glam rock'n'roll, Romantique: he adores David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, James Dean, in particular those which died young people, in the flower of their talent. He reads JG Ballard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Woodworth… Its musical passion leads it to work, although little time, in a store of discs. He also works in the Public office in Manchester, and later, in Macclesfield. Ian Curtis marries Deborah Woodruff on Saturday, August 23, 1975, before becoming the singer of the group Post-punk and Cold wave Joy Division in 1977.

The catch

As of its adolescence, under the influence of its heroes, Ian Curtis is a large fan of music which easily thinks to belong to a group. It is then the golden age of the groups of mobility Punk, in full effervescence. It is a concert of the Sex Pistols, the July 20th 1976 (it had missed their precedent), which leads it to make a decisive proposal. Curtis becomes acquainted with Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Terry Mason. Sumner and Hook spoke a little with Curtis and said to him that they a group but that they tried to form missed a singer; after the concert, Ian proposes and it offer is immediately accepted.

The group was called initially Stiff Kittens , in 1976: it was composed of Bernard or Bernay (guitar), of Peter (low) and Terry (battery). However this collaboration evolves/moves quickly: Ian Curtis makes its arrival, Terry Mason becomes manager of the group, before being replaced by one more professional in the person of Rob Gretton. With final, no title will be pressed by the original formation, which will not give any concert besides. Finally, it is Stephen Morris which, with the battery, joined the group, which will become Warsaw as of its first concert, then Joy Division for the exit of its album.

Scenic services

They are characterized by a set of movements fast, nervous, of frantic style, in particular of the arms: one can even speak about dance of the butterfly burst of dance of the fly . This agitation returns directly to the crises of epilepsy from which Ian Curtis suffered, sometimes even on scene. Its body was then crossed unverifiable spasms. The similarity between the show of the disease, of which it made finally recovery, and its real pathological demonstrations was likely to carry confusion, so that the public proved sometimes unable to know if it really danced or makes of it if it underwent a crisis. The health of Ian became complicated by the conjugation of catches of drugs to the painful side effects and a bad hygiene of life (tiredness, stress, alcohol, tobacco). The frequency in the concerts and the rounds of Joy Division was for him source of panning.

1975

At 19 years very right, two years after having made its knowledge, Ian Curtis Marie with Deborah Woodruffe, on August 23rd with Henbury. He works a little in a store of discs, in order to approach his passion for the music.

1976

At the time of a local concert of the Sex Pistols of the intimist kind, Ian becomes acquainted with the founding members of a group in gestation, which will become later Joy Division . He had already seen them at the time of last concerts. Sumner, Hook and Terry Mason had put an advertisement at the store Virgin of Manchester to find a singer. Since they seek one of them, Ian proposes: it is taken without same auditioning.

1977

Ian Curtis alternates its work in the public office (in Manchester and Macclefield) and the repetitions, then the concerts (as of at the end of May) and the recordings (in January with the EP Ideal An For Living , in July and in December). It starts to write new titles.

1978

Ian paufine its texts, works its songs.

April 14th: with a provocative base, Ian Curtis dares to approach Tony Wilson, the director of the local chain Granada Television, to express its dislike to him which its group is not selected to pass in one of its emissions. Wilson aquiesce. If Joy Division succeeds in emerging a little the local scene, it is not only by their talent but especially thanks to the efforts and with the passion of its producer, Martin Hannett, with the support without fault of its manager, Rob Gretton and grace also to the faithful engagement of Tony Wilson. This one founds, with Rob Gretton and Alan Erasmus, a very new recording company, Factory Records Ltd, which signs with Joy Division in September. As of the autumn, if the concerts are connected, that does not bring back much money yet. The group makes in any case a very good service with the Factory of Manchester, on October 20th.

To the end of the year, Ian will undergo its first “crises”, that the diagnoses reveal to be acute demonstrations of epilepsy.

1979

1979 are one year when all goes very quickly. To counter its crises, Ian is found compels with a heavy treatment containing barbiturates, among which powerful amounts of sedatives. It results from it a suffering in the effort, which it is sometimes liked to exaggerate, even on scene. However, a depressive situation starts to settle. The collateral effects of the drugs will not go in the direction of an appeasing, on the contrary.

The first months are months of strong creativity, with the appearance of titles like Transmission , She' S Lost Control and Shadowplay .

March 4th: Ian Curtis sings in first part of The Cure with London, just like on June 16th with Canterbury.

April 16th: Natalie, girl of Deborah and Ian Curtis, is born in Manchester. Ian is almost indifferent to the baby. Ian loses the immediate feeling of the things. In the song Disorder , he writes: I got the spirit, goal roofing stone the feeling .

Joy Division continues the concerts, composes and records in April its true first album Unknown Pleasures , as well as sessions for radios: for the DJ John Peel of the BBC Radio operator , in January and November, for Picadilly Radio operator in June and Rock'n'roll One in September.

September 15th: After a second TV and a concert in London which goes finally very well, the group passes on BBC2 in the emission Something Else : it plays there Transmission and She' S Lost Control . The frantic dance of Ian Curtis, the hypnotic music of the group make strong impression. A European round is moving. However, tired by catches of drugs that one prescribes to him (which however enables him to control its crises), exhausted by the gigs , Ian Curtis will have to be finally solved to leave his work with the public office. Also, within sight of their harmful side effects, Ian tends not to take its pills regularly more. To worsen the whole, Ian takes the practice to drink alcohol before its performances of scene, which obviously worsens the harmful effect of the drugs.

September 28th: Before one of its scenic services, Ian undergoes a crisis of epilepsy but it can go up on scene. With the end of the year, he undergoes new crises, painful, of which one conveys some, which leads it to the hospital.

October 2nd at November 10th: Joy Division takes part in the great round of the Buzzcocks through the United Kingdom, except during a few days mid-October (hook by Brussels) and on October 26th (hook by London). The group also benefits from the pauses to record some titles.

9 and November 10th: at the time of one in the last concerts with the Buzzcocks in London in Rainbow Theater, within the framework of an agreement of interview, Ian Curtis makes the meeting of Annick Honore, Belgian journalist part-time, who works moreover with the Embassy of Belgium. A close relation settles.

1980

January: Ian Curtis spent several weeks in concert on the continent and tries to reinstate a little its place in its family. With difficulty. On the one hand, its meeting with Annik Honore came chambouler his life. Ian knows it, this new love affair is likely to seriously compromise the future of its couple, while at the same time the bases of this last exhaust themselves, because of these long repeated absences. In addition, Ian suffers from a basic depression and it seems to him that people escape to him. For 9 months, Ian has been dad of a little girl, Natalie but, although testing affection for it, it does not manage to express its feelings. Plunged in a distressing dilemma, pulled about between passed and future, between new desire and faithful piety, Ian feels torn: it is what the song Love Will Tear custom apart expresses besides, recorded at the beginning of March during two sessions. If Ian and Annik like, their love of life remains fragile. Far from all, Ian can forget its demons. The returns are painful: the relation with Deborah étiole.

More and more, Ian is inserted in a depressive state. With its explosive personality, it is let gain by the tragedy. Moreover, with the new glory of the group, all becomes complicated and it fears the future. A black veil masks its future. Ian flees the reality of the problems rather than to face them. Increasingly distant, distant (and yet magnet), it attends the slow disintegration of its marriage and makes feel guilty.

These are especially the pills that it takes to look after which cause him the greatest wrong: its medication quite simply tends to intensify its depression, and this until its death. For as much, Ian plays with its health and is let go. After having emptied a bottle of alcohol, it tries first once to commit suicide, while cutting the veins. The doctors recommend rest, better remedy against the epilepsy, but success still accumulates the workload.

April 4th 1980: After being itself almost stopped all March to record a new exit for the summer ( Closer ), the concerts begin again of more beautiful. Joy Division plays in first part of the Stranglers in Rainbow Theater, with London. Stress, lack of sleep since two days and, especially, the presence of several stroboscopic lamps aiming at the scene - a large factor of risk, all combines to start and intensify a new epileptic fit. On the last title in the concert, whereas Ian carries out its famous “dance of the burst butterfly”, it does not stop, packs and moves back, until running up against the battery: quickly, it is evacuated. The public sees there only fire, believer with a fact-purposely, while at the same time Twiny and Dave Pills transport Ian, still in convulsions, direction of the cabin, where it recovers. Annik, which follows it in its concerts, however benevolent, feels impotent. The group will then succeed in going to Moonlight Club (West Hampsted) but Ian will have to be again helped, this time right in the middle of the concert.

April 7th 1980: Carrying out the error which is its marriage, exténué by the concerts of the group and the aggravation of the continuations of its chronic epilepsy, caught up with by thoughts devouring with the Future No , Ian Curtis, despaired, tries once again car-to destroy itself by swallowing a bottle of its Barbituriques (it is about Phénobarbitone). Alerted, his wife dispatches it at the hospital, where Ian undergoes a pumping of stomach; he manages to escape with the “accident”. But on April 8th, with the concert of the following day with Bury, two other singers chosen by Factory Records frame and " remplacent" the morbid leader. The service of Ian is more than poor: at the end of two songs, fans, rageant to have paid also expensive for a similar concert, stop the spectacle by starting a riot, which finishes by the confusion of the room. Comfort of Tony Wilson done there nothing.

Of this moment, Ian deeply thinks of all of stopping. He regrets the beginnings, when all was still well. Who more is, his wife Deborah for engaging a Divorce procedure. It cannot remain any more at his place, going and coming from a house of friend to another. The concerts of at the end of April are cancelled.

May 2nd 1980: The group makes its last service with the Université of Birmingham. With Ian, he interprets for the first and the last time the title Ceremony , which will be included in the repertory of New Order. DIGITAL will be the last song to be interpreted by Ian Curtis in front of the public of Joy Division . In distress, mow, Ian are far from being as well as possible of its performance.

May 18th 1980: after a telephone call concerning the departure of Monday for the United States, Ian leaves the apartment of his/her parents to go to see Deborah - but also the film Stroszek of Werner Herzog , which spends this evening. Ian tries last once to restick the pieces, without success; Deborah prefers to break that to continue thus. Ian requires whereas it leaves the places. After one night testing, deeply melancholic person, feeling the life to escape to him, Ian Curtis decides to finish some.

The May 23rd 1980, the body of Ian Curtis and some of its personal objects are incinerated with crématorium of Macclesfield.

Circumstances of the suicide

May 17th, 1980, Ian Curtis will join Debbie (Deborah) at it, to the 77 Barton Street de Macclesfield. He repeats that it does not wish the end of their marriage, to him while not being able to be solved to separate from Annick. But Deborah, jealous, wants nothing “to divide”: she refuses. On this, Ian directs and returns Deborah, which will spend the night in his/her parents. Ian on television looks at Stroszek of Werner Herzog, scenario writer whom he admires. This film tells the course of a young lost musician who will try his chance with the the United States and which, torn between two women, solves her dilemma through the Suicide. In situation of Depression, he writes a last letter with Deborah, which he places on the edge of the chimney. The exact content of this supposedly note of suicide was not revealed, but it does not comprise its intentions of suicide, only the fact that it would wish to be dead. Then, Ian would have been seized of one or several photographs with his/her little girl Natalie (just a year), towards whom it would have felt guilty, even its wife. It starts to listen, on several occasions, the album 33 turns The Idiot of Iggy Pop (resulting from a collaboration with David Bowie). The paddle pointing, this Sunday, May 18, 1980, it will hang with the ceiling kitchen using the cord and of the hook of the drier, which were accessible. Of return, Deborah discovers it about midday with horror. Coincidence, the same day, the volcano of the Holy Mont Helens (the United States) crumbles and explodes. For the group, dismayed, which was to leave for the United States, it is also a collapse (which it will choose later to exceed to carry on their way by taking the name of New Order).

One month after its death leaves Love Will tear custom apart (June 27th) and two months and half after Closer (at the end of July with the R. - U., December with the E. - U.), posthumous album which will be classified in signal 10 of BBC. Joy Division will never play in the United States.

Heritage

Its death led to the creation of the group New Order.

By the charisma and the originality of the talent of its singer-type-setter, the group Joy Division influenced quantity of composer-songwriters of the various currents rock'n'roll, pop or electro, as of the years 1980.

More than 25 years after the death of Ian Curtis, the group New Order, created by the three other members of Joy Division , composed of new pieces for the original soundtrack of Control , a biographical film on Ian Curtis whose turning took place during the summer 2006. The Killers made a resumption of the famous Shadowplay for the credits of end, included on their third album, Sawdust (2007). Realized by Dutch Anton Corbijn, known for its work of photographer with Depeche Mode or U2, which knew Ian Curtis and had produced a posthumous clip for Cérémony. Corbijn takes as a starting point a book written by Deborah Curtis, wife of Ian Curtis, Touching From Remote (Faber editions & Faber, left in 1995). Deborah Curtis also producing is associated film, the group New Order having had a right to watch on the scenario. In France, the film left in room to France the September 26th 2007, after being presented to the Cannes festival in preview, 27 years day for day after the last moments of life of Ian Curtis.

Biography

Mick Middles and Lindsay Reade, Torn Apart - on titrated: The life off Ian Curtis , Slow train Close, 400 p., ISBN 1844498263, April 30th 2006
Deborah Curtis, History of a life - Ian Curtis and Joy Division ( Touching From Remote - Ian Curtis and Joy Division ), White Truck (France), Faber & Faber (the United Kingdom), 1995, republished in 2005

Control , British film left to France at the end of September 2007, carried out by Anton Corbijn according to the work above of Deborah Curtis, the widow of Ian.

External bond

the fans club of Ian Curtis (and Joy Division)
Joy Division The Eternal, French site

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