9. Joy DivisionUnknown Pleasures
Prior to the first Glasvegas album, Unknown Pleasures was the greatest rock album ever made. My son got into rock music when he was 15, and unfortunately he went to live in America – his mother and I separated – and we went on a road trip a couple of years ago. He loves Nirvana – which is great, I have no problem with that – but he also wanted to play me Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit, and I was like, “Why?” He said, “I really like the bass and the drums.” So I plugged his USB cable into my phone and put Unknown Pleasures and said, “We’re going to listen to drum and bass music from 30 years ago, and at the end of it you tell me that you want to listen to fucking Limp Bizkit again and I’ll kick you out of the car.” So, he started with the drums – because he really likes Stephen Morris – Unknown Pleasures is actually all about the drum patterns. It’s not your basic rock drumming, he’s playing fractured patterns. Stephen Morris is actually creating a template. Then you’ve got Hooky’s bass – fucking lead bass guitar in most of the songs – it doesn’t actually get any better than Hooky’s bass playing on this album. No wonder Barney was really upset, because the guitar is thrown over there and not relevant. It gets in the way of the vocal – you just had drums, bass and Curtis, and the guitar is just a few little colours on the left and the right. My son has become a bass player, not because his dad is a bass player, but just because Peter Hook is so bloody cool. It was so funny, he went to see Hooky when he was doing a book signing in San Diego. James said “My mum said to say Hello” and he went “Yeah?” “Yeah, you babysat her when she was 17 at the Pretty In Pink film premiere.” Apparently Hooky’s face went ashen and he went, “You’re not my son are you?” and my son went “I’m Andy McCluskey’s son. You babysat his girlfriend – my mother – while he was doing an interview at the Pretty In Pink premiere” and Hooky went, “OH YEAH! PHEW!” [cackles maniacally]
