Houston, we have a problem.

I have been formally asked to cease and desist all New Order / Joy Division activity, regardless of material and sourcing.  It was mentioned to me that the label has been focusing on me/the blog(s) as well.  Therefore, for my own protection and sanity, there will be no more posts here.

Maybe I'll start a blog about kittens.

-Analog Loyalist

An update

Removed text of email. Ihave asked for clarification if this is a general Cease and Desist request for all things Joy Division/New Order; I will update with any response.

DMCA: it's happened again, with Joy Division this time.

Today I received two notices from Mediafire stating the two Joy Division files (Part 1.zip and Part 2.zip) for the University of London Union were suspended due to DMCA complaints.

Dear MediaFire User:

MediaFire has received notification under the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") that your usage of a file is allegedly infringing on the file creator's copyright protection.

The file named JD - 1980_02-08 ULU (2012 master) part 2.zip is identified by the key (8nwbdu0xrzkvyge).

As a result of this notice, pursuant to Section 512(c)(1)(C) of the DMCA, we have suspended access to the file.

The reason for suspension was:

                I have a good faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

Information about the party that filed the report:

Company Name: GrayZone, Inc

Contact Address:

Contact Name: GrayZone, Inc.

Contact Phone: (718) 360-9941

Contact Email: grayzone@grayzone.com

Copyright infringement violates MediaFire's Terms of Service. MediaFire accounts that experience multiple incidents of alleged copyright infringement without viable counterclaims may be terminated.

If you feel this suspension was in error, please submit a counterclaim by following the process below.

 I have no idea who GrayZone is.

This is very frustrating.  This material, while released at one point, was given to the label by US.  We enter the questionable area of ROIO (Recordings of Independent Origin) copyright.  Is it worth it for me to file a counterclaim?  Do I - as an "originator" of this work, have any grounds to do so?

I am not re-upping the files.  I also am not going to post High Wycombe (Still's CD2 from the 2007 reissues), also freshly mastered by me after discarding my 2006 work as-released.  That said, punters who did not download ULU yet can find it on the darker sides of the internets; I know at least one site that might be known as why.cd or some similar name has the FLACs available.

Additionally, Mediafire (the 2nd account I used) has suspended the analogloyalist account.  Therefore all previous re-upped links are dead.

At this time I am not re-upping anything - if I decide to re-up anything - until I finally sort out hosting.  It is expensive; with the bandwidth used the contributions from my readers doesn't really cover more than a week or so from what I've researched so far.

Due to the heavy spotlight on this blog, I question whether I can post anything not recorded/owned by me myself and I, such as my old bands.  Why would I want to?

Let's see comments.

Drew

Joy Division set over at TPoIT...

As it's not fit for this blog, at least by my own definition of what WOULD fit, I've posted a monstrously-improved Joy Division set over on the big daddy blog The Power of Independent Trucking:

Joy Division - 8 February 1980 University of London Union (2012 Analog Loyalist mastering)

Go, read, grab and enjoy!

Joy Division - Warsaw (original 1989 CD issue) remaster.

NOTICE:  Please read this first!!! 

Welcome back.

Slowly, I am returning to this project.  Time away has been eventful; the Analog Loyalist batcave has a new location and, after meeting the band, a new appreciation and outlook on this series.



So it is that I slightly divert from this blog's stated mission and bring to you my remastering attempt of Joy Division's legendary 1978 RCA album sessions bootleg Warsaw, from the original 1989 CD release on RZM.  It's critical to disregard any other known CD release of this bootleg, because the most common version, 1994's Movie Play Gold CD issue of this, is flat-out terrible.  Too (FAR too) bassy, low-quality source material, the works.  I suspect the best bootleg version of this session is the original 1981 LP issue (also on RZM), but I don't have a line on a decent transfer of it.

Legend has it that RZM is code for (Alan) Erasmus, an original Factory partner who, with Tony Wilson and Peter Saville, started Factory Records in 1978.  The legend states that Erasmus (say it aloud, and then say R-Z-M) arranged the 1981 bootleg release of the aborted 1978 album, and then further arranged for the material's first appearance on CD in 1989.  Frankly, I believe it.

None of the CD releases of this set have been spectacular in sound quality.  I think the problem is that the original tape was not that great, and that the mastering-for-CD process - possibly to disguise vinyl lineage, as I suspect that the original LP was the ultimate source for all the various CD issues - really clamped down on the upper midrange and higher frequencies.  It's always sounded muffled, and boomy (the 1994 Movie Play Gold release, with the baby on the cover, is the worst in this regard).  I've fixed this.  I've also fixed up some of the harsher song starts, as it's easy in the digital domain (ain't no ProToolin' in 1978!) and the CD has a few of the intros cut off.  Why did I fix them?  Because the missed intro to "Transmission" has always bugged me, among others.  "Interzone" too.

I think this is the best we're going to get with this material.  Already it blows the few tracks released on 1997's Heart and Soul box set away, and unless someone leaks the original mixdown tape from the 1978 session, we won't find better.  That said, I do have a line on a dub of a band member's personal cassette copy of this session, but I don't have it handy and what I remember from listening to it when I did was that it wasn't really all that much different or better than the '89 CD release.  I am trying to dig it up again, and if it does indeed better this, then I will tart it up and post it as well.

Joy Division
"Warsaw"
(unreleased May 1978 album sessions)
RZM CD 01 (1989 pressing)
November 2012 Analog Loyalist mastering

01 The Drawback
02 Leaders of Men
03 They Walked In Line
04 Failures (of the Modern Man)
05 Novelty
06 No Love Lost
07 Transmission
08 (Living In The) Ice Age
09 Interzone
10 Warsaw
11 Shadowplay

FLACs here.

Enjoy!

Status update...

First of all I'd like to thank all those whom have contributed to future hosting.  The generosity of others is wonderful and while I will stay with Mediafire for the short term (under the new account set up in the wake of the old account's deletion), permanent hosting is in the plan.  Many have stated that the biggest cost will be for data/throughput, not server space itself; this means that it's critical I come up with a plan regarding lossless FLAC availability to all who want it.  Not sure yet what that will entail (link by invite only? Trackerless torrent using DHT?  Self-hosting at terrible transfer speeds (and the certain notice/hit it will be with my ISP)?  Things to think about.  Regardless, posting will continue.

Second, while activity may have slowed on the posting front, I still have a large pile to plow through.  I've taken a slight break from New Order simply because it was approaching burnout again; I'll bury myself into a project so much, at such a frenzied burst of activity, that I have to step back lest I not want to hear a single note again.  It was getting to that stage.  Rest assured that in short order new posts will be forthcoming, just as splendid as the last ones.

Creative solutions invited to the data throughput conundrum.

status update regarding file hosting - read me!

For the short term I've created a new Mediafire account and will be slowly migrating content over to there.  I'll post new links in the comments for each individual post, as I go along.

This is only a short-term solution, however.  A few readers have suggested a collection box to arrange for more suitable hosting as we proceed, and this is a good idea.  I'm also contemplating moving to a newer model whereby the public links are M4A (AAC) files, and readers who would want lossless can simply request it.  This would cut down on server costs, and I am slowly coming around to the convenience idea of the basics being easily accessible and usable off-the-bat by my readers.  The purist in me really is kicking and screaming that I am even considering doing this archival material in any form of lossy format, but the debate is raging healthily inside.

So... followers can help by PayPal, any amount, to dcrumbaugh at gmail dot com (I don't have the analogloyalist account set up properly for PayPal), and this will go to future hosting costs as I transition down the road from Mediafire to something a bit more reliable.

Thanks for your continued patience, and let's carry on!

mediafire account suspension - help your host out!

So, the blog's download host has suspended the account.  All downloads are invalid.  I've submitted a ticket to Mediafire asking which file led to the suspension, so I can remove it and ideally restore access to the overall account.

That said... your host humbly now asks if a follower can generously donate storage/hosting space.  Any helpers are advised to contact me via email analogloyalist at gmail dot com and your generosity will be greatly appreciated.

This affects TPoIT and The New Order Archives.

Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience!

15 May 1985: Canterbury Court, Perth, Australia (OZ/NZ85 stash tape)

New Order
OZ/NZ85
(unknown gig, probably 15 May 1985 Canterbury Court, Perth, Australia)

source: Hooky's rubbish bin (the "stash" tapes)
lineage: Master soundboard recording cassette
analogloyalist mastering September 2012

At long last I'm starting to fix up and free a stash of gigs - which first saw the light (heh) in 2004 on the long-defunct Sharing The Groove, but were essentially untouched beyond basic cleanup - that really show how brilliant New Order were in their prime in the mid-'80s.

The quick-and-dirty background:  Whilst cleaning house, a set of master New Order soundboard tapes (various mid-80s live gigs, some rehearsals, and a DAT or two from the band's 1989 US tour) was found by Hooky under the floorboards at his studio Suite 16 in Rochdale, England.  At some point, these tapes ended up in Hooky's trash as he thought they were shite, apparently.  After a drunken night at Casa de Hooky, a musician friend of the bearded bass player, who was in his employ for a duration in the early 90s, rescued the tapes from the rubbish bin.  Ultimately the tapes ended up being auctioned to a well-known New Order internet site proprietor in Florida, a fellow who is not commonly known for sharing the wealth.  In the interim, ATR (sometimes called Stash) obtained digital transfers of these tapes before they were shipped off to the Sunshine State.  ATR then shared them amongst the New Order cognoscenti, and then in 2004 we fed them to the world via Sharing The Groove.

All these gigs had their various problems as-received from the source in between Hooky and us, the least of which were sector boundary errors (which means, if burned as-is to CD, there are audible "pops" in between tracks) and all off-pitch by varying degrees.  Some were extremely muddy, and others were far too bright.  None of them were just right, but my aim is to make them so.

(The New Order "stash" gigs that were on Sharing The Groove, and various other torrent sites and blogs from 2004 onward, are all from those original 2004 releases and have not been formally mastered since, until now.)

Previous "stash" tapes posted, 2012 masterings all:
7 July 1984 Barcelona
7 Dec 1985 Slough
13 Dec 1985 Orleans
17 Dec 1985 Leuven

This is, possibly, the worst New Order gig ever.

Fucked up guitar lines? Check.
Misread setlist? Check.
Entire-song key transpositions on one instrument only? Check.
Fucked up bass lines? Check.

The entire gig is just a sloppy, poorly-performed mess.  It's perhaps living proof that, in the day, a New Order gig was either going to be one of the best ever gigs you ever saw, or the worst.  Which is why - while not an everyday listen for me - I love this tape.

To add insult to injury, we don't actually know what this gig is!  The stash box o' tapes labeled this as "OZ/NZ85" both on the manifest, and the tape itself.  For a long time New Order gig sleuths believed it was actually from the Fox Theater, Atlanta GA 11 Aug 1985, but further close analysis has caused a significant rethink of this.  What little of the audience you can make out doesn't sound American, or even American South.  The punter yelling for the Joy Division song "Transmission" doesn't prounounce the "Trans" bit like an American (think "Treans" but little emphasis on the "e"); rather, it sounds English or Antipodean ("Trahns").  Same with the punter yelling for "In A Lonely Place".

Here's the analysis from a detective, posted in our humble site host's writeup of this, which he has defaulted to listing under the 11 Aug 85 entry:

"I've been doing some more detective work...... I remembered seeing a poster on eBay last year for Perth Canterbury Court 15/5/85, but hadn't realised that this was an unknown gig until looking at your gigography. I know we hadn't got a recording, or so we thought....

I've done a lot of listening to the horror show that we had previously tentatively identified as Atlanta Fox Theater 11/8/85, but I am now starting to come over heavily to the idea that this is indeed the Perth 15/5/85 show.

- The CD I got had OZ/NZ85 written on it - this is how it was labelled when it went to David Sultan in the first place as part of that box.
- The performance is very much one of a band who haven't been rehearsing, rather than one mid-tour, as would have been the case for Atlanta.
- The setlist fits in better with what they were doing in Hong Kong/Japan/ Australia than it does the US - many overlaps with the New Orleans 12/8/85 show but hardly any with the Melbourne 17/5/85 show, which fits in with their rotation policy.
- "As It Is When It Was" is better formed than the Japanese versions, but not as advanced as the US versions, and the lyrics are the same as Brisbane five days later.
- The voice that calls out for "In A Lonely Place" when Bernard picks up his melodica before "Hurt" is not an American one....sounds more Antipodean to me.

Still in stitches over some of the performances that night - "Subculture" on the wrong bass string, shoddy "Sunrise" guitar work, an apocalyptic "Chosen Time", Bernard's failure to read the setlist, Gillian striking again on "STYT"..... quite possibly the worst ever performance I would think!"

So, I'm going with the newthink and calling it Perth 15 May 1985.  What pins it for me is that what Barney was meaning to introduce as "a very new song" - "As It Is When It Was" - was indeed a very new song for May 1985, having just entered the setlists earlier in the month in Japan.  By the time of the American tour in late summer 1985, it had been played a fair bit and would no longer have been a "very new song".

My favorite part of this gig is the entirety of "Death Rattle".  Gillian performs the whole song in the wrong key, causing Barney to give up all pretense of performance and just have fun with it.

I really like the "Sunrise" intro, for whatever reason.  "Temptation" has a somewhat unique opening that I also dig quite a bit; it's a shame that we only get about 5+ minutes of the song until it's faded out due to it being on the tape flip spot.

A technical note:  Until about one minute into "Age Of Consent" the levels are in spots overloaded, causing significant distortion at times in the first three (and a half) songs.  I think it's the tape and not the transfer; the overall level of the transfer didn't change throughout but the worst distortion magically clears up when presumably Oz finally pulled back on the levels mid-song (there are still lesser distorted bits throughout however).

01 Sunrise
02 Sooner Than You Think
03 Subculture
04 Age Of Consent
05 A Bullet In My Ear (As It Is When It Was)
06 Cramp
07 586
08 Death Rattle
09 Temptation
10 The Perfect Kiss
11 Confusion

FLACs here.  Sample track above.

Please to enjoy!

25 August 1984: BBC Basement Studios "Saturday Live"

New Order
"Saturday Live"
BBC Broadcasting House, Studio S1 (basement), London
radio: Radio 1 (stereo)
television: BBC Two (in color!)
25 August 1984

source: BBC Radio 1 FM stereo live broadcast 25 August 1984
lineage: Auntie's royal airwaves > cassette master > CASSx1 (TDK AD90, Sony KA3ES playback) > Tascam CD-RW750 CDRx0 > WAV > iTunes > CDRx1 > analogloyalist magic > FLAC > archive.new-order.net
analogloyalist mastering August 2012

This short 5-song set is high up on quite a few favorites lists.  The video just has to be seen to be believed (Barney throws a hissy fit throughout, in much-too-short shorts, for starters), but the pure aggression in the band is brought to fore on this.  This version of "Sooner Than You Think" is close to, if not absolute, my favorite performance of this song.

Legend has it that they were caught in a massive traffic jam betwixt Cornwall and London, so were late for the set and had no chance to do a proper soundcheck, and basically had to wing it that afternoon.  I really have no other explanation for the band choosing to air "In A Lonely Place" ("Faster!") - as majestic as it is - to all of the UK on a presumably pleasant late summer Saturday afternoon.  As Barney puts it after the song, it's "an atmospheric song in an unatmospheric place".

I am convinced that the master cassette for this source was recorded by someone who had somehow found a way to hard-wire an RCA cable into the airwaves.  There was little to no FM noise, it was really just a beautiful source and is leaps and bounds the best version I've heard of this (and as usual, I've heard lots).

Techy notes:  The "diginoise" in a few spots in "Age Of Consent" and the end of "Temptation" - for both songs, on the vocals only - appears to be Barney overloading the poor Beeb's console.  There were a few other glitches in "Age Of Consent" that were more than likely FM noise, which I've fixed.  It didn't help that shortly into "AOC" Barney ripped off the pop screen from the vocal mic.  And while not a "tech" note, had the Beeb's censors been heads up, there are a few lines here and there that shouldn't have made it through...

01 BBC announcer
02 Sooner Than You Think
03 Age Of Consent
04 Blue Monday
05 In A Lonely Place
06 Temptation

FLACs here.  Sample track above.

Someone with the skills for the video editing side of the biz needs to match this audio up with the best circulating video copy of this.  I'd pay for the result!  Not really...

Please to enjoy!

new blog URL! archive.new-order.net

We have teamed up with the fine fella behind the glorious, legendary, site-ahead-of-its-time New Order Dot Net to provide a custom URL and permanent host for the New Order Archives!

From here to eternity - err, as long as the new-order.net bill is paid - we will be found at http://archive.new-order.net so reset your bookmarks.  I believe the blogspot URL will still work, but why be plain and boring?

All joking aside, new-order.net has by far the best gigography online for New Order, and, the documentation for the hundreds of audience tapes the site owner has reviewed is great reading!

So onward we march.  archive.new-order.net is where we'll be!

4 November 1986: The Palace, Hollywood, CA

New Order
The Palace
Hollywood, CA
4 November 1986

source: soundboard
lineage: radio station pre-FM master>Maxell UDS-II90 1st generation>Sony TC-D5 playback>Microtrack II>WAV(44.1/16)>CD Wave Editor tracksplit>FLAC level 8>me>magic>FLAC level 8>neworderarchive.blogspot.com
analogloyalist mastering August 2012

This gig is a terrific little guy, easily one of my favorites.  While this set has seen somewhat wide circulation, I can virtually guarantee it has not done so in this quality.

This was obtained approximately a week after the gig, by a friend of the program to be known only as Blog Friend, in a swap for an audience recording of the same gig.  Blog Friend obtained this direct from the folks at the radio station [redacted], who had recorded the gig for broadcast from Oz's PA.  Blog Friend only sporadically shared out analog dubs of his 1st generation cassette, and only recently digitized it for the first time.  This is that digitization, made more better.

I believe - and this is only based on the many versions I've sampled before getting this from Blog Friend - that 99% of the copies in general circulation are from the radio station broadcast.  The versions I've heard have markedly different sonic characteristics, most often associated with FM broadcast compression and EQ.  This, on the other hand, sounds like it came from Factory ready for retail release.  It's probably the best - in quality, that is - non band-sourced mixing desk recording of the band out there.  Believe me when I say you folks will be quite busy lifting your collective jaw off the floor when listening.

All previously circulating copies are much too shrill - to the point my ears bled when listening at anything approaching a normal listening volume.  This is not a problem with this dub off the master.  Additionally, all previously circulating copies had marked and inconsistent pitch and speed variances, which - again - is not a problem here.

(As an aside: A supporter has very generously gifted me a copy of the amazing, beautiful and lovingly trainspottery tome From Heaven To Heaven, written by a fellow named Dec Hickey (who religiously followed the band in their glory years of 1981 through 1984) and lovingly annotated with tapes, setlists, unpublished photos, and other ephemera of the day.  If you are a New Order fan, you need this book.  Not sure if Dec still has copies, but check the website.  Anyway, one of my favorite things about the ephemera in the tome (and it is a tome, not simply a "book") is the exhaustive list of early working titles the band gave their songs.  These working titles survived on the band's actual setlists long after they were released under their "proper" titles, even through this day where we still see "KW1" on latter day gig setlists for Your Silent Face.  There are a few I've not known before, the first of which we'll be using here for Leave Me Alone.)

Barney does some... lovely isn't quite the term... interesting vocal ad-libs during Face Up and Blue Monday.  And the tape has easily the best shoutout I've heard at/on a gig to encourage punters to buy the record:

"OK motherfuckers!  This is called Way Of Life and it's off our new LP called Brotherhood available on Warner Brothers/ Qwest Records."

Quite.

01 Shellshock
02 Everything's Gone Green
03 Ceremony
04 Every Little Counts
05 Dark Nites
06 Thieves Like Us
07 Way Of Life
08 Face-Up
09 Temptation
10 Confusion
11 Blue Monday (fades out, as the DJ begins to play the 12" version over the band as they're ending!)

FLACs here.  Sample track above.

Please to enjoy!

17 December 1985: Manhattan Club, Leuven "stash" tape

New Order
Manhattan Club
Leuven, Belgium
17 December 1985

source: Hooky's rubbish bin (the "stash" tapes)
lineage: Master soundboard recording cassette
analogloyalist mastering August 2012

At long last I'm starting to fix up and free a stash of gigs - which first saw the light (heh) in 2004 on the long-defunct Sharing The Groove, but were essentially untouched beyond basic cleanup - that really show how brilliant New Order were in their prime in the mid-'80s.

The quick-and-dirty background:  Whilst cleaning house, a set of master New Order soundboard tapes (various mid-80s live gigs, some rehearsals, and a DAT or two from the band's 1989 US tour) was found by Hooky under the floorboards at his studio Suite 16 in Rochdale, England.  At some point, these tapes ended up in Hooky's trash as he thought they were shite, apparently.  After a drunken night at Casa de Hooky, a musician friend of the bearded bass player, who was in his employ for a duration in the early 90s, rescued the tapes from the rubbish bin.  Ultimately the tapes ended up being auctioned to a well-known New Order internet site proprietor in Florida, a fellow who is not commonly known for sharing the wealth.  In the interim, ATR (sometimes called Stash) obtained digital transfers of these tapes before they were shipped off to the Sunshine State.  ATR then shared them amongst the New Order cognoscenti, and then in 2004 we fed them to the world via Sharing The Groove.

All these gigs had their various problems as-received from the source in between Hooky and us, the least of which were sector boundary errors (which means, if burned as-is to CD, there are audible "pops" in between tracks) and all off-pitch by varying degrees.  Some were extremely muddy, and others were far too bright.  None of them were just right, but my aim is to make them so.

(The New Order "stash" gigs that were on Sharing The Groove, and various other torrent sites and blogs from 2004 onward, are all from those original 2004 releases and have not been formally mastered since, until now.)

Previous "stash" tapes posted, 2012 masterings all:
7 July 1984 Barcelona
7 Dec 1985 Slough
13 Dec 1985 Orleans

Here's another one.  There are two common circulating variants of this - that from our 2004 "stash" tape seed (muddy), and that taken from a circulating video of the gig (not very good for general listening).  The version here is mastered from the 2004 source, and shines.  It's night and day in terms of clarity and listenability.  One minor issue with the stash source is that it's missing the last ten seconds of "The Village", which is where a C90 cassette would split.  The 2004 seed patched the last ten seconds with the audio from the video; I've not done so here as it's just too clashing and impure (I've faded out instead).

"Let's Go" features a lovely bum note from Gillian when she falls on the keyboard at approx. 2:05.  "Atmosphere" - while featuring wonky keyboards - sounds stellar.  "Blue Monday" simply has to be heard to be believed, it's probably my favorite performance of this along with that from Orleans a few nights previous.  Barney channels Jimi between "Subculture" and "Atmosphere", which I've tracked separately.  Barney drops lyrics all night, most notably on "Blue Monday".  All said, it's a lovely little gig that certainly I've neglected for far too long; now I don't have to!

01 Let's Go
02 Age Of Consent
03 Thieves Like Us
04 The Perfect Kiss
05 State Of The Nation
06 Confusion
07 As It Is When It Was
08 The Village
09 Subculture
10 All Along The Watchtower (snippet)
11 Atmosphere
12 Temptation
13 Blue Monday

FLACs here.  Starting with this post, the linked track above is a full-length MP3 of the mastering presented, so you can sample before pulling down the FLACs.

Enjoy!

20 June 1981: Glastonbury CND Festival, Somerset

New Order
Glastonbury CND Festival
Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset
20 June 1981

source: soundboard
lineage: low (first?) generation dub of cassette master
analogloyalist mastering August 2012

This gig was one of the earliest New Order soundboards to be "released" - longtime fans say it was available in Camden stalls in summer 1981, and became the source for many a vinyl bootleg over the years.

Because it's been available so many places, and sources, contrary to belief this makes it that much more difficult to track down an early, low-generation source.  Seems like *everyone* has a copy, but it's always an Nth generation noisy and muffled dub, or mono, or what-have-you.

So when this version was provided, it was a revelation.  The originator of the source cassette, that I've mastered this from, says he purchased it at the festival and it arrived by post several weeks later.  The question is if it was a dub from the master reel, or a dub of a dub from the master reel.  We'll never know.  It seemed just "better" than any other I'd heard, and I'd heard a LOT of versions over the years.

It took wonderfully to my patented procedures for mastering.  I haven't much else to say, the results will certainly speak for themselves.  It is a bit bass heavy in the drums/drones on "In A Lonely Place" but it is what it is.  "Everything's Gone Green" is a brilliant, seductive workup of what actually became "EGG" - the lyrics are nascent, the performance spellbinding.  It's a 13-minute sequenced jam.

Bernard, on the other hand... It's pretty well known that he was well out of it here.  Oh he starts out OK, his outbursts in "In A Lonely Place" actually enhance the overall forbodingness of the track, but as the show progresses he, shall we say, regresses.  In one sense it's embarrassing, but it's New Order.  It certainly makes for an interesting gig, one that is a favorite of many.

Retro took "In A Lonely Place" from this gig.  Ours is far better (as usual).  Though why a version completely sans Hooky (amp/instrument problems that didn't repair themselves until a bit into the following track) was chosen, when the bass is part of the allure of this song, is beyond my ken.  I suppose I could ask...

Again, you should bin all previous copies of this (unless you've sat on the master reel for 31 years...).

01 In A Lonely Place
02 Dreams Never End
03 Truth
04 The Him
05 Procession
06 Senses
07 Little Dead
08 Everything's Gone Green

FLACs here.

Enjoy!

12 March 1983: Recreation Centre, Tolworth

New Order
Recreation Centre, Tolworth, UK
12 March 1983

source: soundboard
lineage: second generation dub
analogloyalist mastering August 2012

This gig, while not a "stash" tape, for all intents should be.  It's classic New Order, raw, with one of the band's greatest in-jokes included.  It's also terrifically difficult to find in good quality, for some reason.

It's said that the speed this soundboard set made it to the Camden market stalls, after the gig, was ridiculously fast.  One longstanding rumor - and knowing the nature of the parties involved, probably more than rumor - is that manager Rob Gretton quietly leaked the soundboard tape immediately after the gig, to cause further embarrassment to journalist/writer Mark Johnson.  Johnson had been stalking the group for some time at this point, trying to write the ultimate trainspottery tome about Joy Division and New Order (An Ideal For Living), an effort that would find him - according to wags - cornering some poor band member backstage with ridiculous questions along the lines of "now did you play "Song X" in Buttfuckshire, October 1978 or not?!?" among other acts of sillyness.  In retaliation, the band arranged to have Johnson's scooter - for he had been in attendance at this gig - strung up from a forklift, blocking the band's truck, and then had the promoter come on-stage mid set with the following legendary quip:

"Sorry to interrupt you here but we got a very important announcement here. There's someone who owns a scooter, SMG643Y, that's SMG 6 4 3 Y, now if they can go and remove it, because it's causing obstruction to one of the trucks. Thanks a lot, and don't spit at me."

The gig is full of little Hooky/Barneyisms too, one of the better collections of them I must say:

Hooky (before In A Lonely Place): "This is the brass section. If the Jam can do it, I'm sure we can."
Bernard (introducing Age Of Consent): "This one's a fast one for all you bollock brains."
Hooky: "You shouldn't swear, there are several big blokes here that'll RIP YER FUCKING 'EAD OFF!"
Bernard (introducing the final encore):  "Listen, we've only come back on because the door's jammed and we can't get out."

I think one would be hard-pressed to find a better performance of "Dreams Never End" than this gig.  It is, in a word, superb.

This set came to me as a CD-R of a 2nd generation tape.  It was dull, noisy, and just screamed for help.  I first worked on it in 2005 or thereabouts, and set it out on Dime at the time.  Listening to it now, I cringe and sincerely apologize for subjecting folks to it.  It sounds completely amateur in terms of "mastering".

Not so this version.  In fact they couldn't be any more different than night/day.  I used a LOT of tools in my toolbox on this one, this time, but it needed it to be more than just something you'd listen to once, say "eh, that's cool" and file it away. 

There are only a couple niggly bits about the tape; "Blue Monday" starts out a bit uneven, but it's more than likely just to be old tape as much as anything.  There's a pretty significant dropout in the right channel for a decent chunk of "Everything's Gone Green", but all known copies of this gig have this problem too, so it was probably an issue with the original board tape.  Even Retro's "Everything's Gone Green" - from this gig, sourced from an unknown generation dub, and far (FAR) worse quality than we have here, has the dropout.  Other than those two bits, the tape itself was in fine shape.

All in all, a gig that I played, at best, once a year suddenly becomes something that won't be leaving my iPhone for a long, long time.

01 Blue Monday
02 In A Lonely Place
03 Chosen Time
04 Dreams Never End (with SMG643Y following)
05 We All Stand
06 Leave Me Alone
07 Age Of Consent
08 Temptation (false start)
09 Temptation
10 586 (false start)
11 586
12 Everything's Gone Green

FLACs here.

Enjoy!  And thanks to my buddy Johan (Species) for the artwork.  You would think there would be a decent photo of either the venue or the gig somewhere online, but no... the venue is one of the most boring buildings I've ever seen, based on the Google!

7 Sept 1980: Western Works, Sheffield demo session, 2012 mastering

 
Longtime readers know that daddy blog TPoIT brought the band's legendary September 1980 Western Works demo session to light, from the presumed master reel, several years ago (meaning we all threw away our 30-year-old Edison wax cylinder recordings we'd had previously).  It probably was the most popular post on the blog, after the (subsequently DMCA'ed) REM Cassette Set demo tape.  It has seen close to 10,000 downloads.  Amazing.

That said, the 2009 version was not well mastered.  At least to my current skill set and critical ears.  So, I got to work again, and here we are with a much-improved set for you.

I direct you to the two posts (master post; followup post) over on TPoIT for essential background and my long-winded writing about these gems.  I direct you to the Mediafire page for downloads of the pristine files, made stunning.  They are now properly EQ'ed: drums sound like drums, etc.  They are just all around more better.

enjoy!

01 Dreams Never End (mix 1)
02 Dreams Never End (mix 2)
03 Homage
04 Ceremony
05 Truth
06 Are You Ready Are You Ready Are You Ready For This (feat. R. Gretton, vocals)

Get 'em here.

Feed to the world, spread the news, delete the old versions.

welcome.

Welcome to the New Order Archives.

Until now I have been hosting my professional masterings of various and sundry New Order gigs and demos over at my main blog The Power of Independent Trucking.

In just three days of the "stash" tapes being posted, my blog has seen thousands of hits and a huge number of downloads of the three "stash" tapes posted so far.  Clearly there is interest in this.

So, since I can - and the band/label dropped the opportunity they had to do this themselves in 2008 - I've started a new blog for these New Order projects only.

What will you find here?  My mastering contributions to the community:  community-sourced demos, soundboards, other high quality (read: no audience recordings, or IED/ALD sources) recordings, all from the "classic era" of New Order.  By this, I don't intend to go beyond 1993, and even that is a stretch.  By "community-sourced" I mean stuff not taken from true bootlegs-for-sale, not taken from band-sourced-to-me-or-associates material, not taken from commercial sources.  These are truly those "tapes in the wild" that have found their way into collectors' hands.  That said, if management wants to feed things to the blog, I will certainly comply ;)

I hope you enjoy this.  I intend this to be a labor of love; there will be no posting schedule except for when I have something to post.  There are a LOT of tapes out there that need airing/mastering, some in better shape than others, and they all deserve a wider audience.  This is not something that'll see 50 posts a week - there may be spurts of activity, and there may be months of silence.  But it will be lovingly attended to, and curated, and to the best of my ability feature only material of the highest, as-best-as-possible commercial release quality.

So please... if you feel you have material to contribute, please contact me at analogloyalist at gmail dot com.  If it's common, I have it, so don't bother UNLESS you have the master or a known-quantity first-generation dub.  If you have that proverbial "tape that's been sat in a closet for 25 years" and it's a soundboard, please, stop what you're doing, and contact me ;)

I start off with the only "want list" item I can think of off the top of my head, as I type this introduction:  A high-quality recording of the band's Volkhaus, Zurich 1984 gig that was (I believe) broadcast on Swiss radio.  I have a few middling copies/sources of this, but all have their faults, and none are really ready for polishing.  Anyone with a low generation copy of the broadcast - or, lord help me, a copy of the radio station master - please contact me.  It's a great gig otherwise and needs exposure.

I hope you enjoy, and settle in for a wonderful ride through the archives!