Park Life

At the pavement table of a hotel bar on a sunny Sunday afternoon in London, Bernard Sumner is revisiting the most calamitous concerts of New Order's career in the kind of gleeful detail that your average musician would reserve for moments of glory. There was the time at Roskilde in 1984 when they appeared late and drunk with out-of-tune equipment and played so badly that the police were called to protect them from the crowd. Then there was the show in Boston when they performed for just 20 minutes in between DJ sets. "The police turned up in the dressing room," Sumner remembers, "and said: 'Do you know there's a fucking riot going down there, man?' There were people throwing stones at us when we came out. I got a phone call the next morning from Mo Ostin, the president of [New Order's US label] Warner Bros: 'What the fuck's going on Bernard?'" He smiles. "It's a very Mancunian trait – don't take yourself too seriously. It was more important for us to have a laugh than have some great career strategy. If we enjoyed what we were doing, that was a great career strategy." Few bands have been as mythologised as New Order and their previous incarnation Joy Division – the members have been played on screen twice, in Anton Corbijn's sombre-hued Control and Michael Winterbottom's antic 24 Hour Party People – while showing so little interest in mythologising themselves. Let others talk about how New Order rebounded from the suicide of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis to become one of the greatest bands of the 80s, or how records such as Blue Monday revolutionised the way rock groups assimilated electronic music. Sumner would rather talk about the time in the studio when, emboldened by MDMA, he performed his own northern version of Donna Summer's orgasmic vocal on Love to Love You Baby. "It was like: 'Come on love, come on love, oargh, oargh.' But everyone decided it sounded more like I was straining on the toilet." http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/sep/06/new-order-unexpected-rebirth-bestival

Ba's history would suggest he's anything but innocent.

Cut off the syrup supply.

He played up chronic at Hoffenheim till he got his own way. Will be intresting if Ashley gets involved.

CT you do realise the Tories are embarking on the biggest cuts to welfare since WW2? http://inequalitiesblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/national-epistemic-communities-and-european-welfare-cuts-welfare-defense-manifestos-in-the-uk-and-in-italy/

The wage demands are ludicrous if true.

Dealing with the godzilla of idiots here. It's not cause the euro is strong is it? If you don't understand the basics why try and come over all knowing? I was using Ger just as an example of a high wage economy not comparing overall. This is the usual idotic right wing nonsense your spouting about regulations and wages you won't be happy till we meet Vietnam in the race to the bottom. What makes you think the german Govt doesn't subsidise industry btw? Or Japan for that matter...? How about China? They all do.

Excellent writing Gene.

I know how Germany's success has been sustained I live there. Your talking the same Thatcherite shite that even Cameron blushes at unless he disguises it. One of the main reasons Germany exports apart from quality is due to the euro otherwise their stuff would be too expensive. The other thing is they pay their workers well enough so as to able to buy the stuff at home. Really stop talking 80's rubbish. It hasn't worked it never will work.

It'll just come down to the colour schemes surely?

The same old cliches about over-regulation, immigration, lazyness...Welcome to 1982. Europe on the whole has had its manufacturing and enterprise base ripped out. Germany is a high wage low unemployment economy so the tired old claptrap about regulation and wages simply doesn't hold water. The reality is that the labour market has essentially been outsorced to the far east and China. This was done peacemeal during the watch of various Govt and the same has happened in America. The grand strategy at play is Europe and the US will become importing economies and the east will carry on with the cheap labour pools and no workers rights. Big business will have it no other way regardless of what we want in our individual countries. The UK will only compete in financial scenarios, some high tech and service industries and the US is settling into the militrary industrial complex mode. The task of the next decade will be to keep unemployment/meaingful employment under 10 million which will might sound alarming but those are the numbers under discussion - you only have to look at Spain and France to see how things are unfolding and what the future holds. The strategic descision makers brook no loyalty to any country or zone and they have no oversight to worry about - none of them are politicians. American wages are essentially of the same value as they were in real terms in the 70's. Shocking? Some Americans are doing not two but three jobs to survive. Once nafta goes ahead fully what is left of american jobs will be farmed in the second wave of outsourcing to Mexico. There is already agreement for 5 trade zones interlinked with supra-national purview. Profits will be protected and any country inc ours who tries to defend jobs through duties or tarrifs will be fined by the WTO and other bodies in infancy within the EU. It's probably just easier to say people are lazy isn't it? Quantum change must come but what will it be?

Why do you reckon this Wolfenstien??

Unsurprisingly, the view from trade unions and sympathetic researchers is much grimmer: a 2010 report by researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen, for instance, provides empirical evidence to show that "mini-jobs" are a growing low-wage trap with little prospect of longer-term transition, even into low-skill employment. Splitting regular jobs into mini ones is becoming more common. And "mini-jobbers" tend to be paid considerably less than the equivalent standard hourly wage for a given activity, nothwithstanding Germany's anti-discrimination laws that explicitly prohibit this."

Chicken breasts fried in soya sauce and garlic in pitta bread with a homemade salsa and salad.

Fuck you! I'll be havin you on this AVB thing anyway.

Not totally conviced yet.

This is all bollocks. It's about inspirational intervention and not some 1970's texbook about estates and shit.

Yeah.

They get quite a bit of cash here and even cinema tickets for the family. It works.

What happnned?

Quite a few tales from years on the road with bands...I was very drunk so can't remember that much but one stuck in my mind concerning Rhianna (sp). There was some stage set where R slides around and sings from a big black leather sofa..Well apparently one of the roadies the night before (a real dirty fucker) got a special services prostitute who's speciality is shitting liquid during sex (ghastly imo). They rolled around on said couch and due to being out of their heads fell asleep (said couch was in storage under the stage)...Woken early eve by a demented looking general manager, the pair of them wiped it down (with some kleenex ) and luzzed it up onto the stage just in time for the rehersals and for setting the marks for cameras. Later of course we see R sliding around on it and probably wondering what the pong is... Liam apparently is really nice in real life away from his 'persona'...Always give bonus money and insists all staff have the best accomodation.