SOUNDTRACK: NEW ORDER-“Ceremony” (live) (1981).
Recently, Peter Hook was in Philly to play some New Order music with his band The Light. I wonder how much different that show sounded from this one.
New Order formed out of the ashes of Joy Division in 1980.
Their first single, “Ceremony,” was actually written with Joy Division prior to Curtis’ suicide. It popped up as a single in advance of New Order’s 1981 debut album, Movement, which is about to receive the deluxe-reissue treatment; to commemorate the occasion, the band is circulating a little-seen performance of “Ceremony,” recorded live at Manchester’s CoManCHE Student Union.
Imagine having been at that show in 1981?
The music sounds amazing here–the guitar sound is perfect, the bass and drums are spot on. But the vocals are terrible. Practically inaudible. I realize that he’s mostly speak/singing at this time, but you really can’t really hear him at all on the first verse. It’s a little better on the second verse, but it’s the instrumental break that’s the real high point.
You can read about the re-release here.
[READ: January 23, 2019] “Cream”
The first line of this story sounds like it could describe most of Murakami’s stories:
So I’m telling a friend of mine about a strange incident that took place back when I was eighteen. I don’t recall exactly why I brought it up. It just happened to come up as we were talking.
Murakami is all about the strange incident.
He gives some details about himself at the time–finished high school, not yet in college–when he received an invitation to a piano recital. The invitation came from a girl who was a year behind him in school but who went to the same piano teacher. They once played a piece together but she was clearly much better. He’d stopped playing and obviously she had gone on to give a recital .
The recital hall was at the top of a mountain in Kobe. He took a train and then a bus and then had a short walk to get to the venue. It was a weird, inconvenient place for a concert venue. He brought flowers to show his appreciation.
The bus has been crowded and he felt embarrassed dressed nicely and carrying flowers. As they ascended the mountain more passengers got off. And as he got closer to the venue he felt something wasn’t right–there were too few people around and the neighborhood was still and silent. Had he misunderstood? Indeed, when he got to the building, the gates were padlocked shut. No one came, no one at all. So he gave up.
He sat in a park waiting for the bus and then heard a man’s voice. But he realized it was amplified by a loudspeaker. It was a car broadcasting a christian message. The car never did come close to him but he could hear it wend its way through the deserted village.
He wondered if the whole thing was a hoax–maybe she was laughing at him right now. But that seemed an elaborate hoax. The narrator closed his eyes to try to settle his head–the confusion was overwhelming.
When he opened his eyes, an old man was sitting across from him. Silent.
The man said nothing for the longest time and then states “A circle with many centers.” This puzzled the narrator. When the narrator asked him what he was talking about the old man told him to imagine it–but not everyone can see it. If you put in the effort–a lot of effort–it becomes the cream of your life. the crème de la crème. He closed his eyes to imagine it but when he opened them the man was gone.
How can he relate all of this to his friend?
This story was translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel.
Leave a Reply