http://rocknycnew0115.wpengine.com/2010/12/peter-hook-and-line-at-webster-hall.html). What does anybody do with their back catalogue? They flog it till it bleeds and dies. We call that a natural death in the rock and roll business.
The short story: Peter Hook was payed $10K to allow a fan to sing new order’s elegiac “Ceremony” at the Boston “Unknown Pleasures’ gig. Here is a link to the video on Vice: http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2010/12/08/someone-stop-peter-hook/
The short opinion: dog bites man.
I mean, cmon, Hooky flogging UP 30 years after the fact, what dya think his motive was (here is my take from Saturday’s Webster hall gig: “
And anybody who caught Hook last week in nyc should have no problem grasping what it was all about.
It should have made me hate her more but I thought it was a parting kick and a saving grace. I feel much the same way about Hook selling the lead vocals to the highest bidder.
There is a certain gracefulness to being whatever you are, whatever that may be. As Bernie Maadoff rots in prison, he is free to be the thieving loser who he always was, suddenly he is who he is.
So was my mother.
So is Hook: Hook is a money grubber willing to trade on his dead team mate and his band for money.
He hasn’t killed any one. He hasn’t invaded Poland. He simply is what he is, with everything that implies. And I prefer that night now I don’t have to take Unknown Pleasures live seriously. It reminds me of a Doors cover band I saw at BB King’s: they were a lotta fun: great art, no. But a nice little piece of mimicry.
In one of the best songs of the year Marina noted that it is better to be hated than love for what you are not. It is better to be who you are than who I say you are.