Two months after dear friend Ian had passed. Tony was still grief stricken. Martin Hannet's importance to the Manchester sound can simply not be overstated
I knew and loved Martin a lot - and totally gutted when he passed. His funeral was both somber and farcical in equal measure. I also knew and recorded with Andrew Batty who is the guy helping Martin in this footage. Andy was a head case but super intelligent - who supposedly was bouncing signals off the moon 🌙 at the tender and rather precocious age of 13 ! Martin was a special guy tho who will always have a place in my heart. Wilson mentions Chris Nagall (may be misspelled ?) as the engineer but I’m convinced it is actually Andy Batty - who was probably standing in for him that day. Plus I know Martin liked Andy and knew he was talented and worth nurturing - unfortunately Andy had psychological issues and was diagnosed schizophrenic. Often wondered what became of him ? I could tell you lots of stories - but - another time perhaps ? Thanx for reading 📖 my comments. Cheers 🥂. Rx
Thanks for your comment, dude. I recently read a book by Chris Hewitt who was his son about trying to understand who his Dad really was. I was really interested to learn Hannett was massively interested in buses and how they worked and how bus routes could be improved when he was in his early teens. According to the book, he wrote to the bus company and they took his suggestions on board. If you haven't read it already, it's very interesting reading: 'Pleasures Of The Unknown' 👍
yet peter hook admitted he didn't like most of hannetts mixes or production style. He felt hannett took away there raw club sound in favor of reverbs, efx sound design.....Now Peter Hook likes the albums...lol
The reality is though is that Joy Division were not always happy with the studio representation of their music. Clearly Unknown Pleasures was Hannett’s masterpiece but Joy Division were a completely different animal away from the studio.
He was the Master-piece , he made that strange & enigmatic Music ... Remember what he said about them ..." The clue was that They knew No'hing " What an experience Martin Zero 🗿🌌 heart ans soul ,what will burn ...
So was Rob Gretton, in the same way that Brian Epstein and George Martin were considered 5th members of The Beatles- Hannett and Gretton were instrumental in their success and it could be argued that Joy Division (and subsequently New Order) never would have made it if it weren’t for those two
the man was brilliant and intuitive. it doesn't matter if you agree with each and every one of his mixing decisions, he was an innovator and an inspiration.
It's hard to describe how unique 'Unknown Pleasures' sounded in the late 70s. We were used to drums sounding like dead cardboard boxes. And then comes Martin with artificial spaces for each drum and modern production was invented. It's easy for me as a computer music producer nowadays. Just load snare preset and tweak it to fit. But this man knew exactly what he was doing, what equipment he needed (some still being invented). what the equipment did and how to patch it in to what he was going for. I love how he stops Tony from asking dumb questions ( which, to be fair, was his job) by asking something subversive of his own. Definitely not a technican - an artist and sculptor of sound at work.
Martin Hannett is an example of how influential producers can really be in shaping the overall sound/feel/direction of an artist's work. His influence shaped post-punk and industrial.
I've mentioned the Hannett "play it faster but slower" quote to my musician friends and they all know what it means. This is the first I've heard this quote... just as funny and just as right.
Thanks for positng this. A true genius of sound. I love his approach to drums and drumming, using effects to create artificial resonance as opposed to boring room sounds and having the drums play beats with few annoying fills. I am a drummer and I hate most modern drumming, too many fills don't pay the bills.
Hannett and his AMS DMX 15-80 (at time mark 4:30). Dove into several of my old equipment racks and located my DMX 15-80S and RMX-16. Powered both up to see if they still worked. Amazingly, both came to life with no problems. Have them both going for a couple of days now. Started to run signal through both early this morning.... they REALLY do define a generation.
Hannett gave Joy Division their particular sound the experiment with new snare sounds and effects that vasteland he criated with reverb and Closer is just the conclusion of all he learned giving J.D a Masterpiece of an album.
I know the Person who now owns the drum machine they made Blue Monday on! It's now in Australia but was acquired by chance when their little known band did some recording at Cargo studios in Rochdale. Showed me a picture of it actually via Facebook. Great to see such iconic equipment from back in the day.
I think Martin did his best work with John Cooper Clarke. I believe he played with the Invisible Girls a bit. The sound of that band is so open, its like Miles Davis in structure. --- As they say in Hollywuud, "God made it click." Sometimes the magic happens... and then its over. The elusive god made it click.
Tbone Burnette and John Cougar while recording in the 2000s said they were obsessed with drum sounds in their 80s production days. Nick Lowe said he finally escaped the tyranny of the snare drum in the 2000s! Love Martin's detail to it all...telling his detail. A minor master class here.
His work with Vini Reilly on the debut The Durutti Column album was great. "...he more or less got sounds for me that no one else could understand that I wanted. And he understood that I wanted to play the electric guitar but I didn't want this horrible distorted, usual electric guitar sound and he managed to get that."
Can't you get that sound by, I dunno, not overdriving the amp in the first place? That's how everyone else since the 1950s onwards has achieved a non-distorted guitar sound.
in the factory records documentary he said the EXACT OPPOSITE though - that hannett made his guitar sound all thin and reedy when he wanted it lush and rich etc
It's earlier than 1983, the Pauline Murray LP came out in 1981 I think. But its thrilling - one of very few recordings of Hannett and the only one I know on video. One of the greatest ever producers!
And over the road from Strawberry studios is a green mound. This was a great little cluband disco in the 1960s,...known first as the Tabernacle, and then Sgt Peppers. Tony used to go there. Masses of 1960s muscians appeared there...Jimi Hendrix, CAT STEVENS, Pink Floyd, Amen Corner/Love Affair,etc.. You would never know. Whereas in Liverpool, the Cavern(rebuilt), is a permanent monument to the 1960s. You can still feel the aura as you walk past!!
@Rydo182 It's Chris Nagel at the desk -- he produced a bunch of Factory stuff after Hannett left (Crispy Ambulance and Section 25, among others), and also produced some heavy punk stuff at Strawberry around the same time, including Blitz's 'Voice of a Generation' and a couple of GBH albums. It's cool finally to see what he looked like after listening to his productions for so many decades.
The knowledge that we lost when Hannet died is gone forever, and now we have computer software and about 3 "songwriters" (I heard) to produce 90% of everything you'll hear promoted by the monolithic corporations. The idea that all the hooks from proven classic hits have been put in a computer to be simply tweeked a little for each track to make a 3 minute hook is abhorant to me, and the lyrics also. *True story* my daughter uploader biebers last album on to my tablet so she could move it to her device but she left it there! (it's happened before and I ended up loving BMTH "sempiternal" album for all the beginning of 2015), anyway I kept hearing that this bieber album was incredible so I thought I'd be a snob if I didn't listen to it! But damn! That computer generated song thing I was saying earlier is so so true!! You can here the artificialness in every track!! It's a sad state of affairs but on the bright side I do see more kids with guitars busking in the street to make their pocket money and some are pretty dam good. Maybe it's time the technology went and simple acoustic skills make a return! Wouldn't be so bad!
A-class aesthetics and unique sound, is the goal that any producer-engineer should achieve when working with talented musicians. Sadly, these days everything sounds so robotic and polished. I think we've lost the essence of music
The LP was Pauline Murray's Invisible Girls from 1980. Chris Nagle is next to Martin, though someone said he looks like Stone Roses guitarist John Squire
great clip. i love the way tony tries to tease more in depth explanations from Martin, yet martin knows the average viewer is gonna have no idea as to what he's bangin' on about.
Yeah Kris Scanlon! I learnt to make music like that in the 90s.. and the 70s tools sounded so great, that's why I just got a studer A807 from the bbc yesterday and Martin's Bass and Kick mic, an AKG D25 from an auction..! and more! come record some songs!
Martin was simply a conduit of sonic mysteries made audible for the rest of us. His vision has never been replicated...and never will be. The TRUE genius of factory records.
Tony Wilson was the Bridget Jones of television reporting in the 7'0s. Great bloke. Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls were ridiculously overlooked.
Actually the whole reason he fell out with Factory was because he wanted to buy a Fairlight CMI, one of the very first computer controlled samplers. Tony and the rest decided on a night club, which he thought was just totally wrong. And he was right. Source: Tony Wilson interview on RU-vid.
@zephyra Maybe it's just as well New Order didn't get filthy rich right away. Didn't Peter Hook develop a substance abuse problem? Having that kind of money might have made it even worse. We didn't need another member of Joy Division dying on us...
absolutw genius. created the sound. just a sheen of ice yet danceable. the cold winds of the north informed this man and few other on the other side of the booth. starts with playing the studio and working with a band. accept no substitute.
Thanks for your comments and the correction. The Betamax tape this clip was from had 1983 scribbled on it - but it was a collection of a few things. I knew it was early 80's. I'll correct it to July '80. All the best
It may need a further correction! Wikipedia notes that Wayne Hussey was only recruited at the end of 1980 and this track The Visitor was not on the album (neither was Searching for Heaven for which it was an extra track on the 10"). So it points to recording end of 1980 / early 1981 after the main album was recorded.
Hi Liz, Me too (I knew I had the tape somewhere). I can remember the very first time I saw Martin. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs in UMIST Union about 1968/9 I think. Bob Dylan Blonde on Blonde hair, centre of attention. Seeing him being so Martin on the tape (sort of 'what's the camera doing here, oh I suppose I'll have to carry on with this...' reminded me just how he was. Most of my Beta tapes are a bit perished, but luckily not this one...
Interestingly, tracks 8 and 17 of Martin Hannett Maverick Producer, Genius and Musciscan has extremely high quality short snippets of things Martin says in this clip (the album is on Spotify if you want to listen). I wonder if they have the original film reel of this recording, although the sound is very high quality so quite puzzling.
Martin Hannett es el dios de los productores musicales. Valoro en gran manera la música de manera distinta desde que escuché Joy Division por primera vez. Thanks for sharing this interesting piece of the history of music.
Fair reply, we will actually never know for sure seeing as he's sadly left us. I just guess his constant obsession with the latest developments means I think it's fair to assume he would. If you Google martin hannett studiomaster beam265 you'll get to the listing. It was being sold by a man named Chris Hewitt who is currently making a 4 hour long documentary about Martin interviewing almost everyone he could including his widow, ex-girlfriends, old friends from schooldays etc.
