It’s a Manchester special this week – with a bit of Krautrock and Celtic tradition added for good measure. To celebrate the imminent publication of his epic Tony Wilson biography From Manchester With Love, we’ve made Paul Morleywriter of the week and made three of his classic NME pieces free on the home page. All touch on the triumph and tragedy ofJoy Division…and the endurance ofNew Order, whose Bernard Sumner & Stephen Morris are (from 1986) the week’s featured audio interviewees.
The act featured in the Free On RBP section is the radical German kollectiv that was early ‘70s Faust. Interviews by Ian MacDonald (1973) and Andy Gill (1997) tell the wild and crazy story of Uwe Nettelbeck and friends, while Krautrock chronicler David Stubbs describes his teenage Faustian pact.
We’re saying goodbye to chief Chieftain and beloved Irish rover Paddy Moloney via interviews from 1998 and 2010, plus we’ve also lost three of RBP’s veteran specialists on rhythm 'n’ blues and soul: Bob Fisher,Pete Grendysa&Roger St. Pierre, pieces by all of whom we’re spotlighting on the home page.
Manchester special, Pt 1: Paul Morley(pictured in 1977) reports on the rise of Manchester’s music sceneforNME in early 1979. Plus Paul sees Joy Division live at the city’s Band On The Wall in 1978, witnesses New Order’s 1981 “haunting” of London’s Heaven after Ian Curtis’ suicide, and pens the Guardian obituary for Factory Records founder Tony Wilson, the subject of his remarkable new biography From Manchester with Love…